I Devoured The Primordial Chaos to Become the Strongest

Up above the fight, far up stood a man in a white but turned brown robe, his hair as white as snow, with dull blue eyes and wrinkled skin. "Well, this is interesting."

He floated in the air as if he were standing on the ground, suspended over nothing. He looked down and his eyes easily caught the glints of weapons and the lightning that shone bright; the snapping that followed also reached his ears. "What monsters. Average monsters are nothing to them. They won’t grow like this."

Beside the man, the air shimmered and a humanoid blue bird popped into existence. Little Bird took one look at Crypt Master’s blue eyes and quickly turned his feathers black. "So this is where you are hiding, old man."

Crypt Master looked at himself...the little bird, and frowned. Little Bird might have been created and was still a reflection of Crypt Master, but he was also completely different, with a will of his own. Sometimes, Crypt Master wondered if this was what happened when you talked to yourself. "Who are you calling an old man?"

As Crypt Master spoke, his voice changed so that by the time he finished speaking, he was talking with a small childish voice. He was now a twelve-year-old boy with a shock of red hair and flaming eyes. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

Little Bird shrugged. "I’m just watching them to see if they’ll find any enchanted tools that’ll need appraisal."

Crypt Master raised his brows. He created Little Bird to help with his workload, but as time passed, the little bird had been reflecting Crypt Master’s procrastination habits. It wasn’t surprising, though. "We both know they won’t find any enchanted tools in all the crypts here."

Little Bird shrugged again. "Well. Who knows? A miracle might happen."

Crypt Master snorted. "We manipulate the crypts so there won’t be any form of enchanted tools. The crypts here were meant to sustain the prisoners, not empower them through enchanted tools."

Little Bird nodded. "But some still have enchanted tools anyway. Besides, their level of cultivation won’t make them much of a threat."

Crypt Master sighed. The next phase of the training was to make them experience fighting with other Awakeners, but that left a problem: how would they grow in cultivation if all they did was fight other Awakeners? They needed essence, and he had to balance it out. That’s why he sent the crypts here.

And not only that, they needed a high level of essence, more than they did the year before.

Little Bird brought him out of his thoughts. "You’re afraid your plan will work, right? That they’ll get caught in it. That they’ll die."

Crypt Master frowned. "Maybe," he allowed himself to say.

Since they needed a higher level of essence to boost them, then they’d have to pay for it, or he wouldn’t meet his deadline.

Possibly with their lives.

"It’s not as if they all must survive and make Master rank. I’m sure one of them can survive this," the Crypt Master said, still looking at them fight below him.

A few weeks ago, the Crypt Master had journeyed far into his own world, past the sprawling desert winds with sands like metal grains, and over the boiling mountains of molten land that spread east, even farther over the green sea that drew all things that breathed to drown in its depths.

The Crypt Master touched the edge of his own world, where his power bent space in a chaotic storm that would have torn anyone else into chunks. It was there that he found a crypt...no, a house of crypts that had been bent together into itself to form something resembling a mountain.

It was a difficult affair to drag it out of there, but drag it he did, all the way over here. "At least it’s still an Acolyte-rank Crypt."

Little Bird laughed. "That thing? Yes, you’re right. But it’s the peak of Acolyte, and there’s something terrible inside that thing. Something that has been bent inside by time and space. They will die this time. You have outdone yourself, Crypt Master. Your game won’t go as you wish."

A terrible, cruel light lit in Crypt Master’s eyes, and the image of the small boy he was projecting warped, distorted, turning into something gaunt and thin, leaking light and shadows. The world...his world froze for a second, but then everything turned normal and he took the image of an old man with blue eyes. He sighed. "You are right. Apex said it’s impossible for them to make Master. That they’ll break. Maybe he’s right."

Little Bird studied Crypt Master; technically, he was studying himself. He shook his head. "Then why don’t you just carry the crypt back the way you brought it?"

Crypt Master sighed, touching his long white beard lightly. He flashed a smile. "I certainly can, but where’s the fun in that? This is a gamble with myself in some way. To see if the potential I saw in them was the real deal."

Little Bird barked out a laugh. There wasn’t any warmth in it, and his small eyes locked on the Awakeners fighting beneath him. He watched as Azaroth made a trail of fire into the ranks of the goblins, almost all of them burning under the weight of his flames, but not all. Some goblins carried shields that repelled the fire, and they set upon the Awakener with short swords.

Little Bird watched as Azaroth’s sword flashed out like a lick of flame, seeking the spaces between shields to cut heads and hands. The goblins didn’t stand a chance even though they were in the same rank.

As Little Bird and now Crypt Master watched, the team of four tore their way into the ranks of the goblins, butchering them until they made their way all the way to the back, towards the bigger red goblins guarding the Tower.

Little Bird’s eyes lit up as well. "Potential, eh. You want to see their potential. We do too."

"Right now they are strong for their rank. But I want them strong. So strong that they should always be a threat to those above them in the next rank of advancement. That type."