Chapter 793
Episode 196: The Great Serpent, Ameris (2)
Suddenly, Jin bowed his head in respect, catching Ameris off guard, who cleared her throat awkwardly. Hedo followed suit, bowing alongside Jin.
“Hmm, hmm. I see. My instincts were right—these aren’t truly vile creatures,” Ameris remarked with a faint smile.
“Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Jin Runkandel, leader of the Bamel Union and the 59th head of the Runkandel family.”
“I’m… an executive of the Bamel Union? Jin, am I really an executive?”
“If Lord Hedo isn’t an executive, then who else would be?”
“True, true. What’s your exact title?”
“Think of me as the Chief of Staff.”
“That works. I’m Hedo, Chief of Staff of the Bamel Union and the butler serving Miss Sandra. As I mentioned earlier, I have no family name.”
Ameris smiled gently at the two, finding them endearing.
“So Sandra must be one of the children outside the pit. The one with the somewhat prickly temperament or the calm one? Hopefully not a cat,” she mused.
She was fully aware of Valeria and her group stationed some ten leagues away.
“The former.”
“You’ve had a hard time, then. But thanks to that child, you’ve managed to hold onto your strength without falling into corruption.”
Hedo didn’t quite grasp the meaning behind that but simply nodded.
A brief silence fell. Ameris seemed lost in thought, sifting through faint memories stirring within her.
“…Then I suppose I should tell you who I am. It took me a moment to recall. I am Ameris, an immortal born under a cursed fate. When I was awake, mortals called me the Great Serpent.”
“So you’re not a dragon?”
“I’m not entirely unrelated to dragons. They are, in a way, my distant descendants.”
“…Distant descendants?”
No one truly knows when dragons first appeared in the world. Even dragons themselves are unaware of their origins, only believing they were shaped by their respective gods.
By Ameris’s account, Jin and Hedo had just uncovered one of the world’s long-held secrets.
“Indeed. Now that introductions are done, I have one question. You said you oppose the resurrection of the Sun God, yet why did you seek to explore the underground realm I guard?”
“There’s a cult called the Sun God’s Church wreaking havoc in the mortal world. We’re at odds with them. Recently, we learned there might be a gate to the demon realm here. May I explain the current situation in the mortal world?”
“Go ahead.”
For a while, Jin recounted the story of the mortal world to Ameris.
He spoke of the ‘monsters’ that began appearing since the War of the Sword Emperor Star, the birth of the Malevolent God after Gliek’s destruction, and the Sun God’s Church suspected to be behind these events. Naturally, he also touched on the power struggles among the great factions.
Ameris listened intently, occasionally groaning from severe headaches—memories surfacing, fading, and intertwining chaotically, causing her pain.
“…So the excavation was merely to confirm the truth. With so little information on the Sun God, we hoped to uncover something to better counter our enemies. Honestly, I didn’t expect to meet you, Ameris.”
When Jin finished, Ameris nodded slowly.
“I see… I roughly understand your position. Though it pales compared to before I fell asleep, the surface world is in quite a turmoil.”
“When exactly did you fall asleep?”
“I don’t remember precisely. But you said it’s the year 1803 now, and that the Meiwang clan, who played a crucial role in defeating the Malevolent God, perished half a millennium ago. Solderet barely managed to seal seventy-seven of them alive.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s certain I fell asleep long before that. I was fated to guard the boundary when the world was split in two, and I fought until I fell into slumber.”
Ameris’s ‘fate as boundary guardian’ wasn’t just about blocking those who sought the underground world.
Her destiny was to prevent the mixing of the surface and the underground.
“The world divided into surface and underground after the death of the Sun God Kinzello. Those sent underground are what you call demons, and those on the surface are humans and other creatures.”
“Why must the two never mix?”
“Because that is the new order. The Sun God is dead, and the perfect world he governed is gone.”
A perfect world.
The Sun God’s Church Jin had encountered believed that if the Sun God were resurrected, the world would be restored to perfection. Jin and Hedo listened carefully, pondering this as Ameris continued.
“But some couldn’t bear the loss of that perfection. Naturally, they rejected the new order. Those who defied birth and death, who escaped their fated paths, damaging the causal laws, and whose attempts to restore the old order only led to chaos. These individuals gathered, yearning for the Sun God’s return.”
“So that’s how the Sun God’s Church began. Ameris, your role was to stop such people from entering the underground.”
“Exactly. But that wasn’t all. Among my heads, some dreamed of the Sun God’s resurrection.”
Ameris revealed she originally had nine heads—a great serpent with nine heads, a mystical figure common in many continental myths.
“I had to fight those heads as well. I remember killing one myself, another was slain by the Meiwang clan. The other three, I’m unsure. They’ve shown no activity, so they may have perished or lie beneath me, but I sense no presence now.”
“What happened to the heads who opposed the Sun God’s resurrection?”
“Four, including me. I stand before you now. Two of the others were also killed by the Meiwang clan back then. I hope the last one remains somewhere underground.”
From Ameris’s perspective, her heads were divided into good and evil. Five desired the Sun God’s return—the evil side—and the opposing four were good. Among the unknown heads, three were evil, one good.
“The beings mortals call dragons were formed from the deaths of my heads. Using those fragments, newly born immortals crafted dragons.”
“Newly born immortals? Wait, does that mean you, Ameris, have existed longer than the beings now called gods?”
“Name the gods you know.”
Jin listed all the gods he knew. Ameris shrugged.
“Except for Solderet and Klam, these are all immortals unknown to me. My memories are incomplete, so some among them may know me.”
“So we awakened you…”
“Ha, and you dared to swing a weapon at the crown of my head. As for Solderet, he was an immortal who taught me swordsmanship.”
Hearing that, Jin suddenly understood why Ameris’s swordsmanship felt strangely familiar.
As Solderet’s contractor, he had unconsciously sensed traces of him in her style.
“Solderet personally taught you swordsmanship… Were you close?”
“He was an immortal who accepted the world’s new order. Naturally, we were close. I vividly remember the joy he brought me when he introduced me to the pleasures of the sword. You said you’re his contractor?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps meeting me today wasn’t mere coincidence, but fate.”
“I hope so. Since Ameris and we share the same goal, there will surely be times we must help each other. But, Ameris…”
“Speak.”
“There’s one part of your story I find hard to understand—about the Meiwang clan.”
“You want to know why they killed my heads who held different views?”
“Yes.”
“It’s simple. The Meiwang clan you know as the ancient Meiwang clan was divided, like all mortals, into those who wished to resurrect the Sun God and those who opposed it.”
“That makes sense.”
“They were the only mortals who could freely traverse between surface and underground. Of course, each time they did, they had to face me in battle. Sometimes, even I had to avoid fighting. They were mortals granted immense power.”
Ameris didn’t elaborate on her own might, but Jin guessed that in the past, she wielded power on a completely different scale. After all, she had only sparred with Jin and Hedo in swordsmanship, never revealing her true strength.
“Was the power granted by someone else to the ancient Meiwang clan?”
“The Sun God Kinzello. The reason the ancient Meiwang clan was so strong was because the Sun God’s greatest will dwelled within them. That’s why they split into those who sought to resurrect the Sun God and those who accepted the new world.”
This was a secret even the current Meiwang clan in Laprarosa didn’t know. There was a severed and erased history between the ancient and present Meiwang clans.
[The Pluto clan that became your siblings is likely descended from the latter group. If the former had survived until now, the surface world would have already been reduced to ashes. Mortals imbued with the Sun God’s will inevitably end up destroying the surface. Though there are some, like you, Hedo, who resist corruption and withstand temptation.]
“Lord Ameris, are you saying that I, too, carry the Sun God’s will within me?”
[Where do you think the immense power you’ve had since birth came from? Had you been raised differently, you might have become one of the greatest villains in the history of the surface world. The Sun God’s will drives its bearer into madness, dooming them to destroy the surface. All in pursuit of the altar beneath the underground world—and beyond.]