Chapter 209: Silas
The third cycle was the one in which the first true change occurred.
Not only because Seraphine was now actively participating in the events of this cycle, but because, aside from her, a second deity was born during it.
The Dragon God.
The appearance of this entity completely changed the fate of the continent.
The dragon race had been divided among itself, plagued by conflicts of all kinds stemming from differences in species, origins, and countless other factors. But this being put an end to all of it.
Not only did he gather every dragon race under his command, but he also brought the rest of the Beast Kingdoms together beneath a single banner.
This led to the creation of a true Beast Empire, governed by beings at the level of Paragons and even Demigods.
The collective strength of the Beast Empire was pushed to an entirely new level, one that proved immensely helpful in the war against the Abyss, which once again did not take long to arrive.
The presence of a second deity made the battle somewhat less one-sided, allowing them to endure for much longer before things reached a critical point.
This time, however, three Abyss Gods did not arrive.
Five did.
And just like the previous time, once the situation reached a point of no return, the strange phenomenon from before occurred once again.
The five Abyss Gods were captured.
Seraphine managed to preserve herself as the third cycle came to an end and the fourth began.
The third cycle had already brought enormous changes to the world, both in terms of mana and the emergence of new species.
But the fourth cycle would take things even further.
This time, it was not only the Beast race that had reached a point where it had developed to a level comparable to humanity.
A completely new type of species had also begun to emerge.
The Elementals.
Beings born directly from the concepts that governed this world.
What Seraphine noticed, however, was that someone else had also managed to survive the end of the third cycle.
And that being was none other than the Dragon God.
Unlike her, however, he did not retain his power.
Instead, he assimilated himself into the creation of the fourth cycle.
Seraphine could not understand why.
Maintaining his current state would have been ideal. He had already reached Godhood, while what he was doing would render all the progress he had made meaningless.
And yet, he did it.
He discarded his progress, erased his physical body, and recreated himself anew.
She did not know whether it had been a conscious choice or something random, but he was reborn.
He was no longer a member of the dragon race.
He was now an Elemental.
More precisely, he was reborn as a member of the race of Death Creatures.
The Crimson Calamity, a terrifying being that had dominated the third cycle, had reincarnated.
But not as the monster he had once been.
He became something else.
Something even more terrifying.
Someone Seraphine would have far more opportunities to interact with, and someone who would actively aid her in the war against the Abyss.
The God of Death.
Silas.
This time, he retained his memories.
He retained his understanding of the concepts, and used it to climb the food chain at an astonishing speed, once again reaching the apex of the world.
But this time, he was no longer merely a destructive force.
He became something closer to a silent ruler, directly controlling Death itself within that world.
The reality of things, however, was very different this time.
Even before the Abyss itself arrived, a brutal war had already erupted between all the races.
This world was already saturated with an immense amount of mana and populated by an incredible diversity of species.
A war between them was inevitable.
It lasted for centuries.
Countless races fell.
Countless beings reached astonishing levels of power, with several even ascending to divinity.
But in the end, they all fell at the hands of Silas.
The birth of several new deities had initially been a pleasant surprise for Seraphine.
The more powerful beings there were in the world, the easier it should have been to resist the Abyss.
But she could never have imagined that the one who would become her companion in this war against the Abyss would be the very one who would eliminate the other deities.
The reason he did so was obvious.
The deities would not obey anyone’s command.
Each one wanted to rule.
It was something Seraphine had anticipated, and she had intended to use the threat of the Abyss to unite them under a single objective.
But that never happened.
Before she could do so, the deities decided to attack Silas, the strongest God among them.
The battle nearly wiped out the entire race of Death Creatures and was followed by a subsequent conflict among the gods that resulted in the deaths of almost all of them.
Silas and Seraphine were once again the only ones left alive.
The situation had become disastrous far too quickly, and ended just as quickly, leaving Seraphine no time to gather everyone and unite them.
It infuriated her.
She had thought that this time, they had finally been given the perfect opportunity to strike back against the Abyss.
Perhaps they could finally win.
Finally, after all this time, they could make real progress toward defeating the Abyss.
And yet, everything had fallen apart.
The weight of the countless cycles that had accumulated upon her finally overwhelmed her, leading to a battle between her and Silas.
He told her that it would never work.
That her approach was simply wrong.
But she no longer trusted him.
The previous cycles had given her enough time to work on her secondary concepts.
Eventually, she discovered that they were not true concepts of their own, but merely different manifestations that, at their very root, all contained the concept of Life.
That realization made her believe she could attempt to advance toward supremacy.
She tried. And she failed, catastrophically, because the Abyss had already returned, and not just with waves of Abyss Gods this time. No, this time, it sent a Quasi-Supreme as well.