838 The main character of a dark-themed light novel!? (2/2)

Going deeper down this topic would involve what exactly a Spirit Vein was and how it worked.

However, Sayaka didn't know this.

All she knew was that the Dragon Vein was somehow related to the Tendo Family members' spiritual abilities, bloodline talents, and origin. She didn't know any more specifics about the Dragon Vein.

Back to the issue of sin energy.

”If my feelings and memories are correct, this is an incredibly important discovery,” Sayaka stated in a serious tone. ”A tremendous amount of negative energy is hidden within the Tendo Family's Dragon Vein. Under certain conditions, this energy might be activated with explosive, destructive, and catastrophic consequences. And, this energy was created by the negative influence of the spiritual ability users that the Spirit Vein supports. The more spiritual ability users are connected to a Spirit Vein, and the larger the amount of time that passes, the more this negative energy will accumulate.

”Judging from this, not only will the Tendo Family have such an issue, the other six major families and any other faction with a longstanding inheritance will also have such hidden problems with their Spirit Veins.”

A negative energy created from accumulated sins. A retribution caused by so many sinful actions over the years… This all sounded like a physical materialization of the phrase ”evil will be punished”.

Was this a good thing?

If this retribution only worked against the sinners or the sinning faction, then of course it would be a good thing. Seiji wouldn't care one bit about those bastards' deaths.

However, that wasn't how things actually worked. The moment that the ”retribution” occurred, it wouldn't care about the targets whatsoever!

A few people were committing evil deeds, but countless innocents would become victims as a result… That was just how messed up things were.

Seiji could only sigh after a long period of silence.

Although the details were still unclear, at least he now had an idea of how the Catastrophe Goddess had been created.

The next problem was how to defeat her.

The first solution: defeat her directly.

”In my opinion, forcefully trying to defeat that existence will be nothing more than a temporary solution,” Sayaka remarked. ”According to my theory, that Catastrophe Goddess's true identity is the sins of the Tendo Family. Even if you can temporarily defeat her, she will always be reborn as long as the Tendo Family still exists. This would have still been fine if being reborn required a long period of time. But as you just told me, a special environment called the Realm of Cherry Blossoms has appeared. It seems likely that the Catastrophe Goddess won't need very long to be reborn.”

The second solution: expiate the Tendo Family's sins.

”Expiating the sins will be the foundational cure to the problem. However, since the Tendo Family's sins have accumulated to the extent of taking physical form, expiating the sins will doubtlessly be extremely difficult. And even if this is achievable, it will definitely require a tremendous sacrifice.”

By a tremendous sacrifice, she basically meant that people would die.

The spiritual ability user hosting the expiation ritual would absolutely die for certain! This would be the same even if one of the strongest individuals in Sakura Island hosted the expiation ritual. It was also likely that many of the supporting spiritual ability users participating in the ritual would also be sacrificed.

And even if there was a group of spiritual ability users that were all willing to sacrifice themselves to expiate the Tendo Family's sins in the form of the Catastrophe Goddess, how to arrange and achieve such an expiation ritual would also be a problem. This was because the Catastrophe Goddess definitely wouldn't obediently sit still and let others expiate her. Just limiting her movements alone would be incredibly difficult. This would be even more difficult than just defeating her.

In conclusion, expiating the Catastrophe Goddess would be immensely difficult to the point of almost being impossible.

The third solution: sealing.

Just like defeating the Catastrophe Goddess, this was another method that wouldn't deal with the foundational problem. This would be more difficult than defeating her, but less difficult than expiating. Still, it would be highly difficult.

And, there would still be a sacrifice required for sealing away the Catastrophe Goddess.

”A jinchuriki. That's the solution the most likely to succeed as far as I can tell,” Sayaka said in a soft voice.

”A jinchuriki…” Seiji instantly recalled this term from Naruto. ”Could you be referring to…”

”Yes, a jinchuriki will use a host with high spiritual abilities to seal the Catastrophe Goddess within that person's body. That person's soul will act as the lock sealing her away,” Sayaka explained. ”The host, or the jinchuriki, will suffer immense pain as well as bear the risk of death at any moment. The host will need to have incredibly powerful mental spirit and will, and since the Catastrophe Goddess is the materialization of the Tendo Family's sins, the best host for it would be a member of the Tendo Family. For instance, that boy from before—the body that Kungo temporarily took over would make an excellent host. However, just him alone would probably be unable to completely seal away the Catastrophe Goddess. Multiple additional Tendo Family members similar to him in terms of talent would probably all be required to act as the hosts.”

Seiji was once again rendered speechless.