1503 The World Of Eternal Empress

Varian thanked the good samaritan who gave him the living expenses to rent out a luxury home in the capital city.

[Using your soul power to grab money, hmph! Any good man would rather sleep on the hard ground than rob people.]

'Firstly, they are crony businessmen who underpay their employees. Secondly, why the fuck should I sleep on hard floor when I have the soft mattress?'

Varian clicked his tongue and opened the large window.

The view of the capital city greeted him along with the wind that started to cool with the sunset.

The princess had long entered the palace but the processions in the streets were going on.

Even the wide streets were now congested as the citizens swarmed into every available space, either chanting a victory slogan or praising the princess.

"Without this thing, I have no chance of winning." Varian raised the rusty ring and looked at with one eye closed, trying to look the sky through it.

At first, it showed nothing different. But when his time power filled the artifact, the time flowing around him rippled.

As if a movie was being played back, the congested streets turned a little less crowdy, the loud voices grew a bit quieter and the setting sun rose a bit above the horizon.

Boom!

Varian staggered back, blood furiously spurting out of his nose and mouth. He grabbed the pillar of the luxuriosu bed and stabilized his shaking body.

"What the fuck…my soul was almost pulled out." His gaze toward the rusty ring was now half-curious and half-scared.

"Eternal Empress…no one should've experienced this problem. Is it because no one tried to check the object with time power? Wait, the main character did not awaken in the time path here."

It's most likely that trying to explore the ring's powers was what caused the backlash. The second most likely was that the treasure was 'destined' for the second princess, the so-called main character of the 'Eternal Empress' world.

Unlike usual missions in Paradise, this was one of its kind.

Perhaps that's why, a lot of information about the world was given.

['God', the perfect being, created the world, gave life and death, good and evil, joy and grief.

He is both the light and darkness, wind and fire, the first breeze at life and the final whimper at death.

He is also every good and bad, equally balanced.

Once the world began and started to run on its own, however, the balance was broken.

If life and death are equal, then why did a dead planet give birth to life and why is the life in it increasing, evolving and thriving?

At any instance since the beginning of creation, life continued to exceed death and with the dawn of sentient civilization, the complexity of life and richness rose to unprecedented proportions.

This created a terrible imbalance that upset even 'God' himself was affected.

He split into two.

The good, the guardian, wanted to protect the living and evil, the destroyer, wanted to destroy.

Since everything came from God himself, the existence of more life than death meant that the good was weaker than his evil counterpart.

The battle between them was tragic but inevitable.

The guardian didn't take back his powers from the living and used all of his powers to severely injure the destroyer. And the destroyer, suffering terrible injuries, went into a long hibernation.

Good, the guardian died. But not in his entirety.

His sentience had ceased to exist, but as life would grow, there's always a possibility of a new sentience rising. Civilization which grew exponentially due to its sentience was the biggest factor in this equation.

That's the reason the destroyer attacked the world even though it barely recovered.

By then, civilization was already booming and wars were breaking out everywhere.

This malovelent foreign entity, which sought to destroy the civilization, united it instead.

The destroyer was defeated, but the mortals could not kill it.

They could only seal it.

Since then, generations came and went, kingdoms rose and fell, cultures evolved and regressed, only the devil continued to be sealed.

And the story of 'Eternal Empress' begins before the present day sealing ceremony.

The 2nd princess of the kingdom, Isadora, along with the 9th princess of neighboring kingdom and the 4th prince of another, must come together to reinforce the weakening seal.

The original princess was a very timid, obedient and weak woman. She had the strength but not the decisiveness to wield it.

Naturally, she dies after failing to enter the accursed land.

The mission was termed suicidal since very few, if any return.

But it doesn't end there.

Due to the ring that's her dead mother's sole posession, the princess regresses.

Then, she dies again. And again. And again.

Like a sword forged under fire and pressure, her timid character turns courageous and overbearing.

On the 11th attempt, she successfully seals the devil.

Not satisfied with the result, she kills herself, regresses again. This time, she kills the 9th princess of the neighboring as revenge for harassing her in the beginning and indirectly causing her death.

This triggers a war between the two kingdoms.

The princess dies.

She tries to win the war for the next 7 attempts and fails every single time.

In the 20th round, she changes her strategy, creates a situation where the 9th princess is killed by the 4th prince.

With her fanning the flames using the future knowledge, war erupts and chaos unfolds.

The two kingdoms destroy each other and using the opportunity, the princess recruits experts, raises her own strength to a dangerous level and builds public opinion supporting her as the 'savior' who sealed the devil.

She tries to take over the throne and fails.

But by 25th round, she manages to kill her father and crowns herself the Queen.

Then annexing the two kingdoms, which she manages not to destroy too much in this round, she declares herself the Empress.

The story should've ended on a happy note.

But it ends with the devil, the destroyer, breaking the seal and destroying the world.]

Varian clutched his head. If it really had a happy ending, this mission wouldn't have a 100% death rate.

There were obviously missing pieces.

Both from the story perspective:

- Why would the devil break the seal?

- Where did the regression ring come from?

- Can the devil release be prevented?

- If not, can the devil be sealed again? Or better, killed?

This, in itself was a very tough thing to do. No one before him had succeeded in clearing this world anyway.

They all died.

'Not by normal death though.' Varian spun the ring on his finger.

The other players who entered this world must've also acquired the regression ring. It's common sense.

So, neither he nor they would die after being killed. They'd just regress.

But what if he continues to die, again and again and again?

He'd be driven insane.

And that's why, since he opened his eyes in this world, the paradise system, a quiet message kept floating.

[Suicide Assist Window

End the pain, embrace the darkness and drown in despair.]

Varian took a breath to stop himself from cussing.

Not only did he have to solve the story, he'd have to do it while killing those two bastards.

Or else, once he solved the world, everyone would be thrown out since the one who initiated the mission—Varian—achieved the objective.

And in Paradise, those two rank 9s would be after Isadora's life again. Against stronger, prepared enemies, Varian didn't think he had a chance.

So, he'd have to end them here.

If those two really entered Paradise with their real bodies, then great. Killing them here would end their threat once and for all.

It's also possible that it's a clone. But Paradise had a very strict standard on how much 'soul' a clone should contain to count as a participant. As a result, even the death of this clone would be harmful to the main body.

And with the clones out of Paradise, he and Isadora would be safe until they leave this place.

So, to get out of this world and Paradise, he'd have to solve the story and the enemies.

'Defeating an evil god and destroying a transmigrated powerhouse, heh. Another tuesday for m—fuck!'

Varian tried to encourage himself but it only reminded him of how difficult his life had been.

He had been running without any break.

Right from the Centaurus civil conflict to the envoys to the princes to the world tree to the Pala kingdom, it's been less than a year, like what? Five months? Six months? Even seven months? Still less than a year. And he'd been through so much already.

Varian closed his eyes and decided to some relaxing theraphy to unload the steam.

[Logos, you daughter of a bit—]

What better way to unload pressures than to curse the one responsible for the mess?