Mystery: The Undead Don't Die from Linking the Fire

"A country in disarray..."

Rosell muttered to himself silently, his expression extremely solemn.

If it were just a Sequence 2 angel escaping with the unique 'Judgment' pathway, it would cause some trouble, but it could still be managed. However, once this matter involves Source Matter, the nature of the situation completely changes!

The former's trouble lies in the process of finding people, while the latter's trouble stems from the "disordered country" itself.

The higher the sequence, the closer it is to the original, and the more easily it is contaminated.

For example, at lower sequences, extraordinary individuals will generally be unaffected as long as they strictly adhere to the role-playing method. However, at mid-to-high sequences, role-playing alone is insufficient to mitigate the risk of loss of control; ritual assistance is also necessary. By employing both methods, the risk of loss of control can still be kept to a low level.

Once one reaches the level of an angel, one must begin to use faith to fight against 'divinity' and the restoration of the original nature.

This is a gradual process, and it also reveals the fact that any extraordinary being with a path sequence of 2 or higher has the potential to become the vessel of the original resurrection.

Normally, they can use the power of faith to fight against the primordial state, which has not yet fully recovered. But once they rashly approach the source matter, the primordial state will be stimulated by the source matter and recover at an extremely rapid pace, and even the gods are not exempt!

The reason is quite simple—

The higher the sequence, the closer it is to the original.

This sequence does not refer to the extraordinary being, but rather to the 'extraordinary characteristic'. The reason why the extraordinary being becomes the vessel for the original resurrection is because it contains a sufficiently high sequence of extraordinary characteristics!

The source substance is "Sequence-1", which is located at the apex of all "extraordinary characteristics" and is at a higher level than Sequence 0.

Therefore, in a sense, the source matter itself is equivalent to a part of the original.

If the extraordinary being is strong enough to reach the Sequence 0 level and has completely digested the Sequence 0 potion, then it can indeed try to continue absorbing the source matter. Although this process requires fighting against the increasingly active primordial will, it is unlikely to completely lose control.

In this way, He can use faith to gradually wear down the primordial will within the source matter, thereby gaining control over it.

However, if an extraordinary being's level is not yet at Sequence 0, or has just become Sequence 0 and has not yet completed digesting the potion, then it is possible for them to be completely controlled by the primordial will within the source matter.

In this respect, the "Primordial" treats all extraordinary beings equally, even the true God.

This means that while the true god desperately desires the source matter, he is also extremely wary of it.

Therefore, the Lord of Steam is currently busy digesting the uniqueness of the 'Hermit' pathway. He may send the Steam Church to search for relevant clues in the Wilderness of Knowledge, but He will never approach this source. Only after He has digested the 'Hermit' pathway will He make any further attempts.

The same applies to the Goddess of Night. Her pressure is even greater than that of the Lord of Steam because she needs to simultaneously digest the uniqueness of both the God of Death and the God of War paths. Therefore, she will not approach the River of Eternal Darkness during this period.

For example, the True Creator had enough time, thousands of years, to fully digest the potion. The Forsaken Land was located in the region closest to the Chaos Sea. Yet, even so, the True Creator did not rashly venture into the Chaos Sea, nor did He attempt to contain or control it, precisely because He was well aware of the dangers of the Source Matter.

Even though the true creator had obtained the "First Profane Tablet" with the help of the embers, He still did not go directly to the Chaos Sea. Instead, He used the "First Profane Tablet" to indirectly draw upon the power of the Chaos Sea for His own purposes.

Ultimately, it was because He was not confident that He could completely suppress the resurgence of the primordial will while approaching the Chaos Sea.

Of all the source materials, the relationship between the "Source Castle" and Klein is the most unique, without exception.

On one hand, Klein's original destiny should have been to become a Sequence 1 angel immediately upon "birth," and then have his body immediately possessed by the will of the resurrected "Celestial Venerable." Following that, the resurrected Celestial Venerable would use the power of the Source Castle with the strength of Sequence 1, thereby gradually reclaiming authority, first becoming the "Fool" of Sequence 0, and then accommodating the "Gate" and "Error" pathways, becoming the "Lord of Mysteries" once again.

In theory, this process should go incredibly smoothly.

Because the Celestial Venerable is the master of the Source Castle, and also the master of the extraordinary characteristics corresponding to the three pathways of the Source Castle, He does not need to "digest" the process. As long as He obtains the extraordinary characteristics, He can immediately transform them into His own strength.

Furthermore, the "Celestial Venerable" can use the "Source Castle" to locate the positions of other extraordinary characteristics, thus skipping the investigation and search process and directly finding Zarathustra and the half of the "Fool" of the Antigonus family in one step. The whole process will not take more than a day.

Become a fool in one day, then spend another day hunting Amun, and become a dual-path true god.

Then on the third day, a ritual is performed to summon Mr. Gate, to hunt and acquire His extraordinary properties, and to return to the past.

From the Celestial Venerable's resurrection to becoming the Lord of Mysteries, the entire process took less than three days—of course, this is the ideal scenario.

However, even if the Celestial Venerable had truly revived from the beginning, he would inevitably have encountered tremendous resistance, because no being would turn a blind eye to the Celestial Venerable's revival.

For example, the goddess of the night.

Prior to this, Zarathustra and half of the Fool had been imprisoned by the Goddess of Night, and their extraordinary abilities were all her possession. If the Celestial Venerable were to actually attempt to seize these two extraordinary abilities, the Goddess of Night would surely intervene to stop him.

And that is indeed the case; in fact, the Goddess of Night did it even more thoroughly than any other being could have imagined!

From the outset, He separated Klein from the "Curtain," who possessed Sequence 1 Extraordinary trait, thereby thwarting the Celestial's chance of resurrection. The Curtain was the Curtain, and Klein was Klein; the Celestial could no longer resurrect directly from Klein's body, and this led to another consequence—

On one hand, the Celestial Venerable failed to revive within Klein's body, and the plan was thwarted.

On the other hand, Klein was indeed born from the 'Source Castle', and the Celestial Venerable attempted to revive within him, which resulted in Klein being recognized as the master of the 'Source Castle' upon his rebirth, and thus possessing control over the 'Source Castle'.

Although Klein couldn't fully control the Source Castle due to his insufficient strength, and initially could only use the gray mist spreading around the Source Castle, it was more than enough for a low-sequence Extraordinary.

After all, there is only one person in history who can possess a 'source essence' even at Sequence 9, or even before becoming an extraordinary being!

This kind of experience is something you can't envy, and it can't be replicated.

For other extraordinary beings, they can only honestly progress from Sequence 9 all the way up to Sequence 0 before they can try to access and contain the source matter.

Rosell, however, clearly does not meet this condition.

He wasn't the Black Emperor yet; he was just an ordinary "Prince of the Killing Order."

Therefore, even though he had learned of the defenses of the "Land of Chaos," he dared not go there rashly. Otherwise, with his current strength, which was not even at Sequence 0, approaching the "Land of Chaos" would only result in him being controlled by the remaining primordial will within it.

However, this would make it almost impossible for Roselle to obtain the uniqueness of the "0-02" judge's path.

As for whether what the Earth Mother Goddess said was true, Roselle had no doubt whatsoever.

Despite the Church of the Night having taken complete control of the Church of War, the Church of the Earth Mother is far superior to the Church of the Night in terms of understanding the Church of War! After all, how long has the Church of the Night been in control of the Church of War? Less than half a month!

For thousands of years, the Church of the Earth Mother and the Church of the God of War have maintained a good relationship. After all, the Earth Mother has always disguised herself as the God of War's mother, and the God of War has always believed that she is his mother. Therefore, during the War of the Oath, the God of War firmly stood on the side of the Earth Mother.

In this situation, it is normal for both sides to share information, including the sealed artifacts they each possess.

"Tsk!"

Roselle cursed his bad luck inwardly. He had thought that His luck would improve after His resurrection. But now it seemed that His luck was still as bad as ever... He was tricked by Zarathustra in the first half of His life, and then tricked one after another by Mr. Door, the Steam Church, and the Twilight Hermits, and finally tricked to the moon, setting two world records: "Shortest-lived angel" and "Fastest fallen god"—from becoming an angel to falling, it was less than twenty years.

Now that it has finally been revived, it was thought that it could grow bigger and stronger and create new glories, but it got stuck at the first step.

How presumptuous of me!

Russell was inwardly puzzled, but outwardly remained calm, only putting on a somewhat serious expression.

Nothing more than practice, don't cue me.

Seeing that Rosell seemed to have no other needs, Saint Irina said softly:

"The goddess needs a drop of water from the River of Eternal Darkness."

Ember thought for a moment and asked:

Where is the River of Eternal Darkness?

"Calderon," Irina replied simply and directly.

Klein's eyes flickered slightly, because he had been to Calderon before!

When he was promoted to Sequence 4, "Trickster," the two main ingredients he needed to concoct potions were the main eye of a trickster monster and the true soul of a spirit raider.

The former is obtained with the help of the 'Sun', while the Spirit Realm Raiders are creatures that live deep within the Spirit Realm, are few in number, and are very difficult to find.

According to the intelligence Klein gathered from various sources, there was only one place where their activities were definitively confirmed: the city of Calderon in the spirit world.

Therefore, Klein personally went to Calderon, deep within the spirit world, to hunt spirit raiders.

Irina explained in detail:

"The name Calderon comes from the first angel of the Abraham family to enter, which in the language of the dead means unknown spirit. Its former name was the City of the Dead, the earthly kingdom of Greta Garley, the progenitor of the phoenix."

"Since He created the underworld, His divine kingdom moved there, and the city of the dead gradually became a holy site for His descendants and believers. Before Greta was shattered by the ancient sun god, He uprooted the city and threw it into the depths of the spirit world."

"The Fool" Klein asked thoughtfully:

Why is the River of Eternal Darkness in Calderon?

Irina explained gently:

"Because as early as the Second Age, the River of Eternal Darkness had already given birth to a tributary through Greygardy beneath Calderon. Once the River of Eternal Darkness is freed, it will be drawn to this tributary, heading towards the area where the tributary is located, and merging with it."

Klein looked enlightened, but also a little scared. Did that mean he had danced on the head of the River of Eternal Darkness?

At that time, he was only Sequence 5. If he had gone deep into Calderon to hunt down Spirit Realm Raiders, he might have come into direct contact with this Source Matter, and the consequences would have been unimaginable!

Klein fell into deep thought. As the master of the 'Source Castle,' he was probably the only one with a high sequence and the ability to resist other source matter contamination. Among those present, no one was more suitable to complete this mission than him, so sending him to Calderon was the safest and most likely to succeed.

But in fact, there is someone here who is more suitable to do this task than him.

Ember slowly spoke:

"I'll go."

"Just one drop of river water?"

"Um."

Irina nodded gently and said softly:

"The goddess is not yet in a state to fully digest the entire river; for now, she only needs a drop of river water as a medium."

After speaking, Irina took out one antique-style ornament after another from the boundless darkness around her, placed them on the mottled long table, and added:

"This item can be used to hold the water of the River of Eternal Darkness."

The ornament appears to be made of gold, shaped like a slender bird surrounded by wings made of pale flames, and its bronze eyes shimmer with layers of light, as if hiding one illusory door after another.

Klein examined the bird-shaped gold ornament closely.

This looks like the legendary phoenix progenitor, Grey Garley, and should have some connection with the real Grey Garley, or even with the River of Eternal Darkness, otherwise it could not serve as a medium to carry the River of Eternal Darkness.

According to Klein's understanding, the ancient god Phoenix Ancestor once held authority over the "Grim Reaper" and "Gate" pathways, but it was probably not the complete "Gate" pathway; he only possessed partial authority.

To simultaneously accommodate two non-adjacent paths is, in the eyes of modern people, almost a prime example of suicidal behavior.

But this was all too common in the Second Period.

After all, before the first 'Desecrating Tablet' appeared, no supernatural being had the concept of a sequence pathway; they only had the instinct for aggregation and reproduction, and blind experimentation. Perhaps it was because of the 'Death' pathway's high-sequence 'spirit traversal' ability that Greta attempted to fuse with the 'Gate' pathway, which also possessed the ability of 'spirit traversal'.

But this did not enhance His power; instead, He became extremely prone to losing control, constantly oscillating between madness and reason.

This is true for almost all eight ancient gods, with the only exception being Lilith, the progenitor of the vampires.

According to various historical records, the vampires are the most rational of all the extraordinary races in the Second Era, and the vampire progenitor Lilith is the strongest, capable of fighting two opponents at once without being at a disadvantage.

Thinking of this, Klein secretly glanced at Lilith, the Earth Mother.

The fact that the other party was able to avoid absorbing extraordinary characteristics from other pathways clearly indicates that they have a certain understanding of 'pathways' and 'sequences'. (End of Chapter)