The Record of Unusual Creatures

It had not been too long ago that a cloud of doubt began to hang over Hao Ren’s head.

What was the real purpose of the deicidal incident?

From the beginning, the know sinners involved in the deicide were the treacherous children, and the whole event could be simply interpreted as a mortal race trying to become God by assassinating their goddess. But when there was another mastermind behind the deicidal incident, this explanation became a bit untenable: this mastermind obviously had more power and a longer history. Even if it was not a god, it should be almost the same type of existence. This powerful existence obviously had a profound understanding of the goddess. So it was unlikely that this mastermind would want to wrest power by killing the goddess. It was meaningless to do so. Then why did this mastermind incite the treacherous children to kill the goddess of creation?

Obviously, there was a more complicated and far-reaching reason than “becoming a god” behind the action. The mastermind would not just stop at killing the goddess.

“As you know, in the war of ten-thousand years ago, the treacherous children were pawns. Though their own depravity and sin were also the important reasons, the mastermind was the real culprit,” Whitey explained to Hao Ren as he hovered over the central platform. “No one knows the origin of the mastermind behind. Not even the goddess of creation. We only know that he is the oldest intelligent being and earliest power in our universe. His existence even predates that of the Goddess of Creation, and so he is also pretty powerful. But this ancient being is not a true god, and so he is no match for the goddess of creation. For a long time, he was hiding in the darkest hinterland of the universe, pretending to have been imprisoned by Mother of All Beings. But in fact, this cunning ancient being was secretly planning a revolt.

“First, he found the deicides who lived in honor originally. They are the mortal creatures that Mother first created. Because of their high compatibility with the lifeblood, they are smarter, long-lived, and stronger than other races. But this race has a fatal flaw: there are greedy and blind. They are never satisfied with what they have. They always boast that they are the creatures closest to god. As this civilization becomes stronger, they become more oppressive and discriminate against the brothers and sisters who come after them. Brothers and sisters. When they became the most powerful race in the mortal world, they developed the greed for the power of a god. The arrogance in their bones took over their fear of the goddess.

“It took almost no trouble for the evil ancient beings to corrupt the ancestors of the mortal. Through some means, they bypassed the warning system set by Mother and the guardian’s surveillance, directly empowering the god killers, even providing them with weapons and runic technology that made them powerful enough to confront the power of the goddess.

“He chose to use these mortals to fight against a true god. Not only because he dared not to do it himself, but also because he knew this was the only way to defeat the goddess of creation,” Whitey said.

He then paused so that Hao Ren could digest the information before he continued with the critical point.

“It is not enough to defeat the goddess alone, because the worldly beings that the goddess created are still there. The influence of the goddess on the universe still exists, and the marks of the goddess in the laws of the world are still there. These remaining factors are unknown and unsearchable to mortals, but it is an obstacle the ancient being who has stepped into the realm of truth. He aspired to fundamentally get rid of the influence of the goddess. Only then he could gain control of the entire universe. To do this, it is not enough to just eliminate the flesh, body, spirit, and memory of the goddess. He must do one last thing, which is to have the goddess deny and get rid of herself.”

“Deny herself?” Hao Ren had thought he had understood it a bit, but now he was confused again. “What do you mean?”

“It is to let the divine miracles neutralize themselves, the divine powers go against each other,” Whitey explained. “It is difficult for external forces to erase the mark of the goddess. But if the goddess herself has doubts about her own behavior, what she left behind would become vulnerable. The greatest achievement of the goddess of creation is the creation of worldly beings. She was most proud of the creations. The evil ancient was making use of her prized creations to go against her.”

“He wanted the goddess of creation to doubt herself?” Hao Ren said as the penny dropped.

“Yes, self-doubt. Self-doubt is not scary by itself. But if the goddess doubted herself before she died, it was fatal. When the goddess of creation began to question her life and her works, or more seriously, hate her own creations, even if it were only a little, that would weaken her power, and the enemy could exploit this vulnerability. This is the purpose the evil ancient being has set out to do in the beginning: inciting the creations to attack the creator, and creating self-contradictions. Once the goddess no longer believes in herself, her miracles would disappear from the chain reaction,” Whitey said.

Hao Ren felt his breathing suddenly sped up. He looked up; the creations of the Goddess of Creation were everywhere. Even the deicide was among them. The words “Ultimate Absolution” flashed across his mind.

Y’zaks sighed, and his voice was low. “The ancient’s plan was perfect except one: the goddess has not wavered and doubted herself from the beginning to the end. Instead, she used the last strength of her life to forgive all the murderers.”

“Yes, she has never regretted creating these children. Most mortals are stupid, their spirits are pendulous, and their flesh is weak. They may be occasionally kind, but easily tempted and becoming evil. Give them a sword, and they would stab their mother. But they are created by Mother; regardless of how good or bad they are, they are still Mother’s precious children. Mother had foreseen all that was about to happen before the deicide took place. But she was unable to save the situation. There was no way to save the deicides from degeneration but only minimize the damage. The Ultimate Absolution is only one of her many efforts, but it seems that this is the only one that works.”

“Did she send life to this universe to preserve the “tinder” needed for the Ultimate Absolution?” Hao Ren asked curiously.

“Yes. The goddess is dead, and the mortals have lost protection. The evil ancients have enough time to annihilate the mortal worlds one by one and get rid of all the traces of the goddess of creation even if they are crippled. To prevent this, Mother opened the Wall of Reality and sent some of the creations to this world.

“As long as the devil couldn’t reach into this world and the Ultimate Absolution is still in effect, the throne of the goddess will not transpose, and the evil spirits in the deep universe will never be able to wrest power. He will be forever suppressed.”

Hao Ren and Vivian looked at each other. “But it seems that this Ultimate Absolution has gone wrong.”

“The races that have crossed over to the surface world are decreasing in population. More than half of the tinder has been extinguished.” Nangong Sanba took a breath. “It is because of the innate hostility and killing instinct!”

“But the innate hostility only occurred because of the original sin, which formed as a result of the deicidal event.” Hao Ren felt that things were getting more and more complicated. “This original sin is—”

“Though there is no clear evidence, I suspect that there is the devil has a hand in the matter.” Whitey interrupted Hao Ren. “Mother has forgiven all the sinners at her last moment. There was no resentment in the last breath of her power. So why could her blood produce sin? No doubt the end of the innate hostility is to sabotage Mother’s ritual of Ultimate Absolution. Its essence runs counter to Mother’s wish, so the origin of the innate hostility is suspicious.”

“You know all the truths, even of the innate hostility on this planet,” Hao Ren said, his brows twitching.

“But Yggdrasil has been corrupted and incapacitated from the beginning, even losing the ability to communicate with the outside world.”

“In theory, Ymir should also know the truth.”

“Like other races, he has also lost his memory although he is a demigod.”

“So it is crystal clear,” Hao Ren spread out his hand, “that anyone who knows the truth is either gagged or getting their memories erased. The targets of Ultimate Absolution has either been mad or killed in civil wars. All these are to thwart the plan of the goddess of creation. The mastermind is more capable than what we have thought earlier. He seems to have his hand everywhere.”

The atmosphere felt a bit somber until Y’zaks broke the silence. “But in any case, the Ultimate Absolution has not been completely destroyed. Thanks to Hao Ren, the innate hostility has been removed, and at least part of the ‘tinder’ is still alive.”

“Yes, the Ultimate Absolution is still in effect. But in reality, the situation is far less optimistic because the most important link in performing this task was destroyed long ago.”