Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich - Chapter 790
Chapter 790: Final Battle (Part 15)
“Sophocles the Deceiver. He is the most mysterious Demon Main God. He loves to tempt mortal heroes and powerful individuals into becoming fallen. His favorite pastime is to arrange tragic fates. I’ve always felt that he’s more suitable for the title of Lord of Lies than I am.”
That was how Devil Main God Kamiltias, the Lord of Lies, had described Sophocles to me before.
Of course, Little Tias also especially mentioned Sophocles the Deceiver’s greatest accomplishments to me.
“He’s most famous for establishing his own evil church in the mortal plane and successfully having his incarnation ascend to Godhood as an Order God. A Demon Main God actually managed to get his incarnation to ascend as an Order God and even ally with many Order Gods. This was an incredible embarrassment for the Order Gods. Even now, Sophocles and his worshippers are completely loathed by all the True Gods’ churches.
Perhaps this only seemed like unimportant background information, but actual research into this would reveal quite a bit of information about Sophocles.
First of all, he had an incarnation pretend to be a human hero in the mortal plane. This incarnation then gained power and established his own church, gradually obtaining divinity and worship and ascending to become an Order God.
Not only that, Sophocles’ incarnation even obtained recognition from the other Order Gods, and became one of them.
He then allied with the other Order Gods, meaning that not only did he have Order God allies, he had completely become a part of the Order Gods’ system, and likely joined some Order God faction and become an important member of that faction.
“This is the equivalent of successfully disguising yourself and joining your mortal enemy’s family…”
The Gods were no idiots at all. Sophocles being able to deceive them successfully could only mean that he had used real divinity and a real Divine Concept. There was far too much that was worth thinking about from this.
“Harloys, what church did Sophocles establish back then? What was his Divine Concept, and what was his church’s teaching?”
“Evolution and natural order of species. He said that all species had their own natural order, and that they should use hard work to encourage self-evolution. The core teachings included an evolution ladder for every species. The belief was that every species had their own position, but that humans were at the very top, and other species were only sub-species. Of course, other species greatly objected to this, but the human countries really welcomed such a way of thinking. The humans didn’t think that there was anything wrong with this.”
Nothing was wrong with this? There were tremendous problems with this!
The church’s teachings were self-contradictory. The teachings said that species had their own fixed positions in society while also encouraging competition and evolution… The teachings also said that the powerful should be at the top, and that the weak should compete and fight in order to become the strong. This was all about the law of the jungle, which was the true essence of the Chaos Abyss!
How ridiculous! How foolish! Sophocles simply reworded the nature of the Chaos Abyss and packaged it with human superiority, and managed to receive a great welcome into the Order Faction which had humans as a supermajority.
“…No wonder all the True Gods’ churches view Sophocles as their mortal enemy. As long as Sophocles is alive, he’ll always be living evidence of how foolish the Order True Gods were.”
Obviously, such an embarrassing history was already hidden in the shadows by those involved. Most Order churches’ popes only knew that Sophocles was their mortal enemy without knowing the reason. However, Kamiltias and Harloys would remember such ancient events quite clearly.
Asking about old times wasn’t merely for idle gossip. Past experiences would form an individual’s life experience, and what that person gathered and experienced would become their present.
I came to a conclusion based on Sophocles’ current appearance and the information I obtained from Harloys. Theoretically speaking, my conclusion should have been incredibly outlandish.
“Sophocles, you’re not actually a demon at all. You…”
Correct, I could see through him now. His armor of light was only a distraction. No matter how ridiculous the Haletdam scholars’ generation had been with their inventions, it was still impossible for a mere suit of armor to control the power of Order. If Sophocles was truly a pure demon, then the Holy Light and power of Order that he was now using would directly burn him to death, just like the unfortunate demon that I experimented on back in the day. That demon had been brainwashed into worshipping the Holy Light and summoning it, being burned to death by the Holy Light as a result.
Demons were pure creatures of Chaos. No matter what the demon’s mind and soul were thinking, the power of Order, especially the power of Holy Light which represented cleansing, would always clash with the demon’s physical body.
Currently, Sophocles was pretending to use his armor to control and absorb Holy Light. However, he was the one actually using the powers of Order and Chaos simultaneously. In that case, there was only one possible explanation.
“…Sophocles the Deceiver, you’re not a demon at all! You’re actually an Order True God!”
My voice wasn’t that loud. In fact, it was only a mutter. However, a mysterious resonance carried my voice across the entire battlefield quite clearly.
The entire battle paused due to the absolutely inconceivable statement that I just made.
I received a dual response from both a holy voice and an angry roar.
“Indeed, since Order can also be a form of Chaos, then the law of the jungle and self-evolution that Chaos represents is simultaneously a form of Order.”
“Haha, you’re far smarter than those old folks. Even now, they still think that I schemed all this only for the sake of a big prank. They never even tried to think about what I gained from such a prank! Not only am I a ruler of Chaos, I am a far more evolved God than anyone!”
Did Sophocles have two personalities? No, it was just that his true self and his incarnation were using two different ways of thinking. I mysteriously felt that Sophocles’ method was quite familiar to me.
“Isn’t this the relationship between you and Wumianzhe? It seems that someone’s already taken this path before you to create a new God. But, no matter how I look at it, his method was completely the opposite of yours.”
I had an epiphany due to Harloys’ reminder. Both Sophocles and I had created an incarnation from a soul shard, and successfully had the incarnation ascend to Godhood. However, the end result was totally different.
I had required a judge, which was why I had Wumianzhe become completely independent and combine with the Concept of Law to become the perfect emotionless judge. In the end, Wumianzhe became completely separate from myself.
Meanwhile, Sophocles had worked so hard to have his incarnation ascend to Godhood for the same old foundational reason of Chaos: to become even stronger.
I could now basically understand what Sophocles had done.
Sophocles’ incarnation had ascended to become an Order God thanks to the power of belief. His incarnation’s connection to Sophocles was discovered, so Sophocles’ worshippers were viewed as a forbidden evil cult. The loss of this power of belief should have caused this weak Low God to die, but instead Sophocles devoured and combined with his incarnation as they were originally of the same source.
Sophocles’ Main God level power of Chaos substituted for the power of belief, and helped the Order God of Evolution to continue growing. Meanwhile, Sophocles secretly started transforming his true body into the body of an Order God. In the end, Sophocles successfully combined his original body and his incarnation’s bodies together, giving himself the powers of an Order God while still disguising as a Chaos Main God.
“…So this means that Sophocles has only showed off half of his true strength before?”
Just that alone still wouldn’t be enough to give me a headache. The most difficult part to deal with here was that it was likely that he simultaneously possessed the powers and special traits of both an Order God and a Demon Main God.
Order Gods’ special abilities were mostly reflected by their Divine Concepts. The Order Gods would be highly skilled at creating combat environments most suited for themselves. They would take advantage of dimensional laws to buff themselves and weaken their enemies. Meanwhile, a Demon Main God’s personal Chaos domain would weaken and devour their enemy’s dimensional laws, and force a physical fight after getting rid of the enemy’s advantages. Additionally, Demon Main Gods would always have fearsome and gigantic physical bodies after having reached the pinnacle of evolution through bloody slaughter.
“An Order God of Evolution combined with a Demon Main God who will already naturally be skilled at evolution. This is such cheating…”
It was easy for me to think of countless possibilities on how Sophocles could take advantage of this combination. For instance, he could use his Concept of Evolution to further speed up his own evolution so that his growth rate would be exponential. Or, he could give himself exponential experience growth in some specific area. This wasn’t even the worst of it…
“Trying to simultaneously control Order and Chaos means that he’s attempting to grasp at the Creator Goddesses’ power. His current abilities mean that he’s gaining far more than two years’ worth of experience every single day. Just what has he learned over all these years? Just what other aces are up his sleeve?”
I felt that my luck was truly terrible today. If all my inferences were correct, then Sophocles absolutely wasn’t the weakest of the Main Gods. In fact, he would be the strongest Main God by an overwhelming amount.
The slyest Main God suddenly revealed himself to be the strongest Main God of all. This was both expected and unexpected for me. Still, it was far too late for us to change our opponents now, so I could only grit my teeth and continue.
I kept feeling like things were going wrong. Of the three Chaos Main Gods, I originally thought that Donatis would be the leader and central character. Yet, that was obviously incorrect. Just what was Sophocles thinking right now to go all out at this time?
At this moment, the Cloud Tower descended from the sky and attracted the entire battlefield’s attention. This was when Sophocles took action.