Chapter 6943 The Deathborn Race
Chapter 6943 The Deathborn Race
"..."
When Ves looked at his own performance, he wondered how he was able to fight so well.
His second personality may hold delusions of godhood, but it turned out that he was not a complete blowhard.
He did not need any training to make effective use of his brand-new lesser Arcis organ right at the start!
Ves could not recognize himself when he saw himself fight under the previous circumstances.
The entire situation was a confusing mess. Not only did an unknown enemy launch a superdimensional projectile at the underground facility, it also resulted in the spawning of lots of evil adversaries.
"What do we know about these creatures?" Ves asked. "So far, I have only been able to figure out that they are energy-based life forms. That explains how they were able to emerge from the shadows without needing to enter the site in a normal fashion. They are also based on negative energy. I can vaguely sense from the recording that they are predominantly dominated by death, darkness and other negative attributes. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that they were demons."
"Are they?"
"...Maybe." Ves responded. "I am pretty sure they are not. These creatures have a different vibe. They are overwhelmingly based on death energy. Their personalities, as little as I can perceive it, possess even less rationality. These are beings who are constantly hungry to devour the living. Does anyone else have anything to share?"
"These dark shades appear to be based on phase lords and other beings that used to be alive." Gloriana noted. "That is not a coincidence. There must be a connection between the two. We are dealing with a new and unfamiliar phenomenon. If we cannot understand what we are dealing with, then we will remain just as vulnerable to a surprise attack from beings that have proven the ability to hold back a superdimensional ace mech, if only briefly."
That was way too scary to Ves and other parties. Whoever harnessed the power of these death specters could definitely target people who were not as alert and well-equipped to defend against sneak attacks!
"Perhaps my sister can tell me more."
He retrieved a small totem of the Daughter of Death. Helena arrived promptly in the form of a small manifestation.
"Brother. You have fallen into serious difficulties."
"Can you tell me what is going on with me and this and everything else?"
The apparition of his sister grimaced. "I can share my perspective on what you have done to yourself, but… you and your friends should be able to derive the answers to most of your questions. I am only here to offer clarification of the deathborn."
Ves and several other people raised their eyebrows.
"My… other self used the same term, though in a pejorative manner. I thought it was an insult or a nickname."
"Perhaps it may be a curse to certain groups of aliens, but it is a factual description of their origin." Helena patiently explained. "The deathborn are not ordinary life forms. They are not spawned from living organisms. They are spawned from death. Battlefields are their cradles and nurseries. The larger the battle and the more beings have perished during it, the greater the chance that unusual phenomena might occur."
Ves widened his eyes. He already constructed a basic theory on what happened.
Ever since the Red Ocean bathed in the exotic radiation of Messier 87, the rules had changed.
In the old days, a battlefield where tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of soldiers belonging to both sides perished in the same area was nothing special.
Both sides tried their best to respectfully retrieve the remains of their own soldiers while ruthlessly wiping out the carcasses of their adversaries.
Yet now that they had entered the Age of Dawn, Ves feared that the strong and intense emotions that soldiers produced during the moments before death may have affected the surrounding environment.
The overwhelming fear, resentment, anger and unwillingness towards death had caused their spirits to mutate into these 'deathborn'.
"What makes these deathborn special?"
"You have already identified a number of their core traits, Ves. The deathborn are the children of death. They are violent creatures from birth and barely manage to gain more control over themselves when they survive and grow. The deathborn are natural enemies of living beings, and are willing to invest all of their efforts into wiping out all life in the territories within their reach."
"What makes them different from demons?"
"Demons are inherently chaotic and irrational." The Daughter of Death explained to Ves and the other Larkinsons. "There is not much difference between demons and deathborn at the start. You can even treat the latter as death demons. What causes them to diverge is time and growth. The older and more powerful a deathborn becomes, the more rational he becomes. Although there is a limit to how smart they can become, this is undoubtedly frightening. Powerful demons are still driven by their baser emotions and instincts. Powerful deathborn still maintain their hatred towards the living, but have become intelligent enough to command armies of weaker deathborn into waging war. The more deathborn are born on battlefields, the greater the chance that an army of the dead will sweep across our dwarf galaxy!"
Multiple Larkinsons couldn't help but fear such a scenario!
"Is there a way to prevent these deathborn from being born on a battlefield?"
Helena responded with a single nod. "Yes. Either destroy the remains of the deceased, or conduct a ceremony that is adequate enough to guide the restless dead to the afterlife or the next step of their journey. So long as the dead are soothed, they have no reason to turn themselves into abominations that seek to devour and destroy all life in the cosmos."
All of that sounded nice, but anyone who possessed a good inkling about the intensity of warfare between the two sides should know how impossible it was to give every deceased soldier and civilian a proper send-off.
High Captain Gilbert de Raanvanchas immediately understood how bad it may be. "The Red Tide Offensive has resulted in a rapid escalation of fighting and killing. The native aliens are not above wiping out all humans living on settled planets. If no one is willing to stand up and give all of those dead their last rites, these battlefields will all turn into potential deathborn breeding grounds!"
Everyone shuddered at the thought.
Ves turned towards his sister. "Do any of the higher ups at the Red Three and the first-rate colonial superstates know?"
His sister smirked. "I doubt it. These deathborn have only recently shown up. I do not think the native aliens know anything about this. The only reason why I am able to learn so much about them is because of my domain. Did you know that the deathborn are the first true extragalactic invaders from Messier 87."
"What?!"
Helena had given the Larkinsons another massive shock!
"It is true. Well, you can't consider the deathborn to be a proper invasion. It is more proper to regard them as the invasive species brought by exposure to a different galaxy that possesses its own extraordinary power source. Whenever E energy radiation courses through regions teeming with life, the deathborn will inevitably emerge among them. If you want to completely evade this new threat, then you should find a way to return to the Milky Way."
In other words, the deathborn were like weeds that came when trying to grow new crops. They were akin to a natural phenomena that could easily escalate into an extinction-level disaster if left unchecked!
When Ves thought about how many battlefields went unpoliced, he could already foresee that the rise of the deathborn would be unstoppable.
There were way too implications about their existence and what sort of threat they posed. He needed to figure out how much information he should share with different parties.
The big players undoubtedly possessed their own means of gathering information, but VEs had a feeling that a clear and sober description from a death goddess may offer a lot more clarity.
"That is all I can say about the deathborn up to this point." Helena said. "As I have said, I have only recently gotten in touch with them, and there is no means to establish peaceful communications."
"Oh? Shouldn't you be their goddess?"
"It does not work that way, Ves. The deathborn are beings of great hatred towards life. It is their ideal to completely wipe out all life in the universe and cause everything to descend into darkness. I cannot agree to such a destructive ideal. I respect the living as well as the dead. I help guide souls that are too attached to the material realm to move on. I am quite happy with the current state of the cosmos."
If that was the case, then the two groups were utterly irreconcilable to each other!
Helena respected the cycle of life.
The deathborn wanted to trample on it until it broke.
The differences were pretty clear.
"Can you do anything to stop their spread or slow down their emergence?" Ves asked.
"Aside from properly cleaning up the corpses on a battlefield, you can try and spread my faith among the humans as well as the aliens." Helena suggested. "If I gain stronger influence over a region, I may be able to suppress the emergence of the deathborn. Even if I cannot prevent them from coming, I can at least transmit a notification that will direct you to the mission site."
Ves was not too sure whether that was a good idea. Perhaps Helena may be able to do it, but at what cost?
After the initial discussion surrounding the deathborn subsided, they carefully addressed one of the elephants in the room.
"Helena, before you go, can you confirm that my apparent split personality will not lead to extreme self-harm or reckless endangerment? My other self appeared out of nowhere and possesses a strong god complex."
"Ves… it is not my place to describe your new personality to you. The answers will come in time. All I can say is that your second personality is not necessarily your enemy. It is the person that you could have become if you completely embraced your identity as a god."
"Can I get rid of it?" Ves flatly asked.
"This is not within my area of expertise, brother. Our mother may know more, but she is unlikely to share her insights. This is your tribulation. You must deal with it by yourself."
At least Ves got confirmation that he suffered a personality split due to a tribulation event.
"Understood."
"I am rooting for you, Ves."
After Helena's manifestation faded away, Ves turned to the others.
"You heard her. My advancement as a phase lord has accidentally caused me to spawn a second personality. While I can't sense him at the moment, I am pretty sure that he is lingering close at hand. I have a feeling that if I unfold my true body, he will take over, just like before."
"Can you guarantee that, Ves?" Gloriana asked. "None of us want to talk to you, only for you to have switched to your other self. Who knows how much damage your second personality can do to our interests."
His wife raised a legitimate concern. "The differences between me and him are pretty drastic. However, I will work on a solution that should be able to give you a clear signal which personality is dominant. I cannot guarantee that my other self will stay quiet if I stay in this human form. We will just have to wait and see. All I am asking from you is patience and tolerance. This is a problem of my own making, but I will find a way to fix it one way or another."
His wife did not look pleased, but she was willing to give him a chance.
"If you are confident that you can handle this issue, then I see no problem with giving you the space to do so. We should still implement additional security measures. You must endure greater scrutiny at all times. Only then can we be assured that we are talking and working with the right version of Ves."
"That is… reasonable."