Chapter 220: Fading Away Underworld
"A man-made Underworld, perhaps...if a large number of humans died at once, in addition to a special layout," Vala said.
"We all know that souls would naturally dissipate in a normal environment. Is it plausible that if a large number of humans die at once, the number of souls present exceeds the rate of dissipation of these souls and the special environment, and coupled with a special layout would form an Underworld? Such as the special layout of the buildings in Wellington, the pyramids, or things like the Terracotta Army? Those people who got buried together with the kings in their tombs - doesn't that satisfy the condition of many people dying at once?" Vala continued.
They had to admit that Vala was very smart and explained things extremely logically and clearly, but everyone shivered inside listening to her explanation.
A large number of humans dying!
"OK, let's not talk about this issue anymore. It's not like we can test it out anyway. Mavis, can you talk about the purification? Just now you said that Heloise and Vala's souls were corrupted, what's going on?" Bai Yi asked and changed the topic; he felt like they would be intruding on some forbidden territory if they continued to delve into this.
"Purification? It's like this!" Mavis started to explain.
"You guys saw the vengeful spirits back then right? When those vengeful spirits were hunting, they would appear extremely brutal and always warped into some very strange and savage forms. At the start, even those warped vengeful spirits would go back to a normal human form when they were quiet. However, later on we discovered that these vengeful spirits gradually deviated from the appearance of a normal human soul, truly transforming into the appearance of a monster. This is what we refer to as corruption." Mavis said.
"Not just those vengeful spirits, even souls like us who still retain our own consciousness would slowly transform like this. We can't say that this kind of transformation isn't good because I think that this is one of the ways for a purely spiritual lifeform to evolve. After losing the restriction of the physical body, the growth of the soul doesn't have to be trapped within the confines of our species and hence it grows to become strange. For those spiritual bodies that had transformed, they really did become more powerful in the end and a small portion of them can even attack the physical world directly now." Mavis explained.
One of the evolution methods for spiritual lifeforms!
Directly attacking the physical world!
Bai Yi and the others never imagined that they would learn so much shocking information here. Don't think that these were just a few short sentences, they could be treated as absolutely top-secret material.
"What about you guys?"
"Purification and dissolution: that is the power of the Soul Release Tree. You guys saw it back then, right? The vengeful spirits liked that place a lot, but none of them dared to be overly close to it. The Soul Release Tree can purify spiritual bodies and allow us to maintain our original form, that's how I still can appear in front of you guys in human form. However, if you aren't able to control yourself during the purification process, then that wouldn't be purification anymore but you would be directly broken down and absorbed into the Soul Release Tree." Mavis said.
"Control yourself? Why didn't we feel anything?" Vala and Heloise asked.
"Because the Soul Release Tree died!" Mavis said sadly and pointed at the dozens of balls of light floating around. "Look at them, there were hundreds of thousands of spiritual bodies in Wellington at first, but now there are only a few dozens of us who could control ourselves, the others all..." There wasn't a need to say what happened to the others.
"Anna!" Bai Yi saw one of the souls among them.
"Heh, I thought that you guys have already forgotten about me! I didn't even get a 'hi'." Anna floated over and scolded them.
"No way! We still have a very deep impression of you. We were just too engrossed in listening to the new information and didn't notice you." Bai Yi hurriedly smiled and apologized. This mad ghost Anna was the one who took them to search for Yu Han back then.
"Hmph, I'll believe you for now," Anna said proudly.
"Our purification isn't complete, right? I feel that there's something different between us." Vala looked at the dozens of souls and said.
"En, that's for sure. The Soul Release Tree was still alive when we got purified. Now that the Soul Release Tree is dead, the purification power has weakened by several times though the dissolution power is gone." Anna said, not having any sense of unfamiliarity or awkwardness with Bai Yi's team.
"Speaking of us, you guys should take the tree's core. Otherwise, the United Nations will definitely take it." Anna floated around in the air.
"The tree's core?"
"Yep, the tree's core. After the Soul Release Tree died, not every part of the tree retained its purification power. Only the centermost part of the tree still retained this ability, roughly a twenty-centimeter piece of wood at the core. Oh right, you should take some of the remaining Soul Release Wood as well. Looking at the faces of those people just now, the tree will probably be completely gone not long from now if you guys don't take it." Mavis said at length.
"Of course." Bai Yi nodded.
"Aunt Mavis, where are the Spirit Devouring Butterflies?" Momo bore with it until now, only asking when she saw that the other things had more or less been discussed already.
"Spirit Devouring Butterflies?"
"The same thing that happened to the other spiritual bodies: they all got absorbed by the Soul Release Tree. Towards the end, most of the Spirit Devouring Butterflies changed to become spiritual beings, and those that didn't become spiritual beings were all eliminated. As the range of the Ghost City shrunk more and more, they lost a suitable environment for survival." Mavis was very sad as well talking about this.
The Soul Release Tree and the Spirit Devouring Butterflies were both special lifeforms that only appeared because of the Ghost City Wellington. At the same time that they became unique, they also became unsuitable for the normal world.
Momo heard her words and had the face of wanting to cry but stubbornly refused. If it was a normal kid, the kid would have probably started to wail long ago. However, Momo was different. She had experienced the passing of many people and knew that just crying would never be able to solve any problems. Bai Yi looked at Momo and sighed, not knowing if this was a good or bad thing. She was still so young but had already forced herself to develop this overly strong character.
"Just cry if you want." Bai Yi patted Momo's shoulder.
"The little butterflies all died daddy, the little butterflies all disappeared!" Momo jumped into Bai Yi's arms, grabbed his sleeve, and cried loudly. In reality, Momo was just slightly older than nine years old now, and many times she was just pretending to be strong. A child that age should be able to cry when she wanted to and leave the problems for the adults to bear.
Momo cried very sorrowfully, as the six remaining Spirit Devouring Butterflies flew out of Momo and began to slowly dance around her. After crying for a while, Momo finally looked at the six Spirit Devouring Butterflies, still sobbing sporadically. One of the butterflies landed on Momo's nose, slowly flapping its wings.
Everyone immediately went quiet. All of them knew that Momo could communicate with spiritual bodies and animals. She was definitely talking with the Spirit Devouring Butterfly now.
"It said that I have the smell of the Spirit Devouring Butterflies on me." Momo raised her head and looked at Bai Yi.
"They are staying in your body, of course you would have their smell." Woolf interrupted at the side. However, Bai Yi and the rest ignored Woolf's words and carefully pondered about this.
After a short moment, all of them said at the same time, "That fruit just now!"
"It's probably due to that fruit, after all, it was a fruit that grew after absorbing all the spiritual bodies. There's probably some connection between these things. However, you need to figure this out for yourself. The formation of this fruit is too special and none of us knows what's going on either." Bai Yi stroked Momo's head and consoled.
"Are the little butterflies growing inside the fruit? Did they get eaten by me?"
"I don't know that either." Bai Yi smiled and said.
At this time, not just Bai Yi, but the rest of them were all extremely curious about this fruit. A fruit that grew under such special conditions and the smell of the Spirit Devouring Butterflies, what exactly was going on? After the spread of the activated cells, things in this world seemed to be becoming more and more strange, but also more and more interesting as well as more dangerous at the same time.
After Momo calmed down, Bai Yi and the rest heeded Mavis' advice and retrieved the tree's core. Other than that, they also took out a square piece Soul Release Wood roughly one meter by one meter. Even though this was quite a big piece of Soul Release Wood, it wasn't anything worth mentioning in relation to the entire mass of the Soul Release Tree. They didn't try to be greedy either. Such a big piece of Soul Release Wood was already sufficient for them and carrying more than that would actually end up being inconvenient.
At this time, Bai Yi also got Momo to let the other souls out, these were all their LV2 companions that had died in the battle. After explaining it to them simply, Bai Yi also let them go through the tree core to purify themselves. As for the souls of the normal people that Momo had collected as well, they of course wouldn't get such a good treatment.
After finishing the purification, it was time to change their place of residence. In the beginning, they had only randomly broken off branches of the Soul Release Tree, but now that they had better conditions they would change the place the souls were staying in.
Melvin then made a simple pendant for everyone using the Soul Release Wood. Melvin was the Weapon Armor Maker in the team, so his processing and grinding skills were good and all of the pendants were exquisite even though they were all carved from wood. Everybody seriously carried one, it was needless to say how much they valued the pendants after knowing the function of this Soul Release Wood. If they died accidentally, their soul would be able to be preserved inside the Soul Release Wood. This was also why people in the outside world placed such importance on the Soul Release Wood.
Momo carried two pendants. One of them contained their old companions and the LV2s who died in the battle, while the other pendant contained the normal souls.
"Let's go!" Bai Yi held Momo's hand and said.
Hearing Bai Yi's words, the rest of them kept their gazes and slowly walked outside.
Behind them was the still and tranquil Wellington. After they took away the tree's core, it seemed like the last bit of Underworld qi gathered in Wellington disappeared as well. Under the gentle sunlight shining down from the sky, the entire city of Wellington seemed to be glowing with a fresh and bright atmosphere. This was the atmosphere that belonged to the normal human world, the environment that countless normal people were used to. Yet, it was a world that the dead couldn't stay in.