Super Righteous Player
Chapter 680 - 221 I hereby abandon the name "Skeleton Duke"_1

Chapter 680: Chapter 221 I hereby abandon the name "Skeleton Duke"_1

"You should have never imagined that I never needed you... From the very beginning, I didn’t need any counterpart."

The voice of the Skeleton Duke was very calm.

It was as if an elder was chatting with a junior, yet his words made Elle feel such panic.

"Father, don’t..."

"What I needed was just another demigod bearing the ’Betrayed’ mark, to bear witness to this scene."

The Skeleton Duke continued to walk slowly forward.

That was originally the place where the Grandmother Bones statue stood. But now, it was empty.

In the illusionary, witch-barrier-like abstract world, numerous graves with crowns atop them materialized with a rustling sound before the Skeleton Duke.

With a forceful step, the Skeleton Duke caused all the graves to collapse, turning into bottomless pits.

There was nothing inside them.

And all the other "houses," which were the "tombs" of the giants, also cracked and fell apart.

All the graves beneath the land of the Dirge Principality collapsed at once.

"I had never realized before... burial is forgetting, forgetting is betrayal. And a tombstone is the deceased’s last remembrance.

"It is my only weakness, the bridge between the living and the dead...

"—But if it is destroyed by my own hand, then it becomes the most important ’beginning.’

The Skeleton Duke was not just the ’God of Betrayal’ from the very beginning.

But why did he lack the aspect of the ’Betrayed’?

It’s quite simple.

Because people had erected a tomb for the Duke before sending him off.

"Our tombs are sealed, do you know what that means?"

The Skeleton Duke said slowly, "The transcendent bury the ordinary, priests bury their followers. Elders bury children, husbands bury wives, sages bury apprentices, and curses are passed down through generations. And I am the eldest, the greatest, the most divine among them... No one can bury me.

"I buried everyone, and in the end, only I was left. No one knows where my despair lies—poison is unable to kill me."

Even the deadliest of toxins cannot kill the Eternal Duke.

It is said by poets that The Country of Giants carries the curse of immortality.

But it is not a curse, rather a grand play performed by all participants.

—Indeed.

Because no one knows... the Skeleton Duke simply cannot kill himself. Their beloved Eternal Duke had long since become an undead.

It was only natural.

The Skeleton Duke became a divine being... not because of his betrayal at the time of burial, but an earlier one—three hundred years ago.

The Eternal Principality fought a five hundred-year battle with the undead ’Death Tide’ from the south and utterly vanquished them. They would commit suicide when the great barrier collapsed, just to prevent themselves from turning into undead...

However, no one knew that their Duke had been an undead from the very beginning.

—All their efforts, all their sacrifices, all their decisions... were doomed to fail.

"I did nothing. I proposed nothing. I opposed nothing. Because this was not something I could oppose, I couldn’t even reveal to the public the fact that I was an undead."

The Skeleton Duke said slowly, "Because from the very beginning... the Eternal Duke was just a tombstone. He was the grave of all those who were about to die, simply a symbol, totem, and tool to end the journey to the netherworld for everyone who had given up everything.

"They decided everything for themselves, while I quietly watched the nation fall into ruin... Everything came to an end. No more life stirred on the once noisy land, and buried beneath the soil were giants... just like their ancestors, quietly embracing death.

"—Leaving only me behind."

From the very beginning, the undead could not be killed by the Mist.

He was left all alone.

Was it hatred?

No, it wasn’t.

’The blood of eternity shall end with ’me,’ and I shall become the only tombstone henceforth’—this was the sacrifice and decision made by the Eternal Duke of that time.

It was neither retaliation nor betrayal.

But rather the inevitable [Answer] caused by the deception four hundred years ago.

When the Eternal Duke decided to become a skeleton four hundred years ago and put an end to that ridiculous, cyclical drama, everything was already destined.

The betrayal took place four hundred years ago.

And his experience of being betrayed extended even further back, long before The Eternal Principality’s ’Tradition’ took shape.

Those who bore the ’eternal’ bloodline, who spent their lives wearing masks like clowns... From the very beginning, these rulers were deprived of the right to ’die.’ For giants who longed for ’inevitable death,’ this was the cruelest punishment—to never find peace even in death.

But someone had to remember everyone’s death to maintain orderly rule, maintain relationships between people, maintain the shaky Country of Giants.

That person had always been the Betrayed.

...Yes.

From the very beginning, the Skeleton Duke could have transcended as the complete ’God of Betrayal.’

But he forwent it.

That was—

"—the will of fate. That’s what He told me."

The Skeleton Duke answered on his own.

He turned his back to everyone and took off his glittering clown mask.

Then, he threw it into the last grave before him.

That was the tomb of the "Eternal Duke" from four hundred years ago.

Beyond this point, there still lay densely packed tombs—and within each tomb, a skeleton rested.

"At the time, I wondered... could such a level of ’betrayal’ bear the weight of this twisted nation, the twisted will, the twisted history?"

The skeletal figure replied calmly, "I don’t think so. Because this betrayal wasn’t pure... it was tainted with the essence of ’skeletons’, turning me into a pitiful and detestable undead."

It turned its head back.

Beneath the mask, within the knight’s armor, was an utterly ordinary skeleton, devoid of any light or shadow effects.

It was an extremely delicate, withered skeleton. It was even merely two and a half meters tall—viewed from a giant’s perspective, it was so short and emaciated.

The value of those hefty metal boots was like that of a "Dancer of the Winds".

It was precisely because it was too light... If it weren’t for boots heavy enough, it simply couldn’t walk properly.

For as an undead, the Eternal Duke did not possess any special powers. It merely continued to live on... It was merely a tombstone, a "data center" that could record the history of everyone.

Yes.

The Eternal Duke never "carried souls upon himself".

What he truly bore upon himself... was the "history" that had been passed down through his ancestors for a thousand years and personally experienced by himself for four hundred years, a record of everything from the Country of Giants from ancient times to the present.

What he carried was not the "Eternal Principality" in that moment the Mist invaded.

Rather, it was the entirety of the giants—from a thousand four hundred years before the great barrier’s collapse, from the dawn of the Eternal Nation to its downfall—

It was for this achievement that he was recognized by the world.

He was granted the divine name "Eternal Duke".

"My family was betrayed by the Eternal Nation for a thousand years, and I betrayed the people of the Eternal Nation for four hundred years. I lived in loneliness for a thousand years until at last, I found you, Elle. The person betrayed by others to the point of being unable to betray further..."

"When my tombstone was destroyed, I gave up the last vestiges of their remembrance; when the statue of the Grave Mother was destroyed, I gave up the last semblance of desire to maintain this ludicrous ’tradition’."

"To this day, the Eternal Nation meets its destruction here"

The Eternal Duke thus declared, "Here, I forsake the name ’Eternal Duke’."

All the decorations on his body began to crumble and fade into oblivion.

Cloak, armor, gloves, crown, boots—

The only thing left in this world was the skeleton.

It laughed at itself.

"... How come this piece of junk still remains?"

Saying so, it grabbed its own spine and gave a forceful tug—

Bone fragments scattered to the heavens and the earth.

All proofs of existence tied to the betrayal and the God of Skeletons—"Eternal Duke" evaporated here.

Yet, a more pristine "God of Betrayal" was about to be born from the abyss after death—

"— Give me your body, Elle."

In this oil-painting-like hue of twisted emptiness, old voices, young voices, and baby voices all sounded at once.

"— AhhhhhhhAaaaaaaa!!"

Suddenly, Elle’s body gained many mosaic-like blurry patches, from which she let out a sharp and inhuman wail.

Though it was but a single syllable, it could not be understood by human language.

— She was undergoing an irreversible ascension under the gaze of the players.

She was about to be devoured by the blurring patches.

But just then, the last rib from the Eternal Duke’s body just happened to be embedded into the earth.

By a remarkable coincidence, everyone simultaneously turned their attention to that rib.

Longjing Tea suddenly realized something.

The Eternal Duke’s plan... was probably to fully betray himself by erasing his "skeletal" divinity and devouring Elle’s body to become the pure "God of Betrayal".

But there was a critical issue His plan overlooked.

Elle was an Angel.

The new God of Betrayal would rise from an Angel... and the Eternal Duke intended to consume her body.

Therefore, the old "Eternal Duke" could be considered... to have already died.

If you say.

When Transcendents of Bronze Tier die, they give birth to common tier nightmares; when Transcendents of Silver Tier die, they give birth to difficult tier nightmares; when Transcendents of Gold Tier die, they give birth to Twisted Tier nightmares...

If Sages who control truths die, they give birth to Otherworldly Tier nightmares... But deities also control truths. And even more profoundly.

Then—

He only thought up to here.

— The world turned upside down.

Three players and a cat, Elle, as well as everyone on the treasure ship "Silver", were engulfed by the instant twist and collapse of space.

It wasn’t just their souls that were sucked into the dream realm.

Instead, their entire beings fell into the "nightmare"—

The next instant.

Apart from that single rib, nothing more remained of the Eternal Principality’s underground.

— "Everything" had vanished.

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