Chapter 668: The Crowning of All Races
Divine Domain was an ability Origin Level 1 transcendents could grasp by accruing many experiences and achieving self-realization, and it served to manifest one’s being as a world law. Those who grasped Divine Domain could join the ranks of gods.
Having fought many tough battles, Roel had a grasp on his Divine Domain, but he couldn’t conceptualize it as it hadn’t been long since he reached Origin Level 1. However, he overcame this hurdle after witnessing Artasia’s miracle and absorbing a portion of the Savior’s powers.
Countless lights shone from Roel’s body, illuminating the dark space. They flowed into the spiraling time, swiftly corrupting the Savior’s worlds. At the same time, countless blurry figures began to appear in the darkness.
The world was changing. Time was reversing. The System’s notification revealed the name of Roel’s Divine Domain—Path of Justice.
The Savior raised his head in shock as he realized something—Roel’s Divine Domain was related to time as well. “I see. That’s the reason you can exist here. But so what? All you can do is to protect yourself. You’re unable to shake my Divine Domain at all.”
“Shake your Divine Domain? No, my Divine Domain doesn’t seek to interfere with time. It seeks to inherit it,” Roel said.
As more blurry figures appeared, Roel raised his hand, and the flow of time stalled to a halt. These blurry figures immediately turned corporeal; some of them were familiar faces to Roel, whereas others weren’t.
He recognized the wild Ro, the stern Winstor, and the obstinate but principled Carolyn. These figures were all ancestors of the Kingmaker Clan, and they gathered beside Roel. Their bodies seemed to be made of condensed firelight, as if lanterns watching over history.
These were the warriors of the Kingmaker Clan who had fought against tyranny from the ancient era till now. They had been the guardians of humankind through the eras. Their candlelight eyes were passed down through the generations like a torch representing their will.
Yet, the Savior laughed at this sight.
“This is your Divine Domain? Do you think you can defeat me by gathering your clan’s powers? How laughable. What can a group of lowlifes do?”
“The flag of justice rallies all fearless warriors. We’re merely the first to arrive,” Roel replied.
“What?” The Savior frowned.
Deafening roars shook the world, as the Dragons flew above them. Fearless war cries echoed, as the Giants from the sunset plains arrived across space-time. The High Elves, the Dwarves, the Angels, the Saint Beasts, and the others arrived one after another, gathering around Roel.
Those who harbored justice in their hearts had walked out from the long river of time to gather here as specks of light. There were few of them initially, but they quickly filled the sky with stars, turning into a celestial river amidst the spiraling darkness.
It was no longer possible for the Savior to interfere with the flow of time.
The Savior gazed at the stars around Him, and His expression slowly changed.
A faint figure also began flickering behind Roel. It was the very first ancestor of the Kingmaker Clan, as well as the Mother of All Life—Sia.
“No!” Horrified by the sight of Sia, the Savior immediately unleashed an intense burst of light.
Roel raised his hand, and the hundred Kingmakers offered their flame of life as candlelight to illuminate the path ahead. The stars in the darkness, manifested from the heroic spirits across space-time, twinkled with all their might to interfere with the Savior.
All these lights converged above Roel’s head in the form of a crown.
Behind Roel, Sia opened Her gentle eyes to witness the decision made by Her children.
This was the first time in countless years, since the time of Genesis Goddess Sia, that the world had chosen a Sovereign of All Races. He was crowned under the witness of the stars, with the blessings of the heroic spirits.
Sia’s inheritor was finally born.
The Savior went berserk. Once the crowning was complete, the power Sia had reserved for Her inheritor would be passed to its rightful owner, and that power was the Savior Himself. Under the threat of death, the Savior abandoned His human form to make one last desperate struggle.
Amidst the starlight, Roel opened his eyes to look at the incarnation of the sun, as well as the monster shrouded in light. His eyes were filled with not fear but pity, for he had seen through the very nature of the Savior.
The Savior’s true form was a monster born from the overwhelming power of Sia’s soul. Perhaps it was because he was born from power that he sought to rule and segregate the world through power.
“How twisted. Is that your true nature?”
“Shut your mouth!” the colossal monster growled.
With a blinding flash of light, the Savior charged straight at Roel.
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Roel watched the incoming attack with composed eyes. He raised his hand, and the spiraling time hastened. The Savior’s colossal body froze in place, just like that.
“Far too many sins you carry on your shoulder. Countless lives have ended because of you. It’s time for you to pay the price.”
The surroundings blurred under the hastened flow of time. At the end of the temporal spiral was the dimmed horizon of the primordial world. A solemn chime reverberated in the space. It was a cleansing sound that marked the Savior’s end.
“The moment of judgment is due. We will not meet again, ‘Savior’.”
“No!”
Amidst the Savior’s cry of agony, the spiraling flow of time battered His body, causing it to crack before disintegrating into bits. The bits of His body flowed into the primordial space, returning to chaos.
The dimmed horizon dissipated, and the temporal spiral slowed to a halt. The river of stars completed Roel’s Crowning and returned the Savior’s power to its rightful owner.
A long war that had spanned countless years had finally come to an end.
…
In the dark space, the sunlike brilliance slowly flowed into Roel’s body, as the figures behind him vanished one after another.
Roel solemnly saw his ancestors off with a bow, as these previous guardians of the world returned to their eternal rest. The stars in the sky whizzed past him, leaving behind their final blessings before departing.
The spiraling darkness quietened down as the Savior’s Divine Domain dissipated, and the distorted world laws slowly reverted to normal. As time started to flow once more, Roel sensed two familiar auras approaching him and opened his eyes.
It was bright. He had been brought into an isolated space, where two women stood before him.
“Father!” The woman beside Artasia was relieved to see that Roel was alive.
“Yes, I’m here,” Roel replied with a consoling smile.
Meanwhile, Artasia checked Roel’s condition before heaving a sigh of relief. “It looks like you don’t need us to make a move anymore.”
“Yes, it’s thanks to your help that I was able to defeat the Savior. It has all come to an end,” Roel said with a smile.
“…” Both Artasia and the woman fell silent as they thought about the hardships they had been through.
It was the same for Roel.
For thousands of years, the Savior had been one of the greatest threats to humankind. His death meant that the millions of deviants residing in Tark Prairie would no longer be a threat. Humankind wouldn’t have to live under his shadow anymore.
The martyrs from the Kingmaker Clan, the Tripartite Alliance, and the Twilight Sages Assembly could finally rest in peace.
A new era was upon them.
Roel took in a deep breath and reined in his emotions. Looking at the two girls, he was forced to accept some facts, such as their identity and that he had been carried by his daughters.
Even though he appeared to have vanquished the Savior with his own strength, the awakening of his Divine Domain was sparked by Artasia’s absorption of the Savior’s mana. Had it not been for that, it was uncertain whether he could have turned the tables on the Savior at the very end.
But before that, there was one thing he needed to clarify.
“This space exists beyond the reach of cause and effect, so… can you tell me your name now?” Roel gently asked the black-haired, golden-eyed girl standing next to the Witch Queen.
The women nodded. “Father, I am Natasia Ascart.”
“Natasia? That’s a great name. Did I name you?”
“No, it was Mother who named me. Actually, we have never met you before.”
“Ahh…” Roel’s voice trailed off.
“I said so earlier.” Artasia averted her eyes as she elaborated, “You died in battle before we were born, so we have never seen you before.”
“I see… I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not Father’s fault. It’s because of the Savior…” Natasia hurriedly waved her hand before explaining what the two of them had been through.
Through their stories, Roel came to learn the original future of this world.
According to Natasia, in the future they hadn’t intervened in, Roel had managed to steal Sia’s Scepter from the Savior in this battle, but he was unable to fully absorb its powers. Instead, it was the two babies in Lilian’s body who reacted to it.
Upon realizing that, the Savior saw the two babies as His greatest threat and personally went after them. In order to protect Lilian and their unborn children, Roel ended up confronting the Savior in a life-and-death battle.
The fight went on for several days.
Roel died in the fight, but the Savior sustained severe injuries and was forced to temporarily retreat into the Abyss.
In the following years, Lilian and the others led humankind in its fight against the Fallens. However, everything changed with the eventual return of the Savior. Roel’s lovers died one after another on the battlefield. In the end, even Lilian left their side too.
However, their efforts hadn’t been in vain.
In the years they had stalled, Artasia and Natasia had successfully absorbed the mana inside Sia’s Scepter. It was not enough for them to defeat the Savior, but they were at least able to stand their ground. With that, humankind’s situation finally stabilized.
“So, you returned to the past in order to kill the Savior for good?” Roel asked.
“Hm? No, we came back to save Father and Mother,” Natasia replied.
“Ah?” Roel was startled, but his eyes soon began to heat up. He felt terribly ashamed of himself.
What Natasia had described was a future Roel would never see, but it was reality to the two of them. Them losing their parents was only a story to Roel, but it had been the greatest nightmare to the two of them.
Roel felt awful for failing to understand his children’s pain.
“We want to exact vengeance, but more than that, we don’t want to let Father and Mother die. Actually, we have some memories about you from Sia’s Scepter. We would also occasionally dream about you. In the dream, you’re always telling us to run away and not to return… Those were probably the last words you told Mother.”
“…I’m sorry that I couldn’t be with you.”
“It’s not your fault, father. You have done your best. It’s thanks to you that we survived and are now here with you. On that note, it’s Big Sister who proposed this plan,” Natasia said.
“Artasia, you were the one who proposed this plan?” Roel turned to Artasia in surprise.
He hadn’t expected that it wasn’t the angelic Natasia but Artasia who had come up with this. Under Roel’s intense stare, the Witch Queen fidgeted in discomfort.
Natasia nodded as she continued her explanation. “Mmhm! Only Big Sister’s ability can thoroughly change the past. She was the one who proposed saving Father. Unlike me, she remembers more about you and likes you the mo–”
“!” Artasia cast a Silence spell on Natasia without any warning.
Natasia widened her eyes in indignation. Roel was flabbergasted.
“Natasia, you have said too much,” Artasia glared at Natasia with a reddened face.
“Wu! Mmmm…” Natasia realized she had misspoken and quickly nodded.
Roel hesitated for a moment before asking, “About that, Artasia, could it be…”
“Don’t say a word, my hero!”
“Ah? No, I-I was just…”
“Let’s get things right. I am not your child in this world, and we don’t have any blood ties either.”
“Hm?” Roel was taken aback.
The Witch Queen sighed before explaining, “I was able to return to the past because I severed myself from the world’s cause and effect and descended upon another dimension.”
“Another dimension?”
“You can think of it as an independent space similar to the Witness State. I descended upon such a space thousands of years ago, reforged my body through my divine powers, and returned to this world through the ancient god’s contract. That’s the only way to minimize the effect of my presence on this world.”
“I see.” Roel nodded in awe.
He had to concede that Artasia’s plan was ingenious. It was a complicated maneuver, but it allowed her to circumvent most of the world laws, especially the contradiction of the Kingmaker Bloodline.
Artasia made sure to emphasize the main point once more. “You get it right, my hero? I am from another world. I might have been your daughter in the previous world, but that has nothing to do with you. To you, the future I came from doesn’t exist. Thus, there’s nothing between us.”
“Well, that makes sense but…”
“It doesn’t just make sense. It’s the truth. Let me ask you a question. How many children are there inside Lilian now?”
“How many? It’s… only Natasia, right?” Roel remembered how there had only been one ray of light from Sia’s Scepter pointing toward Natasia earlier.
Artasia nodded in satisfaction. “That’s right. In other words, only Natasia is your daughter.”
“…Wait.” Roel frowned as he pondered how he should deal with this situation.
Due to Artasia severing herself from the world’s cause-and-effect, she no longer existed in this world’s timeline anymore, evident from how she was absent from Lilian’s womb. Even so, there was no denying that Artasia had descended from him. At the very least, she had memories of being his daughter.
A daughter who wasn’t a daughter—this damned contradiction was so annoying that it gave Roel a headache.
Meanwhile, Natasia, who was freed from her Silence spell, alternated her gaze between the blushing Artasia and the frustrated Roel, and her expression suddenly turned weird.
“Big Sister, you can’t be planning to…”
“Shut up.” Artasia furiously glared at Natasia.
The latter shuddered, not daring to say anything anymore. She could only mutter words like ‘But Mother will get angry’ under her breath.
Artasia looked at the frustrated Roel and reminded him, “Enough; this matter is decided. Don’t you think it’s about time for you to resolve the other matter at hand?”
“The other matter?”
“You can sense it, right? She has awakened.”
“…” Roel fell silent.
He knew who Artasia was referring to. It was the person whom he had been wanting to meet but feared to do so—the Mother Goddess.
In truth, he had already sensed it during his battle with the Savior, and the feeling had only gotten stronger after he obtained the Savior’s powers. He let out a sigh before looking into the distance. His eyes peered through layers of darkness before falling upon a divine tower.
“Battle or peace, it’s up to you to decide. We do have a shot at victory if you choose the former. However, I feel like I ought to tell you something first,” Artasia said.
“What is it?” Roel asked.
Artasia revealed a fact that caught Roel by surprise. During their time ruling over humankind as the Twin Child Gods, the Mother Goddess had never attacked them.
“The truth is that we have never met Her before. She has never helped us, but at the same time, She has never attacked us either.”
“…” Roel stared at the lofty tower for a long time before finally sighing.
The Mother Goddess’ behavior had already revealed a lot about Her stance. Roel knew well what he had to do here.
“I need to leave for a moment.”
“Are you going…”
“…I need to talk with Her.”
“…Mm.” Artasia nodded.
Natasia waved Roel goodbye.
Before their gazes, Roel turned around. A gate immediately appeared in front of him. He walked up to the gate and pushed it open. The world on the other side of the gate was gray, similar to a dim corridor. At the very end of the corridor was a lofty tower.
Roel took a deep breath before going on his final journey.