Chapter 1043 - 19: The Beginning and the Origin

Chapter 1043: Chapter 19: The Beginning and the Origin

Jiu Ye hung on the tree swaying in the wild wind, pierced by a long spear...

Offering himself as a sacrifice, on the unknown great tree...

——"Poetic Edda"

...

In the distant past of the Nordic World, there once existed a Spring of Wisdom.

It was located in the realm of the Giants, also known as Jotunheim, beside the second root of the World Tree Yggdrasil, guarded by Mimir, thus named.

In the circumstance where none of the gods dared to approach, the king of the Aesir Race sacrificed his right eye, connecting himself to Mimir’s Spring because that eye was immersed in the waters of wisdom. Hence, it was equivalent to exchanging sacrifice for incomparable wisdom and insight, allowing the king to glimpse all fate and ancient knowledge.

Then...

This Great God King thus came to know a tremendous secret.

This secret made the Celestial Empress Frigga feel extremely anxious, becoming silent and withdrawn, sitting all day before the spinning wheel weaving mysterious golden threads. This secret also caused the God King to worry greatly, striving to delay that day’s arrival, tirelessly searching for the hope to resist fate.

The God King spared no effort in enhancing his own power. Through Mimir’s Spring and the single eye immersed there, the wisdom and insight he gained was almost infinite, being the All-Seeing one who penetrates all things, thus not only events that had happened or are to happen could be grasped...

Even things that had never happened in the past and would not appear in the future, he could still know.

Thus.

Through a mysterious prophecy unrecorded by time, unknown when it occurred—

Odin perceived the existence of cosmic secrets unknown, unrecognized, and incomprehensible even to the deities... yet truly powerful knowledge usually requires sacrifice to obtain, especially knowledge which even the Divine Spirits should not touch, often is the case.

Unable to find an offering...

For there were no offerings in the Nine Realms that met such specifications, not even Divine Spirits...

Only the God King himself suffered the spear wound, proclaiming in the name of himself, offering himself as the sacrifice, and using the World Tree as the horse, riding atop the cosmos... Thus after a nine-day nine-night ritual, nearly sacrificing both the King of the Gods and the foundation of the entire Northern Europe world together, was the requirement fulfilled.

However...

Fate is not by chance, but by choice.

————

The tri-colored Rainbow Bridge of ice, fire, and atmosphere spans the void.

The fierce wind relentlessly blows upon the World Tree; this is a storm so strong it sweeps through the expansive void, like thunder resonating for eternity, a nearly endless, never ceasing tempest.

Yet relative to Yggdrasil, whose leaves are Forever green, whose branches bear the weight of the universe, whose roots penetrate the whole world— for this great and magnificent ash tree that sprouted in the "past," flourished in the "present," and extended into the infinite "future."

It is just considered a swaying in the wild wind.

The vast and unending wind rustles the World Tree, its lush branches sheltering like a canopy, sweeping up wave after wave. In every crevice among the branches and buds hides infinity within infinity, whenever a corner of the leaf is slightly lifted by the wind, countless stars and the universe are always revealed.

——It’s that dream again...

——As if it’s some sort of lament, yet also a simple fleeting thought...

An invisible ghost quietly watches this scene from afar, watching everything develop, yet without feeling or awareness, as if thoughts and feelings have vanished, losing the concept of "self," after all, merely an invisible, spectral existence, thus simply existing aimlessly here.

From an absolute observer’s perspective, witnessing and hearing the events happening here.

Or perhaps, events that once happened...

Just watching repeatedly, only watching...

Again and again, again and again, this monotonous and tedious dream repeats endlessly in the cycle of reincarnation. It’s like dreaming in a daze, repeating the same dream over and over, dreaming about the same things.

The prophetic ghost is a god without responsibility, knowing everything but doing nothing.

Neither hopeful nor expectant, having no opinion.

Such unchanging cycle, until now, how many times has it repeated? For this question he has no answer, not because he does not know, but because he has not calculated, perhaps thinking there is no need. Because no matter how many times, he neither finds it interesting nor finds it boring.

Just as he has no desire to explore why he is here.

Ah, since all meanings are nonexistent, merely "existing" is sufficient.

So... the invisible ghost not belonging to this time and space just quietly watches the "story" unfold again.

The wild wind roars, and the Great God hanging upside down on the tree has clearly become weakened, blood flows from the glowing wound on the Divine Body, with the shining Divinity still contained within, as if it’s about to illuminate the heavens and earth, twisting light and time.

Though now it has dimmed, it still burns hotter and shines brighter than a million Suns combined.