Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1183 - 295 Nora’s Memory

Chapter 1183: Chapter 295 Nora’s Memory

In Nora’s heart, a strange feeling suddenly arose, carrying a hint of confusion and melancholy, seemingly a sensation named ’loneliness’. This feeling seemed familiar from her memories; it was nearly four thousand years ago when she first awakened from the Realm of the Dead, moving her body that had been rigid for hundreds of thousands of years, staggering through an empty temple. All that her eyes met, besides the endless darkness, were the shriveled skeletons scattered in the dark—each one a devout believer, each once a normal member of her tribe, each having had a vibrant life, capable of crying, laughing, joy, and sorrow. Just like herself, these believers had been willing to sacrifice their lives and souls for their faith. They had thought so and acted so; thus, in that final brutal and tragic battle, these tribe members had given everything to the Deity along with her, ultimately merging with the Deity. Now, she did not know why she had finally awoken, yet those tribe members could never awake again.

Upon exiting the temple, all she saw was the boundless yellow sands and endless white bones scattered across the ground. Praying to the Deity only earned her a death-like silence. Without the support of faith and the company of peers, Nora, at that moment, tasted the terror of loneliness for the first time. To dispel the insanity-inducing loneliness, Nora wandered alone in the temple, moving through every room, meticulously cleaning every corner, arranging each believer’s dried corpse properly. Her half-dead, half-alive body did not feel fatigue, hunger, or sleepiness. Thus, she continued from one room to the next until she had traversed the entire temple. While cleaning the temple, Nora prayed incessantly, and even after cleaning all the rooms, she sat down in the core ritual room, continuing to pray to the Deity about her loneliness and vague fear of the future until the Power of Death within her was depleted, plunging her into a long sleep once again. However, just before she succumbed to the sleep, she faintly felt as if her prayers were weakly answered, though the response was so feeble that it seemed like an illusion she conjured in her haziness, leaving her with slight confusion as her consciousness returned to darkness.

When Nora awoke again three hundred years ago, she opened her dry eyes to find Herr and Darak, seated on either side of her. Although both appeared as dried corpses just like herself, as archbishops of Danacus, she knew them as well as she knew herself after hundreds of thousands of years together; thus, she recognized them instantly from their attire. Although there were disagreements in the past that marred their relationship, at that moment, a surge of ecstasy flowed in Nora’s heart. She was certain that before her recent slumber, she had not moved their bodies; logically, they should have still been lying quietly in their own rooms. The only possibility was that they too had revived and then moved to the ritual room. In an instant, loneliness and solitude fled from her, and even the dark temple seemed to brighten before her eyes. Nora fervently knelt before the Holy Image in the ritual room to thank the Deity for its protection, thus feeling even greater joy. The feelings she had before her millennia-long sleep were not an illusion; the Deity had truly responded to her call. Although the Deity’s response was still weak, compared to the illusion-like sensations thousands of years ago, the response was now much clearer.

Tears seemed to moisten her dry eyes as Nora, almost driven mad with joy, knelt before the Holy Image and began praying fervently all day and night, opening her soul to the Deity to draw strength from the deep-seated faith and prayers within her soul. Even though she knew she was alone and could not significantly aid the Deity’s recovery, she persisted in her prayers, unwilling to cease, finding solace in the act of praying rather than simply aiding the Deity. The frenzied prayer continued for countless days until a large hand placed on her shoulder. Turning her head, she saw Herr’s face, which was terrifyingly shriveled, yet to her, it was as dear and familiar as a family member’s. In that moment, Nora finally felt loneliness and isolation recede further from her; she stood up abruptly, about to say something, but a dizzy spell struck and she once again lost consciousness, having drained her spirit after months of continuous prayer at the moment she felt support.

When she awoke once more, Herr and Darak were sitting beside her, silently observing her. Nora stared back at them for a long time before suddenly falling to the ground and wailing loudly. Although no tears flowed, her mournful cries echoed long in the ritual room. Herr and Darak remained silent amidst her sobs, but their hands gently patted her back, offering silent comfort to the youngest archbishop. In that moment, three lonely souls wandering in the dark finally came together, sparing each other from pain.

Thereafter, Nora never felt loneliness or solitude again. Even though there were only three people in the Realm of the Dead, with the Deity’s responses and the company of her peers, it was as if she had returned to the world of the past, to a life once lived. Every day, she could see the faces of her companions—ugly, yet warmly familiar. For someone who had suffered in loneliness, this was a rare happiness indeed.

Next came the hundred-year long wait. The three originally believed that the devout followers in the temple would gradually awaken just like them, regaining their original consciousness. Thus, although their appearances were altered, everyone could return to the life they had thousands of years ago. However, they were disappointed. While the followers did become active again, they lost their original consciousness and merely retained some instincts from their lives. Although they still obeyed the three’s commands and prayed to the Deity every day, without self-awareness, they had completely become undead creatures, albeit slightly special ones. From the Deity’s gradually clarifying feedback, the three finally found the answer: those followers, due to the intense battles of the past, had their powers excessively extracted, resulting in their souls being merged with the Deity and unable to awaken again. Only the three Archbishops, having stronger Soul Power than the average follower, barely managed to preserve their own souls.

Although the three were disappointed, they were not in despair. With each other’s company, they would never despair, especially with hope for the future. As long as they could return to the Yarran World, as long as the Deity’s glory could once again shine upon the world, then the life of the past would return, and everything would gradually improve. Holding onto this belief, the three Archbishops, guided by the increasingly clear responses of the Deity, began to devise a plan to return to this world. Indeed, as the Deity’s responses became clearer, it signified that the Divine Soul associated with death was awakening. Correspondingly, in the world outside the temple, infinite skeletons were gradually reviving under the influence of the Grimreaper, and the Soul Power provided by the resurrected undead further accelerated the recovery of the Grimreaper. In this beneficial cycle, the will of the Deity was quickly and fully restored, though it had lost the Divine Body and could only exist in the form of a Divine Soul.

Through the will of the Deity, the three also found the reason for their awakening; it was precisely over three thousand years ago, that Morbis, who had betrayed Danacus and stolen the power of death during the War of Gods, had utterly fallen. The vacant authority over death then returned to Danacus, who retained only the last fragments of consciousness. If it were not for this, perhaps after a few more thousand years, the last consciousness of Danacus would have perished, and the three Archbishops would have died completely without ever waking up. However, the return of the power of death indirectly changed everything. The three slumbering Archbishops woke up one by one, and their prayers finally revived the Divine Soul which would have never awakened otherwise.

Also through the will of the Deity, the three somewhat understood everything that had happened outside. They knew of the extinction of their own kind, and of the changes in the world. To spread the truth of death anew, to revive the glory of the Deity, the three formed a plan and spent nearly a hundred years completing it. According to the plan, the three Archbishops, with the help of the Deity’s power, connected through the power of death, penetrated through the dreams of those few, though unresponsive, believers in Morbis who still adhered to the concept of death. Using the shared aspect of holding the power of death, they transformed some believers into followers of Danacus. After the first step was completed, under the remote command of the three Archbishops, these secret followers spent decades conducting numerous cruel sacrifices. Some sacrifices were discovered and thwarted, but owing to the long span of time, no one connected these sacrifices together, and most were successful. The power of the sacrifices accumulated and coordinated with the undead’s lingering instincts of nostalgia for their homeland world, gradually bridged the distance between the two worlds, and finally successfully breached the spatial barrier, creating Death’s Gate marked by countless tragedies and sacrifices, allowing a multitude of undead to return to the living world.

Centuries of memories flashed by, and Nora watched dumbly as Darak’s body gradually turned into dust and scattered; her face displayed no anger, but an indescribable strangeness.

"Finally, alone again," Nora carefully scooped up a pinch of dust and held it in her hand. Before her eyes, she once again saw the three of them, over the centuries, leaning on each other like family members in their loneliness. She stood motionless for a moment, and finally slowly closed her eyes and blew away the remaining ashes in her hand.