Chapter 370 Courage (8000, Huge Chapter Seeking Monthly Tickets~)

Agatha Kumore Kerba.

The name of the Kerba Empire's royal family consists of three parts: the maternal surname, the given name, and the paternal surname.

Agatha means the Second Prince's mother came from the Agatha family, Kumore is his name, and he is a member of the Kerba royal family.

Before ascending the throne, all princes are officially addressed by their maternal surname, and if there are multiple, they are further subdivided.

The Agatha family, as the largest industrialized noble family in the south of the empire, reached its peak thirty years ago and married into the royal family. Several members of the Agatha family even held important military and political positions.

The war against the Elven Court was also planned by them, with the aim of completely consolidating their power in the south and supporting the Agatha family's prince to become the imperial ruler—and the royal family, holding the highest power and the Dragon God bloodline, naturally didn't mind using marriage to unite with this level of local great nobles.

Twenty years ago, at the end of the Elven War, due to the elves' desperate counterattack before defeat, a large number of cities and industrial clusters within the Agatha family's territory were razed to the ground, and their power immediately declined. Although the Agatha family didn't completely fall out of the ranks of the great nobles because they still controlled some coastal industrial areas, their glory was indeed gone.

Because of this, the Second Prince Kumore Kerba, who originally had a great chance of succession, gradually moved away from the center of the royal power competition.

--There's nothing to be unwilling about. This is the price of choice.

Compared to his increasingly haggard mother and the Agatha maternal relatives who had restrained themselves and rarely engaged in activities in recent years, the young Kumore understood early on that instead of feeling sorry for oneself, recalling past glory, or clearing oneself of stains and mistakes, it was better to admit past failures, bide one's time to look for opportunities, and see if one could make a comeback.

And Kumore's attitude towards being gradually excluded from the crown prince's battle for succession was also very simple.

If you don't give it to me, I'll take it myself.

That's his way of thinking.

Unlike the royal family, who held onto the Dragon God bloodline and didn't care about the changes of the times, Kumore often went deep into the people, investigated the impact of magic-powered industrialization on society, pondered the feedback from public opinion, and tried to find out the most common ideas of different people in each region through investigation and statistics, listening to their wishes.

--The blood and tears of small workshops squeezed by industrialization and losing their jobs; the northern farmland beginning to become barren because too many people were recruited by factories; the great nobles' land annexation, more and more landless farmers with no land to cultivate; and the magic-powered mine miners who were even more miserable than slaves and needed to endure magic radiation...

"Sir, are you here to investigate the people? I, I was still farming in Deepwater City last year, but who knew that my land was fancied by the lord, who said he wanted to build some chemical factory... Without the land, I could only go to the city to find work, but the factories that needed technology didn't want me, and the factories that didn't need technology had too many people, and everyone competed to lower wages. Even if I went to work, that little reward couldn't support me... It's not just a matter of whether there's land to cultivate. Didn't someone come up with some iron machine a few days ago? I heard that thing can replace the oxen, and one person can cultivate a village's land with the machine. When this thing comes out, there's nothing for me to do..."

An ordinary farmer who had entered the city complained to Kumore, who was hiding his identity. He had received a basic education, but only knew a few words and his name. The other party's complaint was so sincere that the prince didn't know what to say.

He went deep into the people just to find the pulse of the times and hoped to hold it in his palm, making it the reins in his hand to rule the empire. But Kumore never imagined that the empire, which seemed so prosperous and flourishing in his eyes, was so ugly and unbearable at the grassroots level.

Standing on the high wall, Kumore overlooked the entire city gradually occupied by factories and magic-powered dust, as well as the densely packed citizens swarming in it. He gazed at the sallow and emaciated faces of everyone, their numb and indifferent expressions. The Second Prince of the Empire was finally moved.

--The average lifespan is no more than thirty years, more than eighty percent of the population can't eat their fill, educated people are in the minority, and the increase in production brought about by magic-powered industrialization is focused on the army to suppress the rebels everywhere, while the royal family's monthly expenses are enough for everyone in all the directly administered provinces to eat their fill...

Some information that the royal family could easily know suddenly jumped off the paper, transforming from a series of numbers into scenes that directly touched the heart.

"The sky... is about to change."

But can it really change? The Kerba Empire wasn't as if it hadn't encountered rebellions before, but as long as the Dragon God bloodline took action, it would be enough to wipe out cities. The solar dragon divine light originating from 'Klokelba' was enough to make all the resisting armies collapse—discussing the potential of the people in a transcendent world was really regrettable.

"So, if you really want to, want to change something—you must start from the royal family, from me, from the highest level of the empire."

"The Dragon Balls... only the Dragon Balls!"

Only then did Kumore finally understand why there were Dragon Balls in this world... That was the compassion of the progenitor for all the people in the world! In this transcendent world, in this world where everything was solidified and the weak couldn't resist the strong, only the wish of the Dragon Balls could completely erase the remnants of the previous generation, erase all classes, and all the advantages brought about by birth.

Holding the Dragon Balls would allow one to become strong, and the winners and victors of the war would gain the right to open up the next era, a better era!

For this, everything could be sacrificed.

Even if taking this path meant fighting against the royal family, against all the nobles, against one's own birth and class.

That was also true.

As for the tens of thousands of people who died in the middle of the Dragon God War, that was a necessary sacrifice... One must know that in this era, there were billions of people who couldn't eat their fill, and millions of people were displaced and sold themselves into slavery every day—compared to all the suffering that was happening in this world, just the death of hundreds of thousands of people was not something unacceptable at all.

I want to... change the world.

Blood splattered, and the silver blade was pulled out of the flesh. Kumore's furious voice quickly weakened as the poison from Jormungandr spread through his body.

He wanted to summon Leviathan to counterattack, but for some reason, the thousands of heroic souls that made up Leviathan were motionless in the face of the opponent, even humbly lowering their heads to salute that light.

"You said... you wanted to accompany me to change this world..."

Kumore struggled to raise his head to look at the expressionless Matvey. He struggled to say something, such as accusations, insults, indignation, or accusations... But he didn't do that.

Before he died, he just lowered his head and looked at the ground that had been scorched into glass by Vika's holy light. Beside him was the ashes of the priest. The man said in a very sad voice, "You... clearly didn't lie back then..."

"I'm sorry, Your Highness. But I really didn't lie back then."

Matvey's voice was gentle as he withdrew the silver dagger in his hand: "You found me in the countryside, treating children, and said you wanted to change the world—you said that curing diseases could save one person, but couldn't save the world, and you had a way to eliminate the suffering of the entire world, hoping I would assist you."

"You guided me onto this path. I am extremely grateful to you, but from the beginning, our ideas were different—you wanted to make the empire glorious again, to make everyone well-fed and clothed, and to become strong and unified. And you are the ruler of everything, a benevolent and wise emperor."

"What I want is for all life to be able to understand each other, to be able to move forward hand in hand no matter what they face—in the world I want, there is no emperor, no nobles, no classes, everyone is equal at the level of personality, thereby eradicating all wars and all conflicts."

"We swore to change this world, but your world is not my world."

"Too beautiful..."

The Dragon God didn't listen to his orders, his body was also eroded by the poison of the giant serpent, and Matvey's strength was no less than his own. Kumore finally understood that just like Vika was powerless against him, he had no way to fight back against the priest in front of him.

They knew each other too well. If Matvey had really been determined to betray him from the beginning, then he must have anticipated everything: "So... I never understood you..."

Matvey just sighed at this sentence: "You know me very well... But, Your Highness, you never understood this world."

"Whether it is the change of the times or the social changes brought about by technological progress, all the suffering, in the final analysis, comes from people's desires... If the nobles were not so greedy, the royal family would not be so decadent... No, if there were no nobles and emperors, no upper class and lower class, and everyone was of one mind, then naturally there would be no suffering, no conflict."

--The decaying empire, a tool of rule.

--Greedy nobles, blood-sucking bugs.

--Opposing races, the source of division.

--Different minds, the essence of contradiction.

--Individual personalities, the starting point of conflict.

This world is filled with suffering, conflict, tears, and despair, all because of these elements. The progenitor divided heaven and earth and the three dragon of life. Life divided into thousands of races, and humans alone divided into royal family, nobles, commoners, and pariahs. Whether it is the royal family, the nobles, the commoners, or the pariahs, they can continue to divide, dividing into endless contradictions. Even one's own thoughts are constantly dividing, thereby causing human thinking to change all the time.

Division is the source of all evil. As long as everything is unified, then the earth will be a perfect paradise.

"Your Highness, you just want to solve the chaos of an era, but I want to solve the root of suffering from the source."

Kumore didn't hear what Matvey said later.

The Second Prince knelt on the ground, his eyes fixed on the ground, with black blood dripping from his mouth. His unwilling eyes had not closed yet.

He was dead.

So far, Evelyn, Mikhail, Fenter, Kumore, and Vika, five of the seven people in the Dragon Ball War, were dead.

Only Matvey and Aula remained.

And the Dragon Balls of 'Jormungandr', 'Gorgon', 'Fafnir', 'Yinglong', and 'Leviathan' were all in Matvey's hands.

The 'Quetzalcoatl' and 'Torch Dragon' Dragon Balls were in the hands of the artificial human Aula.

"...Let's go, Yinglong, continue our plan."

After staring at the corpse in front of him, Matvey was silent for a moment. Then, he stretched out his hand, and just like Evelyn, Kumore's corpse also disappeared in a burst of rainbow light, turning into nothingness, and his soul was also invested in the priest's body.

"Aren't you going to kill the Torch Dragon?"

The Dragon of Heaven asked curiously. He did admire Su Zhou, this old fellow villager, but precisely because he admired him, he had to be wary, and the attack had to be even more ruthless.

Moreover, the other party was indeed a bit ridiculously strong. Taking him seriously was also a kind of respect.

"No need. Even if he recovers to his full strength, he can't defeat me now."

Circles of light slowly emerged around Matvey, and his body slowly floated towards the sky above Maya City. The huge phantom of the Ouroboros began to rotate behind him, like the gears that drive the world.

If there were priests and priestesses of the Dragon God Church here and they saw this symbol, they would surely bow their heads in fear and offer great gifts.

[23-In the beginning of creation, nothing existed.]

[24-The spirit of God hovered over the dark void, becoming a ring, and the world was born in the ring.]

[25-The God-ring encircles the world and falls asleep, and its soul is divided into three, which are the Heavenly God, the Earth God, and Life.]

[26-Life is the father of all things, and God is the ancestor of all things.]

[27-And bestow this world upon us.]

[28-All those who have blood and qi should remember this grace.]

[29-Praise, the Progenitor Dragon! Praise, the God of Creation!]

[————Leviathan, Book of Grace]

For more than ten years, Matvey had been thinking about why God would tolerate the existence of such an ugly world, filled with hatred, disgust, death, and despair.

But suddenly one day, he understood that God was not a human being, and the God of Creation did not need to be bound by human thoughts.

God created the world, and His spirit was divided into three, transforming into everything in the world. Among them, the struggle of all things was the result of the operation of a part of God himself.

Just like a stone falling downward and water flowing to a lower place, who knows whether such common sense, from a certain point of view, is also a kind of struggle? And is human struggle also a kind of common sense?

Perhaps, only humans can give these common senses meanings such as 'happiness' and 'despair' that only humans can understand.

So, if you really want all living beings to live happily.

Then become God, engrave 'happiness' in common sense, and make it a kind of life instinct.

Then, recreate the entire new world.

Five Dragon Balls floated in front of him. In mid-air, Matvey began to mobilize the power in these Dragon Balls, and then, with the power that he had perfected in the Kobol Mountains for decades, began to urge them one by one.

A pure white halo, like a snake coiling, gradually appeared above his head, flashing with a light that attracted souls.

--All life in this world has the same origin in essence. Therefore, humans, elves, dwarves, and even fish-people do not have reproductive isolation, and the use of dragon blood as an intermediary in all biological organs can ignore rejection reactions.

--All things were originally one, both physically and spiritually.

"Let's begin."

Saying so, one could see that ring-shaped circles appeared in Matvey's eyes, and layer upon layer of scale-like patterns and metallic luster began to appear on the surface of his skin.

He overlooked the entire Maya City and said compassionately to all the dead souls and the ordinary people who had not yet died and were still crying blankly: [Let us become one.]

At this moment, in the entire Maya City, all the souls and humans heard a crisp and loud bell sound in their ears.

The bell rang, like a death knell, and like a song of salvation.

Those who were still alive didn't know why.

However, all the souls, for some reason, jumped up with joy and flew towards the bright and gentle light that only they could see, the place where they could sleep and rest.

Then, just like that, they became part of the light.

--The Dragon of Heaven, the Dragon of Earth, and the Dragon of Man, the elements of the Progenitor God's division have all gathered again.

In the Dragon Balls of Yinglong, Gorgon, and Leviathan, some pure aura was slowly overflowing and then condensing together, becoming light. Yinglong watched all this with interest, watching the tiny human in the light, as if watching a certain being who had ascended to heaven in the past.

Surrounded by this light, Matvey's body also began to gradually divide in a burst of rainbow light, becoming illusory, but his expression was firm, and layers of mental barriers rose up, preventing the collapse of his body.

The entire Maya City, hundreds of thousands of souls, like schools of fish returning home, poured into his body.

Only that gentle but firm voice could be heard.

[Let us become one.]

[Then, let us return to greatness.]

At this moment.

Kobol Mountains,

"We're here, Su Zhou."

Aula held up the head in her hand so that it could examine the huge corpse of the giant serpent in front of it.

And the head made a satisfied sound: "This body is not bad!"

Upon careful observation, the degree of damage to Jormungandr's body was not high. Only the head was a fatal wound—it seemed that even Yinglong and Leviathan could not suppress Jormungandr in terms of pure flesh, so they could only focus on condensing their power to attack.

This was naturally a good thing.

Without any hesitation, after Su Zhou roughly examined Jormungandr's body, he directly summoned his true form, which was only one head left.

Instantly, the huge head of the Immortal Dragon, the Torch Dragon, appeared in mid-air, and Su Zhou's human body returned to below his neck, completing the reorganization with a 'snap' sound.

This series of processes made Aula, who was watching all this, open her mouth slightly, revealing an envious look.

"So amazing, Su Zhou!"

"Hmph, there's even more amazing stuff!" Although Su Zhou had no idea what Aula was envious of, it didn't prevent him from showing off his carefully crafted true form to the artificial human who was only five days old.

Human-form Su Zhou snapped his fingers, and the huge Torch Dragon's head spewed out a stream of cyan-blue spiritual light, which then flew towards Jormungandr's body not far away like a rocket.

It must be said that after Jormungandr swallowed a mountain, its body expanded to an extremely terrifying degree—Su Zhou's Torch Dragon true form was nearly a hundred meters tall, and the dragon's head was also more than ten meters tall, which was already very large, as big as a small building.

However, compared to Jormungandr, whose body length was estimated to exceed five thousand meters and whose head alone was three or four times larger than Su Zhou's entire true form... it seemed that Su Zhou's head could not be installed on the other party's body at all.

But how could transcendents be predicted by common sense?

As Su Zhou canceled the rocket flame, the huge head of the Immortal Dragon sprouted a large number of nerve roots condensed from spiritual power from its bottom, and these nerve roots intertwined together, turning into the shape of a drill!

The dragon's head fell, and the drill directly pierced into Jormungandr's body!

At this moment, at the forehead of Jormungandr's huge head, with Su Zhou's head embedded here as the center, cyan-purple spiritual light was spreading towards the entire serpent's body!

Buzz——One could see that at the head of the black giant serpent, the eyelids slowly lifted, and the two serpent pupils that should have been closed and dead were now glowing again.

And this time, the spiritual light flashing at the bottom of its pupils was no longer the dark light of the World Serpent, but the cyan-purple spiritual light belonging to Su Zhou!

With the controller's re-entry, Jormungandr's body, this huge chariot, was started by Su Zhou!

"Come here, Aula."

Rumble——Along with the spread of Su Zhou's spiritual light, he began to regain control of this body. Immortal Dragon-form Su Zhou opened his mouth, manipulated the wind, and pulled Aula, who was watching this scene, into his mouth: "Don't worry, this is the safest place."

This was not a lie.

Because now, Aula's situation was protected by four layers of nesting dolls.

The first layer of nesting dolls was Jormungandr's body.

The second layer of nesting dolls was Su Zhou Torch Dragon's dragon head.

The third layer of nesting dolls was the protection structure Su Zhou designed in his mouth.

The fourth layer of nesting dolls was the dragon scale exoskeleton armor on Aula's body.

To represent it with a diagram, it would be like this.

[Jormun[Su [Armor [Aula] or] gandr] Zhou]

In addition, Aula herself was also a special artificial human and was not so easily damaged... Now, her safety was truly different from the beginning!

Who could break through the defense of the four layers of nesting dolls?! Even Su Zhou himself couldn't do it!

At this moment, except for not being very good at using a long body to fight, Su Zhou could almost be said to have recovered his full combat power!

"You finally turned into a long strip after all."

And at this time, from the personal space, the voice of the snake spirit sounded, with a gloating tone: "Let us recall, who was it who said they would never become a long strip?"

"It's just temporary." Su Zhou didn't care about Yara's teasing comments: "Now, it's time to launch a counterattack... Huh?"

Just as Su Zhou sensed something and turned his head in shock to look in the direction of Maya City.

In Maya City, as countless souls gathered, Matvey, who had completely transformed into a human-bodied snake-tail, with wings growing from his back, also raised his head in surprise and looked at the distant mountains.

[Jormungandr, has moved?!]

[How is that possible? It doesn't have a legend of immortality. How could it be resurrected... Wait, could it be, the Torch Dragon?!]

However, the surprise was only momentary.

The halo above his head, like an Ouroboros, became even more dazzling, and Matvey, who was pure white all over, quickly calmed down: [But this is useless... He cannot defeat me now.]

Then, the human-bodied snake-tailed existence continued to lower his head and carry out his work.

Gaia, the mother goddess representing the earth, represents the source of creation, the root of heaven and earth, and is the original creative god who gave birth to the gods. Whether it is the sky god Uranus, the sea god Pontus, or the mountain god Urea, they are all her children.

The myths of the earth mother goddess are as numerous as the stars, but in Mycenaean mythology, the origin of dragons and snakes is her.

Typhon, the child of Gaia (Earth) and Tartarus (Hell), is the king of monsters, the father of demons. He is a giant with a hundred snake heads, covered with feathers and wings. The union of Typhon and his wife gave birth to countless monsters, including many powerful dragons and snakes.

However, the Gorgon was not a child of Typhon. In fact, it originated from the child of Gaia and Pontus, Forkys, the father of a hundred monsters, and Keto. This is the most widely spread mythology, and the legend of Medusa originated from this.

However, in the earlier and earlier days, there were still other epics sung. The Gorgon's original origin—that was in the Titan War in which the Earth Mother intended to overthrow the gods, one of the giants directly conceived by the Earth Mother.

Gorgon, the direct descendant of the Earth Mother, a monster with dragon scales, as one of the giants who went to war with the gods, was eventually killed by the goddess of war Athena. Its corpse even became Athena's armor and shield.

It possessed the direct bloodline of the Earth Mother, inherited the power of life, and possessed the power to conceive monsters—the best manifestation of this life power was that the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor were born from the Gorgon's corpse. This was also why Kumore wanted to use its bloodline to create an army of giants as the foundation of his empire's rule.

And now, this power of life originating from the Earth Dragon, mixed with the power of the 'Leviathan' of man, and the supernatural powers of the 'Yinglong' of heaven, was being driven by Matvey.

One could see that in Maya City, all kinds of 'monsters' were appearing in the corpses and blood pools of countless dead—reappearing the legend of myths, monsters were born from the Gorgon's corpse, and thousands of monsters began to search for those ordinary people who still remained in the city, and then bring them in, or even kill them on the spot, so that their souls could 'become one' with Matvey.

[Death is just the beginning. Your flesh will rot, but your souls will live forever with everyone.]

[We will become one and recreate the miracle of life. In this way, there will be no more conflicts and contradictions between people, and a happy eternal life will come.]

The compassionate voice resounded throughout the world.

But Su Zhou couldn't hear all this.

He was just controlling his body, coiling around the mountain peaks, and gazing at the distant city.

There, the entire Maya City had turned blood red, and raging fires were burning, even illuminating the sky. The light, as if everything was dissolving, gave him a sense of danger comparable to facing the Heavenly Pool Dragon King in the past, and even more so than the God of Water!

"So, strong..."

Muttering to himself, Su Zhou frowned tightly.

He sensed the large numbers of curses that were appearing, and couldn't figure out what was happening over there at all.

But even if he didn't know, he could guess that over there, a certain Dragon Ball holder was doing something big, and this big thing was causing the deaths of extremely large numbers of ordinary people!

Life was being arbitrarily harvested like crops in a wheat field. The swift and smooth speed was like a production line harvesting lives...

"One in ten is not alive - someone is fighting in the city, killing most of the people, and now people are still dying quickly!"

The young man's face was very ugly. His Devil Devouring Lord supernatural power and his Heart of No Thought could both detect the aftermath of human deaths from a great distance - either the curses of the resentful spirits, or the last howls of the souls: "Extremely dangerous - the sense of danger that place gives me is like saying 'going there will lead to death'!"

"I have reorganized Jormungandr's body... Even so, it's so dangerous?"

But could he not go?

Of course not.

"...Hmph, let's not talk about the Dragon Balls for now."

Controlling his huge dragon body, controlling Jormungandr's body, he slowly unwound from the mountain peaks, and brilliant spiritual light began to flash in the eyes of the giant serpent.

And Su Zhou's expression as the Immortal Dragon gradually changed from shock to calm: "I heard someone crying, someone praying, so many innocent people dying... That reason is enough."

"It's time for another fight."

Su Zhou strengthened his thoughts, and the giant serpent began to move. It instantly leveled the valleys along the way like a moving mountain range, shattering the undulating stone hills. The giant serpent body contained an incomparably terrifying power. Whether it was a mountain peak or a snowfield, it had to retreat in the face of it!

"But, Su Zhou, I felt it just now, you were afraid for a moment."

However, in the body of this giant serpent, Aula, who was protected, was watching the floating light curtain in front of her and asked in confusion: "You were afraid... Didn't you say that when you encounter something scary, you should avoid it? Only in this way can you survive and achieve victory... This is not quite right."

In response, the giant dragon stopped moving.

"Well, what you said is indeed correct."

Su Zhou laughed. He shook his head and said, "Aula, you are indeed a good student. I taught you fear, taught you to question, taught you to be decisive, and you have learned everything very well, and you can always put what you have learned into practice."

"But, is what I say right? Must it be followed? Is what I know the truth?"

Asking such a doubtful question, Su Zhou took a long breath, causing a long dragon roar to resound through the world: "Right and wrong are things that are freely judged by the mind. After feeling fear, whether to retreat or face forward can be right, can be wrong - but that does not depend on what I say, but on what you think."

"So, stay calm, girl. Since things have already happened, then we must respond."

Saying so, the great serpent set off again, and he moved rapidly towards Maya City in the distance, carrying a thunderous roar.

And Su Zhou's calm voice rang in Aula's ear, who was lost in thought. The alien dragon and serpent carried the artificial girl and galloped in the empty snowfield. He laughed loudly and said, "Since you learned fear before."

"Then now, I will use action to teach you what 'courage' is."

1 This fusion can refer to Spiral Rock and the fusion of faces, or Crimson King (from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)

Great chapter seeking monthly tickets~