Spoiler Latest Chapter Discussion Thread for Death Mage Raws

Doesn't stop them from being soul crushed infinite times. (actually Heinz having 'infinite lives' to be soul crushed infinite times sounds like it should be an album I'd listen to all day)

 

Late reply from yesterday.

Yes, after dying and becoming a real god, Bellwood no longer has access to the skills/status/jobs system.

But indeed, it's not like he's any less dangerous. I'm not sure if things like skills from the skills system get embedded (permanently baked into the soul as they were on time of death) or what on becoming a god, but Bellwood always had a lot of charisma.

 

Poor henry

 

Correction: Bellwood has been "sealed" for 50,000 years.

If we go by Botin's example, I don't think Bellwood would be much affected by being sealed. Also, like Botin, on being released he'd probably be able to quickly catch-up with recent events. I also don't see Bellwood reflecting on just why the Evil God of Sinful Chains was able to seal him in the first place - he's way way too stuck up for that. If he was the type to reflect and learn from such minor things as him being pitch-black with sin then the story would be rather different. Bellwood is the type who gets drunk (and addicted) on their own kool-aid.

From a plot perspective, it would be rather pointless for him to be dead - might as simply write "the end". I think the latest chapter makes that clear - the gods on Alda's side are desperate to cling to anything to avoid facing reality.

That being said, there could be various sorts of surprises. Not necessarily to us here who have been analysing the series in fine grained detail though.

 

I know Alda and co. are indeed rather Heaven's Gate-sy, but when I read this I couldn't help thinking since the God of Earth has avatars of all commercial mascots too, if it ever showed up on Lambda for some climatic battle or something, it would break through space-time as the Kool-Aid man.

That knight survived, he just got some burns, which were quickly healed. He'll be fine. Well, maybe not on an existential or emotional level, but physically he'll be fine.

edit: oh no, wait... 溺死... He drowned to death. Guess I misremembered or there was a correction later. edit2: Yeah, I misremembered. He had amulets of protection to stop him from being burned but still drowned in his stew. Rest well, poor Horn Knight.

 

Just thinking but when Heinz and co release bellwood they'll go into a divine area right (based on van and vida) so then they'll see each other in soil form, including Edgar which will be shocking to them to say the least.

And if the soul fragment reacts to bellwood being both a stronger host and an enemy then he'll try to take over bellwood when he's disoriented from the influx of messages from his believers.

So bellwood might get taken over by guduranis's soul fragment then go on a rampage attacking Alda and co trying to get the soul fragment under aldas throne...

Imagine the look on their faces when their only hope attacks them out of the blue

 

Just ignore it .

 

alda : we have champion on our side.
Van : i am champion too though .
alda : ............

On thing that make me worried though bellwood can kill rank 13 with ease .Or maybe just propaganda for bellwood.

 

Van has numbers on his side, he's four champions!

 

I think that's more a propaganda thing

Bellwood: I'm a God
Van: I'm a Demigod with mana that rivals a God and still have the Job system with unique jobs that's mythical as well as truly religious
Bellwood: ......

 

You have 23 new alerts. Ah. A new record.

Sure. His name shall be spelled "Burtuig", but pronounced totally different. What do you mean, "that doesn't make sense"?

Not on this thread. There's too much introspection to fit such a god in our pantheon. Amen.

Technically, there is no difference, but now it's a lot more obvious. Probably because Alda is getting really desperate.

He's still not even close to Guduranis, though. And that means he can't defeat Van, who is roughly on par with Guduranis and a lot smarter. Well, we'll see how much stronger he'll get with Bellwood, but he definitely hasn't reached his full potential.

Killing a lot of powerful enemies will do that. It's what Van has been doing his whole life.

At what point will Edgar get Demon King Encroachment? Surely it has to show up at some point if it's going to completely eat away at Edgar.

Perhaps Bellwood is sealed? If so, Heinz would have to break his chains.

It's a bit weird how that guy in particular was mentioned in the chapter. But I'm not complaining.

It probably isn't comparable to Botin's example. Guduranis can make seals that stop all movement (but not time itself) inside the area of effect, which is a distinctly death attribute quality. I think Bellwood was more likely burdened with intense pain and severe power restrictions.

More like he drowns in his own kool-aid.

This demands a crackfic.

HENRY NO!

I think that's only an issue when the Demon King's body is involved. Stuff like memory and emotion aren't readily apparent in the soul.

If Bellwood actually notices, I wouldn't be surprised if he does something crazy. Like sealing Edgar.

Maybe, maybe not. We haven't seen gods directly influenced by Demon King fragments because they always use up a certain amount of their power keeping the fragment under control. Gods are also spiritually aware, so that probably makes a god possession scenario a lot more difficult. And Bellwood knows of a method of sealing Demon King fragments.

If only because Bellwood is great at killing things. Van's forces will have technology literally thousands of years ahead of whoever fights for Bellwood.

 

To be fair, it has been milenia and no one outside Vida's side realized/accepted why the EGoSC was able to seal Bellwood.

Figuring out why their strongest fighter lost should have been a very important question, for fear another evil god could pull the same trick.

I want him to be severely weakened, and drained. In a worse state then he left vida. Not dead but not entering the fight any time soon. I would also love it to be revealed EGoSC is at full power, just inactive from sleeping off the large meal that keeps feeding him (has absorbed all the faith sent to bellwood for the last 50 milenia).
EGoSC leaves with his boss, and Heinz has to re-habilitate a cripple.

 

Especially since Densuke has made clear that the Evil God of Sinful Chains is nowhere near as powerful as Bellwood, implying a special reason Bellwood was defeated. Bellwood was defeated by a weakling, which is downright suspicious.

Bellwood may or may not be like that now, but that's probably how it was at the time of his defeat. If he is already fully recovered, we have a problem. And Bellwood has been worshipped the whole time he's been sealed, to add insult to injury.

The most we can infer is that Bellwood is currently in a better condition than Vida was when he sealed her. We know this because Bellwood is able to do basic god things (like send down familiar spirits) despite his inactivity. Vida couldn't do even that before Van freed her.

We don't know if the Evil God of Sinful Chains is loyal to Guduranis. Probably not, since the vast majority of evil gods are not loyal to Guduranis at all, and abandoned him as soon as he was defeated, if not sooner.

 

Also Guduranis is nowhere near his original strength since Van has been collecting DK frags throughout his life at this point.

 

True, but it just takes a sufficiently suitable host to get around that problem. It's also hard to know how Guduranis plans to free himself from the seals Alda is protecting.

 

Just thinking, but what if the "Chains" cliffhanger is just a new extra boss, I mean, another test for Heinz to follow Bellwood's legacy?

Anyway, considering some ideas I read here, an extra thought that came to me:
Heinz reaches Bellwood, Bellwood wakes up for whatever reason, he notices Edgar with a fragment of the Demon King and attacks. Because he is still weakned Edgar is not insta-killed, and because he is dumb, he doesn't say anything of why he is attacking in the first place.

Heinz may or may not help Edgar, but he will be confused in the situation and may rise his sword against Bellwood as an act of self-defense. He learns later (Either in the middle of the fight or once it has been finished) about Edgar's situation... Heinz, betrayed by Alda and Bellwood, the one who killed the Holy Mother... Heinz, the good guy that he is understands: "I fucked up..."

 

Late reply from yesterday...

We were talking about actual Heinz in actual Death Mage setting and how he'd seem if we only had his perspective. So if you start changing the setting then that's no longer a meaningful comparison.

On a more general note... and largely agreeing with what else you've written...

What I would say is that ghouls (and other Vida races) would be easily blamed in the Amid Empire and many other places, in the same way that monsters in general are. If there's a village and within reasonable walking distance there's a Devil's Nest with a known ghoul settlement and let's say that some villagers go missing with no obvious attack by monsters/animals then it's quite possible that the ghouls would be blamed out of convenience.

When two groups are physically separate and generally stay that way then it is easy for misunderstandings to arise. This becomes much easier if there's obvious visual differences between them. When two groups become hostile it's common to exaggerate the differences between them. Or at least, the differences that do exist become the focus and what's in common tends to be ignored. Even marginal differences can divide people.

Zakkart saw that gods on his side (Lambda's side) could turn traitor and go to the other side and be accepted. So he reasoned that the reverse was just as possible. And it turned out that he was correct... that while the other gods might be alien gods, they're still gods with their own individual motivations, their own hopes and dreams. Alda and others are too fixated on the differences, as seeing them as "evil", to accept this.

What Van has done to increase acceptance of ghouls is quite subtle - persuading humans to eat the same food as ghouls is a great way to normalise them. It shows that ghouls have similar problems and have come up with their own solutions and that those solutions can be useful to others. Sitting around and eating the same food is a great way to subtly emphasise what you have in common.

 

Only way around this is:
A. Throws away any ideas of getting his frags back for now (Van/Brainless/Puny God will have possession for X-time) and take advantage of the job system (will be noticed then but still able to re-build a bit of strength

B. Throw away Demon King stats permanently and try to take full advantage of job system and have a similar case to Van with unique jobs that his soul can bring out (and this might also affect Van in a sense if there are similar jobs due to Puny God's no known jobs curse, this may esp affect Demon King, Greater Demon King and the like the most).

Edit: Guduranis has to first know of Van's no known jobs curse first, forgot to add that bit.

 

If Alda is defeated in the upcoming war, I half-expect the Evil God of Sinful Chains to take his place. Whatever kind of person he is, he can't be any worse than Alda, so it's a good trade-off.

This is way too relatable. It's largely why real life sucks.

Guduranis can't assume direct control of Edgar with soul powder alone. The most he can do right now is give Edgar weird feelings and flashbacks. He has to rely on psychological manipulation until he unseals a more capable fragment.

That restriction aside, Guduranis should be able to make use of the job system through Edgar. However, this applies to Edgar's stats and skillset, and are not indicative the Demon King's own powers. Guduranis can't use his original powers through Edgar, so he's limited to using Edgar's powers. So no crushing souls just yet.

Guduranis won't give up on his powers forever. I can imagine that his influence may affect Edgar's job options, though.

 

Never said anything about physical control, only take advantage of the job system (just like how Van took advantage of the NKJ curse and made more jobs that is both unorthodox and otherworldly via both religious and mythical aspects).

Wouldn't be surprising if the jobs that Edgar/Guduranis makes (via fusion, again just like Van) is a little bit stronger than the DK frags alone, we've seen Van's Earth's jobs mixed with a Lambda job be pretty effective against DK frag users (Ternecia, Gubamon, Byrkine primarily as well as a few Evil Gods).