( Rudra’s POV )

As Rudra was refining his body and spirit in the vast cosmos of nothingness his mind finally seemed to land on a conclusion that was otherwise constantly shrouded with mystery.

It seemed to be an unending process of reaching the destination only to be misled and have to start again.

If he were not already a tier8 monarch with the power of the tier10 chaos seed at his disposal, he would have never been able to come to this conclusion in the first place.

It felt to him like he had been asleep ever since he became conscious, and that it was only today, under the power of the seed of chaos that he had arrived at this secret.

Rudra had often wondered why the strongest existences in the universe were only at tier8, but there did exist a few unique treasures at tier9 and 10.

If there was a tier9, why had no living individual ever reached it till now? Why did the monarch’s who had pursued power and promotion all their life, suddenly lose their thirst for improvement and did not try and push themselves to tier9

He had often thought about these matters, but had never realised that the truth about this matter ran much deeper than anyone could have ever anticipated.

If he had not been isolated in the cosmos, training his mind daily, making it sharper in an attempt to stay sane, he would have probably never found the time to push against the power of the mental fog covering up this secret.

It was only today that Rudra realised that ‘ Someone ‘ at tier9 or 10 had carefully created the most effective restriction possible on all lower life forms and it was this restriction that prevented one to ever come to the conclusion that Rudra had realised today.

” HAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHA, SIGMA IS A GAME! IT’S ALL A GAME TO THEM! I WAS PLAYING THIS GAME SINCE THE DAY I WAS BORN, I WAS BUT AN NPC” Rudra began to laugh hysterically as the last bit of fog surrounding his brain finally dissipated against the power of the chaos energy.

Ever since the day any lifeform was born and started to gain sentience it was it’s environment that started to code it into an NPC.

As a child Rudra was taught to identify the different colors, never did he question why ‘ Blue ‘ color was called blue or why ‘ red ‘ was called red

No matter how hard he struggled to rename a color, as long as the people around him recognised that object by a certain name he was bound to use its correct name for communication.

While it seemed to be a basic trait necessary for having a language it was actually a sort of programming.

If he was a gaming developer and inside the game world that he was creating he coded every single NPC to identify ‘ Blue ‘ as ‘ Red ‘ , then even if he introduced a single player inside such a setting who knew the truth, overtime he would have to accept the setting of Blue being Red, because such was the norm of the world he was in.

Ever since one began having thoughts, they were started to be programmed, started to be taught the ways of the universe and by the time they were at tier4, that programming became so deep rooted that it became a part of their existence.

There was a voice inside everyone, a voice that told them what was right and what was wrong.

A voice that urged them to be lazy and indulge in their pleasures, and another that told them to work hard, but all these voices were a reflection of one’s programming, the space that one called their ‘ Conscience ‘ was nothing but the area where their code was stored.

Listening to the lazy voice was considered a ‘ Weakness ‘ by society, those who listened to it and procrastinated a lot usually never amounted to much in life.

Listening to the hardworking voice was promoted, it was viewed as an essential component to being successful.

What one did not understand however was that regardless of which voice they heard, they were all playing the game by the rules of the higher ups, and regardless of being hardworking or lazy they would all end up amounting to nothing more than being specs of dust in the NPC history.

There was a deep rooted fear in society against one typical kind of individual. An individual who did not adhere to the confines of the general programming as that person was ostracised and labelled as ‘ Crazy ‘

This kind of individual listened to his/her own decisions and did not adhere to the programming, often creating miracles that existed outside the scope of the game.

There was a saying in human history

‘ Only madness can set you free ‘

It was a saying that Rudra had never found more true than today, as he realised that the true path to becoming tier9 was to reject the coding of the system and step beyond it.

To become tier2 one needed to be competent as an individual

To become tier4 one needed to transform the limits of the mortal body and stop relying on energy solely produced by the body and start using energy of the universe as a substitute.

To become tier6 one needed to grasp the laws of the universe, become the ‘ Symbol ‘ of a uniqueness.

To become tier8 one needed to slay a tier8 existence and @#$@#$ @#$**@## @@#$**#$

But to go beyond tier8 one needed to reject their entire being, accept that everything they knew was a lie and reconstruct themselves from a blank slate.

The best lies were those that were mixed with partial truths making them indiscernible.

What the higher ups of the universe had done was to weave such a beautiful lie, that it allowed one to grow stronger and grasp secrets of the universe thinking that whatever they were learning was because of their ‘ Hardwork ‘ and ‘ Goodluck ‘ , that with sufficient amount of these two traits they would one day reach the top and rule the universe.

They became so engrossed in the process of getting stronger that they stopped questioning the right from the wrong, and by the time one became tier8 the fog of programming in their brain was so thick that even when they did think in the right direction, because it would contradict an ‘ Absolute ‘ truth that they had known all their lives, they would reject this line of thinking and land back at square 0.

The coders of the universe were cruel, they had let everyone believe that they were the main characters of their own story, and that they had their own free will, when everyone without an exception including the monarchs were just an NPC in their game.

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/// A/N – Chapter 15/40, 1 more to go ///