Yarra's Adventure Notes-Chapter 115 - 37 Requiem of Death_1

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What is death? And what is life?

Over the years, Lina has been pondering this question—as a priestess in front of the Life Deity System—with a serious consideration of this question.

Earth Goddess Denia, is also known as the God of Mercy, Mother of the Earth, wielding a partial authority over life as part of the Life Deity System, nurturing a variety of plants with her body, and maintaining the vitality of the world. As a priest of a merciful deity, Lina has been faithfully believing and wholeheartedly serving the goddess, saving lives with the divine spell gifted by the deity.

Her love for the goddess made Lina’s body and mind draw closer to the goddess. It increased doubts within her, motivating her to reflect continuously on what exactly life is. On the flip side of life, what is death?

The Earth nurtures life, and all life tends to gain vitality from the earth, which is undoubtedly true. However, the earth also embraces death. Dust returns to dust, and soil returns to soil, everything eventually returns to the earth. If this is true, then who holds the authority over death within the earth?

Only the most devout priests can preserve such doubts on the basis of unwavering faith. This is not to question the deity or doubt their faith; it’s simply questioning the unknown. Doubt has been troubling Lina for a long time. Sometimes, she seemed to understand something, but upon thinking it through, she didn’t understand anything.

This situation persisted until the previous day when Lina met a little girl with a dog in front of a food stall at the Harvest Festival.

"The God of Light, Lord Varunshen, is also the Dark God Xis."

Why? Two completely contrasting deities, why are they the same person?

Indeed, where there is light, there is darkness, and vice versa. Light and dark are two sides of the same coin, twin aspects of the same entity. The God of Light being the Dark God couldn’t be more accurate. But what was the girl implying by this?

She pondered all night. At the break of dawn, she got up, dragging Pannis down to the cellar. Even as they navigated through the rock crevices, Lina’s mind never stopped pondering. She had a hunch that she was standing on the precipice of a crucial step. After crossing it, she would confront a brand-new world.

They have traveled far, facing danger and entrusting their lives to friends, focusing their minds on contemplation. Her long-held belief, accumulated over many years, finally led to a transformative moment.

"Life and death are, in fact, that simple."

"Life is born from the earth and will eventually face death. Death returns to the earth and ultimately nurtures new life."

"For the Earth, life and death are a circle, just two phases of a process."

"So, the Earth Goddess not only governs life, but also death."

"Indeed, as long as you pray to the deities without doubt, you can receive their guidance and recognition."

"But as the little girl said, even if someone tells us a thousand, ten thousand times, if we can’t understand it ourselves, how can we pray to the deities without doubt?"

"Indeed, the little girl was right. Only those who have walked this path can understand this knowledge. For those who haven’t, speaking these words would be considered heretical."

At the most critical moment, under immense pressure, Lina finally understood everything. She received the deity’s response and accepted the death-category divine spell bestowed upon her, becoming the only priestess in the current Church of the Earth Goddess who has comprehended the relationship between life and death and truly believes in all the divine duties of the Earth Goddess. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

So, in the face of crisis, Lina unleashed her newly gifted divine spell, Requiem of Death.

Lina raised her hands high. Even though her fair skin was covered in large patches of purple bruises, even though her left arm was twisted unnaturally, Lina still bravely bore the pain and raised her arms. Her hands clenched into fists above her head, a black halo gathering around her fists, emitting an ominous aura.

"In the sacred name of the Death Goddess Denia, spirits of death, strike at the shadow of the enemy with your wicked gaze." As Lina loudly proclaimed, invisible energy waves radiated from her upraised hands. Outside the door, each magical beast exhibited a black circle of light that continuously rotated around them, like an invisible shackle that they couldn’t escape no matter how they moved.

Being entangled with this black halo of light didn’t seem to be a comfortable experience. All the magical beasts, including the spiders on the ceiling and the last cavern worm, began to grow restless, and their attacks on the door intensified. However, Pannis, who stood in front of Lina defending the door, knew this was a good sign. If the beasts continued their previous behavior, it would only be a matter of time before they were both exhausted. Now that the behavior of the beasts had changed, it signaled an improvement in their situation.

"This is the Requiem of Death." Lina maintained her raised hands and said, "Your favor allowed me to receive this blessing. If we win, half the credit goes to you."

"What favor?" Pannis asked somewhat perplexedly while defending.

"That little girl in the white dress, the one with the dog." Lina said, "Her words inspired me."

"Oh, them, I didn’t expect they’d actually manage it." Pannis nodded.

"Ha, you finally admit that you know them." Lina said with a smile, "This is a new Divine Spell granted by the Goddess. It strikes all targets I consider enemies, directly damaging their vitality, spirit and life strength. While it doesn’t cause great damage, if I have terrain advantage like now, I could eventually wear the enemy out. Moreover, this Divine Spell can convert the drained vitality, spirit and life strength from their bodies into my own mana. Sadly, the conversion from each target is minimal. I need a certain number of enemies to break even, like now."

After speaking, the dark light around Lina’s clenched fists faded, and the glow around the magical beasts also vanished.

"More than twenty enemies, one minute, yields twice the required mana for the casting." Lina still had her hands raised high, she loudly proclaimed, "Next, the Ode to Life."

The raised fists in the air were engulfed by a white glow again. The glow became brighter and released clusters of glowing particles, flying upwards before falling like rain.

"In the name of the benevolent God Denia, spirit of life, cleanse the weariness of your believers with your holy light." In Lina’s loud prayer, numerous holy lights slowly descend, falling on Lina and Pannis. The purple-green bruises on Lina vanished at a speed visible to the naked eye, and her twisted joints regained their original shape at an astonishing speed under the pull of an invisible force. Pannis, on the front lines, found his fatigue quickly fading under the light, his strength returning almost to his pre-battle state.

"This is the Ode to Life, another new Divine Spell bestowed by the Goddess." Lina’s arms were still up: "It provides large-scale recovery for friendlies I have designated, healing and restoring vitality. However, the more targets it has, the more diluted the effects, and it can’t heal fatal injuries. Moreover, it consumes a lot of mana, two-thirds of my mana each time. Of course, for me right now, with a large number of enemies, my mana is virtually infinite. So, next is the Requiem of Death."

The dark light flickered again, black light circles once again entwined the magical beasts. This time, the beasts seemed to sense the threat, becoming more agitated, and the scene was on the verge of becoming the initial chaotic melee.

"It’s up to you to hold them off for a while. We can eventually wear them down." Lina, maintaining her casting posture, stood still: "We will win, we won’t lose to these beasts."

"I believe it." Pannis nodded, looked down at the heart area in his chest, sighed softly, and a warm smile appeared on his face.

The number of magical beasts remained the same. After understanding the characteristics of Lina’s Divine Spells, Pannis dared not hastily kill the weaker beasts in order to maintain the number of enemies on the battlefield, even if he had the opportunity to do so. Thankfully, due to the recovery from the Ode to Life, Pannis’ strength had mostly returned, and the fatigue in his muscles was relieved. Even if he was again entangled in protracted combat, it wouldn’t be a big problem.

The battle had reached a balance between offense and defense, tending towards a long war of attrition. The only difference was that one party could at any time release the Ode to Life for recovery, while the other party was under the continuous erosion of the Requiem of Death. The balance on the battlefield was gradually tipping in favor of Pannis and Lina.

Just when Pannis felt that the eventual victory would be only a matter of time if they continued to grind like this, the situation suddenly changed.

The change was for the better.

Initially, Pannis noticed several beasts had slowed down and were moving awkwardly, some parts of their limbs or other body parts swollen with lumps. After a few minutes of battle, similar effects became apparent on all beasts, with these lumps gradually increasing. After a few more minutes, the smaller beasts lacked the strength to stand, even the strongest beasts struggled to move. Their bodies were covered in swollen lumps of flesh, some of which had already burst open, oozing foul-smelling pus and blood.

Finally, as one of the weaker beasts let out a mournful cry and stopped breathing, the lives of the beasts began to end one by one. They died rapidly. However, death was not the end. Even after the beasts had died, the lumps on their bodies were still slowly increasing, swelling continuously. Gradually, the bodies of all the beasts were covered with countless lumps, or rather, all the bodies of the beasts had completely turned into a mass of irregular swollen matter covered in lumps. The surface lumps kept wriggling and swelling by cannibalizing each other.

Slowly, the rampaging lumps seemed to have exhausted their resources, ceased self-consumption and began to collapse within themselves, shriveling, eventually dissolving into a pool of stinking blood. Only the corpses of the beasts that had been killed previously were soaking in the dirty blood, proving that the battle between the two was not an illusion.

"Ugh, how disgusting." Lina dry heaved a few times and forced herself to say, "What happened? How did these beasts end up like this?"

"I have no idea, I can’t comprehend it at all." Pannis shook his head, "But I guess the goblins’ modification of them might have failed."

Lina suddenly shivered, looked at the various colors on her body, and said with a dry tone, "I got a lot of blood on me, I won’t transform like them..."

Pannis pointed at the perfectly normal corpses of the beasts on the ground, "The dead don’t seem to undergo such change, so you can rest assured."

"That’s a relief." Lina took a deep breath, wiped off the blood and worm fluid on her body, then suddenly came to a realization, and let out a scream again.