"A... friend?" the soul whispered softly, then slowly stepped aside for Castorice. It had actually believed her words instantly.
Or perhaps, this soul had lost most of its ability to think, leaving only its persistence and obsession. At this point, it would likely believe anything anyone told it.
Castorice took a few small steps, walking past the soul and arriving before the stone monument in two strides. The monument bore no inscriptions, looking as if someone had simply found a flat stone and stuck it in the ground.
But in the next moment, Castorice blinked. Her vision seemed to pierce through the monument before her, through the earth beneath her feet. She saw a woman lying in the soil, hands resting peacefully on her abdomen, a gentle smile on her face. She was dressed in a white gown and was exceptionally beautiful, sleeping soundly.
When Castorice blinked again, the dreamlike vision vanished. She seemed to snap out of a trance, murmuring, "So... that's how it is?"
If it had been a guess before, she was now completely certain: entombed beneath this stone monument was the Death God himself.
The Death God dying in the Underworld seemed utterly absurd at first glance. But in truth, gods can die—Faith Gods and Ancient Gods alike are no exception.
Half alone provided two examples: first, as an Ancient God, He had once died from exhausting His power. Second, the Bloodthirsty Wolf God, born from twisted faith, had also perished completely not long ago when its faith was overthrown by Cerydra.
But Castorice could sense that the Death God before her had not died at the hands of another. He had taken his own life, using his Authority as the Death God to sever his own life force. The reason was simple: He had been corrupted.
The World Barrier offered protection, making the world within seem safe. Yet, hadn't there been numerous Outer God invasions and countless individuals corrupted?
To those in the Material World, these Corrupted were troublesome, but killing them seemed to end the problem. In reality, it didn't. This corruption affected the soul itself. This meant that even after death, when the Corrupted entered the Underworld, the taint remained.
Even after their minds dissipated (if the Corrupted even had minds to begin with), they would re-enter the cycle of reincarnation. When they were reborn as new lives in the Material World, they would still be corrupted from the very start.
The Death God could not allow this to happen. So, He transformed Himself into a filter, purifying the tainted souls and restoring them to their original, pure state, allowing them to reincarnate safely.
The price, naturally, was that all this corruption was transferred to the Death God Himself. In simple terms, this gentle god turned Himself into the Underworld's "filter" to save ordinary mortals.
As time passed, the Death God's condition worsened. He found it increasingly difficult to answer His believers' prayers and entered a state of "disappearance." With the recent surge in Outer God attacks, the number of slain "Corrupted" skyrocketed, and the Death God finally reached His limit.
He knew that if this continued, He too would lose His reason and become a mindless, raging god. So, He chose to use His own Authority to kill Himself.
Theoretically, as long as a Faith God's faith remains, the god can be reborn. Although Death Priests in the Material World are few, they are not nonexistent. Combined with the Power of Faith the Death God had accumulated over a long time, even after His death, He could have been resurrected within a certain period.
But the Death God deliberately used His own Authority to prevent this resurrection. He knew that the resurrected self would no longer be Himself. It was better to let Himself sleep peacefully here forever.
Castorice looked up slightly at the seemingly unremarkable stone stele. This, too, was something the Death God had arranged Himself—an embodiment of His power, specifically placed beside the river that spanned the entire Underworld.
To reincarnate, souls must enter the Styx and drift downstream. This stele acted as an automatic filter. If a corrupted soul passed by, the corruption would be filtered out and transferred to the already-dead Death God.
Anyway, the Death God was already dead, so it didn't matter how much corruption He absorbed. The corruption of the Mother of Flesh carried a certain "life" characteristic. If anyone else had accumulated this much corruption, they would have probably thrown open their coffin lid and sat up long ago. But the Death God's Authority conveniently restricted this, preventing Him from reviving.
It was like exploiting a perfect bug, allowing the world's "Reincarnation System" to function properly.
Castorice reached out and touched the stone stele. Instantly, wisps of faint purple light visibly seeped from around the stele and from the ground beneath her feet. They converged in mid-air, forming a rhombus-shaped crystal that radiated an ominous aura and pulsed with black light.
The Death God's Divinity.
Staring at the object before her, Castorice couldn't help but murmur, "It's been corrupted to this extent?"
The accumulated corruption was so immense, so exaggerated, that if the Death God were to answer a Priest's prayer, His own followers would likely be reverse-corrupted. In that instant, Castorice also realized why the Death Priests had recognized her as the Death God's Holy Maiden the first time she met them.
Because she truly was the Holy Maiden. Not long after her Castorice identity was created, when she connected to the Underworld and summoned Pollux for the first time, she was most likely detected by the Death God.
After all, Pollux was far from weak. Appearing out of thin air in the Underworld—in someone else's territory—would not go unnoticed. At that time, the Death God had likely not yet taken His own life, so Castorice was discovered.
Then, the Death God directly certified Castorice as His Holy Maiden, even redirecting a portion of the Power of Faith meant for Him to her. This was why the Death Archbishop named Aisha received Divine Magic related to Castorice's abilities after praying.
As she pondered this, Castorice looked back at the Divinity before her and whispered, "A noble being who has already died should not continue to suffer like this."
The bug the Death God had exploited was brilliant, and the Divinity before her could probably endure for a very, very long time. But Castorice felt it was still too unfair to someone already deceased.
She turned to the soul beside her and suddenly said, "Would you mind having another Tomb Guardian? I might need to stay here for a while."
She intended to take the Death God's place and help filter the souls. After all, this level of corruption was nothing to her.