Chapter 721: Truth
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
The soul was the source of all supernatural abilities in the world of Eich.
The entire world was the container as souls went through their cycle.
Heaven’s Pillars and the River Styx were the core components of the Cycle of Reincarnation. However, all of the Heaven’s Pillars in the various G.o.ds’ Divine Kingdoms were far inferior to the River Styx in capability. The Heaven’s Pillars only had to transport the soul to the Divine Kingdoms, while the River Styx went through all the countless dimensions.
The foundational reason for this had to do with the difference between Order and Chaos. Since the Heaven’s Pillars were part of Order, they naturally wouldn’t change. Only transporting the souls would be impossible to help the entire Cycle of Reincarnation make progress.
Thus, the River Styx which had its own natural cycle was far more useful to the world than the Heaven’s Pillars. That was why even the new dimension of h.e.l.l had the River Styx’s presence.
The G.o.ds had countless devout wors.h.i.+ppers who were willing to sacrifice everything for their G.o.d. All that the wors.h.i.+ppers wanted was for their soul to enter the G.o.d’s Divine Kingdom after death so that they wouldn’t have to enter the River Styx and go through the Cycle of Reincarnation again.
However, very few people knew that souls would be consumed in the G.o.ds’ Divine Kingdoms as well. Their souls would become a part of the G.o.d’s divine power. Once their soul shards’ power was used up, the soul shards would then return to the River Styx unless the G.o.d specially spent some divine power to reconstruct an individual’s soul.
This was all part of Eich’s natural cycle.
Just transporting and cycling souls wouldn’t change anything. Without any change, and without any deaths or new births, what cycle would there even be?
The moment that a soul fell into the River Styx, perhaps that soul could no longer be described as an “individual”.
In front of the purest, primeval power of Chaos, the soul would gradually be dissected and broken up, becoming a part of the River Styx.
As for the soul’s strength during life… Any soul that was even able to retain this concept would already be quite incredible. Still, even the strongest soul would gradually be dissected and transformed in the River Styx that was the essence of Chaos. The soul would then become a member of Chaos as well.
The souls which crawled up into the Chaos Abyss, transforming into demons, were actually no longer individuals because of this reason.
If an explanation had to be made, the newborn demons were using an old soul as nutrition and a resource. The memories of the mortal from the past would only be considered knowledge, but not the demon’s own past.
However, there were exceptions to everything. According to my knowledge, there were two types of souls which wouldn’t be corroded by the River Styx.
The first type would be the G.o.ds’ souls.
Their souls probably shouldn’t even be called souls anymore. Their souls had been combined with their personal Divine Concepts into something whole.
This was especially the case for the Order Faction G.o.ds. Their physical bodies and Divine Kingdoms would be combined as one. It wouldn’t even really be appropriate to refer to them as “individuals”. They were actually more like amalgamations.
It could be said that the moment an Order G.o.d achieved divinity, they would no longer be their past self.
The moment an Order G.o.d died, it would result in a complete and utter collapse of their Divine Kingdom as well. As for the shards left behind, which could probably be referred to as shards of their divinity, these would become loot to be fought over by powerful individuals.
It could be said that when a G.o.d achieved divinity, their soul’s very essence had already changed. The soul would completely combine with the G.o.d’s chosen Concept, naturally making it impossible for the soul to enter the Cycle of Reincarnation again.
As for the Evil G.o.ds’ descendants, they were actually using their own bloodline to wrap one of their own soul shards in some power, creating a poisoned candy, tempting their own descendants to become even better copies of themselves for potentially taking over the descendant’s body. This wasn’t related very much to the Cycle of Reincarnation.
The second type of soul that wouldn’t be corroded by the River Styx was the soul of a certain Roland Mist…
Erm, I actually wasn’t very clear before about why my soul was able to resist the River Styx’s corrosion. In the past, I had thought that it was because I was a transmigrator. Thinking back on things now, the main reason was probably due to my personal cheat of having the System.
Creator G.o.ddess Eich had created the entire world. She was the highest-level existence of all. The Creator G.o.ddesses of Order and Chaos were in charge of Order and Chaos, respectively. They were the second-highest-level existences in the world. The power of Order transformed into the Heavens’ Pillars which went through all of the upper planes and Order G.o.ds’ Divine Kingdoms, while the power of Chaos transformed into the River Styx that flowed through countless dimensions.
My research helped me to reach the conclusion that life and the source of souls stemmed from the combination of Order and Chaos. In that case, life and souls were both lower-level Concepts belonging to Order and Chaos. Any life form that met the River Styx would naturally become dissected by Chaos.
This was the absolute suppression that a higher-level Concept would have against a lower-level Concept. Higher-level Concepts suppressing lower ones was a fundamental natural law of the world of Eich.
Moreover, since the G.o.ddess of Order was now bound to me, even though she no longer had much power, in status she was still the individual who was supposed to be in charge of all of Order. She was ranking even higher than the River Styx which represented Chaos.
Thus, the lower-level Concept was naturally unable to harm the higher-level Concept. Since the System was bound to my soul, I naturally could sing or do whatever else I wanted in the River Styx.
However, I myself wasn’t an existence that surpa.s.sed the River Styx in rank. Death and the River Styx would still make me pay an appropriate price, such as losing part of my memories. I was the only one who would be forced to pay this price, not Astrya.
In a way, I also reached a despairing conclusion from this. According to how the natural laws of Eich worked, even if the G.o.ddesses of Order and Chaos were killed off, it would be basically impossible to completely destroy their souls with any power that was from this world, as the Concept of their very existence was ranking too high to be affected by anything from this world. No wonder both their souls kept wandering around in the world and causing new trouble.
In that case, no wonder Karwenz had gone all the way to h.e.l.l in order to search for a new power of Death which could eliminate Cynthia’s soul that was bound to him.
I suddenly reached another rather strange conclusion. Perhaps I wasn’t alone in being the “Undying Roland” in the world. It seemed likely that Karwenz had also been the “Undying Karwenz”. It was just that n.o.body would know how many times he had died before as he continually grew more powerful. But since he had now exiled Cynthia’s remnant soul from his body, he probably no longer possessed this undying trait.
With Astrya’s guidance and a.s.sistance, I successfully a.n.a.lyzed Maria’s soul. However, I found the conclusion to be rather inconceivable.
“Chaos Girls? How is this possible…?”
Just now, I had discovered a third type of soul which had surpa.s.sed the River Styx itself.
Although the specific traits still required further a.n.a.lysis, there would be no mistaking the higher rank of this soul.
[This is Cynthia’s soul shard. What did she do…? No, she isn’t Cynthia. She is a brand-new individual, but it’s impossible for me and her to reincarnate. No, wait, no, wait, no, wait…]
Alright, Astrya definitely wouldn’t make a mistake about this. I had never seen her so emotional before. My System sounded quite uneasy and anxious.
I habitually ignored my System, who was actually panicking for once, as I carefully mulled over all the clues that I had.
Just what had Cynthia done? I really wanted to know the answer as well. However, it was likely that anyone who knew the answer wouldn’t tell me.
I sank into deep contemplation as I gazed at the gigantic lump of flesh known as Maria who was on the operating table in front of me. Should I dissect her a bit further in order to obtain some better understanding? But, if I did so, it would likely become impossible for me to put Maria back together again.
“…How many years in jail will I receive for murdering the empress of the strongest country in the land? I need legal advice as soon as possible. It’s really urgent!”
I cracked a boring joke, but I could only sigh as I gave up on the highly tempting choice to dissect Maria further.
Not only would I no longer be able to repair her if I did so, I was really afraid that even if I dissected her more, I would still be unable to dissect her soul shards. Just as how the River Styx was lower in rank than myself, my own rank was definitely lower in rank than these soul shards. It would have been impossible for me to a.n.a.lyze Maria’s soul without Astrya’s a.s.sistance, but my System was basically half useless right now.
Still, this didn’t affect my logical thinking abilities.
“Evil G.o.d descendants?”
The way that Maria mentioned “sisters”, the strange relations.h.i.+p, and how the Chaos Girls in her dreams kept killing each other all made me think about Evil G.o.ds’ descendants.
The Evil G.o.ds’ descendants would often fight and kill each other in order to steal the divine power and strength within the other’s body. In the end, the victor would lose their own sense of self, and successfully revive the Evil G.o.d.
In that case, were the Chaos Girls killing each other also for the sake of stealing the others’ power and making oneself more “complete”? Could it be that Cynthia would be revived through this in the end?
This seemed possible, especially since we had all witnessed Cynthia’s backup body before during the battle of h.e.l.l. In that case, since she had a backup physical body, could she also have a backup soul?
[Impossible. Our souls can’t be replicated. There’s not a single resource in the entire world that can host our soul. It’s also impossible to create an artificial replica of our souls.]
Alright then, the G.o.ddess of Order immediately denied this possibility.
[But even though our souls can’t be replicated, our souls can be split into hundreds of soul pieces. I can pretty much guess what Cynthia is doing now. Give me some time. I need to organize my thoughts. It would also be best if you can find two more Chaos Girls for me so that I can compare them.]
“Two more? Where am I even supposed to go find them?
[…Perhaps they aren’t even that far away from you. I’ve already memorized this soul wavelength. Your sister-in-law Leona, along with Elisa…]
“Elisa? Impossible! Lisa was just an ordinary human back in the day, a pure and ordinary human! How could she have possibly remained an ordinary human if she had such a soul!”
[Are you certain?]
“I’m certain!”
[Are you certain about how you picked her up from the River Styx, or?]
I was rendered speechless as past memories flashed though my mind. Back when Elisa was Lisa, her magic and martial arts abilities had been quite terrible. But ever since she was born as Elisa, her magic and martial arts abilities were both outstanding. Not only that, she was deeply favored by the Chaos Abyss…
[This woman before me is also deeply spoiled by the Chaos Abyss. There’s also that Leona. From a certain standpoint, the Chaos Abyss is also favoring her.]