361 Luxuriant Calamity
Platinum Province, in the depths of an underground karst cave about 300 kilometers away from Platinum City.
Countless curved smooth secret passages formed a network that covered the southeastern part of Platinum Province. Among them, one of the most obscure secret passages led to a huge building made of bronze.
There were no welded interfaces, and there were no traces of anyone etching the statue. This extremely large underground tower was made of massive amounts of bronze in one mold—it wasn’t just the building itself. Even the facilities and tools in the tower, as well as all kinds of living creatures, and even the residents of the tower were made of bronze.
This was the headquarters of the only department the empire’s officials allowed to carry out in-depth research on the Moon Realm.
The mysterious Obliteration Tower.
At the core of the Obliteration Tower was an extremely precise and complicated model. Its appearance and interior constantly changed at a dazzling speed.
A dissipated pupil hung high at the top of the entire model. The pure light source it projected was divided into countless shattered beams by the hole-filled shell. As for the beams, they were projected on a precise mechanism formed by seven interlocking parts and reflected 13 empty reflections again. They were stained by the oil membrane covering the mechanism and the shell, reflecting rainbow-like colors.
In front of the clock-like system, an old man covered in rust was rotating his inflexible joints and pulling the lever, adjusting something.
As he worked, he kept muttering, “Don’t be afraid, children. Facing this world model that’s closest to the truth, you can take a closer look. If you have any questions, you can ask them now.”
Behind him stood many apprentices who were also made of bronze. Behind each of them was clockwork that was spinning at an extremely slow speed.
“Lord Sage, according to the model built by the Tacma Church, the so-called Moon Realm is only an oil membrane reflection of the huge system, Currere. Then, why has the illusory Moon Realm always have had such a huge impact on the real Currere in history?” the apprentice in front asked after hesitating for a moment.
As the elder moved a few levers, a bronze pipe popped out beside the apprentice. It looked like a telescope.
“Real? What’s real? Do you still think that…”
As the elder spoke, he raised a finger and pointed at the precise mechanism that symbolized Currere in the middle of the system.
“Is that real? Just because it looks real? Don’t be silly, child. The objective and real world is just an illusion, a product of the Seven Holy Spirits trapping us. In the world, the only real thing is your thoughts. The only real world is the world you see.”
The telescope led straight to the dissipating pupil above the model. It symbolized the only point of view of Ma in the Tacma Church’s model.
In the Tacma Church’s philosophy, the truth of the world depended on the truth observed by everyone.
Through the telescope, the apprentice who asked the question saw that Currere had become strange under the distortion of the oil membrane that symbolized the Moon Realm.
“Do you understand now? What you can observe is the so-called truth. Tell me, what did you see from Ma’s point of view?” the old man asked.
This precise model, built with reference to the Tacma Church’s philosophy and connected to 24 Astral Lighthouses across the continent, could monitor the drastic changes in the Moon Realm and Currere at any time. It was an important channel for the empire’s Senate to obtain information about the Moon Realm and Currere.
The apprentice replied in confusion, “I… I see that the parts running the Second Holy Spirit system are stuck, and the reflection that symbolizes the Lady of Starvation is slowly fading. Sage, doesn’t this mean that Camilla is now resisting the Second Holy Spirit?”
“What did you say?!”
The elder pushed the apprentice away in shock and looked into the telescope. After a long time, he walked down with a solemn expression and turned to the bronze-armored guard at the door.
“Light up the encrypted teleportation spells with Platinum City immediately. Something big is about to happen in Ravenwood.”
…
The cries of newborns echoed throughout Ravenwood. It didn’t sound sharp or ear-piercing, but every existence with the concept of reproduction within the range of the sound couldn’t help but feel touched and terrified.
Although it was called a cry, every existence heard a different sound. What echoed in the ears of humans and Forest Elves were the cries of babies. The wild beasts in the forest heard the whimpers of cubs when they were born, and reptiles and birds heard the sound of eggshells shattering. As for the flowers and trees, they ‘heard’ the subtle sound of soil loosening.
At this moment, the concept of ‘birth’ exceeded the restrictions of different timelines and broke through the barriers of Currere and the Moon Realm. The concept of cutting off the Earth Mother’s umbilical cord spread throughout Currere thanks to William.
It’s the Luxuriant Calamity… Could it be that the person controlling the Void Incarnation wasn’t Camilla?
The Void Incarnation was essentially a Currere body that could withstand the power of a Moon Realm Void Sovereign. Although the incarnation itself needed to undergo many Moon Realm modifications to usher in the will of the Sovereign, its main body was still a creation of Currere—it could be the corpse of a hero, a city, a divine weapon, or even a day or a war.
For example, this incarnation of the Lady of Starvation in front of him was modified from Earth Mother’s manifestation. Naturally, this incarnation could also carry out the authority of Earth Mother.
After it was retrieved by the Second Order in an auxiliary manner, it could even direct Mother’s authority to Earth Mother.
For example, cutting the umbilical cord.
Upon hearing the familiar cries, William recalled some bad memories.
According to the Forest Elves’ worship of the Matriarch and the level of Her personality, once Camilla gave up control of this incarnation, She would become a complete disaster!
Calamity—it wasn’t external menaces to the Moon Realm, but direct, human tampering with the precise workings of Currere, upending the fragile equilibrium. This spawned a ruinous natural disaster.
The Luxuriant Calamity that symbolized Mother back then first spread to Ravenwood.
In terms of merit, there were only two instances that the Doomsday Watchers had done that could be truly considered saving the world—Sealing the Seven Calamities and resolving the Moon Realm crisis. And in this era when most people had forgotten about the Moon Realm, the Doomsday Watchers’ greatest achievement back then was sealing the Seven Calamities.
However, it was ironic that back then, it was clearly the Holy Spirits Church who created the Calamity through personification worship, but the final method of sealing the Calamity required taking personification to the limits, causing the disastrous Calamity to be completely bound to a specific person. Then, They could be defeated head-on, causing the out-of-control power to no longer be controlled by Their persona.
To those chosen, it was better to say that they were vessels that carried the power of the Holy Spirit than prophets or descenders.
Therefore, all of that was just a smokescreen. The Lady of Starvation’s true goal is to weaken the World Shell here by awakening Mother Calamity? William thought.
Compared to the Void Incarnation, the threat that Luxuriant Calamity could pose wasn’t that great, but the trouble She could cause was much greater.
Luxuriant Calamity, which symbolized endless vitality, was a mechanism BOSS in-game. If one didn’t have a weapon blessed by the Lady of Starvation and gave it the concept of ‘wear and tear,’ Her HP would be infinite.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t infinite. As it was bound to the Holy Spirit, Mother, killing the Calamity in a physical sense was equivalent to killing all life in Currere, including the killer.
However, if one used weapons like the Blade of Rot to give the concept of wear and tear, the Lady of Starvation could use this opportunity to open a huge Moon Realm rift, just like over a thousand years ago.
There was even a chance of opening a rift that could let the main body pass!
Retracing the infantile cries, William looked around at the subtrees, searching for the child he had ‘delivered.’
At this moment, an identical blurry figure appeared on every subtree whose umbilical cord had been severed by him. Then, they leaped to their ‘mother’ and overlapped their bodies against the rotten giantess. As they slowly fused, the newly born divine child revealed its true identity.
Although he was mentally prepared, William couldn’t help but sigh when the figure revealed its form.
“Nehe…”
His words didn’t cause the Forest Elf spirit that looked identical to Nehe to react at all. The other party was like an empty puppet, mechanically controlling the dozen or so subtrees to rise from the ground before…
It strode in the direction of White Bone Castle.
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