The Theory of Life and Death

After the crowd dispersed, the church suddenly seemed empty. Lucia was still immersed in Lansseax's lecture from moments ago, unable to come back to himself for a long while.

Lansseax walked briskly to the back row, waved a hand in front of his eyes, and smiled. "Well? Not bad, was it?"

"It was penetrating and incisive," Lucia praised sincerely, but then he shook his head slightly, a troubled look surfacing on his face. "But ever since just now, I've been thinking about something deeper, and I still haven't come up with an answer..."

"Oh? Let's hear it." Lansseax's interest was piqued. She sat down in the seat beside him.

Lucia nodded and began to explain his thoughts. "What I don't understand still lies in the concept of 'death'—the difference between the Golden faith and the ancient dragon faith is not simply a dispute of ideas. At its root, it lies in the difference between two laws, two Elden Rings, ancient and modern."

"After the War of the Gods ended, Queen Marika brought the entire Altus region under the control of the Golden Order, and the newborn Elden Ring was stripped of 'Destined Death.' It was also from that time on that Return to the Erdtree replaced the original funeral rites. Apart from certain villains who had committed great crimes, the residents of the Golden Dynasty would all go to graveyards spread throughout the nation when they were nearing the end of their lives, turning their decaying bodies into nourishment for the Erdtree, while their souls accepted the Erdtree's baptism. After every trace of this life was washed clean, they were reincarnated as new lives—Sister Lans, am I right?"

"That's right."

Lucia immediately posed an extremely pointed question. "In this process, the Golden Order, having lost Destined Death, actually never granted the Golden People true 'death' in any real sense. Can those souls that have erased their memories and thoughts from their previous lives before being reincarnated really be counted as entirely new lives?"

Lansseax fell silent. Only after a long while did she reveal a wry smile and say, "I didn't expect your thinking to have already gone this deep."

"I did not deceive those believers. In recent years, the Golden Dynasty has still maintained a population growth rate of over three percent, and that portion of newborn souls can naturally be counted as entirely new lives. As for those reborn souls, the baptism they accept is not merely the removal of thoughts and memories, but a transformation under the Erdtree's influence into entirely new souls in the form of pure Runes. From the perspective of the ancient dragon faith, believing that beings who Return to the Erdtree have already died completely, and that the so-called souls reborn after baptism are actually new lives born from the energy left by the extinction of old lives—understanding it that way is not wrong either."

"But to the Primal Law of the ancient age, when a being died, it died. Humans would not be reincarnated as humans after Returning to the Erdtree, and ancient dragons would not be reborn as ancient dragons. The birth, growth, decline, and death of all living beings had no fixed, unchanging trajectory—this is the law we believe in, is it not?"

"Yes, this is the law we believe in..." Lansseax was silent for a long time, then sighed faintly. "No matter what words I use to explain it, the definition of life under the two faiths is fundamentally different."

She looked toward the elegant, imposing floor-to-ceiling windows on the side of the church. Her gaze followed the trail of sunlight to the people coming and going outside the window, but her thoughts had already drifted into the depths of long-sealed memories.

"I still remember that when I was young, I once asked the high priest for guidance on the true meaning of our race's law, and how, as ancient dragon royalty with eternal lifespans, we ought to view the countless beings sheltered beneath the dragon race's wings. He relayed to me the answer the goddess—that is, your mother—had once given him."

Lucia's heart trembled slightly. "Mother... what did she say?"

"She said that all living beings in this world are like wild grass upon the plains, born from the spring rain and dew, growing beneath the warm summer sun, declining in the autumn wind and frost, and perishing in the winter snow. In their origin, there is neither higher nor lower, neither noble nor base. No matter what power an existence possessed in life, after death it would become a handful of soil. When the spring rain fell and all things revived, the living would sprout from the remains of the dead."

"Yet today's Golden Order, especially the Two Fundamentalisms proposed by Radagon, seems to me more like it treats every spirit in the world as an eternal, unchanging cornerstone. All things are linked one to another, cause and effect succeeding each other, steadily converging toward the unchanging... Such a stable law forged such a powerful dynasty. With my knowledge and position, I cannot judge whether they are right or wrong, but if one day you become the god who decides the future ownership of law—"

She did not continue immediately. Instead, she paused for a moment, revealing a slightly sly smile.

"When the time comes, that difficult problem will be yours to worry about. No matter what you choose, I believe you can bring this world a more hopeful future."

Lucia was first stunned, then after coming back to himself, he gave a bitter laugh. "Sister Lans, don't you have a little too much faith in me...?"

"What are you talking about? It's not as if I was the one who conferred your position as Empyrean," Lansseax said, rolling her eyes. "Besides, as the only child of the goddess and His Majesty whom I admire most in this life, and since before he left, the high priest exhorted me over and over again to take good care of you—er, your dragon egg—is there anything wrong with me having faith in you?"

"I suppose there isn't..."

"There just isn't." Lansseax gave his shoulder a firm slap and rose to her feet. "It's getting late. Wait for me to change clothes, then I'll take you around the city. You've been in the royal capital this long, and every day all you know is to hole up at home training, training, training. Tsk. You really have no ambition!"

Lucia, long since familiar with her tactics, chose not to argue. He merely followed her meekly toward the inside of the temple. In any case, in the face of Sister Lans's classic bait-and-switch arguments, double standards, and unreasonable pestering, needless to say, if he lost the debate, that was that, and even if he got lucky and won, he would still be suppressed by force. Why bother?

The two walked out through the inner door at the rear of the church, then passed through a candlelit corridor and arrived at the rear hall where the Ancient Dragon Knights cultivated and trained. The architecture here differed from the exquisite and magnificent style of the front hall, instead placing emphasis on solidity and reliability. For that reason, a great deal of metal and giant stone had been used, and amid its simplicity there was a dignified, solemn air.

"After we formed an alliance with the Golden Dynasty, Her Majesty Marika personally allocated a group of elite members from among the Leyndell Knight apprentices every year to participate in the temple's selection. I choose from them those with both good character and martial skill, and after nurturing and training them, appoint them as new Ancient Dragon Knights. Over the years, we've maintained a scale of nearly a thousand people," Lansseax introduced.

"Sixty percent of these knights already received the baptism of the Golden Church in their youth. Although they accepted the ancient dragon faith, in essence they still serve the Golden Dynasty. The other forty percent are commoners' children and orphans raised by the Ancient Dragon Temple itself. They are baptized personally by me and owe their direct loyalty to Sky City."

"Speaking of which, perhaps because the firmness of their faith differs, that forty percent of knights are mostly a step above the former in their mastery of ancient dragon prayers." She shook her head. "At first, some New Party nobles even seized on this to cause trouble, questioning whether Fortissax and I were treating knights born of the Golden faith differently and had not taught them the true meaning of ancient dragon prayers."

"And what happened?" Lucia asked curiously.

Lansseax shrugged as if it were nothing. "The ones leading the trouble were two marquises who had the strength of heroes themselves. I invited them to the arena for a fight, using the ancient dragon prayers they'd been pining for the whole time—after it was over, I asked them whether they'd learned it, and whether I'd taught them properly. Seeing as both of them looked so grateful they were flat on the ground in tears, I assume they learned it?"

Lucia was speechless for a moment. Only after a long while did he squeeze out an admiring line. "As expected of you!"