Super Righteous Player
Chapter 650 - 191 Leading Us Upward_1

Chapter 650: Chapter 191 Leading Us Upward_1

"...Do you know of ’The Unfallen Shield’?"

Just to be safe, Si Anke hesitated for a moment and asked in a lowered voice.

"Of course,"

the young man with honey-colored hair nodded affirmatively.

"Rather, if you were a bit older, you should know him. ’The Unfallen Shield’ is undoubtedly a protector worthy of the title of hero... He is indeed a model for Transcendents. Because he truly saved the lives of many people, and changed many people’s otherwise unfortunate fates.

"But what I want to praise most isn’t his good thoughts, good words, good deeds— the path of the Transcendent is a path of desire, an ascending path. Many people choose this path to change something or to have something, and a Transcendent without strong desires cannot walk far.

"In other words, there are many Transcendents with good hearts. What truly is worth learning from The Unfallen Shield Justus is his cool and powerful will, and his clear and unwavering bottom line.

"Therefore, while he’s doing ’the right thing’ to the best of his ability, he can also live well. He can live comfortably, not being weighed down by his own desires, nor being controlled by others’ use of him.

The saint didn’t hesitate to praise, "Even so much as to say—if anyone asks me, ’What kind of Transcendent should I become?’ then I would tell them, ’You should learn from The Unfallen Shield Justus.’"

This was undoubtedly a very high appraisal.

But Si Anke’s expression was a bit subtle.

Although it wasn’t he who entered Justus’s nightmare... The Gemini’s nightmare was broadcast live. Si Anke had naturally watched the live broadcast and knew what had happened.

Justus has a good heart?

He isn’t weighed down by his own desires?

He can live his life well?

He isn’t used by others?

... Come on.

Rather, Justus’s entire life could be summed up in three words: "tool person." His life was completely spent being intermittently used by others... and he didn’t live freely at all, to say he was exhausted was an understatement, his family life was not happy either.

He suffered from the death of Ingrid. It was to prevent this pain from recurring that he became ’The Unfallen Shield.’ And it was to alleviate this pain that he went around absorbing the injuries of others.

It’s less about saving others, and more about satisfying his own destructive, self-harming desires, that he took on the injuries of others. According to the psychological profiles the players did on him afterward... It’s likely that Justus was using this pain to compensate for the emotional pain of his disintegrated childhood.

In other words, his suffering was not for saving others.

It was simply for self-inflicted pain.

This innocent emotion he held from his childhood influenced his entire life and also shackled it. Even until the end, falling into the trap set by his teacher and dying as a tool used to create ’Professor Wolf,’ he was still entangled with this emotion.

The life of Justus, from start to finish, has nothing to do with kindness, clarity, calmness, ease...

...However, since Justus’s reputation and others’ recognition of him are so high outside.

About the secrets Justus hid, it might be better not to reveal them...

Compassion in Si Anke’s heart stopped him from making his thoughts clear.

With that thought, he took a deep breath and shivered.

—The mechanism of nightmares, it’s truly terrifying!

This wasn’t a dark history that could be destroyed by sinking the mainframe into water or physically destroying the hard drive... Not only was it completely indestructible, but it would also be perused and seriously discussed by successors.

The great, heroic persona you maintained in life, didn’t show any flaws until death. But once a nightmare was hatched after death and the Purifier Squad entered with reverence in their hearts, they would see the most real you, never revealed in front of anyone else.

Wow.

All the effort up until now, completely in vain.

That’s truly terrifying...

Si Anke pondered for quite a while, before figuring out how to inquire about Ingrid without harming Justus’s image:

"...Do you know, Justus... sir. His first love was a girl named Ingrid. And this girl named Ingrid, she died in front of him..."

"Oh, that’s not surprising."

To Si Anke’s statement, the saint did not seem surprised.

He countered, "Do you know why her name is ’Eternal Maiden’?"

"...I do not."

The Wizard shook his head.

The Saint sighed, "You must remember to read more ...

"This is written by a Winter poet, a fictitious scripture named ’Odes to the Celestial Chariot.’ It cryptically recorded knowledge about the ’ritual of sublimation.’

"In that long poem, the heretic realized that he was still a mortal after all, even though he already possessed crystal-clear eyes and beautiful, crystal-clear desires. Yet he still couldn’t board the celestial chariot, and he was in utter despair.

"This is to point out that even if one has the purest and clearest desires, if the soul is not stigmatized, one can definitely not perform the ritual of sublimation."

"After the heretic returned to his old home, he met his childhood sweetheart whom he had not seen for a long time. He fell passionately and genuinely in love with this girl and married her to bear children.

"From the girlhood of yesteryear, to the girl of today, to the mother and grandmother of the future, all the way to a pile of bones in the grave. The heretic accompanied her through life with his passionate and unchanging love—[When I look at her, it is as though I am looking at the sun. My eyes are filled with tears, and my pupils sealed with light.]

"As a moth yearning for the light, the heretic had by then undergone trials and possessed a soul pure as crystal ... that is, he had reached the silver stage. His lifespan far exceeded that of his wife, which resulted in him still being in the prime of life when his wife grew old and died.

"It wasn’t until the seventh anniversary of his wife’s death that the heretic gazed upon her grave and finally had an epiphany.

"[It was indeed light! That is the perpetually burning love, the third echo that rings from the depths of the sun.]

"[—I have already obtained my light, yet I was completely unaware!]"

"That is to say, he had already ..."

Listening intently up to this point, The Wizard couldn’t help but interrupt.

The Saint nodded, "Yes, he had finally ascended to the Gold stage.

"His soul was stigmatized by [love], shining with the third radiance of the sun. Clinging to his yearning for light and chasing after the celestial chariot that he could not attain for a lifetime... yet when he gave up his own desires and wholeheartedly loved his spouse, he instead awakened the element of [love] and ascended to the Gold stage.

"Thus he ultimately sublimated into a deity. The last sentence of the poem is his sincere praise, prayer, and remembrance of his lover ... [Only the Eternal Maiden leads us ascendant.]

"Of course, the heretic’s story is fictitious. In fact, there is no deity of ’love’ as truth ... But the ’Eternal Maiden’ indeed exists."

The Saint spoke earnestly, "Ingrid is the former Tower Master of the Thousand-Faced Phantom Tower... a Gold-stage idol mage of the same era as me. She is one of the few who believes the ’Book of the Praise of the Chariot of the Heavens’ is not a fictitious scripture but a prophecy.

"... And the truth she pursued was the [Love Ascendant] in the poem, which is why she changed her title to ’Eternal Maiden.’ With it, she gained the power of ’the heretic’s wife’ in the story.

"She possessed the element of [love], her love undying and thus her body immortal... yet she was never recognized by the truth of [Love Ascendant], and no Book of Truth emerged.

"Ingrid thought her love was not sincere enough. So she decided to seal her memory... to fall genuinely in love in childhood with a ’mortal who could become Gold,’ to seek out ’true love,’ and reenact the story from the ’Book of the Praise of the Chariot of the Heavens.’

"She would provide her partner with the ’desire’ enough to advance to Gold. Until either one of them died, she would regain her memory, quietly leave that place, go far away, and then repeat the process again.

"This was Ingrid’s ritual of sublimation. As long as her lover awakened the element of ’love,’ she could become a deity— the [Eternal Maiden] controlling the Power of the Chariot.

"... But obviously, she kept failing. She was not recognized by ’love,’ nor by the ’celestial chariot.’"

The Saint shrugged, "The Unfallen Shield indeed advanced to the Gold stage. And his desire was related to protecting others... plus, Bone Healer Excellency is also a rather powerful idol mage.

"According to the idol school’s ’Law of Stigmatization,’ all idol mages are inevitably connected in some way. So it’s not strange that Ingrid’s thought body became a student of Bone Healer Excellency and fell in love with The Unfallen Shield in his youth."

... So is this another layer of historical truth?

The Wizard’s feelings had become even more complicated.

No wonder ...

... But the problem is, the man Ingrid loved seems not to be Justus but Frederick, right?

But thinking about it like this somehow makes Justus seem even more pitiable...

"... Then why does she want to kill you?"

"Because I was once her goal, and indeed I have loved her," the Saint answered calmly. "The element I hold is indeed ’love’... or has ’love.’ But I chose to inherit the Sacred Relic instead of sublimating into a deity. Hence, I didn’t continue to develop my element... so she failed again, falling just before the finish line.

"She didn’t actually want to kill me. She wanted to force me to forsake the Sacred Relic and sublimate— to awaken the element of ’love’ with the soul as kindling. But I didn’t really want to become a deity, so my mastery over elemental power is actually quite shallow."

"Wait a minute."

The Wizard couldn’t help but ask, "I remember you saying... that when you were at the silver stage, you were female, right?"

At this, it was the Saint who looked over in surprise, "It’s just ’love’... what does it have to do with gender?"

"... Huh?"