CHAPTER 1114: CHAPTER 862: MODIFY THE DEATH LOOP

The giant crevice lies in dead silence, like a path leading to the depths of the Nine Nether.

"That is death itself." Wei Shiyue gazes at the entrance to the Afterlife World, feeling a part of her body yearning to embrace death. Ever since being shot down by the Silla People with a plasma cannon twelve years ago, she’s been akin to a dead dragon, relying on practicing the Art of Immortality to maintain her condition.

"That’s the place where Underworld Pomorti manages the cycle of death and reincarnation." Chryses, the Soul of Gold, conjures a golden sword from his hand.

"So, I’m the one who sliced open the entrance?" Farosa examines closely.

"Yes, like passing through a tunnel, though others enter from the entrance while you pierce through the top of the tunnel rock from above." Chryses speaks with reverence.

He respects the unparalleled power of the Godslayer Weapon; maybe it’s the strongest weapon this civilization could forge.

"Then this is the end of our journey." Farosa reflects, "The lair of Elride and Pomorti."

"I’m afraid Elride won’t be waiting for us in the Afterlife World, but will block the entrance, as that place is wrapped in a sinister air." Chryses predicts.

"Your brothers are so destructive to the world, it’s truly detestable." Easter criticizes righteously.

"I know what they want—to annihilate humans and turn this planet into the new home of the great gods. This world is too crowded for us, but after exterminating intelligent beings, it seems spacious." Chryses says.

"How cruel, this is our home, I won’t just watch as everyone is killed by you." Easter is sad yet resolute.

Turning into a silent star? Farosa muses. That indeed suits the great gods more, it turns out they’ve been destroying everything just to turn this place into their new home, treating it simply as a ’landscape modification project.’

By the way—we could modify it too. Farosa suddenly comes to this realization.

"In any case, we’ve thought about it, what thing can escape control, is it the soul? The size of the soul cannot be measured by earthly standards, even the harshest human judge cannot weigh the soul’s worth. But look, over there, that’s the Afterlife World, where every soul is managed." Farosa points to the entrance of the Underworld Tunnel.

With Farosa’s words, everyone present has their own thoughts.

Even in death, we’re still governed, how unfortunate!

The human body is controlled in the earthly realm, thus one can clearly know one’s place in the world: the vast majority are managed and controlled, while a small group may appear uninhibited, but they too are restricted by the laws of matter. Farosa thinks to herself.

Thus, people pin their hopes on the vastness of the Afterlife World, where souls freely float, unrestrained, in the boundless Afterlife World, awaiting the opportunity for reincarnation; it’s fairly considered a fair shared outcome, perhaps they might even encounter the recently deceased Honma Noriko and Yanagawa Fumihiko!

However, faced with the layers of death energy from the ghostly world, another pessimistic fact is presented: even after death, the soul is managed in the Afterlife World.

The hierarchy is singular and all-encompassing, not even death can offer escape from a lesson.

"...If we enter the Afterlife World, can we alter the laws of death?" Wei Shiyue asks.

Chryses, the Soul of Gold, ponders briefly and gives an affirmative answer.

"Indeed—if we defeat Pomorti, we can seize the authority of the Afterlife World and redefine the fate of the deceased." Chryses says.

Farosa laughs.

"How wonderful! Humans, witches, we pioneers—we’ve traveled through stars and clouds, searched around, uncovered the sky’s veil, never discovered angels or paradise, thus realizing outside lies only the scientific world, eliminating the soil of ignorance. Now we must understand the mechanics of the Afterlife World, even the grand matter of ’death’ is under our control." Farosa strides forward.

She ascends the mountain, approaching the entrance to the Afterlife World.

Seven-Headed Birds of Death circle around the crevice, spreading their wings to soar, their bodies strong and formidable, yet witnessing these six approach, they retreat flapping back to the Netherworld, without any intention of hindering them.

"They flee so swiftly! They know death doesn’t scare us! Oh, before entering, I want to know... if you were to decide the fate of souls after death, how would you choose? How would you decide the method of soul reincarnation? How to determine which souls are born into wealthy families and which into poor places?" Farosa turns, intertwining her fingers, her gaze sweeping across everyone’s faces.

"We should let them have a choice!" Easter exclaims with excitement, "We should reveal the future destination to every soul, meaning, before reincarnation, every soul can foresee which family they will be born into, allowing them preparation and selection. We can also arrange a ’reincarnation mentor,’ guiding souls on how to reincarnate."

They laugh at this because it’s the most humorous idea, every soul would undoubtedly choose to reincarnate to a wealthy mother, who would choose to be born into poor, backward places?

Considering the current world population ratio, if souls reincarnate normally, the vast majority must be born in regions like White Elephant Continent, Hot Tree Continent, Taiya Archipelago, Agave Continent.

If one suddenly dies and wants to be reborn as a person from Taixi State, New Taixi State, or reincarnate to Xia and Northern Archipelago, it’s quite difficult, too many dead souls, too few newborns.

If everything depended on what Easter said, letting them choose, I’m afraid mothers in poor places would continue to give birth to Hollow Infants. After all, no soul would want to be born in a poor family... Ghosts would rather wait in line to be reborn into wealthy and middle-class families.

"What about souls who still have unfinished business in their past life? They should be given a brief chance to return to the world of the living or leave the Afterlife World to complete some unfinished tasks as ghosts," Wei Shiyue said.

"That’s great," Easter nodded repeatedly, "Many people pass away before they fulfill their last wishes or die suddenly in accidents... If we modify the death mechanism so that souls can return to the human world to chat with family one last time and settle their affairs, how wonderful would that be! How much regret would be reduced in the world? Families struck by plane crashes, shipwrecks, and car accidents are heartbroken... but through this method, families can have one last conversation with the souls of the deceased, how great is that!"

"...Death cannot be escaped either, they must return to the human world..." Farosa pondered, her Law of Recovery often fails, and sometimes the body recovers but the soul doesn’t return, turning people into hollow shells. If the soul could return to life, they could just easily be resurrected.

A world where everyone lives forever! With the Law of Recovery and the soul return mechanism, no one would ever die again.

"Right," Yao Guang suddenly said, "They could become fierce ghosts and return to the world, haunting those killers, making it convenient for us to solve cases. Even if a villain kills someone, the dead person’s soul can return to the living to identify the killer, and no one would dare to commit violent murders, so all murder cases would be solved."

Chryses suddenly spoke.

"I’ve seen many civilizations of stars, and they have different ways to handle souls. Not all worlds are the same as this one, where once people die, it’s completely over. In a highly developed civilization I know, the dead souls of those races are judged and then enter different realms and dimensions, such as the Bliss Realm, Ether World, Circling Seal City, Mechanical Realm, Sea of Chaos, Great Maelstrom, and Beast Wasteland... and another more advanced civilization believes that the material form of life is transient, and every being’s soul joins a massive collective consciousness after death, where they engage in unified and undivided learning and evolution, becoming one in many, many in one, sharing all individual wisdom and experience," Chryses said.

Farosa was deep in thought.

"...What you said reminded me of some Middle Ages myths that said good deeds in this life would lead to being born in a good place in the next life, and if you did bad things, you’d be reincarnated as a cow or a horse. Why don’t we have such a system? This way, people would learn to endure and be patient in the real world, because they would know if they endure the hardships in this life and maintain patience and high morality, their hidden points will increase, and they’ll be born into a good place in the next life; if someone acts against morals and commits many evil deeds, they will suffer and even be reincarnated as animals in a rotten family," Farosa said enthusiastically.

They turned their eyes to the Cyber Specter, who had been silent during the discussion.

"Why aren’t you saying anything? Metal Master?" Yao Guang scrutinized the Cyber Specter, not knowing it yet.

"Because my thoughts differ significantly from all of yours," the Cyber Specter said.

What? We’ve exhausted almost all possible reincarnation paths, but Xu Yang has another perspective? Farosa found it amusing.

"Go ahead and share your thoughts," Farosa said.

"I think it should be completely random," the Cyber Specter said.

"What?" Farosa was confused.

"All souls, no matter what you did in your past life, regardless of who you are, once reincarnated, you’d be completely randomly reborn! You could become any life form, you could be reborn into any race, into any family! This is a completely random result. No one knows what will happen," the Cyber Specter stated firmly.

"What does that mean?" Wei Shiyue pondered.

"Absolute fairness," the Cyber Specter said.

No rules, no subjective assessments, no utilitarian considerations, death and reincarnation happen with unbiased randomness, no matter good or bad, right or wrong.

"No! That’s not fair, there should be some compensation for those people!" Easter opposed, "For instance, some people... are born into extremely painful lives. If such people reincarnate, they should go to a better place in the next life; if a person is unfortunately disabled, or very clumsy, or ugly... they too should have a chance to be reincarnated into better people."

"Once your method is implemented and known to the world, the outcome will only be one thing—a large-scale suicide wave. People know that since this life is not smooth, the next life will be better, so they will eagerly restart!" the Cyber Specter said.

"Ah—" Easter’s gaze dimmed. Those long-term single people, the poor, the ugly, the fools, once knowing that reincarnation would be better, would commit suicide, and indeed, this is the case. Instead, a completely random reincarnation mechanism would make people respect their current lives more; after all, no one knows what the next life will be like, so it’s better to live this life seriously. People would also consider the needs of this life more, not practicing asceticism for an illusory future.

But could it perhaps improve morality? If we truly introduce the mechanism of "doing good deeds before birth leads to a better next life," it might create an atmosphere of universal goodness? Easter looked towards the entrance to the Afterlife World, sensing great potential. Everyone would become good people!

They walked to the entrance of the Afterlife World, and now they just needed to leap in to enter. Whatever they wanted to do with the cycle of death, they must defeat the master of the Afterlife World first.

Just then, the ground suddenly shook violently, forcing them to retreat.

Elride climbed out from behind the mountains, its gigantic body standing tall under the hazy sunlight, casting a huge shadow.

"Codename ’Winter’ has reappeared!" The Albruck Sky-Carrier hurriedly took to the air, ready for battle.

Elride swung its Frost Axe, suspending the axe blade above the entrance to the Afterlife World, the blade glinting with deadly light.

"My duty... is to guard the entrance to the Afterlife World for my brothers," Elride said, opening its icy lips.