Sword God in a World of Magic

Shang wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

For now, he decided to remain silent.

"Let me explain my conundrum with a metaphor," the Lightning Emperor said.

"Imagine you are a mortal and live in a village with 50 other villagers. You don't have any sort of real societal standards and norms, and the strongest person in the village is the leader."

"Now, imagine there is a council of five leaders since they don't want to fight each other for whatever reason, and you are one of them."

"One day, you find the offspring of a very powerful beast, which is far more powerful than any member of the council."

"You nurture it, and it follows you."

"Yet, it doesn't completely follow your commands, and you know that there is a chance that it might attack you and everyone else. After all, it is still a wild beast."

"But maybe, it will also help you."

"But also only you. What if it attacks any of the others in the village?"

"Right now, the beast is still a baby."

"So, what do you do?"

"Do you nurture it?"

"Do you kill it?"

"Do you ask the others?"

The Lightning Emperor drank another mouthful of tea.

"Everything about this beast screams risk at you. No matter what happens, it will be a risk. If it isn't one for you, it definitely will be one for the village."

"But you like the village. You live in the village. You are happy with the village."

"You don't want your beast to kill other villagers."

"But it very likely will."

"So, what would you do?" the Lightning Emperor asked.

Shang's Spirit Sense focused on the Lightning Emperor.

Shang knew that his answer would decide his future.

Should he lie?

He wouldn't even attempt it.

He doubted that he had the skills to lie in front of a Mage Emperor.

Should he argue for the beast's life?

Without a good reason, this would feel hollow.

Should he defer the responsibility of the decision to the Lightning Emperor? After all, he was much older and much more powerful than Shang.

Should he give a neutral statement?

"Do you want to know what I would do, what someone else should do, what the village should do, or what the morally correct thing to do is?" Shang asked.

"All of them," the Lightning Emperor answered as he drank more of his tea.

"The morally correct thing to do would be to send it out of the village," Shang said. "If you can't do that, nurture it and trust that it won't betray you."

The Lightning Emperor didn't show any reactions.

"The smartest choice for the village is to either collectively raise the beast to make it follow everyone's orders or kill it."

The Lightning Emperor remained silent.

"As for what a normal person would do, it would depend on their ambition. Is it worth the risk to nurture it for the eventual payoff? The person could become the leader of the village. Maybe, they could even leave the village and go someplace better with the beast's protection."

This piqued the Lightning Emperor's interest, but he let Shang finish.

"And as for what I would do…"

"I would let it live."

"What's your reason?" the Lightning Emperor asked.

"Because its existence has no impact or relevance," Shang answered.

"Please elaborate," the Lightning Emperor said with interest.

"My goal is to be the strongest," Shang said. 

"That means that I must be stronger than the beast if I want to have any shot at reaching my goal. Even more, the beast's growth might even give me the incentive to train even harder than before."

"And if it turns out that the beast is stronger than me, it means my goal was impossible to achieve from the get-go."

"That means I might as well kill myself right now."

Silence.

The Lightning Emperor looked at Shang with a bit of surprise.

"Did you just tell me to kill myself?" he asked.

"No," Shang answered emotionlessly. "I told you what I would do. I know that my own goals and priorities are not in line with most people's goals and priorities."

"You are not me."

"So, while I might make that choice in your case, it doesn't mean that you should make that choice or that it is the correct one."

The Lightning Emperor raised an eyebrow. "That sounds a bit extreme. Is your goal really that important to you?"

"It is all I have left," Shang said. "I sacrificed everything else, and I don't regret it."

"There are so many people in this world. Geniuses might be rare, but among billions, trillions, quadrillions, or however many people there are, there have to be lots of geniuses."

"And from those geniuses, how many of them are extremely hardworking?" 

"Even if there are only a thousand people left from one trillion people, that is still a thousand people that I have to defeat if I want to become the strongest."

"What stops them from being the strongest?"

"It can't be their talent. After all, they are already the peak of the peak."

"So, it can only be their effort and dedication."

"If I want to be the strongest, I have to be willing to sacrifice more than everyone else."

"That is why I sacrificed everything I have."

"Either I become the strongest, or I stay a mortal to lead a happy life."

"There is no in-between."

The Lightning Emperor looked at Shang with an unreadable expression.

The Lightning Emperor had learned a lot about Shang's personality by using his Spell about 300 years ago, but that Spell had only told the Lightning Emperor what Shang would most likely do.

But it didn't tell him how Shang's personality had come to be this way.

Now, everything made sense.

What reasons did people have to stay alive?

There were important ones like achieving a goal, family, friends, and love.

There were also secondary ones, like fearing death, enjoyment, a better future, and more.

There were also some very minor and temporary ones, like wanting to see what would happen in a book one was reading, good weather, good food, and many tiny and mostly unimportant things.

Every human had a mix of these.

Yet, Shang had sacrificed everything but one of these things.

People might look at Shang's power and believe him to be a shining beacon of talent and power.

However, deep inside, he was actually the saddest and most pitiful human.

Everyone had so many reasons to stay alive, but he had only one.

Only one single thing was stopping him from ending his own life.

And he was clinging to that one thing with everything he had.

The Lightning Emperor's opinion of Shang could be described with one word.

Sad.