Yarra's Adventure Notes-Chapter 1453 - 239: Danacus’s Ambition

"Hmph, do you really think my mind isn’t in the right place, susceptible to such foolish psychological tactics?" Upon hearing Danacus’s accusation, Pannis snorted disdainfully, "To strike at my will with such mediocrity is far from sufficient. Who do you think I am? Am I like Heimlig from the past, foolish enough to blame myself for the responsibilities of others? Don’t joke with me. Even if what you say is true, how does it follow that I should feel guilty because you wanted to possess my body, which led to a war that killed millions? Your logic is ridiculous. If your goal is the whole Yarran World, should all the intelligent beings of the Yarran World feel guilty and blow up the whole world? Ha, of course not. No matter the reason, you are the one who designed the conspiracy; you are the one who ignited the war; you are the one responsible for the massacre, not me. How fragile do you think I am to be affected by such reasons, Lord of Death?"

"Do you really think so?" Danacus whispered ominously, "Without you..."

"You would have chosen another as your host and plotted the same, resulting in war and countless lives lost, with the same outcome," Pannis interrupted Danacus without letting him finish, curling his lips as he spoke, "On the contrary, because I was chosen as your host, I had the opportunity to rush in here with my partners, beat you nearly to death, and delay your conspiracy for over a hundred years. From this perspective, far from being ashamed of my existence, I should take pride in it, shameless as it may sound. It is precisely because of my existence that many souls have escaped the whirlpool of death; no, I can’t go on, this is too embarrassing, in some ways you’ve won, you’ve successfully filled my heart with shame, although it’s not quite what you expected."

"Do you find this funny?" Danacus’s face was stern, indecipherable between anger and loss, "It seems you have changed a lot over the years."

"I hope you’re not still plotting with a mentality from over a hundred years ago; I’d be very disappointed." Pannis spoke leisurely: "Did you think I hadn’t fortified my inner defenses, and that I might actually come to face you? Even back then, I wasn’t that foolish. Yes, in the past I would not allow myself a single flaw, but this isn’t a flaw; it’s your mistake from the beginning until the end, and I won’t punish myself because of someone else’s error. Therefore, if you think your psychological tactics had any effect, it was only to intensify my hatred toward you and strengthen my resolve to kill you myself, nothing more."

Danacus fell silent, continuing to pace around Pannis, perhaps contemplating another way to breach Pannis’ fortified mind.

"Moreover, you haven’t told me the whole truth." Seeing that Danacus did not continue his assault, Pannis instead initiated a new verbal battle: "Did you really just want to take over my body, and that’s why you did all this? If that’s the case, I’m really worried about your intelligence, Lord of Death. If you just wanted to lure me here to take over my body, there are many ways you could have done so; instead, you chose the most troublesome and likely to fail method. Is it because a thousand years of slumber have muddled your Divine Wisdom? Or is it simply too boring in this world, and you’re looking for something to do? If none of these, then there’s only one explanation left: you have other goals, and getting a body for yourself is just one of them."

"I must admit, you are a bit smarter than I thought." Danacus finally broke his silence and no longer hid his intentions, speaking coldly: "Indeed, regaining a Divine Body is just the first step of my goals. Based merely on your words, it wouldn’t be worth exerting so much effort. But since you are so smart, why don’t you guess what I really want to do?"

"Is it hard to guess? I don’t think so. You deities always seem to chase after a few particular goals." Pannis, supporting his chin, said: "Let me guess, just looking at your actions, it seems you are preparing to spread death across the world, turning all beings into followers of death, thereby obtaining massive Power of Faith. Not only could this retrieve your former status, but it could also make you the most powerful deity. However, there’s a contradiction here, those carrying out your plan are senseless Undead who only know how to kill and nothing else, certainly not how to spread faith. If things continue as they currently are, you won’t gain any faith, just endless death."

"Continue." Nellie’s body, arms crossed and showing keen interest, watched Pannis speak: "So why do you think I would do this?" frёewebηovel.cѳm

"Well, one could assume that after turning the entire Yarran World into a state like this, you use the denser Energy of Death, wait for those corpses to transform into more Undead over the centuries, then use the Undead to strengthen your Power of Faith, and become the most powerful deity. But, actually, the Power of Faith provided by mindless Undead is very weak, and even if all the world’s beings turned into Undead, the power they provide won’t likely exceed that of developing one-thousandth of them into your followers."

"Oh?" For the first time, Danacus showed a smile other than a cold sneer: "Are you finally ready to speak now?"

"Of course, or do you think I said all of that because I was merely bored?" Pannis said: "I was thinking, what if your ultimate goal isn’t targeting living beings? When all living beings are extinct, and the Power of Faith for deities disappears, pulling all deities back to the same level, with only personal strengths setting them apart—no enhancement from the Power of Faith. Yet at that time, you still have the feeble but numerous Power of Faith provided by the Undead, enough in quantity to make up for the quality. This way, you could become the strongest deity. But that’s not the endpoint; once you’ve weakened all other deities, you could use your relative strength to wage war against other deities directly in a clash of Divine Kingdoms, then devour their Divine Souls, steal their powers, and further strengthen yourself."