Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 42 The Theory of Death and Life
After the crowd dispersed, the church suddenly seemed empty, and Lucia was still immersed in Lance Shanks' lecture just now, unable to return to his senses for a long time.

Lance Shanks walked briskly to the back row, stretched out his hand and waved in front of his eyes, and said with a smile, "How is it? Did you speak well?"

"It can be said to be penetrating," Lucia praised sincerely, but then shook her head slightly, with a look of doubt on her face, "But since just now, I have been thinking about some deeper content, and I haven't come up with an answer until now. .”

"Oh? Let's hear it." Lance Shanks became a little interested when he heard the words, and took advantage of the opportunity to sit on the seat next to him.

Lucia nodded and began to explain her thinking, "What I don't understand is still the concept of 'death' - the difference between the gold belief and the ancient dragon belief is not a simple dispute of ideas, its essence lies in the two laws of ancient and modern, The difference between the two Elden Circles."

"After the end of the Battle of the Gods, Queen Malika brought the entire Yatan area under the control of the Golden Law, and the newly born Elden Ring was stripped of the 'destined death'. It was also from then on, the The tree replaced the original funeral ceremony. Except for some villains who committed great crimes, the residents of the Golden Dynasty would go to cemeteries all over the country when they were dying, turning their decaying bodies into the nourishment of the Golden Tree, and their souls received the nourishment of the Golden Tree. Baptism, washing away all traces of this life and reincarnating into a new life—Sister Lance, am I right?"

"Yes."

Lucia immediately asked a very sharp question, "During this process, the golden law of death that lost its destiny has never given the people of gold the real meaning of 'death'. Can your soul be considered a brand new life?"

Lance Shanks was silent, and after a long while he showed a wry smile, and said, "I didn't expect you to think so deeply."

"I didn't deceive those believers. In recent years, the Golden Dynasty has still maintained a population growth rate of more than [-]%. These newly born souls can naturally be regarded as new lives. For those reborn souls, the baptism they received is not It is just the removal of thoughts and memories, but transformed into a brand new soul in the form of a pure rune under the action of the golden tree. From the perspective of Gu Long's belief, it is believed that the souls returning to the tree have completely died. The so-called reborn soul after baptism, In fact, it is a new life born from the energy after the death of the old life—this understanding is actually correct.”

"However, according to the original law of the ancient times, when a living being dies, it is dead. Human beings will not be reincarnated as human beings after returning to the tree, and ancient dragons will not be reborn as ancient dragons. The birth, growth, decline, and death of all living beings are There's no constant trajectory—that's the law of our faith, isn't it?"

"Yes, this is the law of our belief." Lance Shanks was silent for a long time, and sighed quietly, "No matter what language I use to explain, the definition of life under the two beliefs is always fundamentally different .”

She looked at the elegant and atmospheric floor-to-ceiling windows on the side of the church, and followed the trajectory of sunlight to the people passing by outside the window, but her thoughts had drifted to the depths of her long-lost memory.

"I still remember that when I was young, I also asked the high priest for advice on the true meaning of my family's laws, and how the ancient dragon royal family with eternal life should treat the countless creatures under the wings of the dragon family. He told me about the goddess—— That is your mother's answer to him."

Lucia was shocked, and said, "What did mother say?"

"She said that all living beings in this world are like weeds on the plain. They are born in the rain and dew of spring, grow in the warm sun of summer, decay in the wind and frost of autumn, and die in the cold snow of winter. There is no difference between high and low. No matter how powerful an existence is in life, it will be turned into a pile of mud after death, and when the spring rain falls and all things recover, the living will sprout from the remains of the dead."

"However, today's Golden Law, especially the two basic principles put forward by Radagon, seems to me to regard all spirits in the world as a piece of eternal cornerstone, and all things are interlinked and cause and effect. , Consistency towards the same. Such a stable law has created such a powerful dynasty, and I cannot judge their right or wrong based on my knowledge and standpoint, but if one day, you become the god who determines the ownership of the future law—"

She did not continue immediately, but paused for a moment, showing a slightly sly smile.

"At that time, I will leave this problem to you to worry about. No matter what you choose, I believe that you can bring a more hopeful future to this world."

Lucia was taken aback for a moment, and after recovering, she smiled wryly and said, "Sister Lance, don't you have too much confidence in me?"

"What are you talking about, I didn't confer your position as a god-man," Lance Shanks rolled his eyes, "Besides, as the goddess I admire most in my life and the only heir of His Majesty, the high priest is about to leave. Qian Ye asked me to take good care of you—er, your dragon egg, is it wrong for me to have confidence in you?"

"It seems to be right"

"That's right," Lance Shanks slapped his shoulder hard and stood up, "It's getting late, wait for me to change my clothes and take you around the city. After so long, I know how to stay at home and practice every day, tsk, I really have no pursuit!"

Lucia, who was already familiar with the opponent's routine, didn't choose to refute, but just followed behind and walked into the temple. Anyway, in the face of Sister Lance's classic concept of stealing, double standards and nonsense, it goes without saying that she lost the argument, and she won by luck Why bother to be suppressed by force?
The two of them walked out from the inner door at the back of the church, walked through a long corridor brightly lit with candles, and came to the apse where the ancient dragon knights practiced and trained.The architecture here is different from the exquisite and gorgeous style of the front hall, but focuses on solidity and reliability, so a lot of metal and giant rocks are used, and there is a majestic and solemn atmosphere in the simplicity.

"After we formed an alliance with the Golden Dynasty, His Majesty Malika would personally assign a group of elite members of Rodel's knight apprentices to participate in the selection of the temple every year. I will select those with excellent character and martial arts, and after training and training Appointing them as the new ancient dragon knights has maintained a scale of nearly a thousand people over the years." Lance Shanks introduced.

"Sixty percent of these knights have been baptized by the Golden Church when they were teenagers. Although they accepted the belief of the ancient dragon, they are still loyal to the Golden Dynasty in essence. The other [-]% are the sons and orphans of the common people raised by the ancient dragon temple. Baptized in person and directly loyal to Sky City."

"Speaking of which, perhaps because of the different levels of faith, most of these [-]% knights are better than the former in terms of mastery of ancient dragon prayers," she shook her head. Foer and I treated the knights born in the golden faith differently, and did not teach them the true meaning of ancient dragon prayers."

"The result?" Lucia asked curiously.

Lance Shanks shrugged nonchalantly, "The two marquises who took the lead in the disturbance were heroic in themselves. I invited them to fight in the arena and used the ancient dragon prayer they had been thinking about—after the end I asked them if they have learned it, and if I have taught it well, and seeing that they are all so grateful that they are all crying, they must have learned it, right?"

Lucia was dumbfounded for a moment, and after a long while he could hold back a word of admiration: "It's you!"

(End of this chapter)