Thus, the Chief Sovereign of Death could not even be bothered to recruit Dunnington, and merely warned him not to seek revenge against the Sovereign soldiers under her command.
What happened afterward was not difficult to imagine.
As a Paragon, how could he endure such humiliation?
Dunnington would inevitably avenge himself for what happened during his lifetime before defecting to the side of the Chief Sovereign of Destruction and obtaining Wordred's protection.
After going through Dunnington's possible life in his mind, Locke shook his head.
At the end of the day, the root cause of this matter was still his own search for the Blackstone Robe.
Dunnington's family had been exterminated because of the Blackstone Robe, which had already destined Dunnington to stand on the opposing side from them.
Even if Locke had secretly taken away the tattered short robe while Dunnington still didn't know it was the Blackstone Robe, that still wouldn't have changed Dunnington's future pursuit of revenge and truth.
Rather than concealing it now only for Dunnington to uncover the truth later and completely erupt, Locke felt that the current development was already the best possible future for Dunnington.
Casually slicing open a spatial tear within the spatial turbulence, Locke retrieved the Blackstone Robe from Figaroa's hands. Then, he sent a divine sense message to Christina and the others, telling them to return to the Netherworld through the interplanar teleportation array on their own before flying toward the Netherworld himself.
…
"Lilia, I need your help restoring the memories of a creature from the Necropolis Realm."
After entering the Netherworld, Locke's Fate Sovereign divine clone did not stand on ceremony with the Chief Sovereign of Death, directly asking her to accompany him to the Necropolis Realm.
After locating the skeleton Dunnington had become, Locke draped the Blackstone Robe over Dunnington's body before having the Chief Sovereign of Death restore Dunnington's memories.
"FIGAROA!"
After recovering his memories, Dunnington immediately let out an enraged roar. Only then did he realize that before him were no longer those lofty divine experts who never placed him in their eyes, but countless weak skeletons.
"Where is this place?"
Very quickly, Dunnington discovered from his memories that he had already been killed by the powerful deity called Figaroa.
And this place was extremely similar to the Necropolis Realm Teacher Locke had once described as the destination all living beings went to after death.
However, according to his teacher, weren't creatures in the Necropolis Realm only supposed to recover their memories from life after becoming gods?
So, what exactly was happening with him?
Still, after touching the familiar tattered short robe on his body, Dunnington felt that the restoration of his memories might be related to this robe that had accompanied him into the Necropolis Realm.
"Right now, I must recover my strength as quickly as possible and become even stronger!"
"Figaroa, and those divine experts who caused so many deaths and tragedies—I will find every single one of you, and then…"
Dunnington did not continue speaking.
Perhaps because he had already died once, Dunnington felt that his affinity toward the Edicts of Death had increased tremendously, and he had gained far deeper insight into the Edicts of Death.
"Back when I was alive, it wasn't until rank eight that I touched upon the Laws Teacher Locke spoke of…"
"I never expected that after death, as merely a rank one being, I would already touch upon the Death Edicts that I only vaguely sensed back when I was Saint-level."
"My talent is limited. If I divide my attention toward anything else, I might never even reach the divine level."
"How would someone like that ever take revenge?"
"In this life, I will cultivate only the Edicts of Death and become stronger as quickly as possible…"
High above the Necropolis Realm, the Chief Sovereign of Death looked at the recovered Dunnington making up his mind to take revenge, with the target of his revenge being Figaroa, the son of Locke's Sovereign Emissary. She immediately asked Locke, "Locke, do you really think this is a good idea?"
"It's fine. This is good enough."
Locke nodded.
As far as Locke was concerned, he was actually quite satisfied with the actions Christina and the others had taken within that material plane.
After all, they had not caused too much disruption to that material plane. They had merely instructed the nations from the top down to collect the Blackstone Robe.
It was only because the officials and nobles of those nations wanted to obtain rewards from Christina and the others—as well as for various unspeakable motives—that many families like Dunnington's suffered calamity.
Locke did not think Dunnington was wrong for placing all the blame on Christina and the others.
From Dunnington, Locke had already gathered some mysteries regarding how ordinary people interacted with the Laws of the world and touched upon comprehension of the Laws.
Giving Dunnington another opportunity was both compensation from Locke and also because Locke wished to record the interaction between Dunnington's soul and the Laws of the world at the instant he became a Paragon.
If he could obtain a Paragon's comprehension of the Death Edicts, then perhaps the Chief Sovereign of Death's understanding of the Death Edicts could also rise another level.
Naturally, Locke did not mention any of this to the Chief Sovereign of Death.
After all, if there was no certainty, Locke did not want the Chief Sovereign of Death to rejoice for nothing.
Among the other Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts, all of them were Paragons, while only the Chief Sovereign of Death was not. Although, given the Chief Sovereign of Death's power, there was no real need for her to obsess over whether she herself was a Paragon, this was still a hurdle in her heart.
Even if Locke jokingly referred to her as a "Luck Paragon," it merely served as a small comfort for her.
If Locke could imprint Dunnington's insights upon becoming a Paragon, then use the ability of Mirror Flower, Water Moon to bestow them upon the Chief Sovereign of Death, there was a significant chance that the Chief Sovereign of Death herself could become a Paragon.
Whether or not their strength increased was merely a secondary effect for Locke and the Chief Sovereign of Death.
More importantly, Locke wanted the Chief Sovereign of Death to recover her mentality and no longer feel somewhat inferior because she herself was not a Paragon.
As for whether Dunnington would still eventually go to the Infernal Realm and join the Chief Sovereign of Destruction Wordred just as in Locke's memories, it made no difference to Locke.
A Paragon, that was all.
Any one of the Laws Sovereign artifacts he forged could casually rival a Paragon.
And he had two such Laws Sovereign artifacts!
After leaving behind a trace of his soul imprint on the Blackstone Robe, Locke's Fate divine clone returned to the Water Divine Plane to oversee matters there, while the Chief Sovereign of Death also returned to Mount Nether.
The world seemed to return to peace once more.
…
Within the Necropolis Realm, because his memories had been restored, Dunnington's cultivation progressed extremely smoothly.
At the same time, Dunnington also developed more suspicions regarding Teacher Locke's identity.
Back when he had not yet reached the Saint-level, Dunnington believed Teacher Locke was a Saint-level expert.
But after becoming Saint-level himself, Dunnington realized that Teacher Locke's understanding of the Laws and Edicts he taught him was simply not something a Saint-level expert could know.
After encountering Figaroa and the others, Dunnington discovered that even those powerful divine experts still seemed somewhat inferior compared to Teacher Locke.
Teacher Locke was actually a deity, and undoubtedly an extremely powerful existence even among deities.
No wonder Teacher Locke had not cared much when Dunnington declared he would dedicate everything to him.
Looking back now, Dunnington realized he had overestimated himself back then.
However, Dunnington could still clearly feel how attentive Teacher Locke had been while teaching him.
Even though Teacher Locke claimed he was merely accumulating teaching experience for his unborn child, Dunnington truly had received an upbringing comparable to that of a Chief Sovereign's child.
With the assistance of the Blackstone Robe, Dunnington's cultivation in the Death Edicts advanced smoothly without obstruction.
In merely a little over one hundred years, Dunnington completely comprehended ten percent of the Death Edicts, becoming a Demigod. He then left the Necropolis Realm and began his legendary career in the Netherworld…
…
"Five hundred and seventy thousand years. Dunnington became a Paragon even faster than I imagined…"
On an island within the Nether Sea, Locke looked at the descent of the Laws of the world and sighed emotionally.
Throughout the past million years, the entire Netherworld had practically belonged to Dunnington.
Because while cultivating, Dunnington had also been searching for information regarding "Figaroa," he had crossed paths with countless individuals throughout the Netherworld.
These people all became witnesses to Dunnington's rise.
To them, fifty-some thousand years might merely amount to taking a nap or entering seclusion once.
Yet during those mere fifty-some thousand years, they witnessed what truly terrifying genius-level cultivation speed looked like.
In only several hundred thousand years, Dunnington's status within the Netherworld had already caught up to what Oakes once possessed.
Locke had once again placed his attention upon Dunnington after Dunnington's comprehension of the Death Edicts reached ninety percent.
Furthermore, he split off a Laws incarnation to follow behind Dunnington.
Whenever Dunnington cultivated, Locke would open his soul eyes and record the evolution of the Death Edicts within Dunnington's soul.
Over the course of a full eighty thousand years, Dunnington's comprehension of the Death Edicts directly soared from ninety percent to ninety-nine percent.
Then, just moments ago, Dunnington fully comprehended the Death Edicts, triggering the descent of the Laws of the world.
Silently, Locke's Water Laws incarnation dispersed.
The next instant, Locke's original body directly used the spatial laws to teleport beside Dunnington, waiting for the Laws of the world to disperse.
Now that Dunnington had already become a Death Edicts Paragon, if Locke still used a Laws incarnation to converse with him, that would be too insulting to a "Paragon."
This time, Locke's main reason for coming to see Dunnington was naturally to retrieve the Blackstone Robe from him.
"It's been a long time, Teacher Locke."
After the Laws of the world dispersed, Dunnington opened his eyes and immediately saw the figure that existed deepest within his memories.
At once, Dunnington slightly bowed toward Locke.
"It's just that I don't know whether I should still address you as Teacher Locke, or whether I should address you as Sovereign Locke now."
After cultivating in the Netherworld for nearly six hundred thousand years, as Dunnington's power increased and the number of experts he encountered grew, the things he learned naturally became more numerous as well.
First among them was naturally Figaroa, the Highgod who had killed him in the material plane.
Over three hundred thousand years ago, Dunnington had already learned that "Figaroa," who killed him, was a Captain within a Sovereign Army.
(End of Chapter)
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