Chapter 335
Chapter 335: Undead Emperor (Part 1)
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
What were the undead? If someone asked such a question, everyone would have their own answer.
“Undying villains, destroyers of Order, and existences that should be cleansed by the Holy Light.” This was the standard answer given by the Church of Holy Light. This was also what the majority of the world believed as the Holy Light was the prevailing religion.
“Miraculous creations that can be created under certain conditions. These existences have completely opposite traits from living lifeforms. Two main conditions are required to form an undead: the first is to have enough negative energy, and the second is a soul shard…”
This would be a mage’s standard answer. They would talk about the fundamental theories of what an undead was, and if you asked an undead mage, a lot of extra addendums would be attached: they might even discuss the various undead species and specifics.
“I like the term ‘miraculous creation’ but not the phrase ‘negative energy.’ The first undead didn’t have a shred of negative energy at all: they were noble, unyielding spirits.”
As the first-ever undead, Ayer had previously mentioned to me that the first undead were all naturally born. They were heroes unwilling to die and leave the world. Yet their resolute, undying wills allowed them to resist the Cycle of Reincarnation and walk out of their own graves, transforming into undying heroic spirits. Yep, they were the legendary “natural undead.”
The soul was the universal source. Any person powerful enough to use only their soul to resist the Cycle of Reincarnation would be an incredible figure. Such a person might not even appear in every generation.
The undead that came after the natural undead were a lower-rank product that originated from the demons performing research on the creation of heroic spirits. In order to make these undead, which weren’t on the level of the heroic spirits, move, they used negative energy that originated from the lower planes. And as the eons passed this special negative energy earned itself a special name: the power of death.
This energy was originally a power from the Chaos Abyss, whose natural traits were bloodthirst, insanity, and chaos. Even a wise archmage would become insane and unreasonable after transforming into a lich, affected by loneliness and the invasion of negative energy. As for low-level undead who moved under the power of this negative energy, they were nothing more than slaughtering machines filled with a thirst for blood.
Now that I’ve talked about how most typical undead today were created by the negative energy known as the power of death, I should probably talk about positive energy and negative energy.
Positive and negative energy were the two major types of energy, and they countered and even resisted each other. Positive energy were of many types, the most common ones being the Holy Light and the power of nature. Many upper planes’ angels and God Envoys would instinctively know how to use such a power. They were called positive energy because not only were they aligned with the concept of Order, but they were also almost always beneficial for the living; for example, the Holy Light could cure injuries.
Opposite to positive was negative energy. Mostly due to the rise of the undead and undead magic, negative energy was now the equivalent of undead and the power of death. This was a power harmful to any living being who came into contact with it. However, this was the most important nourishment of all for the undead. The true nature of the Undead Planes was simply a plane where negative energy and the power of death gathered.
For a normal mage, knowing this much would be sufficient. After all, disrupting rays, curses, intelligence-lowering spells, and other such attack magics dealing with negative energies only needed you to know how to imitate the model for the spell. You only needed to create a specific type of negative energy and toss it out in a specialized fashion to attack your enemy.
Since negative energy was the foundation of the undead as well as their nourishment, an ordinary mage’s understanding of negative energy would be far too insufficient for an undead mage. It could be said that most undead mages would conduct great amounts of research on negative energy. As a matter of fact, the most common job change among undead mages was to stop researching about the undead and to focus, instead, on becoming a master of negative energy curses.
It must be noted that these negative energy curses were very powerful against the living yet were nothing but healing spells when used on the undead. Were life and undeath truly that much in opposition to each other?
Perhaps this was only a natural phenomenon in the minds of other mages, similar to how rain would only fall from dark clouds. I, on the other hand, was quite interested in researching more about such topics like “Why do clouds form?” and “How do raindrops form?”
After a living individual entered undeath, their body and even their soul would remain the same. Did the difference between life and undeath lie only in whether they were moving by the power of life or by the power of death? Were life and undeath representations of two diametrically opposite methods of existence?
Then why was it that most heroic spirits would be even stronger than when they were living, while the undead were typically weaker than when they were alive? Developing one’s potential was something truly important. Just what happened to one’s potential when one transformed from the living into the undead?
“Everything hinges on the soul!”
When I was at my most crazy, I had conducted an equally crazy experiment. I recorded every single detail of the process one underwent when they transformed into an undead. Hundreds and hundreds of times I performed this experiment with exact precision, but it led me to a rather strange conclusion.
Back in my original world of Earth, there existed a theory that claimed we lose 21 grams after death. [1] 1 In this world, these mysterious 21 grams represented the weight of one’s soul. Unlike Earth, however, this world really did have the provable existence of souls, as well as undead magic which could return a soul to its physical body… My conclusion was that after one transformed into an undead, they would regain that weight, but what they regained was definitely lower than 21 grams!
“A soul which has returned to its original body will bring back anywhere from 1 to 20 grams. This means that during death it is unavoidable for your soul to shatter—you’ll lose a very tiny portion at the very minimum. ”
After that, I conducted a series of life into undeath experiments with the help of my mortal enemies. This included experiments that would simultaneously maintain one’s life and undeath, causing the living to howl in incredible pain as they directly turned into undead. Yet I was still able to measure a detectable loss in their body weights. Every single undead individual’s soul would lose part of its weight—this fact was invariant.
Was there any meaning to me learning that people lost part of their souls upon turning into undead? Heh heh! For any mage, knowledge was quite literally power. It was all in how you used your knowledge.
Not only did I obtain firsthand information on the transformation of one’s soul, I also coincidentally discovered that the lower an undead’s level was, the less their soul weighed when it returned to their body. Typically only three to five grams of their soul remained. Most of their soul shards naturally dissipated, while this so-called negative energy seemed to fill in the rest of the blanks.
“In that case, I hypothesize that the more complete the soul is for an undead, the more powerful they are. Or, it might be that it’s the reverse. The level of the undead determines how much of their soul and wisdom they can retain.”
This type of research result doubtlessly matched what everyone already knew, that low-level undead were stupid while high-level undead were capable of retaining their intelligence and even memories from when they were alive. However, just this result alone wasn’t enough to satisfy my research expectations… Which was why I did something rather vicious.
Fine then, the me at that time was indeed rather insane. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have kidnapped two of the God of Holy Light’s heroic spirits to perform various experiments on them. [2] 2
I dissected the two heroic spirits and extracted their souls before storing other souls in their vessels. I tested if their bodies were capable of helping low-level undead retain more of their soul, placed the heroic spirits’ souls in other vessels, and so on. By the time the two heroic spirits’ souls became tattered shards no longer capable of being put together, I had obtained enough experimental data.
The resulting data was quite astonishing. Heroic spirits had shockingly high numbers: these two heroic spirits’ souls didn’t weigh 21 grams—they weighed 23 and 25 grams, instead!
And, after dissecting two still-living Saint-ranked individuals, I confirmed with absolute certainty that all living individuals had souls that weighed 21 grams. This number wouldn’t change even with a difference in power level. In that case, it could only mean that when a soul transformed into a heroic spirit, it actually gained weight. Since a decrease in the soul’s weight meant a decrease in power, did an increase in weight represent some sort of evolution or ascendancy?
The heroic spirits’ spiritual bodies were clearly much better than typical souls in all areas. Just their souls alone had natural magic resistance, and they could increase the power level limit of whatever physical body they were in. They could even switch between various physical bodies without worrying about their souls shattering… Fine then, I really did go overboard back in the day. In the end, I turned those incredibly heroic spirits’ souls into nothing but spare parts.
Now then. In the end, I was left with this thought: If I was able to increase the soul’s weight, would I be able to create “undead” that were even stronger than heroic spirits?
And so, I confirmed my prerequisites and experimental method… Since heroic spirits were typically the result of an ordinary soul’s ascension, then what exactly happened during the process of ascension? What made a heroic spirit become a heroic spirit?
Was it that only the venerated that completed heroic deeds would be chosen by the Gods to become heroic spirits? I laughed at what the church taught. I was no theologist, I was a scien—er—a mage. As long as I had enough experimental materials, something as crazy as this could still become concrete experimental data and results.
And so, I targeted some famous heroes and used various cruel methods, plots, sometimes even direct combat to kill them when they were at the most glorious peak in their lives. The first two hundred-ish only provided me with extremely high-quality undead subordinates, while #219, a priest, truly succeeded in becoming a heroic spirit. I also recorded every single step of the process by which he became a heroic spirit.
Sacrifice. When he was pushed to despair by the brink, he ignited his own soul in order to protect his companions. A wall of light cut off the undead that were attacking his group, and at that moment, he died…
The world’s recognition? A noble spirit? No, no, no. I mentioned before that us mages would never believe in such sayings. Only sufficient evidence and samples were what we would accept as the concrete truth behind those false sayings.
“The resolution and mindset to sacrifice himself? Virtue, or stubbornness, more accurately speaking, should be ‘Powerful emotions, strong enough to interfere with the world…’ I never expected for it to actually be the same as how natural undead were born.
Although I received a result, I was a fastidious researcher who naturally wanted more than one sample as proof. And so…
“I’m not willing to die just like this!” “I still have things I want to do!” “Is my sacrifice really meaningful?”
I used undead magic to forcefully inject such powerful thoughts into each of my experimental subjects so that they would be filled with powerful emotions right before they died. In theory, I thought that I would be able to artificially create heroic spirits.
The end result… was that I failed. I received the most insane, evil undead spirits of all. They were absolutely crazed and would attack anything in their sight. Not only that, this still didn’t explain why a soul would actually increase in weight. After all, even if a powerful emotion protected the completeness of the soul, just where did this extra weight appear from?
And so, I went over every single detail of that successful experimental subject #219 and imitated every point. I then started changing the experiment one factor at a time, hoping to discover the missing critical factor… In those two years, the Holy Church probably found it quite mysterious why eight heroic spirits appeared in a single year when typically less than one would appear in a generation. Not to mention, several hundred of their elite priests suddenly went missing and ended up dead.
And that was how by taking away a certain factor, I finally succeeded in failing to create a heroic spirit, finding the critical missing link that I had been searching for.
“A heroic spirit must have his deeds well known by people, with his descendants proud of him… So this was the critical point. A heroic spirit must be well known.”
The praises for a heroic spirit was the final result of my research. A heroic spirit needed to have his or her deeds known by everyone. It would be best if the heroic spirit was witnessed making a heroic last stand by everyone at the moment of the hero’s death. These were all necessary conditions in becoming a heroic spirit.
In that case, could I create a heroic spirit using a fake story plus a “hero” that I hypnotized? If I could, then that would prove my theory.
The end result was, as I laughed maniacally, the first ever human-created heroic spirit, “Dragonslayer King,” Sven was born. He became a heroic spirit under the God of Holy Light. Five years later, I intentionally ran into Sven again and performed a second experiment on him… that unlucky fellow had my hypnosis canceled on him and discovered that he was only a lowly murderer instead of a hero. He instantly went up in smoke and died for real, which proved the necessity of the heroic spirit’s own “conviction” in their status.
Not only that, it also proved that the Holy Church’s explanation of souls and heroic spirits was nothing more than utter bullshit!
Finally, after even more experimentation, the final conclusion I came to was probably the closest thing to the truth.
“No wonder Soul Worlds have the capability of distorting the real world. In this world, personality, knowledge, faith, conviction—all these intangible concepts are a part of concrete strength as well. They are all nourishment for the soul and help to make it stronger, strong enough to resist the invasion of negative energy. And once someone’s soul is sufficiently strong, they can even enter a heroic spirit state after death and begin to use positive energy!”
This also explained why tin can knights whose heads were filled with nothing but the knightly spirit would still mostly be able to maintain their sense of honor and intelligence after transforming into undead. The traditional knightly code, in a way, protected them. Meanwhile, for hermit archmages, even though they were extremely intelligent, they had basically zero emotional intelligence and viewed so-called faith and conviction as nothing more than a joke. It was only natural that mages would typically be invaded by negative energy and gradually lose their senses of self.
The moment I received this experimental result, I also understood the true nature of heroic spirits. For any mage, knowledge was power. My Infallible Diffindor now possessed the ability to temporarily transform high-level undead into heroic spirits. This was a power that nobody else in this world possessed.
If that was all it was, I would only be the biggest heretic and desecrator this world had ever seen in the past millennium. Yet I came up with yet another hypothesis based on this result, making me into the most likely candidate for the largest heretic of all ever since the founding of the very world of Eich.
“Perhaps so-called Gods are just heroic spirits that have gathered a sufficient amount of belief in them to obtain a Divine Concept and evolve themselves… Ha! Doesn’t that mean that the so-called venerated Gods are just another type of undead? The moment that they ascended to Godhood, they were already dead? Their true identities are nothing more than soul shards tied together by belief in them as well as Divine Concepts?”
Alright then, if I publicized these research results of mine, probably half of the True God believers in the world would be busy calling me a ridiculous heretic, while the other half would be busy trying to kill me.
But I had proof for this hypothesis of mine… because my experiment succeeded!!
Yes, I’m talking about Wumianzhe! His success in ascending to Godhood seemed like nothing more than a fortunate coincidence, even to a veteran like Ayer. But only I knew that this was my final practical experiment to prove my theory: a human-created God.
I wondered sometimes about what would happen if I attempted to tell everyone the truth about the Gods. Yet I would always give up on the idea. Most people wouldn’t believe me, and if they really did, it would probably mean the world was about to meet its destruction.
It was time for me to stop walking down this path. I had already detected the foundational truths of the world. If I went any further down this path, opening up the entire Pandora’s Box, my research results from this damned undead construction field might truly end up destroying this entire world.
“Heh, but if I don’t do anything at all, this world is already destined to be destroyed. If I continue with this, there is a “might:” it only “might” destroy the world. I might as well continue regardless.”
And so, I ended up creating the Seven Deadly Sins. Their base materials weren’t particularly excellent. “Wrath” Bastian was only an ordinary dog you could find anywhere, “Gluttony” Ah Dang was just a random assortment of corpses I grabbed from the battlefield, “Envy” Marsolit was mostly something not living originally at all, an aerial battleship, while “Greed” Harloys’ base material was only an ordinary undead slime, but…
“Everything hinges on the soul!”
I whispered that softly to myself. For an undead, the physical body wasn’t as important as most undead mages believed it to be. Souls were the true foundation.
Although I called my specialized field “undead construction,” a more accurate name would probably be “soul evolution.” In place of the belief and conviction that heroic spirits needed to evolve themselves, I gave my Seven Deadly Sins the convictions in my own soul.
Heroic spirits and Gods? They were merely idiots tied to other people’s belief in them and knowledge about them! This land was still going to be ruled by physical flesh and blood living individuals. What I gave to my Seven Original Sins was free will, basic individual personalities, and souls that were even more complete than what the Creator would give!
From a certain standpoint, they were indeed my children. My blessing to them gave them endless potential to evolve themselves so that they could evolve into souls that could surpass heroic spirits. And they would forever be a part of me, accompanying me until Armageddon arrived.
“Seven Original Sins? Heh heh, these are the most foundational parts of human nature. Wrath, the anger and judgment against those who commit acts of injustice. Gluttony, the desire to evolve one’s physical body. Lust, an overflowing amount of love. Envy, the desire to possess others’ best traits. Pride, the desire to rise in status… Children, allow me to witness just how far you’ll proceed in evolution since you have even more complete souls than the Gods themselves.” [3] 3
“Even though it’s said that all Undead Emperors are insane, to have used yourself as an experimental subject and cut off parts of your own soul, you’re probably the most insane of them all, Roland… Your Highness.”
The only individual who knew about my true research results was Harloys, who was bound to me with a soul connection. And, right now, I really needed her assistance. When I provided all this detailed information to her, she actually used a respectful title that Undead Lords would use to address Undead Emperors for once.
“…This is the only part where I can’t compare to you. But, I won’t lose to you! I have my own understanding of undead magic! One day, I shall use my own research results to become an Undead Emperor as well!”
“Heh heh, I truly look forward to the All-Knowing Harloys’ research results. But please help me out right now. I need your accumulated knowledge and experimental data.”
“Help you? In this campground filled with undead? Oh, you intend to use undead construction here! Are you thinking of creating another Original Sin?”
“No, no, it’s just I’m itching to create something with all these ingredients around. Although it won’t be on an Original Sin’s level, it might actually be similar to their power level.”
Perhaps none of the undead around me knew that thanks to my spur-of-the-moment decision, something very troublesome for them would appear.
Notes:
[1] ED/N: I believe the author is talking about a popular theory that came about from a scientific study published in 1907 by Duncan MacDougall. Here’s the Wikipedia link if you want to read more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment.
[2] ED/N: I’m sorry, but I have to say this. I am 100% certain that even now, if he needed to, Roland would still kidnap more heroic spirits. He is as crazy—in a ‘good’ way, of course—as ever. Will do anything to accomplish his goals.
[3] TL/N: Yes, for some reason, he fails to mention Greed Harloys in this paragraph. Probably because he feels awkward about calling Harloys his child, ahaha. Sloth will obviously be addressed later in the story.