Chapter 130 The Forgotten Saint

Hao Ren didn't react until Claude bowed to Vivian in salute.

In fact, Vivian herself didn't react either.

Aside from Claude and Yggdrasil, everyone present basically had their worldviews shattered into a pile of rubble!

Hao Ren had never expected things to develop this way. After circling around Yggdrasil's memories, he realized that this vampire progenitor, who was always so poor that she couldn't make ends meet, whose greatest happiness in life was a full meal, and who had been wandering around aimlessly for ten thousand years, actually had a far closer relationship with the Demon Hunters than anyone could have imagined. They were supposed to be mortal enemies, but in ancient times...

This pauper was revered as the fourteenth Saint of the Demon Hunters!

A vampire, the fourteenth Saint of the Demon Hunters! It was important enough to emphasize again.

She was the "cross-racial friend" of the thirteen Saints, a senior expert from the time when the Demon Hunters were still weak, and even the "Corpus" otherworld, which was now used as the Demon Hunters' main base, was a gift from Vivian!

However, Vivian had completely forgotten all of this, and even the Demon Hunters themselves seemed to have forgotten about it. This was what Hao Ren couldn't understand the most. The former was understandable, considering Vivian's brain, but how could the Demon Hunters explain it? Although the old fogeys from ancient times were mostly dead, surely not all of them were gone? Even if they were all gone, they couldn't have failed to leave behind a single word, right? This was, after all, their race's "fourteenth Saint." Surely they would have left behind at least a scrap of a record?

If Hao Ren could think of this, so could everyone else. Even Lily had a serious expression—but the greatest characteristic of the husky race was that their faces were always serious, so it was difficult to tell whether this girl was daydreaming or thinking. In any case, Izhaks spoke up: "What happened later? How did this situation come about?"

Yggdrasil's voice continued to echo in everyone's minds, and this time it was clearly directed specifically at Vivian: "Old friend, that was more than six thousand years ago. You don't remember anymore. In fact, I didn't even know about these things originally. I only learned about them after being brought here and spending a long time in contact with the twelve 'Saints,' so some of the details may be off. As far as I know, you were indeed the first to discover Corpus. I didn't even know you back then. You led those homeless Demon Hunters to a place where they could live in peace. Although Corpus didn't have the usual sense of 'land' compared to other otherworld territories, it was perfect as a stable and secure main base. The Demon Hunters quickly regarded this space as their home, and as you imagined—they began to explore the endless ancient secrets of Corpus.

"Corpus brought them great benefits. Before that, the Demon Hunters were a rather weak race, but after obtaining Corpus, they began to have a stable place to study their power, to cultivate and train stronger tribal warriors, and more importantly, they began to unearth all kinds of powerful legacies in this otherworld.

"Although most of the discoveries were elusive and unusable, simply extracting energy from the relics in a primitive and crude way was enough to make the Demon Hunters stronger. And so, everything seemed wonderful.

"Until they found something they shouldn't have touched in a temple."

Hao Ren blurted out, "That sword?!"

"That's right, that sword," Yggdrasil lowered his eyes, "The fourteen leaders of the Demon Hunters—including Vivian—found that sword together. It was casually discarded in a corner of a temple, and its strange material and appearance immediately attracted their attention. Although it looked ordinary, this sword seemed to have a magic power that drew the fourteen Saints together. After some debate, the fourteen Saints had differing opinions on how to handle the sword.

"Vivian was cautious, so she felt that this weapon of unknown origin should be sealed away.

"The thirteen Saints felt that this sword would bring even greater power to the Demon Hunters, like the other legacies in the ruins.

"In the end, Bedoeleis's intuition played a decisive role: in a vision, he saw a prosperous future for the Demon Hunters, and this was due to the power of the Dark Sword. So what happened next was logical: the fourteenth Saint's opinion was rejected, and the thirteen Saints held a ritual to extract power from the Dark Sword."

Bai Huo stared wide-eyed and gasped when he heard this: "Did the same thing happen as this time?"

Yggdrasil's lips turned down: "No, it was worse. During the second Disaster of Madness, only the Elder Council and the Saint Council of the Demon Hunters remained in Corpus, and most of the Demon Hunters had already branched out and spread around the world, so only a portion were affected. After you arrived here, there was still a battle to be fought, but during the first Disaster of Madness, the number of Demon Hunters was far less than it is now, and the gate seal of Corpus was far less secure than it is now. During the first Disaster of Madness, almost all of the Demon Hunters were concentrated in the otherworld. The moment the ritual was performed, the entire race was affected."

"Where was I at the time?" Vivian asked.

"You left Corpus at the time," Yggdrasil raised his eyes, "You were angry, so you left, but later you were worried, so you came back to see—only to discover that something big had happened."

"How was it resolved later?" Vivian frowned, "Did I take care of it alone?"

"You did," Yggdrasil gave an affirmative answer, "According to the memories I read from the twelve Saints' brainwaves, at the time you had a secret path that could directly sneak into the Spirit Realm Clock Tower—this is normal, after all, you were the first to discover this space. When all the Demon Hunters were affected by the Disaster of Madness and completely lost control, turning into a chaotic mess, you took advantage of the chaos to enter the ritual hall and interrupt the thirteen Saints' ritual. The shock produced after the ritual was interrupted severely damaged them, so you fought against everyone with your own strength. After several days of continuous fighting, they finally woke up—roughly woke up.

"And during the fierce battle, the chieftain of the Demon Hunters, the first Saint, was directly irradiated by the Red Moon. Her soul was almost completely torn apart, her life force withered, and she died a few years later."

Yggdrasil paused here for a moment to give everyone time to think. Vivian broke the silence after a few seconds: "So the first Saint actually died at my hands... Then what happened after that? How did the hunt begin? And why don't the current Demon Hunters know anything about the 'Fourteenth Saint'?"

"The Disaster of Madness ended, but it had completely changed the Demon Hunter race," Yggdrasil sighed, "You all know that the various races on this planet have an innate hostility towards each other, and the Disaster of Madness greatly amplified this dark side in the Demon Hunters' hearts. They originally adhered to conservatism and caution, but after the disaster, everyone's minds were cleansed, the memories of most people were distorted, and their ways of thinking were subverted. They were filled with anger. Although the infighting between races ended, all of their anger was transferred to other races. And just like that, the hunt began."

This was the truth behind the Demon Hunters' declaration of war on all supernatural races around the world—their innate hostility towards other races was magnified many times over!

Hao Ren suddenly remembered those Elder Council warriors who had been captured before—those warriors were irrevocably caught up in the fanatical "purification of heretics" ideology. Although they were still conscious, their words and actions were crazy, and they could wield their butcher knives against their compatriots without hesitation. And six thousand years ago, before the Demon Hunters launched their first hunt, Corpus had also experienced such a "great contamination." That contamination was stopped by Vivian alone, but her stopping it was not perfect: the echoes of the Godslaying Sword still transformed the Demon Hunters' ways of thinking, turning their innate hostility towards other aliens into a hunting instinct, and even more fatally, instilling in them an idea:

Heretics must be purified.

And so, under the name of purifying heretics, the hunt began.

"Their memories were also cleansed along with it, right?" Vivian frowned, "Otherwise, they couldn't not know about me..."

"This is the most bizarre part of the whole incident: their memories were not completely cleansed. In fact, what was erased... was only the part about you," Yggdrasil's eyes stared at Vivian, "A complex curse descended on this place: most ordinary Demon Hunters completely forgot about Vivian Anseista. The Saints withstood the memory cleansing with their strength. Deep in their consciousness, there are still memories about you, but they cannot mention your name and related deeds. Some of the oldest scrolls in this tower still contain information about you as the fourteenth Saint, but no one can read them. Among the Demon Hunters who survived the first Disaster of Madness, there were also a few who still vaguely remembered what happened back then, but they all died in accidents when they tried to say your name. Later, the twelve Saints realized something: what was cursed was not the Demon Hunters, but the name Vivian Anseista.

"You were erased from the Demon Hunters' memories, from the time you first met their leader to the outbreak of the Disaster of Madness. Everything about you during this period was shrouded in dark power."

"...That sword didn't kill me back then, so it killed my name..." Vivian muttered to herself in a daze, "Sure enough, that thing was completely designed to target the Creator Goddess..."