Echoes of the Abyssal Blade: Path to Free Will - Chapter 24: Lesson - I

And so Arascus, God of Pride, waited. He waited for his defeat as the forces of Heaven & Hell combined descended upon him. He waited as they tried to kill him. He waited as they locked him away. He waited for a thousand years in that dark prison.

Senior high school student Dugu Hong was logical autistic and had a very high IQ. Despite his impressive IQ, he was never taken seriously by his teachers or schoolmates. While playing a recently released eastern Wuxia online game called Jiang Hu, three vicious classmates trapped Dugu into a mountain cave in the game with no hope of escape unless he deleted his account and re-register it. Not succumbing to their demands, Dugu decided to stay in the cave and explore the game system, which benefited him greatly. His persistence to obtain massive internal strength aided him in finding a superior way to improve himself, and thus opened the function of inner observation of the main and collateral channels. Meanwhile, in the real world, he discovered he had supernatural powers when he tried to save the girl he secretly loved who had caught the eye of a gangster on the suburban railway.

Unite the Clans? Create an Empire?Atrox Soryu thought he was destined for greatness… until he wasn’t.Born into the smaller Soryu Clan, Atrox was a prodigy, praised for his unparalleled swordsmanship and relentless ambition. He vowed to become Emperor of the Eternal Skies, a title that hadn't been claimed in centuries. But on the day he was to manifest his Order Mark—the source of every knight’s power—everything went wrong.Instead of the revered Holy, Elemental, or Mystic Orders, Atrox was branded with a Forbidden Order: Something twisted and wrong. A death sentence in the eyes of the world. Branded a monster and exiled by his own father, Atrox was cast into a brutal labor camp where the weak are crushed, and the strong are barely tolerated.But exile isn’t the end—it’s the beginning. In the harshest of conditions, Atrox awakens the full potential of his forbidden powers, powers that could rival even the strongest Knights. He will forge alliances with the forgotten, turn his enemies into allies, and rise from the shadows to build an empire from nothing.Betrayed, exiled, and broken? No. Atrox Soryu is building an empire—and the Eternal Skies will bow to him.