Chapter 1235: The Truth of the Ancient War
"Can't you be a bit more ambitious?"
Eiji glared at Kojou Akatsuki with exasperation.
"Aren't you going to save Aglora? All you care about is listening to stories?"
"Well..."
Kojou immediately deflated.
"But you still haven't told me why they took Aglora away?"
He then became somewhat unwilling to let it go.
"You're really troublesome."
Eiji spread his hands helplessly.
"Fine, since Aglora is connected to that ancient history anyway, I'll just continue..."
Kojou and the flight attendant quickly focused their attention.
Through constant resistance and struggle, humanity's power grew increasingly stronger.
Moreover, the Tianbu at that time also had the "Eastern Land" as an incredible enemy. Under the pressure of war, the Tianbu finally activated a weapon that was considered taboo even within their own race.
That was—"Astra".
Astra are terrifying creatures.
They are usually born from various resentments, curses, and hatred—an aggregation of infinite negative emotions. Though formed from magical power, they possess self-awareness.
And a very violent self-awareness at that!
Because they possess self-awareness, even after eliminating enemies, Astra don't automatically disappear. Instead, to maintain their own existence, they continuously plunder the surrounding information and data.
"Plunder information?"
A look of confusion appeared on Kojou's face.
"To be precise, their goal is the inherent accumulated time held by sentient beings. By stealing the information contained within—that is, memories—Astra can convert these memories into their own magical power."
Eiji looked meaningfully at Kojou.
"Having reached this point, you should have realized it, right? Why you have no memories of those two months from a year ago, why Aglora came to live in your house?"
"Could it be that my memories were also stolen—Ugh!"
Kojou groaned and collapsed into his seat, covered in cold sweat.
He had been troubled by these questions for a long time, never expecting to abruptly get the answer now.
Those originally foggy memories in his brain finally began to lift like a veil, revealing just a glimpse of the iceberg.
"Yiyuyooooh!"
He suddenly jumped up.
"What's wrong? Why are you making such primitive noises?"
"I remember now! Back then, were you holding Aglora's neck and sucking her blood?!"
"Hahaha! I never expected this part of your memory to recover first? Seems you hold quite a grudge against me!"
"What are you laughing at, you idiot!"
Kojou stared at the laughing Eiji with a mix of shock and fear.
He had only recovered this part of his memory.
But even just this portion explained many things!
"You bastard, I wondered why you suddenly became so powerful. So you became the Fourth—"
"Alright, sit down. Do you still want to hear the story or not?"
"...Go on."
Kojou temporarily suppressed the various emotions in his heart and sat back in his chair.
Thus, after the small commotion, the history lecture resumed.
In summary, Astra are creatures that will never die as long as sentient beings exist in this world.
It was precisely for this reason that the Tianbu designated Astra as forbidden weapons.
But under the pressure of war, the Beast Vassals were still released one after another.
As time passed, even if the Tiamat could rely on the Beast Vassals to defeat humans, beastmen, and the Eastern lands, they would ultimately be destroyed by the very Beast Vassals they controlled. The entire Earth's civilization would be annihilated by the Beast Vassals!
At this moment.
It was Cain who stepped forward once again.
He developed the forbidden magic known as the "Holy Annihilation"!
The ability of the Holy Annihilation.
In a word, it was to rewrite the laws of the world!
He gathered the over one hundred Beast Vassals that had already been released and sealed them into the bodies of three Tiamat who shared his ideals. Using the power of the Holy Annihilation, he rewrote their Tiamat bodies, granting them infinite vitality.
This way, the Beast Vassals could survive by consuming the life force of these three individuals, without needing to plunder the information of sentient beings.
"Are these three Tiamat you mentioned...?"
"Zwei Juranbarada, Eswardgul Agiz, and Gadea Kukulkan."
Eiji raised three fingers one after another.
"Precisely the current three True Ancestors: the Lost Warlord, the Eye of Annihilation, and the Chaos Princess!"
That's right!
The three True Ancestors were originally members of the ancient Tiamat from the very beginning!
Like Cain, they despised the corrupt Tiamat. Following Cain's suggestion, they absorbed all the over one hundred Beast Vassals into their own bodies, thereby preventing the catastrophic extinction of Earth's civilization!
Because their bodies were altered by the Holy Annihilation, they no longer feared sunlight.
The legend that the True Ancestors gained infinite negative life force due to a curse from the gods was actually just a rumor. The true reason was that the Holy Annihilation made them immortal.
The Beast Vassals residing within their bodies would never allow their hosts to die, which is why they lived through the long ages.
"What Cain did didn't end there."
Before Kojou Akatsuki could process the overwhelming information, Eiji continued his account.
"He sealed the remaining Beast Vassals and sent them into another dimension. Then, to punish the Tiamat who had recklessly released the Beast Vassals, he activated the great forbidden spell 'Holy Annihilation' once again."
"Using the power of the Holy Annihilation, he cast down the gods into demons."
Eiji declared with shocking words.
The powerful Tiamat gods, faced with the Holy Annihilation's power to alter the world's laws, were equally powerless to resist.
Stripped of their identities as gods, their power greatly diminished. The Tiamat gods fell from the heavens into the mud, their pride utterly shattered.
This is also why Cain later came to be known as the "Progenitor of the Demon Tribe," for it was indeed by his hand that the demon tribe was born.
Under the relentless hunting by humans and various other races, the number of Tiamat sharply declined.
The few surviving Tiamat, seeking revenge against Cain, created the ultimate god-slaying weapon.
They sacrificed their own lives, using their resentment and curses as a foundation, to create the twelve strongest Beast Vassals, which were then hosted within a single individual.
That was the fourth True Ancestor—the Flaming Light Night Lord!
In the end, the fourth True Ancestor lived up to expectations and killed Cain, but then went berserk, slaughtering the remaining Tiamat. However, he was eventually captured by the Tiamat, divided into twelve parts, and exiled to various parts of the world.
During the Sumerian era of human civilization, the war between humans and gods, known as the "Holy Annihilation," finally came to an end.
The Celestial Ministry vanished entirely from the earth. Due to the rampage of memory-usurping fiend beasts, no related records remained, leaving few in later generations aware of these ancient truths.
Were the Celestial Ministry gods or demons?
Historians, having uncovered contradictions regarding their identity during archaeological research, could not easily categorize them and thus defined them as super-ancient humans.
Eiji spoke somewhat vaguely about this final part.
In truth, the relationship between the Fourth True Ancestor and Cain was far more complex, and Cain's death was equally far from straightforward. However, this was not the occasion to delve into such matters.
All of this information was obtained by Eiji from Jad Kuokukan—a direct participant in the ancient war.