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Chapter 619: Difference Between Life and Death

Everyone would be naturally talented in different areas. A so-called genius in all areas would typically never reach the top in any area. The deeper the field of study, the more time would be needed to accumulate understanding. While longer-lived species could use their longer lifespans to accumulate more understanding, the short-lived humans didn’t have such excellent conditions.

Roland’s path for ability growth had been quite unique. He had reached the peak in all four areas. This seemed to break a maxim, but he actually wasn’t multitasking at all.

Rather than treating each of these fields as a type of power and knowledge, Roland viewed them all more like philosophical ways of thinking.

Holy Light’s path of belief. Estrada had been Roland’s first teacher. Roland had thus started down the historical Holy Knights’ path of protection. He had also received the favor of Holy Light, which was how Roland managed to achieve the peak. But, when he evolved the path of Holy Light into the path of Salvation, it was just as if he was using theology and philosophy to research Holy Light rather than being like other Holy Light users who simply researched Holy Light and its usage.

Roland hadn’t invented any special Divine Arts for high-level priests and Holy Knights to use. As for Holy Light usage, techniques, and mastery of high-level Divine Arts, not only could Roland not compare to SemiGod rank Holy Knights and priests, it was likely that Roland couldn’t even compare to a Legend-ranked Holy Knight who worked hard at researching Holy Light.

There was no need to go into detail about Law. This was what Roland sought after his accumulation from both Earth and Eich. This was also about his understanding of human social rules.

Roland had invented the Concept of Law in Eich. However, he wasn’t a dedicated researcher of Law. Roland hoped that Law could change the world of Eich. However, he wasn’t interested in further researching the usages of Law. Right now, the great majority of new Law Incantations in the world had been developed by other Law job class members… and Roland didn’t even know how to use these Law Incantations.

Since he was focusing less and less on Law these days, Roland had also started using the power of Law in his battles less and less. His power of ice was also in a similar situation.

Ice was probably the field that Roland had the weakest mastery of. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had to have four elements and had a cheat-like System helping him all the way, it would be unlikely that he would have achieved what he did in ice magic.

Roland’s understanding of ice had only improved recently. While he knew more about ice than ordinary ice mages, Roland would count as nothing more than an acolyte in comparison to ice magic grandmasters… The number of ice magic spells that Roland knew couldn’t even compare to a Legend-ranked ice mage who finished all his classes at magic school.

Truly powerful individuals had reached the peak slowly, step by step. Mages would need to know a tremendous amount of magical knowledge. They would analyze the foundational workings of low-level spells to obtain knowledge about magic’s inner workings. Only after slowly being able to control mid- and high-level spells, achieving the peak and reaching a bottleneck, would one start researching their personal magic.

The way that Roland understood the fundamentals of ice magic but couldn’t apply them practically meant that he was unable to translate his ice magic mastery into actual combat strength.

Mages who knew thousands of spells weren’t only for show. Roland, who only knew how to cast ice arrows, blizzards, and Ice Aeon, was one of the ice mages in the world with the worst repertoire. That was why he would often forget to cast spells while fighting and always resort to melee, which he excelled at.

People would naturally rely on and trust what they were the most familiar with when they were in dangerous combat. In a way, this was the best evidence that Roland had put far more effort into swordsmanship than ice magic. At the very least, he trusted his sword more than his ice magic.

His only high-level ice spell, the forbidden spell Ice Aeon… Apart from the fact that his System had helped him with this, Ice Aeon was also the accumulated knowledge gained over two separate lives, along with Roland’s understanding of “Death” and “Destruction”. The Ice Aeon spell was the end result of having a lich’s body and the ability to reincarnate.

Correct—the area that Roland had truly focused most of his time and effort on, along with his being naturally talented in, was the Concept of Death.

Roland had been focusing on finding the “truth” behind his Mist Kingdom’s destruction at that time. He was in despair and insane back then. It was also the time when he desired strength more than anything.

A weakness of smart people was that they would always try to think of ways to slack off. It was also common that they would overthink things and miss an opportunity. At that time, Roland strongly desired more strength so that he could obtain revenge. He even broke all moral boundaries and directly unraveled the secrets of the soul.

“Roland is the only new Undead Emperor to appear in the past thousand years. He has reached the highest peak possible in soul magic. He is the creator of undead construction.”

This was how the dead and the mages referred to Roland. This was the best evidence of how much Roland had achieved in the area of Death. At the very least, Roland was already at the top of the top when it came to his research about the nature of the soul… In fact, the reason why he was able to master so many different powers was also because of his understanding of the soul. He was already capable of transforming belief and feelings into actual power!

His experience in the River Styx and his memories gained from truly dying and being reborn several times all helped him to far better understand the nature of death than any other existence in the world did. In fact, his understanding of death had already exceeded Creator Goddess Eich’s.

Roland’s true research results hadn’t even been publicized. What Roland would truly be known for in Eich’s history wasn’t even his frightful Seven Original Sin undead creations. That was because former Undead Emperors before him had constructed even more fearsome creatures. Not only that, his Seven Original Sins were only a byproduct of his research into the soul for the sake of power.

“Roland has broken the boundaries between life and death.”

Indeed, this was truly Roland’s greatest achievement. Before Roland, death meant death. No matter if you entered the River Styx or the Cycle of Reincarnation, death was death. Nobody was truly able to come back after death.

The moment that Lisa fell into the River Styx, she had already died. Even though Roland pulled her out and gave her a new life, she was now a new individual. It could be said that Elisa’s past life was as Lisa.

People were capable of becoming undead, God Envoys, angels, or so on. However, these were all alternate methods of extending life. The living were still the living, and the dead were the dead. Nobody was capable of breaking this boundary.

No matter if you were an Undead Emperor or a True God, including even the Creator Goddess and the Main Gods, nobody was capable of breaking the boundary between life and death. Roland was the only one who’d ever achieved this. He researched topics that nobody else even dared to. He also succeeded.

Perhaps, foundationally speaking, he was still that crazy lich with no limits whatsoever.

Such research results were no result of miraculous luck. No miraculous luck could bring about such research results. Roland’s research had taken an obvious course.

Even though the Seven Original Sins were a product of undead construction research, they had also been a product of Roland’s research into the nature of souls, along with dissecting the essence of what desires and feelings were as natural traits of the soul. As the Seven Original Sins were completed, Roland’s understanding of the nature of souls had exceeded that of every other existence… That was because nobody else would be insane enough to dissect themselves, cutting off a portion of their own soul to put into an undead creation in order to observe the changes in the nature of the soul. Besides, if it wasn’t for the fact that Roland was known as the “Undying”, doing this would normally be no different from suicide.

His experience in the River Styx also gave Roland the world’s only personal experience with living and dead souls (nobody else would be capable of leaving the River Styx or the Cycle of Reincarnation). By using his knowledge of souls, Roland was able to solve the foundational difference between life and death.

Thus, Roland opened a crack in the door between the secrets of life and death. However, some things would be impossible to accomplish even if you understood the theory… Roland hadn’t intended on breaking the limits between life and death. In his calculations, that would have required a tremendous amount of energy as well as a giant price.

Actually, his research results were only a byproduct of researching Creation. It was his search for the essence of life that led to this. He hadn’t intended on reviving anyone.

Back in the Northlands, Roland had successfully created life in the incident that caused Aivla to become a fallen angel. However, he hadn’t created a soul. He only proved that the extreme end of light was darkness, and that Death of Chaos was actually capable of being used together with Holy Light from Order to create life. This was enough to make him the God of Holy Light’s mortal enemy.

The end result of his research into Creation was the dimension of Hell. Without mentioning this for the time being, since Roland was already capable of creating physical bodies, didn’t that mean that he could artificially create an actual life if he could create souls? That would be different from any alchemical puppet or living creation. This would be truly “living”.

The power of the Creator Goddesses… No, even the Creator Goddesses had limitations to their abilities. After they created a species, they could only let the species slowly evolve by themselves. Roland was creating an individual from zero. Perhaps this was glory that far surpassed that of being a Creator Goddess. Even Roland was tempted by this opportunity right before him.

And so, when Ayer cut off the Earth Elemental Plane from the mortal plane, making it so that all high-level existences were unable to know what was happening in the Earth Elemental Plane, Roland gritted his teeth and performed an ultimate experiment there.

Roland used Harloys as the experimental subject. He ignited the soul of the Divine Sin Shadow, and injected Shadow’s soul into Harloys’ body, trying to make up for her insufficiencies for being undead, transforming her from undead back into living.

The end result? Everyone should know that already. Harloys was now alive again. Although she still had some undead traits, she was indeed alive.

Her soul and physical body combined once more. From now on, she no longer needed hatred to power her soul. She was once again capable of having children. She could limitlessly become stronger again… although it was meaningless as Roland had never counted on the silly cat becoming a powerful fighter.

Had Roland succeeded? Maybe not. Although he had accomplished this, which meant that Roland’s research results and theories about life and death were accurate, reviving Harloys had used up an incredibly rare and powerful Divine Sin’s soul. A life was paid for a life, in addition to the tremendous amount of energy used. Such a revival technique would be practically useless.

Of course, many unexpected research results would appear quite meaningless when they were first discovered. They would only sit around looking pretty in a laboratory. However, such research results would become more and more meaningful as other technologies and industries were developed.

Over the past two years, due to various objective factors (technology from the Haletdam scholars’ generation), Roland had developed two applications for this technology. As long as he publicized them, he would surely receive endless accolades from the Truth Symposium, and obtain the title of the most outstanding Undead Emperor in the past tens of thousands of years. However, when considering the social effects that might occur if he publicized his information… well, a more accurate term might be revolutionary change… Roland obediently locked away his information in his treasury.

Harloys knew Roland better than anyone through their soul connection. She knew that he absolutely hadn’t thought of what her status as the only living Gold Elf in existence would represent if she became alive again.

“The dead don’t have rights, but it’s different for the living.”

The most regal of all elven bloodlines, the Gold Elves, had been extinct for countless millennia already. Even though Harloys still existed as an undead, she no longer had the status of an elf. No elf would possibly recognize her as a Gold Elf.

But, if she was living, would that mean that she could still reobtain the status of an Elven Empress…? Although the elves’ rules would say nothing about this, as long as the proper inheritor was still alive, all the usurpers would feel uncomfortable, and elves could make their choice.

When elves were faced with such difficulty, and when the current Elven Gods were unable to help improve the elves’ situation, the elves would naturally think back to their former leader, the Gold Elves.

This matter was one that someone… or, more accurately, a certain God… had already anticipated.

“Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom…”

Old Kalumandas was quite nostalgic about the past as he was formerly a half-elf who had still been a mortal during the Gold Elves’ generation. For quite a long period of time, he had protected Harloys and prevented her from dying a mysterious death at the hands of the Elven Gods.

Also, back in the battle of Hell, he descended to Hell with his true body. Although he was nominally working for the Order Faction, he actually made many alliance agreements with Hell instead of attacking Hell. Of course, a Main God like Kalumandas who was so concerned with Harloys would naturally notice the changes in her upon meeting her again.

At that time, Roland and Kalumandas had a secret discussion. Roland finally learned then that he had unknowingly brought himself so much trouble.

“You absolutely can’t reveal that she’s alive. Otherwise, the Elven Gods will pay any cost to kill her… Oh, you’re telling me that she has a soul connection to you, and that it’s impossible for her to die unless you die? Then, those grudge-bearing Elven Gods will try to kill you at any costs. Also, if you don’t want to be hunted down by countless Gods, you can’t reveal that you have the ability to revive the dead.”

Roland took Kalumandas’ advice quite seriously. Roland knew that even if Harloys didn’t stir up any trouble herself, just the fact that she was the rightful inheritor to the Elven Empire and just her bloodline alone would mean that the Elven Gods would never let her go.

Roland had never even mentioned this matter to Harloys. Perhaps Harloys had also willingly forgotten about the potential consequences of her revival.

Things were quite simple after death. However, the living would have to bear responsibilities, and this was a heavy responsibility that wouldn’t be so easy to bear.

Dealing with the elven traitors and elven internal wars, reorganizing the elven tribes and Elven Gods, and leading the entire elf species. Just thinking about all this was such a headache. Roland, who hated trouble, chose to have the Gold Elf species disappear in history.

“Even if Harloys wants to raise her flag and reconstruct the Elven Empire, that would mean a direct confrontation against the moon elves. The elves still have decent lives these days. Since their lives are alright, who would be willing to rebel against the current elven society and follow her? Since this isn’t possible to accomplish, then let’s not even mention it.”

However, some things were impossible to hide from even if you wanted to. Thanks to the ironic workings of fate, Roland had created such trouble for himself, and some troubles… responsibilities had to be faced sooner or later.

Although Roland’s party was cut off from the mortal plane in the Chaos Abyss, they were still contactable through the fairies’ information network. It finally became time for Roland to make a decision on this matter.

“An Elven Empire created with only nominal support from the four Superior Elf species, versus an Elven Empire led by a Gold Elf with the inheritance of ancient past, combined with support from all four Superior Elf species. The former is at risk of meeting its doom, while the latter has the proper inheritance and strong supporters. Isn’t it quite obvious which Elven Empire will more easily receive support from all elves?”