Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

“Do you know, Gaia, that all things need nourishment to grow?”

“The world draws strength from its own cycles and the void, while the gods extract power from their corresponding symbols through godhood. One quality transforms into another, and equivalent exchange is the unchanging law of this world.”

“So what?” Gaia frowned as she listened to Erebus’s words: “Of course, I know this.”

“Even the plants that I create need to draw nutrients from the earth, and I don’t need you to teach me that. What do all these things you are saying have to do with life and the soul?”

With a faint smile, Erebus remained unhurried. Perhaps influenced by his godhood, The Dark Overlord quite enjoyed the sensation of revealing secrets bit by bit.

“Is that so? Then tell me, my sister, plants draw their nutrients from the earth, but where do those lives created by the gods obtain the strength to maintain their existence from?”

“Don’t you see?” Gaia felt this was another pointless question: “They eat plants, or they eat each other. They drink water to maintain the balance of elements in their bodies, what’s wrong with that?”

“Of course, that’s wrong,” Erebus said succinctly: “If ‘life’ could not be divided, then I would also think that’s normal. But since the body and the soul can exist independently, why can a life feed on the body of another life, yet its soul does not feed on the soul of another life?

“Where does the soul get its nourishment if it doesn’t have a ‘feeding’ process?”

Gaia fell silent, as she began to vaguely understand what the other was trying to say.

“The nutrients for a body’s growth are water and plants, but for a soul to grow, its nourishment is the body itself.”

“It needs nothing else,” Erebus’s gaze grew profound: “Nurtured by the body’s warmth, it directly harnesses power from the intersection between the two in the field of ‘life’, directly drawing strength from the former.”

“And as time passes, bodies develop, mature, age, and so do souls, but the latter’s cycle is much longer.”

“So in the end, they will all return as one, becoming a part of that world. Do you know what this means?”

“It means every soul is a seed, and the material world is the soil from which it germinates. When a life’s body reaches its end, the fruit known as ‘soul’ is ripe.”

Mother Earth spoke slowly, also somewhat shocked by the realization.

Chaos draws power from the primordial chaos, transforming it into leaderless Source Power, thereby continuously perfecting the world. Meanwhile, the Spirit Realm takes the material world as chaos, drawing power from it, constantly perfecting itself.

Indistinctly, Gaia seemed to see, at the end of time, the day when the Spirit Realm would stand shoulder to shoulder with the material world.

From the perspective of Chaos itself, it’s hard to say whether this is good or bad, because the growth of spirituality in itself strengthens the effect of the world’s inner cycle. But for the material world, oriented towards matter and order, this certainly isn’t good news.

Just as the world grows increasingly mighty, yet Mother Earth’s power grows ever weaker, Gaia knew this all too well.

“No, that’s not right,” suddenly Mother Earth realized something: “Given the current state of these lives and their weak natures, even if their numbers were to increase ten million times or more, even if they covered the earth, that still wouldn’t mean much to Chaos.”

“Stop with your alarmist talk, Erebus. What exactly do you want me to do?”

Raising an eyebrow, seeing his sister catching on, The Dark Overlord was a tad disappointed.

When he first discovered this, he was genuinely shocked, but then he realized that drawing strength in this manner was like scooping water from the sea with a basin, and that too, a sea constantly fed by rivers and streams.

Unless the number of intelligent beings counts in the hundreds of millions, and unless their level of life can be raised not just by one tier, it would sound pleasant, but practically meaningless.

The power derived from the world’s self-sustaining operation in one day surpasses what the souls of those mundane objects could transform in a hundred years.

“It’s simple.”

“Next time,” he said, “when this batch of life dies, the next time you create life, I want you to incorporate this into it.”

He stretched out his hand, and an undefined mass of dark gas wavered in Erebus’s palm. At first, Gaia did not recognize it, but soon she sensed its essence.

It was “Darkness”. In terms of quantity, it was very weak, weaker even than the power of a territorial god, but it was also very pure, for it came directly from the body of the Primordial Gods.

“Darkness… Erebus, I don’t mind being your tool this once, but I hope you can think of a more reasonable method.”

“To combine it with the Prime Liquid in the Life Vase, I can do that. But to expose life directly to Source Power, madness would be their only outcome; with such an obvious change, do you think he would not notice?”

Disappointed, Gaia did not expect that her brother would come up with such a method.

“That’s why I want you to dilute it as much as possible,” Erebus said indifferently, “like a drop of Divine Power entering the ocean, there will be no problem as long as the amount is small enough.”

“Of course, given its nature, it might distort the thinking of life, but it won’t completely destroy their rationality.”

“Just find a reason, like how you previously created humans with only ‘positive’ emotions, and now you want to do the reverse, to create humans with more negative emotions. Do I need to teach you that?”

“…I understand, but can this help me deal with him?”

Mother Earth hesitantly nodded, yet she was somewhat puzzled.

She could see that he was using this method to infiltrate his power into the Spirit Realm, but how could this pose any threat to Laine?

This bit of power would not be taken seriously by any god with Intermediate Divine Power or above, let alone Laine, who was in the Spirit Realm.

In the external world, Divine Power would limit his strength. But in the Spirit Realm, the realm itself is his power.

“…Don’t you understand yet, my dear sister?” Erebus said, a god does not die. So if you want to deal with him, you must first understand him, understand how to target his world.”

Erebus was somewhat at a loss for words. Although he did not understand what good merely venting would do, he still patiently persevered in order to gain Gaia’s assistance.

After all, he knew nothing about the domain of life.

“When my Source Power enters the Spirit Realm, I have no expectation of it returning, but after all, it’s just an insignificant bit, and the souls of mortals can only carry so much.”

“Laine harvests power through souls, so he will definitely return the souls to their origin. This must be done via the Origin of the Spirit Realm, and this is my goal.”

“I want part of me to come into contact with the root of the Spirit Realm,” Erebus looked straight at his sister, “and then I will know how the Spirit Realm was created.”

“No one tells the truth to an unwelcomed visitor who comes knocking at their door, Gaia, so I have never believed Laine’s explanations. I don’t want him to tell me anything, I want to see for myself.”

“Of course, when it gets to that point, Laine will surely notice my actions. He will intercept that Source Power, but I’ll get the chance to break free from Chaos, and you, you can find out his weakness.”