I've read the whole raws, so I can provide spoilers. I've started a thread here to avoid spoiling the other sections too much. @kaisis @NoxDobber Since you've asked for spoilers, feel free to ask me what spoilers you want. kaisis wanted spoilers on Roland's romance, so here: Roland's romance: Spoiler *cough* Actually, Roland's luck in romance isn't bad at all (though it isn't crazy good like Karwenz's). What's actually happening is that he's friendzoning all the girls around him. Even though he's a pervert and complains about being a virgin, if a hot chick showed up in sexy clothes right in his room, he'd kick her out and tell her 'not to be silly' (seriously, I'm a girl and even -I- want to smack him). If he shows actual interest in a girl, chances are it's because there's something unusual about her that makes him actually want to dissect her (...). There were reasons for the lack of romance though. There was a seperate reason in the first half of the series that I'll leave out for now, but Roland is actually a very traditional guy whose ideal is just to have a normal girl as his wife (which, considering his own personality and situation, is pretty much impossible xD ). In the latter parts of the series, you could say he was still very immature when it comes to romantic relationships, but at the same time, because he's actually a very old being, he instinctively doesn't view most girls as being in the same age bracket as him, even though he never explicitely states it this way (did you notice that when referring to his army or to the citizens of Liu Huang Mountain City, he uses the word 'cute'? Yeah, that). By the end of the series, there were pretty much only 3 serious contenders for love interest: Elisa, Amelia and Harloys. Annie and Reine never had a chance: Roland is deep down an old monster, and he simply didn't see them as more than little children. The author also added in an author note that in fact, what they felt for Roland wasn't love either, instead it was a sort of longing and idealization as they stared at his back, but this increased the distance between them. All of this... really made sense, actually. Both Elisa and Amelia had a real chance with Roland, but as Harloys explained, they made a huge mistake: in order to make Roland like them, they did a lot of things to make him owe them. The result was that he felt a mix of gratitude and guilt towards them, but that in turn killed off any feelings of love that could have grown (that and, Elisa was daughter-zoned). Instead, Harloys never put any sort of pressure on him, and just stayed by his side and alleviated his loneliness (even though Roland is always arguing with her, he's genuinely grateful for her presence. It turned out doing all these things on his own to save the world was really hard on him after all). But actually, when he realized that Harloys likes him, Roland was so surprised that he asked 'What do you like about me? Can I change it?' *cough* I seriously suspect that Roland 'pet-zoned her'. Still, Harloys actually understood him really well, and just patiently waited it out. She followed him to hell at the end of the series, just like he planned, and proclaimed that she wants children before he's about to reincarnate (that gave him a scare. xD ). In the end Roland decided that Yeah! He's sick of being single and virgin! And they end up having two kids. And that's it. The whole relationship thing was really awkward. @_@ When the series explained things though, it always really made sense, so I appreciated that. I was rooting for Eliza, but I could understand why she 'lost'. Harloys got him by being that roommate whom you'd spent so much time with that you might as well be married. Extra note: the author actually mentions separately that originally, the potential love interests were Eliza and Annie (and I forgot who else). But as said, it would have been impossible for Roland to see Annie beyond a child he raised, and what Annie felt for him wasn't true love either. In the end, the author didn't 'force' his characters. Extra extra note: Amelia created her own race, which I'll translate as 'Children of the Forest' (it should be 'wood spirits', but that sounds weird). They're like the kokiri children in Zelda: little girls (no boys) who are always young. This all happened while she was in a stand-off against undead armies from other realms. She gave her children several 'blessings' before she ran out of power and fell into a deep sleep, so when Roland found her and realized what had happened, he helped her by completing the 'blessings', then taught and guided them so they'd be able to stand up against the undead. As a result, all the children of the forest call him 'Our father', something he strongly objects to. At one point, Amelia had one of them go to Roland and cry 'Woo, father never comes home to visit, he doesn't love us anymore.' So there you go. Congratulations Roland. In Christianity, there's the Virgin Mary. You managed to become the Virgin Father to an entire race. xD
who is harloys? i am currently at c50 does it mean that she is introduced later on or is it the dragon female??
Oh... dear. That's really quite complicated. Not the second point, mind you, but the first. Well, you have to understand that Roland is not, inherently, about power, so it is actually a bit pointless to ask how powerful he is, for example. You can read this to better understand Roland: https://justpaste.it/145ee This is a chapter far ahead. I translated it for myself because it is one of my favorite chapters, and it really explains what Roland is about as a character. As for his abilities, I'll give you a partial answer for now, and maybe give you a more specific breakdown of his abilities at a later time. Spoiler Roland actually develops his four paths at the same time: Holy Light (it's a separate branch that has nothing to do with the current God of Light), Ice, Death (Necromancy) and Law. He acquires all sorts of abilities within each branch, but it's a bit complicated to list them all... it's also a bit pointless, because when he attains his goals in regards to power, it's just to drag Karwenz to hell with him, so it's basically one-time use with reset upon reincarnating. In fact, Roland is at no point the strongest being in the series: a whole bunch of others could whoop him. It's just that abilities are rock-paper-scissors in nature, so it is possible to grow stronger while specifically targeting some enemies (which is what Roland did. You can also refer to how Bastlar is specialized in slaying dragons). It's more meaningful to explain what Roland has accomplished. This also explains his relationship with Wumianzhe: All of the 7 sins were made using a piece of his very own soul, specifically the part relating to the corresponding emotion. Yup, he tore those emotions out of himself to make them. That's why his personality is so strange. They are thus a part of him, but also separate beings. They are the true reason he could become an Undead Emperor before: because his total power took into account the 7 sins he had made by then. They are all self-evolving and become stronger with time. Wumianzhe is one of the 7 sins. He's Sloth: it is absolutely impossible to move him with outside influence or emotions. As such, he is the perfect impartial Judge. He is also the ultimate result of Roland's experimentations on souls: the creation of an artificial God (this dude experimented with tearing up souls, including his own, researched how to make artificial Heroic Spirits and ultimately made an artificial God. Once you get the details, the things he did were really f*cked up D: )(seriously, it made me wonder if the world wasn't being destroyed just so Roland would be too busy saving it to destroy it). Roland succeeds in creating a Hell system (it has Heaven too). It's not a permanent system a la Christianity though, the soul reincarnates after serving its time. There is a whole lot that happened. Basically: Roland made God Wumianzhe Roland and Harloys worked out a hero system where all invaders would get marked, and adventurers could use a bracer to track them and record their defeat to obtain points to exchange for rewards (sounds familiar? He's copying the System). It was his idea to get people to fight the enemies instead of each other. Of course he couldn't do it himself, so he merrily dumped it on Ayer, who outside of his expectations, dragged a bunch of Gods into this to make it a reality. Roland managed to collect powerful artifacts and assemble the conditions necessary to create a new main Realm (there are a bunch of realms floating about, but Eich and this new one are main ones, long story) which becomes the Heaven/Hell afterlife. This is linked to Eich through the Styx river, and has 4 'elemental' realm to power it like Eich, except in this case, they are his four paths: Holy Light, Ice (representing Life here, long story), Death and Law. There are a bunch of different levels in Hell too, all with their own punishment methods. I forgot if his side declared the Neutral faction at steps 2 or 3... but in any case, the Law faction has thus become a brand new neutral faction, with Ayer as head and a whole bunch of Gods who escaped together to this new dimension (Ayer is super well-connected, his contribution is huge xD ). He can't order these guys around though (which is kind of obvious: he's the architect of Hell but not the leader). It turns out that in his second life, he had also started an alternate branch of Holy Light church, one that worships the Holy Light directly instead of the God of Holy Light. This version of the Holy Light is less powerful in terms of pure destruction, but actually restores instead of purifying (destroying). It's just that Roland erased his memories of this out of consideration to his 'partner' then (long story). This Church will eventually become more influential. The Mist alliance becomes quite large, including the Northern countries, the Underground alliance, Xiluo, and a bunch of other countries. He pushes the new magical machinery in various ways. Apart from military sales from Mist, for example, he starts a commercial venture too. Magical motorbikes become very popular with mages, for example, since it helps with the issue of survivability and mobility (no, it's not a case of every mage suddenly riding a bike, the technology scope is more varied than that). His Swordcaster class also becomes more prominent, resulting in quite effective new army formations. lol, Roland doesn't bother growing this class on his own much, he lets other people figure things out. As he says: as long as there's quantity, the quality will emerge. Once there are enough swordcasters around, there are bound to be a bunch to make breakthroughs in the class. There are bound to be inconveniences in this job too, though: it's a hella expensive one. xD Diana unlocks the Atheist class. o_o It's uh, not called that, but that's basically what it is. ... and a bunch of other things. Basically, the 'seeds' that Roland has planted gradually grow throughout the series. It's really quite fascinating and is the result why I so eagerly started reading the sequel, even though it's not centered on Roland (I wanted to see how the world evolved further). Queen of Banshees Harloys. She appears soon. She is a natural undead and the last Golden Elf (all of them were killed by the High Elves, who resented having them on top). She was Roland's Necromancy teacher in his second life and helped him assemble his undead army, with the goal of gaining revenge against the elves and Elf gods that destroyed her race. ... Roland makes her into his pet cat.
Spoiler Ouch, I had an inkling that Eliza self-sabotaged herself when she decided to go long-distance with their relationship. Probably should have discussed that with Roland before jumping into demonland. My gratitude for the spoilers.
First thank you for the spoilers Now on to business there are a few things which have bugged me for sometime and I would appreciate it if you could give me some answers. • What exactly is Roland's system? • Is it impossible for members of the Golden and Sulphuric tribes to become Gods? • Aside from Demons, Devils and Dragons are there other races that can become as strong as Gods? • Does Eich ever play a part in the story? Last one isn't about the story just a little pet peeve of mine about the translation is it supposed to be Semigod or Demigod?
@kaisis Spoiler That's exactly it: with effort and presence, Elisa could have climbed out of the 'daughter-zone' and eventually get what she wanted. However, she 'foolishly' lost her chance by leaving his side, and worse, made things too complicated for Roland to simply like her, leaving Harloys as the victor. @NoxDobber Spoiler Hmm... most of the 7 Sins have appeared already. As a reminder, the 7 sins were created through fragments of Roland's soul, as well as massive amounts of other soul fragments. They have the ability to become stronger with time. Well: Bastian / Wrath: already mentioned in the series, it's Roland's dog who becomes more powerful the angrier he becomes. Omar / Pride: he was designed to control Roland's undead army, and is like the ultimate super-processor: high-level undeads normally have limits to how many undeads they can effectively control. Omar acts as a network that integrates all the undead he controls, however, so he becomes more powerful the more undead are under his command. Because he embodies Pride, Roland wasn't too convinced by him and gave his army leadership to Bastian, which caused Omar to lead an uprising and Roland to get him sealed. He is such that he can't accept anyone above him other than his 'father' Roland himself. In fact, Roland once off-handedly mentioned that ideal men should have muscles. So Omar himself... is a muscle freak... with his idea of what is the perfect face. Yes, he's a muscle-freak with the face of a 14-years old Roland. He's calmer now, and as long as he's #1 in Xiluo, he doesn't really care about interfering with other matters. Ah Dang / Gluttony: already mentioned. He's the 'carnivore' that becomes stronger by eating and integrating the traits of those he's eaten, and has several forms for specific functions. Envy: it's the boat thing. I forgot the guy's name. There was a chapter once to explain what difference there was between Envy and Gluttony, but I sort of forgot. Roland believes that it has the potential to become the strongest of the 7 Sins, but it's also the weakest because it's the newest one (since the 7 Sins start out weak but grow more powerful with time, Envy hasn't had much time to grow). Sloth: as said, it's Wumianzhe. Harloys / greed: at one point, she, Roland and Olivia went crazy with alchemy and came up with potions with new dubious effects, so her slimes can produce other effects now. Eventually, once Roland grew up enough, she could assume an adult form and even make clones of her adult form to become a massive multi-tasker. Lust: this is actually the original of the 7 Sins, created in Roland's second life. Roland was actually in a love triangle then: there was a girl he liked, and a girl who liked him. The girl he liked betrayed him, and the girl who liked him sacrificed herself to protect him. Enraged, Roland made the girl he liked into the first of the 7 Sins to resurrect the girl who liked him (*cough*). They form a weird pair that goes like this: Ywenli (the girl who liked him) is now a a group of dragons with inter-connected minds, except they all have different personalities and are of different dragon species. The first, in fact, is a 3-headed dragon. Shirley (the girl who he liked) will start as a baby with no memories and grow into an adult, then the moment she falls in love, she will start regressing until reverting into an egg form. From that accumulated experience, a new Ywenli dragon is born, while Shirley starts the cycle again. It's basically something that involves a cycling of the souls. Ywenli has been raising 'Shirley' cycle after cycle so actually considers her to be like their daughter (she no longer has any memories of before, so they can't hate her for the past). So converly, they resent Roland for what he's putting Shirley through. Yeah... it's weird and messed up. It was his first Sin so the concept wasn't quite perfect. After Roland's side sets up the Hell world, they become the guardians of the different levels of hell (I forgot if they all stayed there or some came back with him). I'll explain the ending in a few days. As with the rest, it's not that straightforward to explain. @maxx26 Spoiler The System is actually a remnant of the consciousness of the Goddess of Order Astrya. She no longer has any control over the whole Order system, however. In fact, Astrya ruled over 2 concepts: Time (Wind) and Space (Earth), while Cynthia rules over Life (Water) and Evolution (Fire). The whole game business is fake: her predictions are a spell of the highest order of Time and Space magic, a super-massive calculation process that created a simulation of the future. She just disguised it as a game (after taking over Roland, she had access to his memories, so she knew of the concept of gaming) to make it more easy for Roland to accept. The effort needed for such a simulation is enormous, which is why she can't just predict the near future for Roland all the time. In fact, with Roland actively opposing the events she predicted to oppose the 'bad ending', the current events are increasingly deviating from the predictions. It really makes no sense for her to redo one now, since Roland's actions would just make the future deviate again. The 'reward' system is actually akin to a wishing system. In fact, wishing magic actually exists in this world, so it's not that much of a deal. However, wishing magic is not popular because it obeys a concept of equivalence (worse actually: the price you pay tends to be bigger than what you can obtain). If you wish for power that you can't handle for example, you will indeed become powerful for a short while, before being overwhelmed by it and exploding. If you wish for riches, you'd be teleported straight into a gold mine... underground. In the end, anything you Can reliably obtain through wishing magic are something you can obtain with fewer issues through your own efforts. So in fact, even though Roland keeps attributing his fast past growth to cheating with the system, his growth back then was actually something he had the potential to achieve and that he earned. It has to do with the strands of causality or something. In Roland's case, the 'points' correspond to how much he influenced the world. The price of anything provided through the system, in turn, is calculated according to how much influence it has on the world, as well as how easy it is to achieve that in the world without the system (ex.: whether the technology exists already or not). Take the example of the 'high-yield crops' he asked for: the effect of those crops on the world would have been enormous, potentially uprooting the feudal system, which is why it's so much more expensive than your average destructive weapon. As for the 'God' questions... Spoiler Don't be fooled by how fancy the term God sounds like. As Roland explains, becoming a God is a dead-end. Gods are powerful, sure, in the sense that the moment they take over a concept, they can obtain more power from the people's belief in them who represent that concept. But it's like becoming more powerful by gaining an official job: at the same time, they become saddled by responsibilities. Worse, in the case of the most powerful 'True' gods that completely embody the concept like the God of Light: in fact, they've been hijacked completely by the concept and their consciousness no longer exists. These guys are Dead, just automated servers doing whatever. He successfully brainwashed a demon to believe that he's a Holy Knight, and said demon successfully invoked Holy Light power (and was burned up by it). To understand what a God is, I'll explain Roland's experiments: Roland made calculations on the 'weight' of a soul to determine their nature. He realized that heroic spirits have 'heavier' souls than normal people, and set about to reproduce the conditions under which a heroic spirit would be born, then eliminating conditions one by one in order to figure out what they're made of. He realized that the actual condition is that people must have been watching. The extra 'weight' came from the beliefs of other people. He was able to create 'artificial' heroic spirits, even by taking a criminal then staging a show so that others believed him to be a hero that heroically sacrificed himself. The resulting 'fake' actually believed he was all that, but imploded when Roland told him the truth. And a God is an extension of the same thing. So, to answer your questions: lots of beings can become Gods. But the races who know what's going on sure don't want to. As for the question of whether a being can become as strong as a God: sure they can. In fact, SemiGod is a fake rank: it doesn't exist and only refers to Myth-ranks who have broken through the 3 barriers. After such breakthrough, there is actually unlimited room for growth (this also means that there are large disparities between the powers of 'SemiGods'. This also means that SemiGods can be no less powerful than any God out there. This is why the other Undead Emperors (SemiGod-ranked) are such a big threat: they're actually as powerful as Gods. And uh, dunno whether it's semigod or demigod. Eich: Spoiler She never shows up in the story, however she is one of the signatories of an inter-dimensional accord. At the end of the series, Roland left with others to find her, because she left an important 'present' for Eich to defend itself but didn't leave behind the keys. *cough*
Wow not only did you answer quickly but the answers were concise and very detailed much appreciated. Wait so was Roland that big of a danger when he was an Undead Emperor cause Harloys made it seem like he wasn't that big a deal as there were Undead Emperors far more powerful than him. Also since Semigod is a fake rank and given how there seems to be so many ways of attaining immortality than all the Semigods in the world have the possibility of being as strong as a Main God that's rather cool and frightening at the same time. This is one of the more detailed and well thought out Web Novels I've read. I truly love this story and feel like with a bit more work it could have become the next Lord of the Rings or Mistborn what do you think?
The danger Roland poses as Emperor Yongye Spoiler Depends on what you mean by danger. He is a big danger in the sense he has the potential to do much damage. However, if things go far, there are the Main Gods (Very powerful Gods) who would stop them. These beings are of different level as the other Gods. Well, he wouldn't have successfully made a world of Undead, but he would have been able to create a whole lot of damage before their interference. God & SemiGod Spoiler SemiGod doesn't actually mean immortality. The ranks are as follows Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Legend, Saint, Myth, SemiGod. I forgot what strength does one obtain in Myth rank, but Myth is supposedly the limit of what a human body can hold. Thus, they create 'weapons' that can be used to hold power to advance to higher realm (SemiGod). However, the thing about SemiGod is that there is no limit to their strength. A level 300 can be known as a SemiGod, a level 100000 can also be known as a SemiGod. Becoming a God will grant you power swiftly, but comparing someone who has just reached the level of God for a century and someone who has been a SemiGod for a few millenniums, the SemiGod is much stronger. The different Gods Spoiler Not all powerful Gods have no consciousness. God of Holy Light is an example of a person who has been hijacked by faith. However, in reality, it has been stated later on that Goddess Astrya made him give up on his consciousness (Can't remember exactly how it happened) because there was the threat of him turning against the Order Gods. FYI, the God of Holy Light (Karolan I think) used to be a wielder of the System as well. Most Chaos Gods have their consciousness actually (except for one, that's a major spoiler though.) The worst thing about becoming Gods is that you become a servant of either of the Goddesses, Goddess of Order and Goddess of Chaos. Also, you are bound to your concept, so you will die if someone manages to erase your concept. For example, if the moon is destroyed, the Goddess of Moonlight (Patricia) will most probably be weakened to the extremities or die. On the other hand, you get to grow swiftly through the 'belief' system. There are also Gods that don't seem to be heavily restricted in their actions, such as the Ancient Elemental Gods. Issue about Roland's love interest Spoiler Just to correct a bit, Harloys once raised a possibility that Roland has lost his desires when he forged the Seven Deadly Sins. Simply, he infused his desire within them to make their mentality warped so that they can grow stronger. Since he created his Lust since his second life, he was unable to feel Lust in the latter part of the life. Thus, he was unable to feel 'turned on'. Well, he still has his rationality and he knows how he should act. It is like the concept of a philosophical zombie, driven by nothing but function on. As such, basically, none of them stood a chance from the very start. However, eventually, when the Seven Deadly Sins return to him, he regained his emotions (And there was when the real battle started)
@maxx26 Oh no no. I didn't explain myself correctly. The dangerous part of Roland isn't because of his pure power alone. Yongye in terms of just his personal strength is no big deal. Spoiler The Real big deal actually happens to do with those experiments of his. Because he uncovered the truth about Gods, he could have thrown the world into complete mayhem and caused a collapse of the whole existing system. His 7 sins Are pretty scary too in how fast they grow though. Actually, Roland doesn't reveal the truth because even he doesn't know how much of a mayhem it'd cause. And it's also his attitude. He doesn't have any taboos when it comes to his experiments. Others would hold back because something would be a sacrilege, but he doesn't care at all. The System actually panicked as he was digging closer and closer to the truth of the world. @gaianova Regarding the gods: Spoiler Actually, even I'm a bit confused on this point. I'm pretty sure Roland said that the moment a person ascends to Godhood, in truth they have died. In fact, the artificial heroic spirit he made seemed conscious, but in truth his memories were all a lie, so I'm not too sure. I guess I should try to re-read. There are different types of gods though, including ancient ones who became that strong through their own powers and not through belief, so their case may be different. In any case, becoming a god means being tied down by your concept. It's taking up a job you can't quit. Your personality also gets distorted by your concept. It's really something a sane person would think twice about if they knew the truth.
Why would the system panic? Do The Goddess of Order and The Goddess of Chaos also need faith to sustain their powers?
Spoiler No, it's not really that. Rather, his experiments allowed him to approach dangerously close to knowledge that is of the realm of creator god(esse)s. As I've said, he could cause a large-scale collapse of the belief system just by releasing his existing knowledge. But it's also the fact that, the more you understand the fundamentals of the world, in fact, the more systematic damage you can cause. It's like how understanding of atoms enabled humans to create atom bombs. The worst thing about Roland is that there is practically no bottom line that he isn't willing to cross in the course of his experimentations. If you had to state his bottom line right now, it's that he wants to save the world, not destroy it. In fact, one of his accomplishments is that he actually grasped the limits between life and death. He can resurrect a dead person at a big enough price. His ability to do so is something he carefully hides from others, instead tricking others into believing that he is only able to resurrect 'natural undeads' (of which there are only a handful anyway). Undeads themselves are not a big deal in this world, but actually being able to resurrect people on a large scale would upset the cycle of life and death. ... that said, he's not the first guy to have researched into this. A previous advanced civilization did, and they got completely wiped out by the gods for breaking too many taboos. xD
You know after a bit more thought I'm actually pretty happy that Harloys won in the end. I couldn't stand Elisa, I know she loved him but the way she spoke and acted to Roland bugged me a bit but it was when she tried to force Roland to like her (by forcing him into a relationship) that I decided I couldn't stand her, so I'm happy that she didn't win in the end and kind of surprised actually cause more often than not the first girl always wins.
It's your choice. Just know that even though I've read the whole thing, I'm still quite happy to re-read it. It's really interesting to see how things started and how they involved. It seems you get it. xD Truthfully, I was rooting for Elisa, but when the situation was properly explained, I was disappointed but also fully understood. Basically, the romance turned out the way it did because Roland was a sensitive guy with feelings, not a walking dick that'd jump on any girl. Besides, romance matters aside, Roland really did a lot for these female characters and also really cared about them. I could understand why they'd fall for him. @NoxDobber Okay, spoilers on the ending. Spoiler To explain the ending, I'll have to start with two things. First, there is the start of the world. Remember this? (chapter 25) The bolded part is actually the truth behind the Sacred Wars. The world created by the Goddess Eich isn't the only thing in existence. Eich (the world) itself is comprised of a main plane (with the continent Eich) as well as numerous other planes/dimensions, but there are other worlds out there, such as our own modern world. The thing is, the outside world has Extremely dangerous beings out there. Long ago, Astrya and Cynthia managed to repel them with great effort, then formed a protective barrier around the entire Eich world (not just the main plane) to prevent those dangerous beings from invading. Since they weren't sure how long the barrier would last, they became desperate to make the various races strong enough to fight against the invaders. That's where the divergence began: their plans were entirely opposite. Astrya wanted to pursue the part of rigid hierarchy and civilization to attain strength (which is actually quite bad itself: it's basically an absolute and rigid caste system). Cynthia wanted to pursue the path of evolution through competition and survival of the fittest. They thus ended up fighting, leading to everything else. The second thing to note is about Roland and Karwenz: actually, Roland isn't a 'foreigner' at all. He's Cynthia's son/creation. Cynthia had been using bits of her soul to create Children of Fate (aka with the ability to Oppose Fate), while Astrya would hijack them and try to guide them towards her own purposes. Karolan, the current God of Light, is actually one such case. The issue with the war between Cynthia and Astrya, however, is that it is absolutely impossible for anything from this world to kill them, because they are the creators: it's like players trying to go against Admin rights. So Cynthia tore a hole open in the world's protective dimensional walls and threw that bit of her soul out, hoping it'd get something useful while outside, then called it back to Eich. Cynthia and Astrya then fought over the soul only to accidentally tear it into two, but managed to preserve them, thus resulting in Roland and Karwenz. Because Roland and Karwenz are a single soul, this is also the true reason Roland doesn't die: as long as the two aren't -simultaneously- dead, the River Styx doesn't consider him to be a dead person so he revives just like that. (by the way, Roland's reaction upon learning the truth was quite awesome: he didn't give a damn xD ) In fact, the true culprit behind the fall of Mist was actually Goddess Cynthia: she cursed Roland and Karwenz with bad luck so that Karwenz would grow through adversity, and actually isolated the Northern Lands from the rest of the world while it was being attacked. For this reason, none of the frigid nightmares could come to Mist's rescue, for example. Karwenz found out the truth much earlier than Roland. Roland actually accomplishes his goal of setting up a Hell world at the end of Book 2. His Hell world is actually an independent world, connected to Eich by the River Styx. This means that in this world, the Creator Goddesses, although still powerful, would not be unbeatable (no 'admin rights'). At this point, Karwenz actually tricked Cynthia (who was a 'System' attached to him much like Astrya and Roland) to come with him to this world, supposedly with the aim of destroying it before it stabilizes, but in fact he came over to take revenge against her. He had Cynthia forced out and Roland threw her into the void... which achieves Roland's goal of avoiding the 'bad end' of the two goddesses resurrecting and destroying everything. Karwenz tried to convince Roland to kill Astrya too, but Roland refused because he had grown to trust Astrya. After that, Roland went into a period of hibernation, but not before Astrya informed him that he was tricked: Cynthia's disappearance caused the dimensional walls to crack, making it easier for invaders from other world to come in. Fortunately, Roland didn't kill Astrya, so the wall is still there. In the third and last book, Roland eventually realizes that Karwenz is trying to throw open the dimensional walls. Since the true root of the Sacred Wars are the foreign invaders, by opening a door and letting them in, everybody in Eich would be too busy to fight each other, plus this would also restart the evolution of the world via introducing stronger enemies. Karwenz himself just wants to go out there and have fun, but his demon and devil allies are actually more serious: Roland's plan excludes them, and may sooner or later lead to the Order faction wiping out the Chaos faction. They were hoping that the 'outside' was 'not that bad' and provide a new path. Obviously, Roland was not keen at all to take this gamble. In the worst case scenario, everybody on Eich could die. He opposed Karwenz and his group and at the end, there was a huge war of the order side vs Karwenz's side, with Karwenz trying to get the door open. However, this was a diversion. Roland was directed to a place that could take him to any place he wishes, and he wished to go to 'the place Karwenz most doesn't want him to go.' It turns out there was another door. He waited there for when Karwenz showed up, destroyed the door and managed to drag Karwenz to hell with him. Karwenz actually had a back-up plan: he possessed Reine and wanted to continue his plans, but Roland was prepared and possessed another person and stopped him. ... but the truth was, Karwenz wasn't the mastermind behind all this. The true mastermind was actually Harloys' father, the King of the Gold Elves, who despaired after his race was betrayed and killed and made this gamble to put an end to the eternal wars. He became a weak succubus after he died but regained his memories quite fast, yet to avoid being hunted and killed by the other elves, he remained weak to avoid suspicion and set up all this plan. When Roland double-suicided with Karwenz, Roland left him alive, because his final ability required the presence of a living witness. Harloy's father then had the door fixed again and finally opened it. When he did so, the God of Light went through the door to confront whatever is beyond, and all the beings could feel when he was destroyed, making them all realize how bad the situation was. There was a really tense moment after that, and the war was put on hold. Roland and Karwenz couldn't keep up the possession and would be dragged into the River Styx to die for real eventually, leaving Roland's friends in despair. Roland just used his remaining days to manage paperwork and try to make preparations for the upcoming invasions, including having part of the Eich people migrate to the world he created (it's not just Hell) to preserve the races and culture in the worst case scenario. Some really powerful beings indeed came and were repelled with much difficulty. At one point a planet devouring monster came and ate the moon. Just when everything was looking bleak... fleets of spaceships that seemed straight out of well-known sci-fi series, and even magical girls appeared and successfully drove off the monster that ate the moon. Roland then realized two things: 1. If there are predators out there, it means there are prey out there. Those prey wouldn't just sit tight and obediently be killed. This meant that they would unite and form alliances to oppose the predators. When the God of Light died, he sent a distress call that successfully reached other civilizations. 2. When Cynthia tore off a part of her soul and sent it outside the dimensional walls, the fact that the soul had landed on Earth meant that Earth was nearby. In 400 years, the civilization on Earth had also progressed and reached the stars. Those otakus, in turn, paid homage to their favorite series by designing spaceships etc. like those in their favorite series. So, although the events were pretty 'wtf' to me, when put that way, it totally made sense. o_o;; Just when he was proud of his old world's accomplishments and moved by the God of Light's dying sacrificial action, Astrya told him: - Actually, the God of Light died because he went too far from Eich and his faith 'signal' was cut off, so he initiated a self-destruction signal that got picked up. It wasn't because he was overwhelmed by the power of the beings out there. - Actually, that planet-devouring monster was still a young one so it wasn't that strong. Roland and Karwenz could beat it with just the two of them, whereas it took an entire fleet from Earth to chase it off. Okay. At this point, the fleet from Earth projected an automatically translated message to all the beings of Eich: the Covenant of Intelligent Beings: it's an inter-dimensional alliance pledging not to go to war with one another, to come to the aid of one another, to not show discrimination and to cherish the miracle of meeting one another. Many of these rules are actually similar to the non-discrimination goals that Roland was trying to accomplish. At the end of these articles, the signature of 12 powerful ancient beings were displayed, which included Eich. After this, Roland and Karwenz died and went to Hell. But heh, it turns out that they died too many times and had become immune to the water of the River Styx, so it no longer affected their memories. Anyway, they got judged, just like Roland wanted, and they went to hell (Roland's sentence was actually shorter, because he already got judged once for pasts crimes when Wumianzhe ascended. It still wasn't short though). Oh yeah, and to deal with Immortals like them, Hell later added a separate punishment for immortals consisting of locking them at the bottom of a labyrinth to serve as target practice for adventurers (lmao). Despite going to hell, Roland was actually satisfied, because things turned out fine (he only cares about results), and he finally gets some peace of mind from being in Hell. Also, I suspect he quite enjoyed the show of watching Karwenz get punished: Karwenz got screamed at all day long by simulations of all his past lovers (all four digit numbers of them ). Also, Karwenz was mad that he couldn't get out and have fun, and because the mayhem he was so looking forward too did not happen. In the meantime, the rest of Hell got a huge headache, because Elisa and Amelia (who had become incredibly powerful) kept trying to jailbreak Roland (lol). In the end, they finally came up with an excuse of having Roland serve the rest of his sentence through 'community service' (newly added clause from referencing the legal system of Earth), which in his case meant going out there to find back the Goddess Eich, because she gifted the world of Eich with another, untouched Universe (i.e. massive resources they could use to ward off the invaders) but didn't leave the key. Roland didn't want to at first but the rest of hell practically kicks him out because they can't stand the attacks by Elisa and Amelia anymore. Roland and Karwenz thus get resurrected on Earth to a human father and a 'mulin' (Child of the Forest? Wood Spirit? It's a race created by Amelia, and they become ambassadors in other worlds) mother. Karwenz ends up as a girl with luck F (aka 'a meteorite would fall on her if she goes out for a walk'), hahaha! After growing up, Roland, Karwenz, Harloys and others all head out to search for Eich. The sequel is centered around Roland's son, Luoxia. Oh, and as for how the world evolves after that: Spoiler It turns out that things were pretty good after the door opened. All the races eventually signed the Covenant of Intelligent Beings, and civilization evolved even faster in response to the invaders. Also, everybody united thanks to the presence of even bigger enemies, plus the world out there really wasn't so friendly in general, so it became a larger-scale armed race. After Roland went to Hell, his and Karwenz' records were eventually unclassified, so there were a lot of debate over who qualified as a hero and who as a villain. Basically, Roland was a person with good intentions but who nearly prevented the next step of the evolution of society, whereas Karwenz had bad intentions but his actions were ultimately beneficial, so there were fights over who is a hero and who is a villain. I don't think Roland himself cares though, since he was quite happy to go to hell to pay for his actions (the fact that even the architect of Hell was serving a sentence also improved the credibility of the Law Faction). Because of the controversy, the ending was in the end quite bittersweet. But I also found it quite satisfying, because ultimately, none of the actions were in vain: The sacred wars were quite atrocious, but the actions of the two creation goddesses did lead to an overall stronger world. Karwenz' faction achieved what it was out to do (despite being the 'villains', the others on Karwenz's side did have good intentions and worked hard for their plans too). Despite failing to prevent the opening of the door, Roland's actions were far from useless either: he created the Law faction and a new Holy Light faction, both of which picked up the management after the God of Light died. His non-discrimination policies helped prepare Eich mentally to accept the Covenant of Intelligent Beings. The advances in magic engineering and other fields helped increase the power of the inhabitants while also decreasing loss, all of which are helpful in opposing the invaders. Etc. So in the end, the ending was actually quite satisfying. It's just that the world was so interesting that I wanted to know what happened after, so I started reading the sequel right after even though the protagonist isn't Roland (I usually don't like reading 'son of MC' sequels xP). It's also quite interesting to see how things did evolve: some things became a bigger deal than you'd expect, some things actually didn't change despite Roland's efforts, and Roland was completely wrong about the way Some things would evolve. But it's all quite interesting. xD
Wow... Angry Squirrel deserves a cookie with chocolate chips, M&Ms and everything cause that is some master class writing. Not only did he create an extremely detailed universe but he also gave a reason for all the major events and they were well thought out and made perfect sense. I think I've got a new favorite author.
Well im a lot more relived now. A lot of good novels end with crappy endings and this one seems to have one that makes sense.
Yeah, I really liked the ending. Spoiler Normally I'd flip a table at such a 'sudden' twist in the end, but in this case, the existence of alien invaders was already foreshadowed by the 7 Trials listed all the way back at the start of the series, and were the reason all these sacred wars existed in the first place. Also, the fact that Roland's newly-created soul arrived on Earth, meant that Earth was nearby. This... also really made sense. I will note a few things, however: this isn't one of those series where everything gets wrapped up exactly and neatly in the end. But even so, it is understandable. Spoiler For one, when Roland scatters 'seeds' around, they were never meant to have immediate results. For another, Roland was busy trying to prevent the destruction of the world and ended up dying, so how'd you expect him to take care of every single loose end, especially when said loose ends were, for the most part, not that important? Besides there's a sequel, so these stuff may actually get addressed.