“There are no coincidences in the world. There is only the definite.”
“…I feel like you’re making a subtle dig at something. Why are you saying this?”
“…What I mean is that if you think that you’re being favored by the God of Fate and everything you’re doing is going perfectly, with so many coincidences occurring that went well for you, then you should probably take a closer look to see if you’ve already fallen deep into a trap. And usually it’s too late to escape from the trap when you do.”
“Isn’t this just paranoia!? You have a serious case of paranoia because you constantly keep scheming! Don’t get your nerves so tense like that. Otherwise, you’ll go insane one day sooner or later.”
Alright. Without commenting on the silly cat’s comments, I suppose I could admit that I was indeed rather paranoid. I figured I should at least be a little more self-aware after suffering so many times. But when I saw the original version of the Seal of the Four Elements… or perhaps I should call it the four elements creating the world, I felt like something was wrong with the style.
“The four elements? So they were so simple, after all?”
My System stuffed a bunch of memories into me, a record of Creator Goddess Eich creating her world named after her.
At first, all and everything was a void. There was no color, no space and no time until a powerful existence lit up everything with the first light of the world.
Who was this existence? Why was it so powerful? Why did it exist? The answers to these questions were perhaps impossible to know. At the beginning of this existence’s memories, it began changing the surrounding environment because it was far too lonely.
That’s right. This existence was only an it at the time. It didn’t have the concept of a physical body. It didn’t even have its own self-awareness. Perhaps it didn’t even realize at this time that it would in the future become the Creator Goddess, Eich.
Perhaps this was all a coincidence, or it was all fated. Some mysterious powers out there guided this existence to choose the Four Elemental Planes as the foundational building blocks for her new world.
That’s right, the real story of creation wasn’t like what was told in the myths and legends here. The existence didn’t intentionally choose the Four Elemental Planes. It simply felt that these Four Elemental Planes could be used to create a world, so it used them.
The first was the Earth Elemental Plane, the foundation for everything, and the most basic unit of existence. Earth itself had no concept of good or evil. It was a simple representation of existence or non-existence.
Earth was the land… and also represented the Concept of Space!
The wind element was present everywhere. High-speed winds whipped about everywhere, connecting to the land. Wind represented air, the sky and was the concept that complemented and opposed earth… Time!
Just as the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam said, the highest-level Concepts of Order were Space and Time. And creating a world would absolutely require the Concept of Time, which represented “the birth and death of all things,” along with the Concept of Space, which represented the “the location of the birth and death of all things.”
If the world was displayed on a graph, Time would be the X-axis and Space would be the Y-axis. Every single existence was absolutely required to have a coordinate on both axes. Else it would be nonexistent, for without space and time how would one define existence?
It could be said that Time and Space were both the ultimate Concepts of Order as well as the most basic Concepts of Order. Everything would be nothing but the void without Time and Space.
After Time and Space were created, this void now had land and the sky. Only the wisest who sought the foundational reasons behind everything would be able to understand the faint connections between everything here.
Dimensional teleportation spells, which broke the natural laws of Space, would typically be connected to the earth element. Dimensional coordinates were the foundation of everything. Natural laws regarding Space could still be broken by mortals via space magic spells, yet time magic remained the most taboo of all magics. The fact that time magic was actually the highest-level form of wind magic was more than enough to prove certain things.
Eich created the world and used wind and earth to create the original form of Order. From then onwards, wind and earth possessed their own magic power. The ironic part was that just as the sky and the land would forever face each other without being able to make contact, the wind and earth elements naturally became each other’s mortal enemies. But just this alone was far too insufficient to create the world of Eich.
Then, this newly-born world became connected to the Water Elemental Plane under Eich’s gaze.
Water was the mother of all creatures. Ordinary lifeforms typically consisted of more than seventy percent water. Blood, the representative liquid of life, was as high as ninety percent water. And in the world of Eich, water’s connection to life was expressed even more directly. Water magic was the only branch of magic other than Holy Light or nature magic capable of healing and cleansing lifeforms.
In the world that Eich created, water was the representation of life, as well as the foundational element that all lifeforms’ physical bodies were constructed out of.
The final element was Fire, the never-ending flame that represented evolution and the source of the soul. Fire was intricately connected to water yet also opposed it with mortal enmity. In ancient Greece’s view of the four elements, all creatures were born and forever changed because of fire.
The proof of this was even simpler. Fire represented a state of being. The visible soulfire in undead skeletons’ eyes could be seen by the naked eye. Their endlessly evolving spirits were connected to their physical bodies. Only with the two together would there be the possibility of evolution. And “Evolution” was the main Concept of Chaos.
The two elements of Order created the foundation of the world, while the two elements of Chaos created the foundation of all lifeforms. Everything was then allowed to naturally evolve. This was the so-called method by which the four elements created the world.
And the connection between the elements wasn’t a forced one. Eich had given this connection to the elements. As long as one met the four requirements of “Time,” “Space,” “Life” and “Soul” one could achieve the creation of a world.
Since Eich’s creation of the world was recorded in all historical records, the four elements themselves gained special meanings in the world of Eich. That was how the world’s strongest magic seal, the “Seal of the Four Elements,” came about. And through that, it would be possible to use the four elements to create a world to seal the Titans in.
“…It’s impossible for an ordinary lifeform or True God to achieve such high skill in controlling all four elements. There are only three possible candidates for who could have sealed the Titans away: Creator Goddess Eich, Goddess of Chaos Cynthia and Goddess of Order Astrya.”
But now someone had broken the record of the Creator Goddess’s unique accomplishment, achieving the originally impossible deed of creating a world.
Yep, I was talking about myself. When I had been forced to the extreme brink in the Earth Elemental Plane, my “Frigidwinter Earth” had been born. In a way, Frigidwinter Earth was only a prototype world as it was an incomplete world creation.
And now that I looked back on how I was able to accomplish this, it likely wasn’t only due to the complementary and opposing natures of my Holy Light and undead magic. My powers of Law and ice were huge influences as well. And it was precisely because I was so unclear on the fundamentals that my world possessed limitless potential.
That’s right. After experiencing three reincarnations and four lives, I gathered four elements that belonged to me: Holy Light, Law, Undeath and Ice. And these four elements just happened to be two of Order and two of Chaos. Although their power and quality couldn’t possibly compare to that of the Creator Goddess, I indeed met the lowest requirements necessary for creating a world.
And this was precisely why I kept muttering “This has to be a pitfall; I feel like I’ve already jumped deep inside it.” When I mysteriously obtained such memories from my System and my four Soul Imprints mysteriously combined into one, and when I woke up and found that I had mysteriously improved my power level, I would be a true fool if I didn’t think that something was off about my System’s real identity.
Previously, I didn’t forcefully ask her identity because asking certain things would be the equivalent of flipping the table at a negotiation. But now I had enough aces up my sleeve and was about to start my grand scheme. If I still didn’t ask and confirm my doubts, it would be impossible for me to rest reassured.
“There are no coincidences in the world. There are only certainties… System, was it really such a coincidence that I managed to perfectly gather these four required elements with your assistance? And what about that mysterious precognition prophecy ability which belongs to Time and Space? And equivalent exchange, a power that clearly belongs to Order? Perhaps I should respectfully address you as the greatest prophet of all time, along with your magnificent divine name, my dear… Goddess of Order, Astrya!”
I didn’t receive an answer, but I wouldn’t let things go just like this. Once some things were said out loud it would be impossible to turn back.
“I also want to ask, did you attach yourself to Karolan in the same way back then, guiding him step by step to become the God of Holy Light?”
After a long, long period of time, I finally heard a sigh from my System.
[…Astrya is still in hibernation at the Source of Order. Or perhaps I should say that her corpse is in hibernation there. I am merely a remnant soul shard of Astrya.]
******
As Roland finally asked his System the questions he had planned for so long, a certain Demon Prince was having fun fishing in the Black Mist Ocean of the seventy-sixty layer in the Chaos Abyss.
He forcefully tugged on his fishing pole and pulled a mountain-sized giant fish monster out of the black mist. Its gigantic body crashed into a nearby mountain and knocked off a great portion.
“Our Demon Thane!”
“Our Thane’s head is bleeding! Hurry and save him! Can anyone use healing!?”
Alright, perhaps Karwenz was having great fun with his fishing, but the “fish” wasn’t having fun at all. That was because this pitiful fish was actually the Demon Thane of this layer of the Abyss.
The Demon Thane’s giant body was only exhaling, not able to inhale. The injury on its head wasn’t much, but the red fishhook in its mouth that it couldn’t get rid of was the actual dangerous part.
The demons around them had frightened expressions as they looked at the “tiny human” in front of them. But obviously their complaints would all be useless in front of the spoiled child of the Abyss who was forever unreasonable.
It would seem that Karwenz was indeed an excellent demon as he succeeded in making the forever unreasonable demons have such angry expressions but not dare to complain.
“How boring. I managed to hook you after only two hours. According to our agreement, I shall be confiscating your castle. Now, what fun game should I play next…?”
Just as Karwenz was wondering if he should go play around in Reyne’s body and visit the mortal plane, he suddenly stopped due to a message that a divine will suddenly transmitted to him.
“Hunt down and kill the Devil Lords that have betrayed the Chaos Faction… Nope, I’m not going. That’s too boring. Those sly fellows are sooo uninteresting. Fighting with them is like playing guessing games to find where they actually are. That’s so troublesome. Aren’t there others who are mortal enemies with the Lord of Lies? Why not have them go instead?”
The demons around him immediately backed off a great distance. It was already well known in the Chaos Abyss that the Demon Prince had a habit of talking out loud to himself. That wasn’t something out of the ordinary because there were plenty of demons with multiple personalities or that had gone insane. But there was another well-known fact around these parts: that any who accidentally got to close to him whenever he was talking to himself would end up being crushed to death by him.
“Oh, this is related to my brother? Fine, I’ll go, but I can’t promise that I’ll do anything. Brother is so weak right now. It’s no fun toying with him. Oh, you’ll send someone else to hunt him down and I can do whatever I want? Yep, you really understand me. The most important thing in life is to have fun playing. Okay, guess I’ll go then. Thank you, Mother Abyss… Mother Cynthia.”