474 Difficult Decision (1/2)
The foundational reason for the Holy War's beginning was the Goddesses of Order and Chaos's conflict. At first, perhaps they indeed wished for everyone to become stronger so that Eich wouldn't be destroyed by dimensional invaders. Yet the result was…
”Glorious civilizations constructed after thousands of years of accumulation are just as ethereal as a sand castle constructed by a child on a beach. The next ocean wave that appears will leave behind nothing more than rubble. Is everything beautiful nothing more than a dream? Are all sacrifices and hard work completely meaningless?”
Seeking fame and personal gain wasn't typically harmful on a large scale. However, the greatest ideals would be capable of destroying the world. Life was like a game and the world was unpredictable. Sometimes, truth would hurt far more than lies.
Under the gaze of the highest Gods up above, all lives continuously enacted life-and-death shows that were nothing more than circus. In the end, no matter how far civilization had developed, the only end result would be the same periodic harvesting of souls. Just when would this despairing fate finally end?
Having hatred? Holding a grudge? Being dissatisfied! Of course! Even if they gave lives to all mortals in this world, even if the world we lived in was created by them, did that mean that the parents could casually steal the lives of their own children, viewing the mortals' difficulties as nothing more than a joke?
Perhaps others had the greatest respect for the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos, and worshipped them most of all, but I had nothing but grudges against them. That was because I was raised as an atheist back in China of my original world, and had a logical way of thinking that made it impossible for me to worship any God. In my eyes, rather than calling the Goddesses of Order and Chaos venerated Creator Goddesses, they were nothing more than two selfish bastards.
”If I have the chance, I absolutely have to kill them and end everything.”
Such words had echoed in my mind numerous times already. I had even made attempts…
”They're undefeatable while in Eich, since they're the true masters of the entire world. The entire world will support them. But, if they're in a brand-new world, they'll become nothing more than difficult opponents. It should be possible to defeat and even kill them.”
Indeed, just as Cynthia had surmised, using knowledge and power from an entire other world was the only possible method. In the end, I concentrated entirely on trying to actualize this method.
Back when I was fighting Emordilorcan, I created my Frigidwinter Earth and cut him off from the Earth Elemental Plane which would give him an endless amount of support as he was the Earth Elemental God. I then used my power from another world to kill him.
This was actually nothing more than a rehearsal, an experiment to prove my ideas and theories. While the result was quite pleasing, it also made me slightly depressed.
”It should be possible to create a brand-new world and kill the Creator Goddesses within it! But, actually doing so… is far too impractical.”
The theory being correct didn't mean that success was almost there. The experiment on Emordilorcan had actually exposed many problems. Two particular problems were the most fatal.
First, my Frigidwinter Earth hadn't managed to completely cut off Emordilorcan from the Earth Elemental Throne. In the end, I only won against him because Beifeng and Little Sandy helped to destroy the Earth Elemental Throne.
”This means that the current Frigidwinter Earth will probably be ineffective against a more powerful existence like the Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos. I need to level up my entire world, strengthening its independence and dimensional walls, and once there's a final fight, I need to successfully drag my enemy into another dimension that's far away from the world of Eich…”
After Hell was constructed, this difficult problem had now been solved. But, there was still another difficult problem that made this ”plan” into nothing more than a backup plan in the end. It all seemed far too impractical, because…
”The two Goddesses of Order and Chaos are far too strong, strong to the point of despair…”
Even though Emordilorcan had been cut off and isolated in my Frigidwinter Earth, I had to pull out all my ace cards in order to barely win. Even if I stripped the Goddesses of their ”undefeatable” powers, they would still be purely strong existences with personal power far surpassing that of any Main God out there. They would still be almost the same as being completely undefeatable.
”Even if I can cut them off from Eich, how am I supposed to defeat them…”
Not only did the game's history prove that the Goddesses had astonishing achievements of killing Main Gods after they finally awoke, Ayer proved for me as well that this would be impossible. And so, I could only leave this plan as a backup plan.
But when Karwenz told me his goal of killing Cynthia and Astrya here in my world, my first reaction wasn't ”Should I kill them or not?” Instead, my first reaction was ”This is impossible.”
But right now, Karwenz was saying that it was possible to kill them. While I was astonished to hear this, I finally figured out what I had missed after analyzing all the information I had.
”Previously, when I analyzed the two Goddesses' combat strength, I calculated their power levels based on after their revivals. After all, that was the only record of them appearing and attacking in the game's history. But right now, they're nothing more than remnant souls attached to our bodies. Without the protection of their physical bodies, of course it will be possible to kill them.”
This new information brought new opportunities. If it wasn't for the fact that I had far too much on my plate, I should have figured this part out already right after I finally confirmed that my System was indeed Astrya, the Goddess of Order.
”…How are we supposed to kill them? Even in this dimension, their souls are indestructible.”
”Ha, but they're nothing more than souls right now. And, this dimension of yours is specially targeted for souls. Since the Tower of Death represents all souls here, it should be capable of stripping these two bastards off our bodies. The Tower of Ice is capable of giving physical bodies to the dead. In that case, just give them the weakest physical bodies possible and drag them into the void. This will be able to truly and completely kill them!”
The Creator Goddesses of Order and Chaos were the highest-level existences possible, only under the Creator Goddess Eich herself. But, my Four Pillars also had equivalent powers of Creation. This was basically a method of revival that I had never even considered. If the two Goddesses' remnant souls were forcefully revived by another method than originally planned, they would become mortal and naturally killable.
”Shut up! Today… today is your personal Armageddon!”
Karwenz's sudden angry shout surprised me, but the rage in his bloodshot eyes helped me to understand that he was actually roaring at the existence attached to himself—Cynthia!
My System continued to remain silent. However, I could sense a very rare emotion for her: fear.