Chapter 418: Oath
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
Although I wrote a letter asking for help and trusted that Ayer knew how to deal with things, my enemy here was a powerful True G.o.d. It wouldn’t be easy to kill her off, and it definitely wouldn’t be accomplished quickly. Still, it wasn’t my style to leave everything up to others.
“How many ways are there to kill off a True G.o.d? No, I’m not joking around here. Please answer me seriously.”
At this time, I naturally asked Doraemon—I meant Harloys! Weren’t they both cats? Was there a difference?
“Directly kill a powerful True G.o.d? How many ways, you’re asking? To my knowledge—zero.”
“What? Didn’t Lorci die rather easily?”
“That’s because she was incredibly foolish. She descended using her true body and was then wiped out by Karwenz, a Main G.o.d-level existence, for breaking the taboos. In most normal situations, have you ever seen a True G.o.d idiotic enough to descend with their true bodies? They all have Divine Kingdoms. As long as a True G.o.d stays within their Divine Kingdom, they’ll be the master of that little world. You know just how ridiculous their administrator privileges are there. Plus, they also have countless believers’ souls as replenishment. You need to first destroy her Divine Kingdom before killing the Queen of Storms. Even a Main G.o.d might not be capable of doing this, and someone who could would definitely pay a great cost doing so. It would be an very bad deal to do so.”
“So not even Ayer will be able to forcefully kill her?”
“…That might not be the case as Ayer is truly unfathomable, even among the True G.o.ds. He directly killed those two Follower G.o.ds in another True G.o.d’s Divine Kingdom. I don’t know if he’s capable of doing it or not. But even if he’s capable of doing it, it will be the equivalent of their two Divine Kingdoms clas.h.i.+ng. Ayer will definitely lose a significant amount of power doing so, which will be disadvantageous for our future plans. I feel that you can consider a more normal method to weaken the Queen of Storms first.”
“…Eliminate her believers, which will weaken her as there will be less faith in her?”
“Yes. And this isn’t the only option. Corrupt her temples, kill her priests and destroy her divine power summoning points. These will all have far greater impact than killing off her ordinary believers. Also, killing her incarnation will be the greatest possible blow of all to her divine power. Many True G.o.ds even end up peris.h.i.+ng when their incarnation dies. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have run so quickly last time when she saw Ayer. Also, you can diminish her power by attacking her reputation and authority, by spreading rumors and using other underhanded tactics that you excel at.”
For some mysterious reason, I felt like the silly cat was making fun of me. But considering the fact that thanks to Harloys’ advice, the first thought which flashed through my mind was “Breaking news! She’s actually a mistress!? Now revealing the triangle love relations.h.i.+p between Ocean G.o.d Sidunwar, Water Elemental G.o.ddess Aylos, and the Queen of Storms,” it was indeed impossible for me to counter what she said.
“As long as she weakens to a certain extent, she’ll be forced into hibernation to recover unless she’s willing to weaken her Divine Concept and Divine Kingdom. And if she continues weakening with n.o.body to help her, she’ll end up in eternal hibernation.”
“What will happen if she’s willing to weaken her Divine Concept and Divine Kingdom?”
“She’ll drop in power level from a High G.o.d to a Middle G.o.d. Voluntarily weakening her own power level is the same as cutting off a large portion of her own divine soul. Her soul will receive a permanent injury that’s the equivalent of a human being seriously injured to the point of being bedridden. That will make it much easier to kill her. If you can weaken her till she has the power of only a Medium G.o.d, it should become very easy for Ayer to just kill her.”
“…Why do I feel like none of these conditions are achievable?”
“I agree with you on this.”
Considering that the crazy Queen of Storms had an incredibly high level of vigilance, killing off her incarnation would be extremely difficult. And even if I managed to set a trap that successfully killed off her incarnation once, she was the type who would shut herself in her Divine Kingdom afterwards. Killing off her incarnation more than once would be impossible.
As for killing her believers, spreading rumors, corrupting her temples and so on…
“Her main believers are the Sea Tribe. Of course, they’re in the sea. How am I supposed to kill them or spread rumors? Even her priests are Sea Tribe members. What am I supposed to do? As she’s the G.o.ddess of Storms and Sea Monsters, she’s can even obtain faith from ordinary fishermen and the Sea Tribe’s fear of storms and sea monsters. This will be really difficult.”
Precisely because her main believers were the Sea Tribe the Queen of Storms could greatly increase in power once the Sea Tribe established their kingdom, defeated the humans and conquered their capital. More and more Sea Tribe members were beginning to wors.h.i.+p her for her grand accomplishments. And once Auland started regaining the advantage, she… she was actually shameless enough to personally intervene in a battle between mortals. Her sea monsters and storms caused tremendous damage to Auland and made the Sea Tribe into more pious believers, establis.h.i.+ng a virtuous cycle that kept increasing her power.
“How about a plague? What if I create a plague that’s spread in the sea to all the Sea Tribe? That will cause her believers to start dying in large numbers.”
“…An ocean version of an Undead Calamity? Considering that land and ocean animals have completely different breathing systems, are you sure that you’ll be able to successfully research a new plague in a short period of time? Maybe you could try looking for the Plague King, who’s currently ranked #11 on the Calamity Rankings. He should be able of accomplis.h.i.+ng this.”
“How about having large amounts of undead go underwater and hunt the Sea Tribe down? Fine, don’t stare at me, I was just joking around.”
Indeed, the undead didn’t need to breathe or eat, so they were capable of fighting underwater. However, just being capable of fighting underwater didn’t mean that they were skilled at fighting underwater. The water pressure and water currents would greatly slow their movements. Meanwhile, the Sea Tribe was highly skilled at underwater fighting. Not only would winning against the Sea Tribe be difficult, but even if the undead won, the Sea Tribe members would only have to run away. It would be impossible for the undead to catch up.
We came up with various ideas that we then shot down the next instant. We continued thinking about how to weaken the Queen of Storms but were unable to come up with a viable idea.
“…If the Sea Tribe was so easy to defeat, they would have gone extinct long ago. They’re the undisputed rulers of the sea. Perhaps we should change our way of thinking. How did the Queen of Storms become a powerful G.o.ddess in the first place?”
“Rain City!”
At this moment, both of us came to a sudden epiphany. We had arrived at the critical point.
The most important reason that the Queen of Storms became a powerful G.o.ddess was as the Guardian G.o.ddess of the Sea Tribe, she had helped them actualize a dream that the Sea Tribe had possessed for tens of thousands of years. The mystical Rain City was the land of her divine miracle. Rain City allowed countless Sea Tribe members to return to the land. The Sea Tribe could enjoy suns.h.i.+ne and rain, delicious cooked foods and the right to live and reproduce there.
But what if Rain City suddenly disappeared?
“Faith in her would collapse? That would absolutely happen.”
“Meeting with despair after living the best life will cause the formerly most fervent of believers send curses of despair at the G.o.ds.”
“Also, if the divine power forbidden spell gets dispelled, there will be a huge backlash on the caster. That’s important to keep in mind as well.”
Right then and there, Harloys and I a.n.a.lyzed the consequences of destroying her Rain City. The Queen of Storms would likely directly lose a power level as a True G.o.d. But now, there was a new problem. How were we supposed to destroy her Rain City?
“Diana… perhaps she’d be able to do it if she had a thousand years more time to cultivate her power.”
Although Anti-Holy Knight Diana and her new companions were working really hard, there would still be a long way to go until they could directly challenge a True G.o.d. Previously, Diana had only managed to dispel a very small portion of the forbidden spell in Rain City. But soon the forbidden spell filled this area in yet again. The most difficult part about dealing with divine powered forbidden spells was that divine power allowed these forbidden spells to self-repair and keep up an eternal cycle.
“Actually, this is a conundrum with no solution. A divine powered forbidden spell is always cast by a G.o.d, so dispelling that G.o.d’s forbidden spell requires fighting against their divine power, which is no different from fighting against that G.o.d in person. Killing off that G.o.d will naturally dispel the forbidden spell, but who would need to think of ways to deal with forbidden spells if it was that easy to kill a G.o.d?”
Indeed. If we could directly kill off the Queen of Storms, why would we have to bother with Rain City?
Even a divine powered forbidden spell followed the most fundamental law of forbidden spells. Killing off the caster would naturally dispel the forbidden spell. That was why back when the Water Elemental G.o.ddess and Queen of Storms finished casting this forbidden spell, Aylos had directly returned to the Water Elemental Plane while the Queen of Storms canceled her incarnation and returned to her Divine Kingdom.
“…Wait a moment—this was a dual-cast forbidden spell, with two G.o.ddesses casting it together!”
“Aylos!”
Alright, we were now at even more of a conundrum. From a certain standpoint, Aylos was now our ally. And I even wanted her to help retrieve the G.o.d Equipment of Fire from the Water Elemental Plane. And if we changed our plans to try and kill this immemorial Water Elemental G.o.ddess in her home Water Elemental Plane, that probably would be just as difficult as killing the Queen of Storms.
“…Perhaps we can convince Aylos to commit suicide.”
Harloys hesitatingly gave an idea, but I felt that this idea of hers was ridiculous.
“Stop joking around.”
“I’m not joking! You could definitely tell Aylos that as long as she’s willing to commit suicide, we’ll use the Queen of Storms’ divine power to help revive her husband. Tell her the full story about what’s necessary to revive Sidunwar and let her decide for herself. We won’t be lying to her as this will indeed be her only chance. If she misses this chance, we won’t have any free time to help revive Sidunwar.”
“She won’t possibly accept the idea of committing suicide!”
“She will! I recognize that expression she has! She’s the type who’s constantly reminiscing about how wonderful things were sin the past! She’s the type who constantly curses her own foolishness and weakness for allowing the beautiful past to go up in smoke! She’s the same as me! For a person who lives in the past and feels such guilt, as long as there’s a chance to restore the past—no—even if there’s just a chance to make up for past mistakes, that person won’t care about giving up their very life! She will choose to commit suicide; I would make the same choice if I was her!”
Harloys was shouting frenziedly at the top of her lungs. This was the first time I had ever seen her lose such control of her emotions. I mysteriously felt a sense of pity as I saw her young-seeming Gold Elf form have such reddened eyes.
“…I don’t dislike people who always reminisce about the past, but if one only obsesses about the past, how will there possibly be a future?”
“Hah! Don’t make yourself sound so high and mighty. Aren’t you the same? Have you left your past behind you? What do you think your nightmares are? Also, the Infallible Diffindor. You dare call yourself someone who isn’t obsessed about the past?”
I could only laugh. Since I had a soul connection to her, it was impossible for me to counter what she said. The person that Harloys referred to who lived in the past and felt such guilt could refer to Aylos, herself, and of course it also applied to me.
If I had the chance to regain everything I had in the past, perhaps I would become even crazier than Aylos or Harloys. No, I had already been crazy in the past. Or perhaps I was crazy even now.
“Yep, we’re the same. But even if I’m in h.e.l.l, I shall do my best to look up at the heavens… No, only looking up at the heavens isn’t my personality. I shall definitely think of a way to steal or scam the heavens for myself. I, Roland Mist, am someone who prefers happy endings. Harloys, as my soulbound equipment, don’t you dare treat yourself as the main female lead of a tragedy. Let us…”
Our hearts instantly connected and the Gold Elf girl broke out into a smile despite her tears. Her golden hair glistened brilliantly under the sunlight. The most beautiful of elves and the densest of all men made the same oath together.
“…Let us scam and obtain the heavens together.”