Martel’s remark had caught Mira’s attention more. Somehow the Spirit King’s Divine Protection was involved as well. That seemed to indicate that whatever this secret was, she would be thrown into it whether she wanted to or not in the future.
(…I’ve come this far, I’m not stopping for anything…)
That was Mira’s strong determination.
「Right, I guess things are already set in motion, I can’t keep hiding this.』
The Spirit King seemed to agree with Martel, so after a brief pause to gather his thoughts, he began to speak.
First, he revealed that there were actually six more hidden pillars on top of the 48 Transducer Pillars of Heaven and Earth.
While everyone worked together to scatter those first pillars across the continent, the six were carried away only by the Three Gods, each taking care of two, and placed them in secret locations that no one else knew about.
Those Three Gods had been the reigning force of the continent since those times, representing justice, courage, and kindness. Not even the Spirit King knew where they had placed their secret pillars.
That was also why he had asked about the missing pillar’s location, and it was one neither he or Martel knew about, meaning it was one of the secret pillars left by the Three Gods.
「So the pillar that vanished was one of the secret ones…』
「That’s it, yes.』
A pillar hidden by a God was a secret on the same level as the artifacts Martel was guarding. That alone was an unbelievable reveal, which made Mira feel slightly uneasy for the future, but she just had to get to the bottom of this. So she asked, what role did the secret pillars fulfill?
Right after she realized something, if their location was secret, maybe their function was as well. But that was a needless worry, as the location was the only part kept secret. The Spirit King slowly detailed why they had been created.
「The pillars themselves are similar to the other underground ones, cleansing and interacting with mana.』
With that preamble, he began to detail what made them different.
Those six pillars had one additional function on top of cleansing and interacting with mana. That was a sealing function. They absorbed mana from a leyline with the first functions, and turned it into divine energy to seal something away.
Now that their sealing function was detailed, the Spirit King still had to say exactly what was being sealed.
「I believe I mentioned the God of Monsters to you before, right?』
「Yes, I think it was when I first met Martel…wait!』
The God of Monsters, a strange entity that somehow took control of hordes of monsters, and ultimately met its demise at the hands of the human hero, being defeated with just one hit. Mira nodded as she recalled that story, while also gathering an idea as to why it had been brought up now.
Whatever the six pillars were sealing was almost obvious at that point.
「Yes, those six pillars are sealing the God of Monster’s body, which is split into the head, torso, right arm, left arm, right leg, and left leg. Six pieces in total.』
The Spirit King quickly confirmed Mira’s suspicion. The God of Monsters was sealed by the pillars, each keeping a different body part just to be careful.
That brought up a different question though. Why would they need to seal the body of someone who was defeated with just one hit?
「A seal… Could it be that the God of Monsters was actually immortal or something like that?』
That was a common trope in fantasy, an immortal evil that could only be sealed away. So Mira brought up the possibility.
「Immortal…well, I guess that’s also half correct.」
After thinking about it for a bit, the Spirit King gave another vague response. The immortality idea was half correct, but he still had to detail how.
He explained it as such. The God of Monsters had certainly died, and the issues came after that.
The God of Monsters』 corpse had started making a strange sound, and no regular sound either. It had the strange effect of being audible anywhere regardless of distance or obstacles, reaching everyone in the continent.
They tried to figure out what that sound was, but neither the Gods nor spirits were able to come up with an answer. The sound simply kept going on without stopping.
「I remember that, the sound was so creepy. It was almost like the corpse was trying to communicate with something…』
Martel’s voice interrupted there, having recalled the sound herself. Mira asked if she could mimic the sound and she tried.
(Hmmm… That does sound like some sort of signal…)
Either Martel was really bad at mimicking the sound, or it had really been that way, but all Mira knew for sure was that the sound was more like a beep that repeated in regular intervals.
「No one knew what that sound meant, but it certainly was unnerving. So we soon decided we needed to get rid of the body.』
The God of Monsters had always been surrounded by many mysteries. At first they had planned on sending the body to a research center to find answers to the mysteries, but the constant noise was too eerie, and it distressed not only humans, but spirits, angels, and devils alike.
Because of that they made the swift decision to destroy the body.
That would turn out to be a challenge in itself though. They tried burning it, then used the power of the Gods and spirits to tear it apart, but no matter what they tried they were unable to completely destroy it.
「I see… That’s what you meant with half correct.』
Mira’s guess that the God of Monsters was immortal had been half correct. While the God of Monsters had died, the body could not be destroyed.
「We even tried methods that could kill a God. To be honest that was the first time I saw someone return from being turned to dust.』
The Spirit King mentioned how unbelievable the whole experience was as he continued telling the story.
No one knew the true meaning of the constant sound, but considering what the source of the sound was, it filled everyone with unease.
The body could not be destroyed, however, so they began to consider sealing it away.
As fate would have it, the seal also failed. Though that was still an attempt to seal it within a coffin, and not a white pillar.
「The first seal worked, initially. The noise was gone too. But not much time passed before the seal was broken from within.』
The sealing coffin had been unable to contain all the miasma welling up inside.
Once the seal was broken, the sound came back. Somehow being able to produce that sound seemed like an obsession for the God of Monsters.
That first failure put everyone on higher alert, and everyone tried to find new solutions. Eventually they made a promising discovery. By tearing the body apart, the miasma became thinner.
But splitting the body apart also made its regenerative power stronger. They barely managed to tear it into ten pieces before that power became too powerful and it became impossible to restrain the pieces from flying back together.
After a lot of trial and error, they settled on splitting the body into six pieces, which was the maximum they could handle before the pieces shot at each other to merge.
「That was still not a good solution though. The seals for the six parts lasted a bit longer, but it was only a matter of time before they exploded with miasma.』
So far the Spirit King’s voice had been heavy relating their struggles, but now he was gaining confidence. He seemed to be proud of the solution they eventually found.
He explained it as following:
First the most powerful allies present, the Three Gods, picked two pieces of the body each, and cast seals on them separately. Though only the Three Gods had been able to place the initial failed seals as well.
The newer seals would stop the creepy sound, while also stopping the force of attraction the body parts had, which only grew stronger the further they were separated.
The miasma issue remained though, which meant that with time the seals would explode and the body parts would fly away to merge back. But they could not afford to split the body into more pieces to deal with the miasma, as that would make the force of attraction uncontrollable.
That’s where the white pillars came into play, acting as a secondary seal, reinforcing the main one while also having the cleansing power necessary to get rid of the miasma. That plan worked out perfectly, as now there was no miasma to worry about, and the main seal would remain strong.
「And this reminds me of our speculation about Stigmata from the other day, but now I believe the pillar was the trigger. Those six pillars are imbued with far more divine power than the other 48, and it should be enough to activate Stigmata.』
「Amazing…somehow we managed to solve a different mystery here.』
There was that woman Soul Howl was trying to save, who had fallen ill to Stigmata. The secret pillar had likely been the cause of that, and Mira could not stop herself from grinning at the accidental discovery.
Spirits, angels, and devils helped with the construction of the six secret pillars, just like all the other normal ones. The Spirit King seemed to have vivid memories from that event, and Martel also muttered, 「Everyone was together back then,』 reminiscing about that time.
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