More than 80 years ago, Ferguson was born to a wealthy landlord of the Snieca kingdom. When he was only 6 years, his father was thrown into prison on charges of funding a terrorist organization named the People's army, which was formed to overthrow the monarchy.
After sentencing Ferguson's father to life imprisonment, the royal palace took away all of the assets belonging to the prisoner. After a year, due to mental and physical harassment from soldiers and other haters, Ferguson's mother committed suicide, leaving a 7-year-old Ferguson at an orphanage.
Fortunately, Ferguson didn't turn out to be a simple kid. He awakened a gold-grade Arcana. As a result, he was taken in by an adventurer
20 years later, Ferguson became a 6-star Arcana Master with a great reputation among Arcana hunters, the ones who kill the wild beasts and sell their corpses to earn cash.
Eventually, he managed to join the Fire Temple. Even in that place, his job is unchanged except that he would hand over the raw materials to the temple and earn merits, which will be used to buy things from the temple.
And at the age of 72, Ferguson is finally a 7-star Arcana Master and managed to become an elder.
While his position is always low because of his age, the genius earned the trust of the Patriarch of the Fire temple and even became his disciple.
It was at that time the temple's Patriarch somehow managed to get his hands on an anti-divine crystal, which is potent enough to hurt even a rank-9 just by the touch. Just by description alone, it appeared to be expensive. He used everyone's trust to steal the object and went into hiding, using his disguise technique.
While the Fire Temple never stopped searching for him, Ferguson decided to join an organization for bounty hunters with an alternate identity named Conceal.
Working as a bounty hunter, he mostly took the jobs that are related to the Snieca kingdom because of his millennium-old hatred. In fact, he almost assassinated Affea when she was still a teenager, although failed because of the intervention from her royal guards.
And more than a decade later, he was contacted by King Ragron. The latter personally requested for Ferguson as his assassination records clearly tell that he has something against the Snieca kingdom.
At first, Ferguson never planned to take a mission that isn't related to the Snieca kingdom no matter what the cost, but after learning that Azzy is the foster son of Affea, he agreed to 300 million credits that Ragron offered as a bounty reward.
As part of the plan, he participated in the senior world league using his new face and identity. As for his partner, Ragron also somehow managed to arrange a peak-rank-7 expert who qualifies for participating in the league (age <100).
Surprisingly, his partner turned out to be very strong. Together, they even made it to the pre-quarterfinals (top-16), although eventually lost to their opponents while Azzy and Leah made it to the quarterfinals.
Being frustrated by the result, he decided to ambush him with a trump card that he couldn't sell on the black market in the fear of getting caught. However, he cannot reveal the existence of the anti-divine crystal to anyone at all. So, he only told his client that 300 million is too less for a person like Azzy.
After assuring him that Azzy will be killed for sure, Ferguson demanded ten times the original amount, although he planned to reduce it after a round of negotiation.
Fortunately for him, King Ragron was already terrified of Azzy after watching his battle against Velez. He doesn't want the kid, who humiliated him and even destroyed his only son's future, to live any longer.
Without negotiating, King Ragron agreed to the demand, right away.
Now that Azzy's bounty was raised to 3 billion credits, Ferguson kept his distance and kept his eye on the hotel. He planned to ambush him at that location.
Through the telescope, he saw Azzy and Claire going out for a date but didn't follow them, feeling that he might alert his target.
All-day, he patiently waited for the appearance of his target who returned to the hotel during the evening.
Upon seeing Azzy, he then used an activated rank-8 delayed disintegration skill card, which he purchased from the organization, onto the metal ball and fired it.
One should say that he was actually gambling. After all, what if that metal ball never gets disintegrated by the skill card? What if his master had lied to him back then? What if it isn't even the anti-divine crystal that he thought it would be?
There are risks but Ferguson took it for the sake of hurting the Princess of Snieca and also for the sake of money.
Fortunately for him, it just went as he wanted it to happen. The metal ball was disintegrated and released the anti-divine crystal.
The black crystal, upon being exposed to air, released energy familiar to Azzy, although unrefined, in the surroundings and almost suffocating Claire in the process.
Fortunately, it only lasted one second as the Reaper quickly acted by making Azzy catch the crystal and begin the absorption.
The crystal turned to dust as the terrifying energy invaded Azzy's body.
"Say, Chronos, isn't this Protos Energy?" asked Azzy as the foreign energy spread all over his body, trying to destroy everything.
"Yup, it is. The concentrated amount isn't much but it would be enough for you to make a breakthrough." As soon as the Reaper gave the reply, Azzy felt a sharp pain in his head as if thousands of needles struck his brain.
He screamed, "Argh…"
"Rael…" Claire hurriedly caught him in worry.
As Azzy lost his consciousness, Agatha then said, "You don't need to worry about the kid. It's a blessing in disguise. Take him to rest."
Following her advice, Claire lifted him and rushed into the building as there are people inside who can protect him from this unknown attacker.
Meanwhile, Azzy appeared in his mindscape.
The Reaper was standing beside him with a sphere of Protos energy in his hand. He managed to collect all of it that invaded Azzy's body earlier.
"Azrael, I'm now going to refine it in your soul orb and feed it to your Black lotus instead of merging it with the existing Protos energy. The rest depends on your fate.
"Is there anything that I should do?" asked Azzy, not wanting to stay as a spectator. If he had to be honest, he wanted to make a breakthrough on his own, considering Rank-6 to Rank-7 is always hailed as a special breakthrough by society.
The Reaper answered, "The best thing you can do in this situation is to stay connected with that newly born Black crystalline lotus and give mental support. If it couldn't handle the foreign Protos energy and lose its control, I will reseal it in Vajra. However, if you are lucky, you might witness something truly incredible."
"Alright, if you say so," Azzy nodded and telepathically sent a message to the black lotus.
As if it was waiting for his call, the black lotus jumped down from the floating island and landed beside him while rustling its petals in happiness.
Soon, the process started. Within half an hour, the energy was completely refined by the Reaper before it enveloped the black lotus. As a newborn, it couldn't shout but only express it by shivering continuously.
"Ruby, don't lose to it" "You can do it" "The Protos energy might be corruptive but you also have some of its properties. Use it to your advantage and overwhelm it" "You are strong" "It is just nothing but energy. You are more precious"
As Azzy continued to chatter with whatever that comes to his mind, the thickness of Protos energy around the black lotus slowly started to get thin. Meanwhile, the numbers on the bottom of Azzy's soul cards started rising rapidly.
Soon, everything is absorbed into it and a blinding flash of light enveloped the lotus. At the same time, Azzy felt the changes in his soul orb. A new planet was taking its shape.
Looking at it, the Reaper let out a laugh, which appeared to be creepy in one glance, "Congratulations, Azrael. Congratulations, Ruby."
"Is it mutating?" Azzy's eyes lit up in excitement. He realized that this is the thing that the Reaper was earlier talking about.
He then shifted his concentration to the inside of his soul orb for a while.
As the process appeared quite slow, his spirit returned to the mindscape and the blinding flash of light is still there.
For the next three hours, he went back and forth before he finally witnessed the completion of the 7th planet in his soul orb.
A satisfactory smile appeared on Azzy's face, "Never expected I would attain this realm, so quickly. Okay, let's see the progress of Ruby. I guess she would have completed her mutation successfully."
Azzy closed his eyes and concentrated on returning to the mindscape. However, when he reopened his eyes, the scenery was completely different. There's no Reaper, no cliff, no undead creatures roaming on the barren land, no black wolf that is sleeping, and certainly, there's no presence of the black lotus either.
What greeted him is the sight of an endless white corridor that has an infinite number of doors on either side.
As if that wasn't shocking enough, there were hundreds or maybe thousands of his doppelgangers roaming like puppets; all of them were just passing through each other like ghosts without even conversing with anyone. And everyone is also ignoring him.
"Where in the hell am I?" Azzy rubbed his eyes, feeling that he might be hallucinating due to the effect of Protos energy injected into his body.
"Welcome to the Time Stream, Azrael." A familiar voice was heard from behind, prompting Azzy to turn around.
The Demigod Azrael from the Year 2124 was there, standing with a smile on his face.
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