Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 369 Roots
In the center of the battlefield of memories, under the three moons hanging high in the sky, Lucia stared at the "wreckage" piled up on the ground and fell into deep thought.

These wreckage weighing over a hundred tons are all fragments of the star that destroyed the world that day, and some of the "essence" is taken from Esti's broken body.

In terms of volume, these debris are not even one-tenth of the size of the Star of Destruction. However, most of the latter's components were annihilated into nothingness with Lucia's final sword that split the sky and the earth. The remaining ones are the result of all efforts to collect them during this period of time.

Judging by spiritual perception alone, the composition of the wreckage is roughly the same as star amber, and the essence is even comparable to life amber in crystal purity, but the energy contained therein seems to have dried up.

Lucia specifically instructed Ceria to conduct a detailed analysis experiment, and the results confirmed his perception - the "sacrifice" he was going to use to revive the three moon gods had theoretically become a pile of drained residue and waste.

"I can't worry about that. Let's just feed them as much as I can." Lucia muttered to herself, releasing the flow of mental force in the battlefield of memories, guiding the remaining one tenth of the energy in the wreckage to flow towards the moon deep in the sky.

"Selene of the Full Moon, Pandya of the Black Moon, and Luna of the Dark Moon - I, the son of Platon Sanx and Helarius, lord of the Ancient Dragon Dynasty, Lucia Sanx, abide by the ancient covenant of the Star-Moon Era and offer you the bones and blood of my former enemy, hoping that the remaining fire after his body burns out can be transformed into nutrients for your revival."

Along with his clear chanting, wisps of runes as pure as substance escaped from the wreckage and were gathered by his mental power into three turbulent streams, crossing the sea of ​​stars and pouring into the three moons.

Lucia keenly noticed that with the injection of energy, the three projections of the Moon Goddess above the memory battlefield became brighter from dim.

Of course, the light and color of the three projections themselves have never changed. The Black Moon is still pure darkness, and the Dark Moon also maintains its previous blue mystery. The so-called "darkness" and "brightness" are just the fluctuations of energy levels in spiritual perception.

In other words, after this round of sacrifices, the three Moon Gods have recovered a little from their half-dead dormant state. Although they are still a long way from truly awakening, the situation has obviously improved a lot.

But for some reason, even though the other party hasn't woken up yet, Lucia seems to be able to sense a faint sense of displeasure from the other end of the mental force flow, as if the sacrifice is too little?
How is it possible? He brought here all the remains of Esti that could be moved from the entire city of Gaileid. No one in the world can match his dedication as an ally. Why do you suspect that he embezzled money?

Wait, lining your own pockets.
Lucia summoned the data panel and stared at the various values ​​of his level 550. He couldn't help but think of the most basic law of conservation of energy in his previous life.

He couldn't be sure whether the total amount of runes at the border was conserved, but one thing was certain - within the known range, runes would not appear or disappear out of thin air, but would constantly circulate among all living things in the world.

Now it seems that his memory battlefield is no exception. More than 2600% of the runes in the remains of Esti were swallowed by him in advance. Otherwise, there is no way to explain the source of those more than runes.

Further thinking in this direction, the Memory Battlefield has indeed never shown any initiative like the "system" seen in the previous life. It is more like a large-scale intelligent program that integrates the functions of absorbing runes, recording and analyzing the skills of the strong, quantifying various abilities, and contacting the Star-Moon Descendants headed by the Three-Moon God.

"Now I can no longer obtain runes by killing weaker life forms than me. It seems that this should be a screening mechanism set up in the Memory Battlefield. As for the selection of rewards for each analysis progress node branch, is it also a feasible plan given after calculating my tolerance?"

Lucia carefully recalled every detail of his use of the Memory Battlefield. Because of the Memory Battlefield's precise display and the ability to add points "out of thin air", he once thought it was a plug-in that he, a time traveler, was born with.

But after successively meeting the Mother of Dragons, the Queen of Death, killing Esti and completing the sacrifice, he became more and more convinced that his later thoughts were closer to the truth.

The so-called "Memory Battlefield" has nothing to do with the time travel itself. It is simply a part of the Emperor's plan. His parents, the Dragon Mother Guior, the Three Moon God, the Queen of Death and other bigwigs active in the Star-Moon Era and the Revival Era are all participants in this plan.

He even began to doubt whether "time travel" and his memories of past lives were part of the plan?

In a trance, he suddenly realized that since some time ago, the traces of his past life had become increasingly faint.

Apart from the memories and cognitions related to this world, apart from the ways of thinking that can be used to transform this world, the former identities, feelings, and memories have become so blurred that they can no longer be remembered, like a set of temporary cache data that is discarded after it has fulfilled its necessary mission and is cleared with one click.
Who were you before you became "Lucia Shanks"?

Can't remember? No, it seems that I have always been Lucia Shanks, from the beginning.
He staggered a step, fell backwards, and was supported by a throne that appeared out of thin air. All kinds of complicated and chaotic thoughts flooded into his mind, making him feel dizzy.

Amid the chaos, many of the confusions that once flashed by gradually became clearer.

No wonder he had adapted so easily to this world, to the way of thinking of an ancient dragon, and to facing everything from the perspective of the Lord of Fam Azra and the Prince of the Ancient Dragons.
At first he thought that he had replaced the soul of the ancient dragon prince, and later he thought that the Dragon God and the Dragon King had chosen him from another dimension and brought him to this world, but now he discovered that perhaps he had been their child from the very beginning.

The Dragon King controls the power of time and space, and the Dragon God has the authority to control everything in the world. The "previous life" in one's memory, is it that they chose a world that is connected to the concept of this world from the vast and endless different dimensions and sent their souls there to experience?

Or is it that the "previous life" from beginning to end was all possibilities evolved by them with their supreme divine power, and the many world lines that he saw in that game were also some kind of future derived from these possibilities?

All these speculations are still missing a key piece of evidence - Rune.

Could he really be sure that these runes from the battlefield of memories were devoured from the bodies of those dead creatures?

Only by proving this can we confirm that the Memory Battlefield is not a "plug-in" that comes with time travel, and thus capture the true connection between our past and present lives.

His thoughts passed through the scenes of the past three years and suddenly stopped at a certain moment, the moment when he obtained rune energy for the first time in history.

Samuel, the God-skin noble who was easily knocked to the ground by him with a calming incense burner, the "traitor" in Carterpella's mouth.

As the highest fighting force of the former Tibia Dynasty, the close guard of the Queen of Death, the wielder of the God-killing Sword that had slain countless gods, even if he was far from his former heyday, how could he be brought down by a censer?

"Divine Skin Bear Weak Sleep", the game mechanism recorded in the previous life, seems to be the secret code used by the Queen of Death to contact himself in this life.

Carter Pella relied on Samuel to bring the Hunting God Greatsword to him, and also brought the first rune energy, thereby unlocking the ability to increase points in the Memory Battlefield.

The first rune originated from the energy that flew out from the ashes, from the Queen of Death Katepera, and Katepera's power should have belonged to the first god killed by her in the Age of Resurrection.

grim Reaper?

It was as if lightning flashed through the dark night, and countless unsolved puzzles were suddenly solved at this moment.

The God of Death, who was born in ancient times, is the first god in charge of the laws governing the operation of runes in the border area. His messengers, named the Twin Birds, guide the death ritual birds and death priests to burn the bodies of the dead with spiritual fire and lead them to the kingdom of the God of Death. The runes of the dead also return to the earth during the burning process.

It is precisely because he has some of the authority of the God of Death that the Memory Battlefield can use the runes that devour the dead for his own purposes, and use many powerful people since Samuel as sacrifices to create him, the strongest demigod of the new generation who has risen like a meteor.

"Sure enough, I have always been myself and have never changed." Lucia murmured.

The last bit of hesitation in those ice-blue pupils disappeared as his mind became clear.

"I am Lucia Shanks."

(End of this chapter)