Goddess Kaleidoscope

Now that we know the giant tree needs maintenance, new questions arise: how should it be maintained? What nutrients does it require? These questions seem to be hinted at in the allegory given by the mysterious being.

The gods of the dead will guide the souls to the Land of Origin to receive their final judgment... This reminded Rud of some myths about the afterlife on Earth.

What happens after death? Where does the soul go?

Regarding this question, various religions on the other side of the world have a variety of myths, yet they are largely similar. They all essentially tell the same thing: good people go to heaven to enjoy blessings, while evil people go to hell to suffer, emphasizing the principle of cause and effect, rewarding good and punishing evil.

When Lud heard that the Red Crows, a prehistoric civilization that existed more than 10,000 years ago, also had similar myths, he was not surprised at all.

Based on the information they had, Lud and Kumirard speculated that the maintenance of the Fire Tree probably required a deity specifically in charge of death, who would guide the souls of the dead into the Fire Land to receive the so-called "final judgment." In this process, the Fire Tree would also absorb the nutrients it needed to maintain its vigorous growth.

However, out of caution, Ludwig decided to conduct an experiment first to see how things went.

Lude first summoned Ahdai and asked her if she had the ability to guide the souls of the dead. She gave an affirmative answer, which seemed to be a unique characteristic of the god of "death".

After a person dies in this world, their soul, detached from their body, will continue to exist in the world for about seven days before completely dissipating. A small number of souls with strong obsessions or powerful spiritual abilities, such as magicians, have a very high probability of transforming into undead, just like Eliven, who works under Lud.

Under normal circumstances, gods are the natural nemesis of the undead. Let alone being hit by divine magic, just getting too close to a god can cause these undead to be reduced to ashes in an instant.

But Ah-Dai, being the Grim Reaper, is different from other gods. It was only after Rude took her into his home that he accidentally discovered that Ah-Dai could not only contact the dead, but also had a domineering aura that was particularly effective against undead creatures, causing Elijah to subconsciously submit to her.

In addition, Ah-Dai was also very interested in Elijah's ancestral magical pendant. After playing with it for a while, he simply squeezed his little hand and "molded" an identical gem out of thin air, which could also be used by undead creatures to hide inside and rest.

This major discovery directly revealed the origin of the Eliven family's ancestral treasure, which was likely created by a previous generation of Death.

So, to conduct a test, Lude assigned Ah-Dai a task, with Elijah and Shanes assisting her: to search for some "fresh" souls in nearby towns. The gems on the pendant could temporarily preserve these souls whose bodies had already died, and this seemed to be the original purpose of the ancient pendant.

The two gods and one ghost went out for about ten days and reaped quite a rich harvest.

Don't be fooled by the apparent peace in the northern region of the kingdom; birth, aging, sickness, and death are natural laws, and some unlucky souls can even choke to death while drinking cold water. Therefore, in large towns with populations of hundreds of thousands, it's normal for seven or eight people to die every day. The group easily brought back several hundred dead souls, as well as two spirits subdued by Ah Dai's "aura of dominance."

If left unattended, these souls will soon vanish into nothingness, and their consciousness will generally be impaired, existing in a semi-conscious state. Even Ah-Dai and Elijah are "superior" to them; they can be easily abducted with a mere snap of their fingers.

Carrying these souls, Lud and his party once again arrived at the entrance to the Land of Fire.

This time, even Kumirad came along. Although she still couldn't enter the Land of Fire, she could at least see how Ah Dai led these souls in at the gate, which would be helpful to her research.

Once everything was ready, Lud had Elijah release the souls of the dead that had been contained within the pendant. In an instant, the open space in front of the entrance became crowded with people, and semi-transparent ghostly figures wandered everywhere. There were men, women, and children, as if they were all sleepwalking.

At this moment, Ah-Dai took out a bell he had prepared beforehand and shook it gently. The previously idle souls instantly looked at Ah-Dai and followed him into the Land of Fire. The powerful barrier that could keep even gods out did not hinder these fragile souls in the slightest.

Soon, all of these hundreds of souls entered the land of fire, and Lud followed closely behind, observing silently.

At the entrance, Kumirad and the three undead all tried, but only Elaine was able to get in.

Kumirad was not surprised by the result, while the other two temporarily recruited undead were completely bewildered.

What's this? Is it a rejection because of being ugly?

Inside the land of the fire, the souls that had been guided in quickly arrived in front of the giant tree, and then, some sitting and some lying down, they all automatically and consciously moved closer to the roots.

Lude, who was observing from the side, noticed that most of the spirits had a peaceful expression on their faces, as if they were having a sweet dream. Their spiritual bodies gradually became transparent and then turned into specks of light and merged into the giant tree.

A few of the departed souls reacted with apparent pain, their mouths agape and eyes closed as if enduring torture. After dissipating, these beings would decompose into a small amount of light and some black mist, which would also be indiscriminately absorbed by the giant tree.

After all the hundreds of souls had disappeared, Lude deliberately went into the tree hole to take a look at the large tumor inside. To the naked eye, it didn't seem to have changed much, but after touching it, Ah-Dai said that the tumor had indeed shrunk a little, it just wasn't visible on the outside.

"So this is what they call the final judgment?"

Leaving the tree hollow, Lude found Elijah, who had followed him in, standing under the giant tree, gazing absently at its towering canopy. A hand rose and fell uneasily, as if she were struggling with something.

"What's wrong, Elijah?"

“Master. This big tree… it seems to be asking me if I want to go there…”

"Is the giant tree calling you?"

"Hmm, but it feels more like a question, letting me choose for myself."

"Come out with us first."

Sensing that Elijah's condition was somewhat off, Lud didn't dare linger in the Fireseed Land and quickly retreated.

Upon seeing this, Kumirad, who was waiting outside, quickly asked what was going on inside.

"Just as we predicted, the method to maintain the Fire Tree is to continuously send in the souls of the dead. However, this is a task that gods generally cannot perform, and it is exclusively the responsibility of the Grim Reaper. The so-called final judgment seems to be more like decomposing those souls. The good parts are nutrients that can be absorbed by the tree, while the bad parts are residues that will form large tumors inside the tree cavity. In other words, if we want that tree to grow healthily, we still need to send in as many good souls as possible."

Having finally figured out the correct way to maintain the giant tree, Lud's next actions naturally had a direction. In his understanding, if the Fire Seed Giant Tree was likened to a server supporting the normal operation of the entire world, then Death was the designated "maintenance" of this server, because other gods simply did not have the authority to enter the "server room".

It's worth mentioning that when Ah-Dai and Ikaven were sharing a body, Ah-Dai was actually able to leave the Fire Seed Land while she controlled the body. However, the little guy just squatted under the big tree and stared blankly until Lud appeared.

However, to guide a sufficient number of souls into the Land of Fire, Ah-Dai alone was far from enough. Therefore, he needed to recruit a large number of souls to work for him, and even required the help of other gods.

So Lud summoned the three gods to his side for a meeting again. He first explained the correct maintenance method and hoped that the three gods would agree to help Ah-Dai establish faith in the mortal world. At the same time, the three religions would jointly establish a "soul-sending mechanism".

The three gods did not object to the mechanism of sending away the dead. After all, the remnants of a person's soul are meant to dissipate after death, and sending them to the Fireseed Land to be absorbed by the giant tree couldn't be considered a cruel act. Moreover, judging from Eliven's reaction in the Fireseed Land, the souls that were decomposed and absorbed by the giant tree probably didn't completely disappear, but were transferred elsewhere. Although Eliven didn't choose to go in, she sensed the presence of the giant tree when it extended an invitation to her.

That is a "paradise" where the soul can find eternal peace!

However, the three gods were somewhat hesitant about establishing a death god faith for Ah-Dai.

Because fundamentally, Ah-Dai and Ikaven are gods created by the ratmen, and they were created using the most bloody and evil method: sacrifice. The gods went to great lengths to seal them away, and now you, Lu, are trying to whitewash them with a single sentence? This is emotionally difficult for the gods to accept.

"You're quite the character for creating gods, aren't you? Just make up a new Grim Reaper to replace her."

The God of War's suggestion was immediately approved by the Goddess of the Four Seasons. Although the Holy Lord of Light, Karius, did not nod, it was not difficult to see from his furrowed brows and thoughtful expression that he also regarded Ah Dai as a potential threat and was worried that she would pose a threat to mortals.

However, Lude felt that while creating a new Grim Reaper would be safer and more reliable, and would be easier for the gods to accept emotionally, the problem was that creating a new god from scratch would require time to cultivate. Therefore, from an efficiency standpoint, it was definitely not as good as directly using Adai, the existing eighth-order Grim Reaper.

Another point is that Ah-Dai has already gained the approval of the Fire Tree. If Lud goes to great lengths to create a new Grim Reaper, but the Fire Tree doesn't recognize him, that would be an awkward situation.

Finally, Kumirard offered a compromise: give Ah-Dai a trial period, allowing her to assume the responsibility of maintaining the giant tree as the God of Death, but without establishing a religious sect for her in the mortal realm for the time being. After all, as an eighth-tier deity, Ah-Dai's current divine power, even with only expenditure and no return, should be enough for several hundred years. Once she had served for a while and gained the approval of the gods through her performance, it wouldn't be too late to help her establish her own sect. This plan was unanimously approved by the three gods.

With this plan in mind, Lude then approached Adai and asked her if she was willing to accept it.

Ah-Dai didn't have any objections. The little girl was very quiet and just nodded obediently.

Ikavin, on the other hand, was indignant after hearing this. He said that making Ah Dai work for free and not giving him any benefits was just bullying an honest person.

"Plenty of snacks! That's the benefit that can be delivered immediately right now."

"Oh! That's not bad."

In short, Adai's work didn't require much explanation from Frud; the next step was to recruit a batch of undead to join the company.

However, the recruitment did not go as smoothly as expected, because most of the undead were not in as good a mental state as Eliven. The better ones were just neurotic, and it was not impossible to get them back to normal by giving them a place to sleep. The key was that the generation mechanism of the undead resulted in a very high proportion of evil spirits. You could not even have rational communication with them, and you could only let Ludger do the humane extermination.

As a result, after more than a month, only twelve undead, including Elijah, successfully passed the interview and joined the company. Lude had them conduct a trial operation in the area surrounding Pine Town in the northern border of the kingdom for a period of time. Although not many people die here on a daily basis, the total number is definitely not enough, but fewer people also have their advantages, making it easier for Lude to monitor them in real time.

The official title of these ghost messengers is "Messenger of the Dead." They first undergo a "baptism" by the Grim Reaper, essentially completing their official induction process, and receive a three-piece set of professional equipment: a black cloak that grants immunity to sunlight and significantly reduces their presence, a scepter with a soul-guiding wind chime, and a gem that can house and collect the souls of the dead. The three major religions have also jointly issued a divine decree, instructing their clergy not to harm these undead possessing special equipment—they are now officially employed ghosts!

These ghost messengers have only one task: to go to their assigned territories, collect the souls of those who have recently died, and then send them to the gate of the underground fire-spark, where Ah-Dai will be responsible for seeing them off on their final journey.

Generally, unless death is caused by a sudden accident, living people will begin to emit an aura of death before their lives come to an end. The dead are extremely sensitive to this aura and can easily find fresh souls. Furthermore, the dead move extremely fast at night, not only ignoring obstacles but also teleporting within a certain distance.

This is why ghosts are particularly good at scaring people, because they can suddenly jump out from any position and get right next to you. No matter how brave you are, you can't take this kind of thing a few times.

According to Lu De's estimate, a jurisdiction with a population of one million only needs to arrange three messengers of the dead to take turns. If a special event such as a war or disaster breaks out and causes mass deaths, some of the ghost messengers can be temporarily transferred to form a special team to take charge.

Lude plans to adopt the "underworld model" from Earth, and even, if there are enough "ghost hands" in the future, it would be best to screen the souls sent down, weeding out the bad ones and sending only the good ones in, to prevent the tumor in the tree hole from growing bigger and bigger. However, to realize this idea on a global scale, the existing twelve messengers of the dead are far from enough.

Thanks to the newly appointed "King Yama," the Fire Tree finally received maintenance a thousand years in the making. However, Lu De knew that with the existing methods, they could at most prevent the tree's condition from deteriorating further. The tumor in the tree hole seemed to still be eroding the tree itself. Without finding a way to get rid of it, the problem wouldn't be fundamentally solved.

Regarding the cause of this tumor, Lud speculated that it was related to the "sealing" event three hundred years ago, which was when the gods worked together to open a hole and then forcibly stuffed the rat-man gods (Adai and Ikaven) into the land of fire.

At the time, the Twins were in a berserk state. Tens of millions of lives, sacrificed in a cruel blood sacrifice, had been transformed into vengeful spirits. While granting them immense divine power, their divine bodies also served as vessels for an astonishing amount of negative emotions. Thus, when the Twins entered the Land of Fire, these vengeful spirits they carried were absorbed by the giant tree. Although this inadvertently healed the tree, extending its lifespan by three hundred years, the healed spirits were poisonous. The massive amount of negative energy formed tumors within the tree, continuously corroding it.

Theoretically speaking, removing this tumor is not difficult; all you need to do is feed it more "high-quality souls." Ah-Dai has personally tested and proven this, showing that letting the giant tree absorb the souls of good people can indeed shrink the tumor.

But the key problem is... this tumor is just too big!

Based on the scale of the Ratmen's blood sacrifice, Rudd estimated that at least several million saint-level souls would have been needed to neutralize such a massive "malignant" tumor. Leaving aside where to find such saints in today's world, even if they did exist, Rudd couldn't force them to collectively sacrifice themselves to save the world, could he?

As for relying on strict quality control to slowly accumulate resources, it doesn't allow for that in terms of time, because Lude discovered that the tumor was eroding the giant tree itself, which is the hardware part of the server. If the tree couldn't hold on first, then the underworld system would become meaningless.

"Sigh! Maybe we should think of a way to cut it off."

Looking at the tumor, which was as big as a three-story villa, Lu De raised his hand and gestured, imagining whether he could cut it off.

As things stand, "cutting it off permanently" seems to be the simplest and most effective solution, but this large tumor, though seemingly soft, is actually as hard as steel. Lu De brought in a machete from outside, but when he swung it, sparks flew everywhere, and he couldn't even leave a scratch. Moreover, divine power cannot be used in the Land of Fire, which left him feeling somewhat helpless.

Emerging from the tree hollow, Lud found a high spot on a tree root and sat there, staring blankly at the souls that had been guided in.

The souls of the dead seemed to be sleepwalking, lacking conscious awareness, but in their final moments before dissipating, most had peaceful expressions on their faces. Lud didn't know where these souls went, but he figured it couldn't be a terrible place.

Lude was taking a break from his busy schedule and daydreaming when he suddenly sensed an unusual presence approaching from behind, like a gentle breeze brushing past his ear, carrying a soft murmur.

"who!?"

Turning around abruptly, Lud found himself alone, with only the towering white tree standing behind him. To the naked eye, it appeared unchanged from the first time he saw it, but Lud could vaguely sense that the tree had become more vibrant, indicating that the restoration of the soul-sustaining system had indeed had a significant effect.

The strange whisper he had just heard immediately reminded Lud of the mysterious being who had relayed the message to Ah-Dai in his dream.

While his memory was still relatively clear, Ludwig quickly pulled out his notebook and tried his best to write down the whispers he had just heard.

Lude had memorized the passage Ah-Dai had heard before, so he was quite certain that the whispers he had just heard were new and different from what he had heard before. As for why he hadn't sought out Ah-Dai this time, but instead approached Lude, that remained unclear. In any case, after completing the recording, Lude immediately left the Land of Fireseed to seek the help of Queen Isabella of the Dragon Clan for translation.

Just last week, Isabella arrived in Pinetown as promised.

When this top female dragon of this world arrived, she was relatively low-key. She did not reveal her true form, which was enough to launch a "true dimensional reduction attack" on the entire Pine Tree Town. Instead, she transformed into a heroic silver-haired older sister... and then rode Elder Lot here.

A female dragon knight whom no one had ever seen or heard of descended from the sky. Isabella's arrival, with just a single appearance, became the focus of everyone's attention. Everyone speculated about the background of this female knight who even Master Lud had to come and greet with trepidation.

Her Majesty is currently staying at the temple in Ludwig. During this time, she sent Lothar to invite Nidhogg and his wife, and asked them to bring their other two children with them as well.

After being summoned to town by the elders, the couple learned that their youngest daughter had caught the eye of the Dragon Queen because of her extraordinary talent. They were overjoyed but also worried, mainly because they feared that if Kanna were taken away, they would have difficulty seeing their daughter again.

It must be said that Nidhogg and Tawawa, this rare dragon couple, and the family atmosphere they displayed, left Isabella with a very good impression of the two young dragons. So she promised the couple that she would not take Kanna away from them, but would raise her here in the Void Forest, and then bestowed upon them each a drop of her own "heart's blood".

Within a dragon's body, the blood essence is the most precious of all. Isabella, as the Dragon Queen and a super-dragon possessing divinity, possesses blood essence with unimaginable power. An ordinary dragon who obtains just a drop can immediately ascend to the Elder level, greatly increasing its strength and extending its lifespan.

Without a doubt, the Nidhogg family benefited immensely from this move. Their daughter joined the Queen's household, the couple reaped substantial rewards, and even their grotto instantly became a "super school district property."

In contrast, another dragon that also lived in Pine Town was in a much worse situation.

After Isabella smiled and told the Nidhogg family to leave, her previously warm and friendly expression instantly turned into a chilling winter's chill.

She took out the "Dragon-Slaying Sword" and the accompanying "Complete Guide to Dragon Slaying" from its sheath, and then "asked" Lu De to find the giant dragon that made these two "goodies" for her. She wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with him.

On that day, the Dragon Clan's infamous "Prank Master" finally got what he deserved.

Ludwig's assessment of this can be summed up in two words—serves him right!