“Please wait a moment, Lord Thanatos.”
Seated upon Nephele's back, Aergia watched everything unfolding before her. Just as the God of Death's hand was about to reach the short sword at his waist, she raised her hand, casting a gentle radiance upon Aetali.
The divine power of Soothing gradually calmed Aetali's fear of the unknown death, and her slightly trembling body slowly grew still.
Thanatos's hand paused as it touched his short sword. Sensing that the nymph's emotions had stabilized somewhat, and remembering Aergia's previous feat in the Underworld, the God of Death—curious about what clever trick she might pull off this time—uncharacteristically slowed his pace of reaping life, quietly watching the young goddess's performance.
Aergia furrowed her brow. The divine power of Soothing had taken effect, yet those thread-like rays of light connecting the ancient pine and the nymph still remained unbroken.
Aetali still held fast to the tree, remaining unwilling to leave.
Aergia's gaze focused slightly as she began to ponder the crucial reason behind this.
The nymph was no longer afraid of Thanatos, nor was she even so terrified of death itself anymore.
Yet she still wished to stay. Rather than fear of death, what bound this nymph was clearly something much deeper.
An obsession that surpassed the fear of death—an obsession to continue living upon the earth alongside the mother tree that had birthed her!
At this moment, the godhead of Sloth that had accompanied Aergia since her birth began to vibrate gently. Divine power belonging to Sloth subtly merged into Soothing, that force gently brushing against the obsession Aetali still clung to so tightly.
“You are not leaving it,” Aergia said, gazing at the ancient pine that had completely lost all aura of life. The divine power of Soothing saturated the goddess's sweet, gentle voice, nourishing Aetali's heart like a spring rain. “You two walked together to get here in the first place. Its life has ended, and so has yours. You have simply reached the end together.”
Do not continue any longer... Let it go... Life has reached its end, and you may stop now.
The mountain wind blew through the grove once more. This time, no new pine needles fell, for there was not a single living leaf left upon the canopy.
Aetali stared blankly at it. After a long moment, she slowly lowered her head. Her fingers, which had been tightly clutching the tree trunk, loosened bit by bit. In the end, she merely pressed her palm gently against the bark, as if making her final farewell.
Seeing that the time was ripe, Thanatos extended his hand once more, and the authority over death quietly descended.
This time, Aetali did not resist, and the final few green light threads snapped silently. They were not severed by force, but naturally dissolved into the skylight after losing the will to sustain them.
The nymph's body completely turned into countless light-green specks of light. Instead of plunging into darkness immediately, they slowly circled the dead ancient pine once, as if making a final inspection before departing.
The pale gold butterfly flew out from beside Thanatos, landing upon the brightest speck of divine radiance among them.
The scattered light gradually gathered toward it, and ultimately, the nymph's figure briefly reappeared within the light. She cast one last look at the ancient pine—she did not weep, nor did she reach out again, merely offering a faint smile.
Fluttering its wings, the pale gold butterfly carried that touch of tender divine radiance and flew back to the God of Death's side.
At that very moment, the ancient pine also fell into total silence.
Tree and nymph together brought their life belonging to the earth to an end.
The departure of the soul was so quiet that Thanatos did not even need to exert half a fraction more power.
For the very first time, death reached completion so naturally—without tearing, without forceful severance, and without an ongoing tug-of-war between soul and flesh.
Though carrying a hint of bewilderment, the nymph's soul did not immediately fall into uncontrollable struggle and fear like the lost souls in the Underworld. Instead, she quietly followed the pale gold butterfly, coming to rest beside Thanatos.
Standing where she was, Aergia quietly felt a rule that had never existed before slowly extending within her original Soothing.
Soothing could make a life no longer fear death. But that was not enough. What death truly needed to complete it was another matter: allowing a life that had reached its end to no longer cling to the earth it had lived upon, and no longer fixate on relationships and pasts that could no longer continue.
The principle of "ceasing to maintain" possessed by Sloth allowed such meaningless obsessions to slowly loosen their grip.
And once death was truly complete, the soul still needed to recover its peace from the shock brought by death, no longer drowning in unwillingness, sorrow, and resistance.
Letting go of the struggle before death, and soothing the unwillingness after death—they were two ends of the very same thing.
Hypnos's sleep had once lacked a path leading from wakefulness into slumber.
Now it seemed that Thanatos's death similarly lacked something.
He could make life die, yet he could not make life accept death.
And now, that path was being forged, being perfected...
Within Aergia's body, that gentle godhead began to undergo a change, its originally simple and stable structure of rules extending outward. A portion of the laws belonging to the godhead of Sloth resonated with it.
At the same time, a vast array of fine, unfamiliar rules emerged from the outermost fringes of authority over death.
Life ceasing to struggle, souls ceasing to resist, fear gradually smoothing away, unwillingness no longer sustained endlessly, until at last, everything returned to tranquility...
Strand after strand of fine laws gathered toward Aergia, all flowing into the godhead of Soothing.
Like a riverbed that could originally accommodate only a single stream, expanding continuously forward at this moment until it finally connected to a far vast expanse of water.
Aergia could clearly feel that the name "Soothing" she had previously bestowed upon it was growing increasingly narrow, incapable of encompassing its true scope.
The world also gave its response at this instant as invisible law ripples surged forth from within Aergia.
After acquiring complete rules, Soothing underwent its first true ascension, and that new name naturally surfaced deep within her consciousness at this very moment.
Allowing life that could no longer continue to cease futile resistance, and allowing souls that had reached their end to no longer be endlessly torn apart by fear and unwillingness—Rest.
The moment the godhead completed its transformation, the divine power accumulated deep within Aergia finally lost its last restraint.
She was already standing at the absolute apex of Third-Rank Divine Power; Sleep Induction had pushed her to the limit this rank could accommodate, and the birth of Soothing had further condensed her divine essence, which was already near saturation.
Now, with a complete godhead that truly touched the boundary of life's end and death merging into her core, that solid barrier could no longer hold.
A faint cracking sound resonated from the deepest depths of her soul. Her divine power expanded abruptly; Aergia's long hair swayed without wind, and the laws in the surrounding space lightly trembled.
The change was not violent, yet it was clearer than any previous growth in divine power.
The boundary of Third-Rank Divine Power was completely shattered—Second-Rank Divine Power!
Aergia slowly opened her eyes. The world within her perception had transformed once more.
If reaching the peak of Third-Rank Divine Power had merely allowed her to see the traces left by various laws more clearly, then right now, those rule structures that had still been blurry were beginning to display far distinct layers before her eyes.
Before she even had the chance to carefully savor it, her surroundings fell unusually quiet.
Oh no... I got carried away. Did I accidentally touch upon the fringe domain of death just now...?
Aergia turned her head, and sure enough, she saw Thanatos standing there motionless, his ash-blue eyes staring intently at her. To be precise, he was staring at the uncalmed aura of death emanating from her body.
“You... advanced your rank relying on power from the death aspect?”
He had lived for countless ages and reaped countless lives—so many that even he had long forgotten the count.
He had seen countless lives wailing, resisting, and struggling before death; there were even powerful beings who would rather suffer the tearing of their souls than follow death away from their physical bodies.
He had always found these matters troublesome. Yet troublesome as they were, death was simply meant to be like that.
Was it not completely natural for living beings to fear death?
Until today, when a Third-Rank deity who had been born not long ago merely accompanied him on a single trip to the Underworld and witnessed a single true death, yet managed to forcibly find an unprecedented blank spot in the rules within a matter everyone took for granted.
She had even filled that blank spot, using it to step directly into becoming a Second-Rank deity.
Thanatos suddenly somewhat understood why Hypnos valued her so highly.
It was likely far more than just because this goddess was his illegitimate daughter!
Her terrifying comprehension alone could no longer be summarized by the simple word "clever."
Her way of looking at laws was completely different from theirs! It was even different from all other gods in the world of Chaos.
When he and Hypnos were born, they were already the masters of death and sleep respectively.
They were accustomed to using rules, and accustomed to rules simply being the way they were.
Yet Aergia always seemed to ask—Why? Why must it be like this? Is there something missing in between?
Thanatos remained silent for a long time. In the end, his gaze fell back onto Aergia, his eyes filled with mixed emotions.
Shock, curiosity, and an appreciation that could not be suppressed no matter what.
“Aergia, do you want to... leave the Temple of Sleep and become my subordinate deity?”
...Huh?
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