[Vol. 7] Chapter 46: The Poison of Truth
Gods don't leave behind corpses because their divine bodies are made up of part of their Divinity, which returns to its original form upon death. That's why when the [World-Eater Serpent]'s remains appeared over three hundred years ago, they were fiercely fought over, leading to a great battle.
Whoever obtained that remains would gain the power of a god, opening the possibility for reaching a higher realm.
Divine bodies are so precious that even the long-lived mythic beings go crazy over them. This is because, except for bizarre creatures like the [World-Eater Serpent], a divine body can only appear when a law completely collapses, and the god’s essence loses the concept it represents.
If this is truly the skull of the [God of the Azure Sea and Truth], it means They are really dead. Not just Their physical body, but Their spirit, and even the laws They represented are gone…
Even with Violet's calm demeanor, she couldn't help but feel a sense of disbelief and absurdity at this moment.
It was too terrifying, too shocking…
Who could have done this?
Who could have achieved this?
Was it the Evil God of the Sea?
Impossible...
Not to mention the complex relationship between Octaviel and Surst, even if the Evil God of the Sea truly wanted to kill the [God of the Azure Sea and Truth], They wouldn’t have had the power to do so. Defeating Them would have been hard enough, let alone completely erasing Them from existence.
According to Sethlin’s description, their divine powers were almost entirely equal.
At present, the only entity that truly possesses the power to completely kill a god is the [Apocalypse] from the far reaches of the heavens. However, this is just Violet’s hypothesis based on the current state of the gods' disappearance. Whether they are truly dead, their divinity shattered, or simply waiting for their long rebirth is still unknown.
Moreover, if the [God of Truth] died at the hands of that thing, on the battlefield of the outer world, then the [Book of Truth], the continuation of his authority, would never have remained in this world, and his remains certainly wouldn’t have ended up in a place like this...
Staring at the incomplete skull on the ocean floor, the black-haired girl frowned deeply.
The Ghost Sea, the Great Whirlpool, the unfathomable god realm, the incomprehensible and unbearable information pollution. There are far too many complex and tangled elements mixed in here. Just the information Rashid has given her, what he has told her, is not enough to explain everything.
The [Book of Truth] is ultimately not the [God of Truth]. The Pirate King is just a slightly more special human. To him, the truth might always remain an unreachable and distant illusion.
It seems the only way to find the answer is one way.
If it were her... does she have the ability and the qualification to bear that truth?
But without taking this first step, she would just remain trapped in the pocket dimension, one of the insignificant ants living a mundane life.
Huff...
Violet took a deep breath, causing a string of bubbles to rise in the water.
Then, she crouched down. Instead of using the [Eternal Scepter of the World's Heart], she raised her hand and pressed her palm directly against the half-skeleton.
Boom!!!
It was like the sound of thunder exploding in her ears. His wild laughter and roar, a flood of chaotic, obscure, and maddened fragments of information, instantly surged into the girl’s mind like a great wave!
[Truth! Truth!!! The truth of this world, the final truth, is so absurd! Is this really truth, or fate? Hahahaha!!!!!!]
[Unknown! Unknown!!!!]
[Truth is poison, the truth is original sin! A god with such a divinity should never exist!]
In a daze, it felt like countless lights and bubbles were flashing in front of her eyes.
She saw it.
The [God of the Azure Sea and Truth].
[They] were wailing. [Their] eyes were shedding tears of blood, and the truth turned into a deadly poison, bringing [Them] endless torment. [Their] divine body was being burned by an invisible fire, but [They] were an immortal god, and even such power couldn't destroy [Them].
Until the massive, sky-darkening tentacles emerged from the deep sea and crushed [Their] helpless divine body completely.
[Their] flesh and soul turned to ashes in the intense flames, [Their] bones shattered and scattered, swept away to different places. Finally, the overburdened Divinity shattered completely under the scorching heat. Part of it fused into the tentacles that killed [Them], and the other part disappeared into the deep sea, vanishing without a trace.
The [God of the Azure Sea and Truth], Surst... committed suicide.
The truth brought by “Truth” had polluted the Divinity, and the god's hatred, born from endless torment, along with the tainted power of the law, sank into the ocean. Day and night, it whispered in the abyss, even gathering into more absurd and strange entities.
However, gods are beings that transcend causality. Even after such complete destruction, it seemed that in some moment, [They] still felt a gaze from the future. [They] used the last of [Their] strength to cross time and meet her silver-blue eyes.
In that fleeting moment, the girl heard a faint whisper from the [God of Truth].
The voice was no longer mad, no longer in pain, but like that of a true sage and seeker, offering a reminder to those who would come after.
[It’s not the time yet... don't... don't make eye contact with the third month…]
"Ha... Ha..."
All the information and illusions vanished the moment those words were spoken. Violet, as if struck by lightning, pulled her hand away from the skull and instinctively took a half-step back, breathing a little faster, her breaths short and quick.
"Ha… Ha… Is this the [Truth]?"
Violet had seen the truth, and was fortunate not to have fallen into madness.
But she had to admit, it was all too insane. Even she, with her calm demeanor, felt her head buzzing now, struggling to process all the overwhelming information she had just received.
The [God of the Azure Sea and Truth], Surst, was dead. [Their] divine body had burned away, leaving only a few scattered bones, and [Their] divinity had completely collapsed. The corrupted parts sank into the deep sea, while what remained relatively pure may have formed something like the [Book of Truth], carrying the god's authority in a different form.
The evil god had not been severely wounded in the battle with the [God of Truth], or perhaps they hadn't even fought at all. From the fragmented memories Violet had seen, it seemed that the [God of Truth] had, perhaps, encountered some forbidden knowledge or information that turned [Them] into an extremely dangerous source of corruption.
That led to endless madness and torment for [Them]. But after all, gods were gods. Even so, Surst didn't lose [Their] mind completely. [They] attempted to end [Their] life through self-immolation but failed, instead causing [Them] even more suffering.
At this moment, the evil god, Octavier, chose to intervene. Although Violet couldn't yet determine whether this was to help the [God of Truth] achieve liberation or simply to take advantage of the situation and destroy a rival, it seemed that this action seemed to have caused the evil god to suffer some degree of contamination.
When the [God of the Azure Sea and Truth]'s divinity collapsed, Violet saw that some of the polluted laws had flowed into the tentacles used by the evil god to kill Them. This could be the reason why the evil god had remained dormant for thousands of years, rarely appearing in the outside world or showing any significant power.
Different divine laws couldn’t coexist. For gods, conflicting divine powers were nearly as dangerous as poison. Let alone the polluted powers of a god like the [God of Truth].