chapter 46
What does it mean to be the strongest (2)
Saiko opens her eyes and quickly gets up to help any survivors but she immediately freezes in her place from the sight before her.
A cruelly peaceful sight.
The upper half of the mountain and all those unfortunate enough to have lived above it were erased from existence, leaving behind a giant hole in the ceiling of the cave.
The frozen ground and walls of the cave shine and sparkle with a serene and calming glow as they bathe in and reflect the gentle rays of sunlight entering through the hole.
several chunks of frozen human and Girin remains that belonged to those fortunate enough to have been at the edge of the wave of decay are scattered on the frozen ground of the cave; a severed Girin head, a couple of human torsos, one of them with a chunk of the head still attached, and several severed limbs.
The leader of the Knights lies on the frozen ground, the right half of his body including a large portion of his face is missing and his left arm is stretched toward Saiko.
The silver cat falls to her knees and stares at the remains of the knights.
DRIP!
DRIP!
Droplets of water start to rain down from the sky one by one.
The rain starts slow and gentle but in a matter of seconds, it becomes heavy and vicious.
The silver cat raises her head and opens her mouth to scream in anguish but no sound comes out.
The cruel ritual robbed her of even her anguish.
instead of letting her scream out, the ritual began to draw the life out of the remains of the knights and inject it into Saiko.
But that wasn’t all.
The eyes of the silver cat grow wide as memories that aren’t her own start to flood her mind.
Names she didn’t know, families didn’t recognize, emotions she didn’t feel, skills she didn’t learn, and desires she didn’t have all of them were not her own but the royal guards’.
For some reason, the ritual didn’t stop at making her devour their life, it was making her devour their souls whole.
Saiko quickly tries to stop the ritual; she tries to freeze it, tries to erode the symbols with water, and tries to break it apart with Argus but it all fails.
Ken had engraved the ritual in the aetheric field to protect it.
Only another aether mage would be able to stop it.
Soon, the silver cat stops her resistance and accepts her cruel fate.
Perhaps decay could stop it but that cursed magic had already done enough harm for one day.
Even if it does stop the ritual, it would likely result in an even worse outcome.
It might end up erasing their souls entirely.
She wasn’t going to risk it.
Defeated and with her spirit broken, Saiko gets up and walks toward her severed arm.
She picks up the arm and dusts it off then holds the arm to her shoulder.
Black tentacles made by Argus come out of her shoulder and hold her severed arm in place.
Argus proceeds to reattach the nerves and blood supply to the arm and covers both the shoulder and the upper half of the arm to support the arm till it naturally heals.
Saiko clenches the fist of her severed arm then stretches it to make sure it’s working properly then chuckles weakly at herself.
‘too much for being the strongest, I have all the power in the world, yet I feel so weak’
**************************
Naoi floats in the sky above what used to be a mountain a few seconds ago.
He observes the heavy rain and then looks up at the sea of water forming above Kim Sungta.
‘the element of water is angry’
Naoi floats down through the hole and finds Saiko mindlessly walking among the corpses and collecting the remains of the royal guards.
-aren’t you a little too depressed for someone who won?-
‘At this rate, you will flood the entire kingdom’
Naoi keeps the second half to himself to not burden the young cat with even more guilt.
Saiko turns to look at Naoi and doesn’t bother even trying to answer.
-oh right-
Naoi snaps his fingers causing the ritual to alter its structure to avoid blocking the cat’s mouth.
Saiko notices the path of life changing to avoid her head and turns to look at Naoi.
_ You could have done that earlier_
Naoi nods his head.
-I could have but if I did, I would have robbed you of the opportunity to make a mistake –
_ I killed all the knights; I devoured their souls and I likely killed millions of creatures that lived above the mountain_
-I am aware-
Saiko stares at Naoi.
Usually, she would be furious but she is too emotionally exhausted to do that now.
_was it worth it?_
-of course, it was, you wouldn’t truly learn if you don’t make mistakes-
_My mistakes tend to cause enormous harm though_
-that’s all the more reason to learn quickly to reduce the number of mistakes needed-
Noai floats closer to the silver cat.
-my child, only the strongest can afford to protect their enemies but you are mistaken about who the strongest is, despite being far weaker than many of the creatures on Gaia, humans are the most dominant, even among sapiens, they are not the fastest, not the strongest, and certainly not the most talented in magic, and their inferiority becomes even more obvious if we include creatures that are not sapiens, such as dragons or fey-
-now child why do you think that is?-
The silver cat tilts her head.
_intelligence? _
Naoi smiles at her but shakes his head.
- a good answer and intelligence certainly plays a role; however it’s not true, there are no real differences between the intelligence of sapiens, furthermore there are many creatures that are far smarter than humans such as yongs which is a species of dragons, additionally even among traditional animals there plenty that can give humans a run for their money, like dolphins and elephants-
The silver cat pauses for a moment.
_what is it then? _
-ironically, it’s their weakness, strong creatures become reliant on their strength, they become prideful, and that becomes their downfall, however, the weakness of humans drives them to use their ingenuity, to overcome those stronger than them, both the digital grimoires and the eyes of the Xia family are a testament to that, both were made to allow humans to compete with the natural talent of the elves to use many types of magic, contrast that with the elves that despite having an affinity to all the elements choose to limit themselves to certain types of magic-
Naoi turns to face the symbols and hieroglyphs making up the ritual then smiles.
-and perhaps there is no greater testament to that than the bastard who is the mastermind behind all of this, manipulating both friends and enemies alike, a rat standing in a fight between giants, the one who came this far with ingenuity alone, after all, he doesn’t have many other good qualities-
Naoi turns to face Saiko and gently smiles at her.
-you certainly don’t lack desire, child, and it’s a desire to protect rather than overcome which is a far more noble desire, however, you are overconfident in your power and your superiority, your pride and confidence prevented you from growing -
Naoi looks at Saiko with a warm and expectant gaze.
-now, my child, what are you going to do? –
Saiko looks down for a moment then looks at the remains of the royal guards.
As she does, some of the memories of the royal guards flash before her eyes, memories of how they studied her fight with the strike team one, how they developed an armor to protect them from her water.
Then she recalls the battle, not from her perspective but from the perspective of the royal guards.
She feels their dread and knows their fear, she recalls the memories of Eun Woo and how he was constantly thinking of his next move, evaluating and re-evaluating every action they were going to take, and how he was learning in the middle of the battle itself until he found the combination needed to win.
Finally, she contrasts their memories with her own and how she was simply reacting to their attacks while being certain of her victory never once seeing them as a threat.
‘I was a fool’
_ haaa _
Saiko lets out a long tired sigh and then looks up at her teacher.
_ I think I need to read _
Naoi’s eyes cloud over and he smiles warmly at her.
- a most excellent choice, my child-
Naoi snaps his finger and the book of knowledge disappears from Ken’s side and reappears in the Bulgasari’s cave in front of Saiko.
-I wonder, what questions are you going to ask the book this time-
_ I think, I have a lot of questions to ask but I will start with this one_
Saiko closes her eyes and recalls her fight with the strike team.
_how can I beat the plasma fire?_
The book doesn’t react.
Naoi shakes his head.
-the book of Knowledge can’t think, it’s simply a vessel for knowledge about the laws of the world, it can only answer objective questions, not ones relative to your situation, in other words, the book can’t think for you, try again-
Saiko closes her eyes again to think about the fight, and what she could have done differently, and what she can learn from it.
She pauses for a moment at the memory of her water burning up and her losing control over her water once it turned into fire.
‘that’s when everything started to go wrong’
She tries to think of a way to stop it but can’t think of any, perhaps, when she learns more, she will be able to think of something.
‘but for now, I guess if you can’t beat them, join them’
Saiko looks up at the book of knowledge and opens her mouth to ask her question.
_ How can you turn water into fire?_
The Book of Knowledge opens up and his pages flip at high speed until they stop at a certain page.
Glowing golden letters materialize on the page one after another.
====================================================================
Author note:-
It always feels a little weird for me when we reach a big milestone in the story but in a good way 😊 spirit of Gaia acutely started out as a dream that I had back during my first year in college, it was a crazy dream in my ways, least of which is how detailed it was and that I myself wasn’t a part of it, it was like I was watching a movie or something, and when I woke up, I was certain that it needed that the dream needed to become a novel.
Over the next 5 years, I would slowly develop the story whenever I had free time so most of the story has stayed in my head for years and especially the big important milestone scenes, these are usually scenes that I went over and over again in my head more times than I can count.
So, whenever I write them, I always feel a bit sentimental or perhaps in disbelief, like I can’t believe I am finally writing this and it won’t just be in my head.
They don’t always come out exactly as I had them in my mind, for example, in my mind originally, I wanted to spend more time with the royal guards and introduce a bit about their personal lives, especially Eun Woo, however, I eventually decided against that, partially because I didn’t want that to slow down the pacing of the story and partially because I didn’t think it was right.
Although I understand the importance of giving the reader time to care about and associate with the characters, I felt like that would undermine the story in this context, because well, Saiko wouldn’t know about their personal lives, so if the reader knew about their personal lives, it’s kind of cheating, you are not really experiencing the same thing Saiko is experiencing.
So what do you guys think, should I have spent time more time on the personal lives of the royal guards?
New chapters come out Saturday .
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