349 Rebirth Ritual
Silence…
So long… It was so long that it seemed to last forever.
The direction of entropic change was the arrowheads used by mortals to understand causal time, and in the Lake of Entropy, which reflected all concepts of aging, wear and tear, and corruption. If one used the mortal concepts in Currere to understand, the concepts of time here would, in a sense, advance to the last second before extinction.
Here were rotten corpses, spreading rot, aging bodies, the torture of hunger, declining countries, and fading emotions. It was the only path to the Ruin Demon God’s domain, the wilderness that symbolized the end of all things.
It was an eternal phantom infinitely close to the moment when time ended, yet never reaching that moment.
Therefore, as long as She didn’t use Her mighty strength to stir Currere and cause the ripples in Currere to cause changes to the Moon Realm, Camilla could even continue confronting Beatrice.
The two Moon Realm mighty figures were akin to sitting at the chessboard named Ravenwood like chess players. Their suspended hands didn’t proceed on to their next move for a long time.
After all, there was a chess piece on the chessboard that wouldn’t follow the will of any one of Them. All that was left was for Them to complete the next move in the game as he prepared to wreck the entire chess board to pieces.
It was obvious that this eternal existence—who wielded the authority to plot and betray—had planned all of this.
The dilemma She was in was caused by Her.
But even so, Camilla didn’t show any emotion.
“Why did you do that?” the Goddess of Rot and Starvation asked calmly without her previous impatience.
Beatrice restrained her faint smugness and replied in the same calm tone, “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you this question? Why did you rack your brains and spend so much effort to change Ravenwood’s timeline to your true origin? I was just testing you. I didn’t expect you to really agree… For a Moon Realm Sovereign, are the gains from this matter worth betting your eternity?”
“It’s for killing the Moon Realm Calamity and obtaining Currere’s Precept…” Camilla replied, but…
“Enough, are you trying to say that you predicted his birth 4,000 years in advance? Or did you know that he would return to Currere 1,008 years in advance?” Beatrice interrupted.
Regarding this, Camilla looked at the two destroyed eyes on the other party’s face and said, “Of course not. After all, even you, who’s proficient in weaving the future, couldn’t ‘foresee’ the return of the Calamity, right?”
With that said, the Goddess of Corruption was relieved to see the other party’s remaining six eyes flicker.
This was a sign of emotional upheaval.
“Don’t bother playing a game of rhetoric with me. Not daring to answer my questions directly won’t hide your true intentions. Instead, it will only make you look guilty… Camilla, I forged you. Do you really think I can’t guess your intentions?” Beatrice’s tone suddenly turned cold.
Raising this trivial matter didn’t prove anything. Hence, Camilla retorted, “Don’t think that I’m like you—never taking action without devising a plan that’s destined to fail. This was insurance I left behind when I advanced, even if I didn’t expect it to be effective today.”
“I’ve always felt that you were too obsessed with the Forest Elves. You’ve clearly become an immortal Void Sovereign and obtained the authority of ‘wear and tear’ that’s most suitable for expanding your influence, but you’d invested so much energy in Ravenwood. This is very puzzling, isn’t it?” Beatrice didn’t plan on arguing about this. Instead, she diverted the topic to something that didn’t make sense.
“Why? Are you saying that everything I did was just to take revenge on the Forest Elves? Just because I was tortured and enslaved by their ancestors when I was a mortal, and my entire race was blasphemed and destroyed?” Camilla said as if She found it funny, “You were also elevated to immortality from a mortal. You should know this better than anyone. A Void Sovereign who forges an Immortal Throne after rebirth and transcends causal time will never be controlled by incomplete lines of thinking that only belong to mortals.”
To Void Sovereigns who had transcended causal time, mortals’ thoughts based on causal time and the series of concepts derived from it were as laughable as blind people touching an elephant to figure out the truth.
If it weren’t for the fact that Currere could only record one possibility and was as firm as a rock under the influence of the Holy Spirits, They wouldn’t even need to mold a limited persona from Their infiniteness as a medium to project Their strength.
Taking ten thousand steps back, even if Camilla really planned on taking revenge, it was only to destroy a race with a population of less than a million. Was there a need to go to such lengths?
“Who said that the last bit of humanity you have left is to take revenge on the Forest Elves?” Beatrice waited quietly for the other party to finish speaking before speaking slowly. “I’ve been wondering a long time ago why you asked for the Seed of Hope as your remuneration when we signed a contract with Blackwater Swamp’s duke.
“Of course, you could say that you did this to support that Judge to become the 13th Void Sovereign, but you and I both know how low the probability of that Crowman succeeding is when Zamara took away the last soul fragment.”
Camilla didn’t say anything else and lowered Her head silently.
“Helping Coles advance was just a ruse. Your true goal was to use this to complete that miracle that even we can’t achieve, right?”
Upon hearing this, the Goddess of Corruption suddenly looked up.
At some point, the entire sky above the Lake of Entropy was covered by a huge and complicated spiderweb.
“Beatrice, how dare you?!” As Camilla growled, the entire Lake of Entropy boiled.
At the same time, the entire Currere, especially Ravenwood in the two timelines, began to undergo drastic changes.
“Do you know that the most difficult step in weaving a conspiracy is to guess the other party’s true motives? This is also why I’ve always been at odds with that lunatic… And once I grasp the true motives, anyone—no matter who they are—can be easily played.”
Ignoring the other party’s threat, Beatrice continued, “Your motive was to revive your child from the beginning. Since the Seed of Hope has already been consumed by the Calamity, all you can do is reincarnate a second time and use the authority of Earth Mother to fuse them with you again and be with you forever.
“Correction, it should be ‘children,’ not ‘child.’ After all, two of the three souls you preserved in the soul box back then have firmly rejected the chance to return, right? Now, only Floral is left… Oh? Do you really plan on bearing the punishment of breaking the contract while fighting me while the contract is still in effect?”
Countless Lunar Monsters appeared from the Lake of Entropy. They followed the raised Moon Realm path and swarmed the huge net woven by the Whispering Empress.
However, the staggering Lunar Monsters were like flying insects ensnared by a spiderweb. They failed to destroy much of the net before being stuck and losing their mobility.
The net of conspiracies was dissipating, but it was very, very slow.
Too much of Camilla’s power was projected in Currere. Coupled with the backlash of the punishment for taking the initiative to attack Her contracted allies, She couldn’t suppress Beatrice, who was an outsider, even in Her domain.
“So what do you plan on doing after putting in so much effort? Just to watch a joke?” Camilla, whose entire body burned with black flames because She had violated the contract, questioned.
“From the moment you were born, weaving a conspiracy that has lasted for 5,000 years based on Currere time was the goal in itself. The other things were just in passing…” Beatrice sounded smug again. “However, as you said, the insurance back then has brought about considerable gains. A chance to kill the Moon Realm Calamity and, more importantly, severely injure Steelheart Widow Aiur…”
As She spoke, countless incalculable changes began to appear in the spiderweb in the sky.
“Do you still remember your advancement ritual back then?” Beatrice asked.
The advancement ritual of the Goddess of Starvation and Corruption, the master of the wear and tear authority.
Origin of the Moon—it symbolized supreme vitality, the Oak Heart that could allow inanimate objects to obtain life; it symbolized initial death. After collecting enough death records, it could prevent a certain person from being born at the source, completely erasing the other party’s existence as an Unborn Fetus.
The executor of the ascension ritual had to be a person who could represent a race, country, or culture itself. Moreover, they had to be bound to the laws of Currere by becoming an Authority holder.
As for the main body of the ritual, it was to use the Unborn Fetus to erase oneself when the race, country, or culture represented by the executor—other than the executor himself—was completely destroyed. At the same time, one could use the Oak Heart to give life to the symbol they left behind and replace their identity.
The trigger of the ritual was the executor’s complete suicide.
“Next, when the Calamity begins to converge the two timelines, the Oak Heart and the Unborn Fetus will reunite. I will guide the arrows of causality and other methods to kill Floral. As for you, use the connection between the Withering Throne and the World Tree to devour her soul and become Earth Mother again to obtain a chance of rebirth.
“Then, use the Unborn Fetus to completely kill your Void Incarnation that still has your will. At the same time, destroy the Ironstone Oath that unfolded in that incarnation. Perhaps it can even eliminate the Moon Realm Calamity. If his reaction is slow enough… turn the tree whose will has been erased into an empty shell. Only then can you completely escape the remnant mortal influence and become a Rebirth Sovereign that’s close to a Newborn’s way of thinking.”
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