Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

"So it’s said, humans are always contradictory."

"When something doesn’t belong to you, you detest it intensely, and then the next step... is wanting to make it something you can control."

Many things were like this, and Laine was no exception, hating something often only because it wasn’t under his control. Like now, ’unchanging’ and ’changing’, the criteria that determined the order of all things... It was almost self-evident what these three Divine Artifacts together aimed to counter.

After repeatedly confirming that nothing untoward remained in the Divine Artifact following its absorption of the Fantasy World, Laine then sent it back to the Spirit Realm.

Once Hemenu’s affair was concluded, another ’feast’ awaited it, so it was best to assimilate the gains of this trip quickly. After all, unlike the other two Divine Artifacts, it was perfected step by step, enduring the entire second epoch.

Rapid growth necessarily required more time to adapt, to avoid leaving behind any problematic aftermath. Especially as part of the three Divine Artifacts, if it had any issues, it would likely affect the other two as well.

"Finally, we come to the source of all this."

Suspended in the void, Laine at last turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

He had originally ventured here on a spiritual journey to inspect memories concerning Zeus, but he hadn’t anticipated the journey would take such an unexpected turn. Although the outcome was equally favorable, he couldn’t simply forget his original purpose.

Athena was no longer here since, after all, whether it was Laine or her, they hadn’t truly entered this place in their physical forms.

As the Master of Spirituality, Laine could maintain this ’spiritual journey’ state, his consciousness separate from his Divine Body, but Athena couldn’t do the same. Thus, when the moment of the world’s destruction came, she had already returned to her body on a remote island overseas. And those memories, once shielded by the power of the world, were naturally acquired by both of them.

With no high powers to cloak and distort them, everything became clear. In nearly an instant, Laine had reviewed that segment of the past. Stay connected with empire n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Asgard, Odin, the World Tree, Sacrifice, ritual... until Metis was offered as a Sacrifice to Chaos, in exchange for Zeus’s ladder to kingship.

Upon seeing this content, many of Laine’s doubts were immediately resolved. The most pressing was the recent changes in the laws of the Abyss and Hell.

One day hundreds of years ago, a new rule was written into the foundation of the world, relating to ’Sacrifice’. Although the World Master could actively choose to accept or decline, to respond or ignore, this change had indeed occurred. (See 3-83)

Previously, Laine had speculated whether this was because the two were of the same origin, that both worlds had naturally evolved the ability to accept sacrifices, allowing beings from one world to offer existences from the other as Sacrifices... but upon closer thought, it didn’t quite add up.

Now, however, it seemed that all this originated from the Sacrifice ritual personally involving Chaos, influencing the shifts in the underlying rules of many worlds. When the world itself performed the Sacrifice for the first time, that act became an ordained law.

It’s likely that independent realms like the Land of Eternal Night also developed similar capabilities, only Laine had been unaware of it earlier.

As for why the Underworld lacked it... it could only be said that its status as a standalone realm still had some shortcomings, otherwise even with just half the authority, Hades wouldn’t have missed touching upon that grand realm.

After all, the Divine King is never the present world’s master, yet the King of the Underworld is indeed the embodiment of the Underworld itself. So the absence of similar changes in the netherworld seemed understandable.

With the first mystery unraveled, Laine’s second question was about the ’fated death’ on Athena’s person.

It seemed normal, Zeus had swallowed Metis, so Pallas’s birth was thus rendered impossible, and his fated ’death’ was only natural... but upon closer inspection, it was full of loopholes.

Gods are immortal, hence any possibility would only be postponed, never completely cut off.

So what if swallowed by Zeus, or even imprisoned in Tartarus? As long as Metis still lived, there was a chance of release, and thus a chance for Pallas to be born. Yet his fate was already ’dead’, recognized by the world as an unalterable outcome.

This implied that even Chaos denied his existence, to the point that attempting to ’rebirth’ him through any means would only bring about the world’s own Destruction.

Laine had not understood why a being once favored by the world would instead invite its malice... but now it was clear to him. Metis became the Sacrifice, and the moment the world accepted it, Pallas was deprived of any chance of birth.

The world wouldn’t deny its own actions. If Athena’s destined brother was still born, it would be tantamount to negating the present world itself. Unless Chaos itself broke its own rules and ’released’ Metis — but this was undoubtedly impossible, and without surprise, Pallas had no more opportunities to be born.

"This indeed poses a problem... I had previously wanted to bring him back to ’life’ in another way, to then challenge the predetermined fate of the present world."

Furrowing his brow, Laine found it a bit troublesome.

Now this ’arrogant divine king’ prophesied to emerge had been definitively negated by the world, and if he wished to be born, he had to do so within the Laws of Chaos World, otherwise he couldn’t inherit this segment of dead fate, creating a catch-22 situation.