As Roland confronted his System, the final piece of the puzzle to create his own version of “Hell” was completed in Auland’s conquered capital, Rain City, the city of eternal rain.
Although this war here had started out as a battle between mortals— between the Sea Tribe and the people of Bardi—the Queen of Storms’ direct interference with her incarnation made it so that this battle far exceeded a level mortals could interfere with.
“…Damned mages! Damned humans!”
The Queen of Storms’ indigo-colored skin was filled with cracks. Even her previously smooth and beautiful facial features were covered with small holes. Her originally pretty face appeared quite vicious.
Well, it was only natural that the Queen of Storms was so furious. This was already her second incarnation. She had just lost an incarnation not long ago and sent a second one down immediately after, putting a great strain upon her true body. Yet the current situation wasn’t going well for her in the slightest.
If she lost a second incarnation, she would suffer even more.
The Queen of Storms glared at a red-haired swordsman, who appeared carefree; he was currently digging earwax out of his ears.
“Mortal—mortal—mortal! You dare look down upon me!?”
The Queen of Storms, who wasn’t exactly well-known for having a good temper, lost it. She was hysterical and enraged, yet she didn’t summon storms to rampage over the land and directly slay this desecrator as she typically would.
The reason? Her first incarnation had just been slain by this seemingly ordinary mortal swordsman. This person’s greatsword suddenly descended like the thunder and directly cut her incarnation in half, causing her to lose a great amount of divine power. She had practically lost everything she had gained in the past half year in which the situation had been going wonderfully well for her.
But this wasn’t even the main reason why she was so angry…
*Boom!*
Continuous sounds of cannons and explosions sounded near her. Floating battleships hovered above the water as they spread out in formations and slowly executed a new round of attacks against Rain City.
By now, the clouds in the sky had largely dissipated. Only small sprinkling rain showers remained, which were unable to impede the humans in the slightest. Although Rain City was covered in water, providing the Sea Tribe with their home turf and defensive barrier, the water level was decreasing, striking great fear into the Sea Tribe’s hearts.
The Sea Tribe never imagined that the seemingly warm sun would again painfully beat down on them. With the threatening Bardi armies before them, the Sea Tribe now missed the icy oceans.
As the Sea Tribe became afraid and despaired, they prayed to their Goddess. But what they saw, to their greater despair, was that their venerated Goddess was slain in front of everyone.
Although the Queen of Storms immediately sent out her incarnation to help defend the Sea Tribe against Auland’s new onslaught, her incarnation became stuck in a bitter battle against the red-haired Sword Saint. Meanwhile, the mages all around the red-haired swordsman had incredible power. The Sea Tribe witnessed their True God’s incarnation’s defeat.
“Perhaps our Goddess isn’t the mightiest one… Perhaps Rain City isn’t for us… Perhaps we Sea Tribe should simply stick to living in the water…”
The sunlight and the ever diminishing rain dealt a tremendous blow to the Sea Tribe’s confidence of absolute victory. Bardi’s cannons were the most direct threat against them, and the originally undefeatable Queen of Storms had been defeated right before them all. That was the fatal blow against their belief.
“Hurry and escape, otherwise it’ll be too late…”
“Why should I fight to the death for the sake of the tribe leaders? Even if Rain City is for us Sea Tribe, I didn’t receive a single good bonfire carrier or room…”
“Even our venerated Goddess has been defeated; there won’t be any hope left if we don’t escape…”
Devilish temptations sounded in the Sea Tribe’s ears. Their faith in their Goddess had been so seriously shaken that they no longer saw any chance at victory. At this moment, some unknown individual suddenly shouted:
“Our Head Priest is running—look at his flag! He’s running! Even he’s running away!”
The Queen of Storms’ highest-ranked priest, Head Priest Mairkan, was present at this battle. But currently, as the Sea Tribe watched on through the rain, his battle flag, which glowed with a divine blue, was indeed retreating.
With unknown individuals taking the lead, these scattered warriors, who were tribal rather than an organized military, all started escaping. The moment morale was crushed and soldiers started escaping it became impossible to stop things any longer.
“Mortal!”
The furious Queen of Storms’ incarnation tried to stop this, but a thunder-enchanted greatsword blocked her path.
“Lady, it’s rude to have the main character leave the party before the dance is over. Are you that displeased with my skills?”
The Queen of Storms took a deep breath and regained her calm. By now, only a total idiot wouldn’t realize that she had fallen into a trap.
The flowery mortal Sword Saint before her was indeed quite powerful, but he would be unable to cause any fatal damage to her all by himself. The critical part was that he was of the lightning element, meaning he was nigh immune to her water-based attacks. And it appeared that his abilities were mostly of the defensive type, so it was impossible for her to easily get rid of him.
“Replicate: Meteor Shower!”
An icy voice incanted behind him, and a meteor storm suddenly descended from the skies and struck a fatal blow against many Sea Tribe. This incantation came from Margaret.
Numerous shiny meteors fell from the skies, and each one exploded on impact, whipping up fierce waves in the water together with numerous howls. Although this spell wasn’t as powerful as the original forbidden spell version’s destructive capabilities, this replicated mini version still possessed astonishing might.
And earlier, Margaret had unhesitatingly started casting a forbidden spell the moment she had entered the battlefield, which drew all of the Queen of Storms’ attention. That was how her incarnation had fallen for the red-haired swordsman’s ambush.
And now her second incarnation was forced to the brink. The Queen of Storms was unable to give up on Rain City and her believers. Every single chip she used to obtain her position of powerful High God was here. She didn’t have many allies to begin with, so retreating wasn’t an option.
Her believers were escaping. The divine miracle in the skies had mostly disappeared. She could sense that her divine powers stemming from the power of belief were overstretching their limits. She was just like a gambler who continuously put her previously obtained chips into new gambles. Although continuous victories had helped her speedily grow in power, her foundational wealth wasn’t enough for the gambles that had ever higher stakes. She became unable to lose even a single gamble.
If she lost Rain City, she would be fortunate if she merely decreased in power level as a God. The most likely outcome would be a tremendous loss of faith in her to the point where she would directly perish.
The constantly worsening situation made her anxious. However, she didn’t have the power to protect her believers. Her own sea monster armies were blocked by the invading Auland armies. Although she was angry, and this mortal swordsman who acted like such a jokester was annoying, she could only admit that he indeed possessed power enough to challenge a God.
And so, under the influence of anger and embarrassment, the Queen of Storms made a decision—a decision others really wanted her to make…
Two individuals were currently having a secret discussion in a patch of shadows.
“Hehehe! No matter how many times I watch it, I never get tired of seeing mortals collapse to the point of despair.”
This individual appeared to be a rather young black-haired boy with black eyes. He had a wicked smile as he watched the Sea Tribe fall into despair. This boy was actually the Lord of Lies, the Devil Lord from Hell’s Abyss. And he was currently carrying out the task Roland had asked of him: to increase the speed at which the Sea Tribe’s morale deteriorated.
Next to him was another youth who appeared quite similar to him. This youth was happily waving the Sea Tribe’s Head Priest’s flag, running away. The real Head Priest had long been killed, his last expression unyielding and his guards’ corpses strewn all around him.
The air was filled with fairies of despair and discord, imperceptible by the naked eye. As one of the most powerful existences in the world, the Main God power level Lord of Despair was the very incarnation of fear and despair. He was capable of causing even the most courageous and resolute of warriors to break down with a single look in their direction. His large area of effect domain of despair would be very difficult to detect, and it would automatically enhance the fear and despair in the weak.
In this battlefield under the Lord of Despair’s domain, every single mortal individual would need to face the fear in their hearts. They would begin doubting everything they believed. Their loyalty would be tested by endless hallucinations. Having any mortal army collapse on themselves and despair was nothing more than a game to the Lord of Despair. It was only natural that the Sea Tribe wouldn’t be able to maintain themselves against him.
“…Heimor, it’s fine to play around but don’t get sidetracked from what we’re really here to do.”
“Boss, don’t rush me like that. You also know that she’s a powerful Goddess. It’s not that hard to simply kill her incarnation, but it’s a bit more difficult to affect her reasoning so that she’ll make most foolish decision possible… Ohhh, she did it after all. It seems that the number one insane witch of the southwest seas still hasn’t made any progress after so many years. As expected, she’s now gambling everything when pushed to the brink at this critical moment.”
The person he addressed as “Boss” was a white-robed young man, who was currently playing with a red rose.
When the white-robed young man heard the Devil Lord say this, he too looked at the skies.
The skies had begun to change again. The clouds that had started dissipating gathered once more. Countless tornados twisted together as several dozen giant tornados began forming a new horde of windstorms. A faint dimensional opening appeared in the place with the most windstorms, and a windstorm eye was beginning to peer out of the dimensional opening.
Looking from below, it would appear that the one-eyed King of Storms was about to reach out through the clouds and begin interfering in the mortal plane.
“The big fish has finally been hooked…”
******
[Karwenz shouldn’t have been in this world…]
With that rather confusing statement, my System—Astrya—began her story which was long lost to history.
[My fight with Cynthia caused both of us to enter a long, long divine hibernation…]
I knew about this from Ayer. In the first ever Holy War, the twin Goddesses had nearly equal power and abilities and unsurprisingly fought to the point where both were seriously injured, causing them to sink into a deep hibernation. But it would be underestimating the twin Goddesses far too much if one thought that they were simply sleeping.
Even if their physical bodies were unable to move, their divine souls roamed this world.
The so-called Endless Abyss, the never-ending world of Chaos that had no seeming end? It was actually all part of the Goddess of Chaos herself. It was her own domain, and inside of it she transformed into the will of the Chaos Abyss and created the leveling and evolution system of the demons. It would be impossible for any existences with inferno bloodlines to resist the summons of the Chaos Abyss.
She would attempt to beckon any “child” she took favor to in joining the Abyss. Perhaps it was that Cynthia worked harder or perhaps it was that the Chaos Faction was more suitable to fighting than the Order Faction, but the Chaos Faction’s overall combat strength forever far exceeded the Order Faction’s. In every Holy War in history, the Chaos Faction was the proactive side. The unending chaos that appeared in the world was also providing Cynthia with strength, helping her get ever closer to waking up. Of course, at the same time, she became ever closer to insanity.
The Goddess of Order wasn’t quite as fortunate as her younger sister. Since she was the Goddess of Order, she was naturally limited by the natural laws of Order. Pure Order didn’t need self-will. It only needed an administrator that would never make mistakes. The end result was that Astrya’s self-will became ever lesser and weaker. In fact, her will had lost its connection to her physical body. In the middle stages of the previous Holy War, the pure Source of Order had already rejected the Goddess of Order’s involvement.
So now, even if the Goddess of Order’s physical body revived, the existence that revived wouldn’t be the Goddess of Order herself. Instead, what revived would be the pure physical embodiment of Order, which would then destroy the world.
[I was wrong in the past…]
Perhaps her travels and experiences had changed her. Or perhaps it was because she had unknowingly lost her status of the Goddess of Order, becoming a homeless soul, instead. Compared to her past self who was an overly idealistic and naïve princess, Astrya was far more practical than before, and much easier to communicate with.
But due to her “overly motherly” nature (a quote from Ayer), she was still unable to rest reassured about the world and its citizens. Even though she lost the ability to directly interfere with the world, she would still try to think of methods to help the relatively weaker Order Faction obtain final victory even though she knew that wouldn’t solve the foundational problem in the end.
She was unable to directly interfere? That’s right. While Cynthia was the entire embodiment of the Chaos Abyss, Astrya was nothing more than a will with no physical body. The only way she could interfere in the world’s affairs was to attach herself to someone, haunting them like she did with me. If you described this with glorious terms, then perhaps you could say that this was “divine guidance, a scholar’s guidance or justice’s guidance.” But it wasn’t glorious at all.
[The Child of Fate in every Holy War is the mortals’ hero who has the most brilliant presence. The one with the deepest karmic connections will always be the most glorious star of the Holy War. This person’s actions are the most likely to change the overall outcome of the Holy War.]
Astrya was basically creating a type of transmigrator all by herself. As she administered Time, Space and Fate, she would always locate the most glorious Child of Fate before every Holy War and give that person information about the future. She would give that individual the power of equivalent exchange and point them down the path of victory. I supposed that was the true identity of the former “great precognitors” of the Order Faction.
“For instance, the God of Holy Light back when he was a human?”
[Yes. He was a truly good person. The situation back in that year was truly terrible. The demons’ power far surpassed that of the elves. Under my guidance, he was able to discover the essence of the power of Holy Light, which could cleanse all distortions, specifically targeting the demons and the undead. At least, I should say that he was a good person before he ascended to Godhood and gave up his self-will.]
“Then it’s my turn this time? The future Black Warrior Emperor, the Demon Prince Roland?”
I felt somewhat bitter and depressed, feeling like I still hadn’t escaped the shackles of fate. But this mysterious depression only lasted for an instant before I shook my head and got rid of it.
No matter what the reasons were, reaching the current situation of today was all due to my own choices. Perhaps my System gave me information and assistance—useful, I must admit—but she was still unable to choose my future for me. I wasn’t so weak as to blame my own missteps on others.
Besides, I never intended to support the Order or Chaos Faction to begin with. That was something that would only cause the Holy War to continue forever. It would be a foolish decision that would never solve the foundational problem, something both of us knew. And since she was unable to even stop Yongye, what she could interfere with was incredibly limited. There was no need for me to think too much into things.
What I needed to do now was to break free from the restraints of my useless seniors and completely end this Holy War once and for all.
[…Don’t be too hard on your seniors. None of those Children of Fate were real transmigrators. In fact, I was truly astonished when I learned through you that there was an entire other world out there. Your information from your original world was just like a virus as it succeeded in completely changing my way of thinking, far more than all the previous countless Holy Wars combined. I also admit that I was far too extreme back in the day. …You really should be proud of yourself. Although you started at the lowest point of all Children of Fate, you’ve accomplished more than any other Child of Fate in history. At the very least, you’ve discovered a path that never before existed. For the first time, I can see in you hope that the Holy War will end.]
“Then what did you mean when you said that Karwenz shouldn’t have been in this world?”
[Exactly what it sounds like. You read the ‘game walkthrough’ I provided you with, right? Karwenz wasn’t in that at all. That’s the future path of fate that should have been.]
“Then something abnormal occurred?”
I felt like I was now uncovering the truth, which had been shrouded in mystery.
[That’s right. This time, Cynthia, who had lost so much due to my interference, was watching me. She discovered my choice for Child of Fate in this Holy War. Although she didn’t have the power of precognition, the result of her fighting over the Child of Fate with me was that…]
“Was that?”
[The result was that the Child of Fate split into two halves. However, the two damaged souls were fixed and completed under our protection. The soul with the transmigrator memories was affected by the power of Order, so it was naturally inclined towards Order. Meanwhile, Karwenz was the exact opposite. He was naturally inclined towards Chaos ever since his birth. His absolutely inconceivable rate of growth has far surpassed any normal level of understanding.]
I was rendered speechless by this revelation. It would appear that it was fortunate enough already that I and my younger brother had successfully grown up. At the very least, we weren’t killed off so early by the twin Goddesses’ conflict.
As for the fact that we were originally the same soul? Actually, I thought about it some but decided that it didn’t really matter. Since we had different memories and experiences after living in this world, we were two separate individuals now. The beginning wasn’t all that important. All it meant was that we were somewhat of a type of clone.
Many thoughts passed through my mind and the clues assembled in my mind before I felt that I had now seen the truth.
“Then the true culprit behind the Mist Kingdom’s destruction… must have been Cynthia. She obtained the Child of Fate she wanted.”
It was actually quite simple to find the true culprit behind a successful scheme. One simply had to look for who benefited the most. As for who would benefit from the Mist Kingdom’s destruction? That could only be the Chaos Faction.
“Karwenz, who was selected by the Abyss, was tempted by Cynthia into finding the demons to search for strength to take revenge. Finally, he entered the Abyss and sunk ever deeper into it. Meanwhile, the transmigrator Roland, who was possessed by the Goddess of Order herself, went down a path of destruction, becoming Yongye and creating an unsolvable deep grudge against the Holy Church, the main power of the Order Faction. This was a perfect result for the Chaos Faction.”
There was no need to guess what existence had cut off the snow mountain from the mortal plane back in the day. It would either be Cynthia herself or a Chaos Main God under her command. Either way, this grudge I had could be attributed to Cynthia.
After thinking about it some more, I could only break out into laughter. Although I learned much, nothing really changed except for the fact that Karwenz and I were even closer than I had expected. I still needed to break the Cycle of Reincarnation’s monopoly over souls, and I still needed to prevent both twin Goddesses from truly waking up.
“Do you still have the power of prophecy?”
[Not anymore. Since I’ve now interfered with Fate, Fate’s course has left my control.]
“Garbage.”
[…From today onwards, all System products in your shop are now tripled in price.]
“In the end, I myself will have to decide the fate of the future.”
And now, judging by the dimensional tears appearing in the sky along with the stench of sulfur, my long-awaited guests had arrived. It would seem that I had no more time for idle thoughts.
“One, two… Three Main God level existences. Whoa, the Chaos Faction truly thinks highly of us.”
Although I knew that it was likely that existences would come to hunt us down before the Dimensional Doors fully closed, it was also likely that no existence here would be able to return for a long period of time after coming here. Being able to send so many Main God level existences here despite this meant that the Chaos Faction viewed us with great importance. Or perhaps I should say that the devils were just that unpopular with them.
“Roland, I’m here to have fun playing with you!”
Alright, that booming voice was all too familiar. Only my idiot younger brother would act like this. I now had an even bigger headache.