Chapter 201: The Golden Scriptures (2)

Ravian continued staring at the dark-gray flame above his finger, lost in a quiet daze.

’It’s beautiful.’

That was the only thought passing through Ravian’s mind at that moment.

This success might have appeared simple, but to Ravian, it was the greatest achievement he had accomplished since arriving in this world.

For once, he had not obtained something from Sovereign Pride by fulfilling a set of conditions or completing one of those other easy tasks. And yes, compared with what he had done this time, Ravian considered all of those things easy.

He had read and researched, practiced and analyzed, and failed.

Then he had done it again, and again, and again, until he finally succeeded.

This was what true victory felt like to Ravian. He had no desire to obtain everything through sheer force alone; only fools thought that way. The knowledge he had acquired here, combined with the technique formed from everything he had read during the previous few hours, was more valuable to him than even his ascension to the Ninth Rank.

He would no longer be lacking essential information whenever he moved among nobles or dealt with anyone else.

He now knew what he could ask about, what he could reveal, and what he needed to conceal because it might bring him trouble.

One of the things he was glad he had never revealed was his element.

The Void.

Ravian had found references to every conceivable kind of element—common, rare, unique, legendary, and nearly anything else one could imagine. Yet among all of them, he had not found a single mention of anything called the Void Element.

Let alone the Void Element and Void Aura together, he had not even discovered any record of someone possessing an element with remotely similar properties.

Nothing else possessed the same ability to erase, or even anything resembling it.

It was fortunate that he had never revealed it to anyone.

There was also something else Ravian had finally discovered after searching for it for a long time, and what he read had left him completely stunned.

The Sin Taboos.

The Seven Deadly Sins, as the people of this world called them, were the opposites of the Seven Saviors.

The Seven Sins were as follows:

Arrogance

Greed

Envy

Desire

Wrath

Sloth

Gluttony

...?

Did something not seem wrong here?

Ravian’s first thought had been much the same.

Arrogance was mentioned, but Pride was not.

Ravian had always assumed that Sovereign Pride was connected to a Taboo called the Taboo of Pride, or something similar. That assumption had weakened after he encountered the Taboo of Arrogance, from whom he had obtained the Mask of Loftiness, but he had never been entirely certain because he had already noticed that the fourteen Taboos of this world did not correspond perfectly to the Seven Heavenly Virtues and Seven Deadly Sins once famous on Earth.

However, after reading everything the archive contained concerning the fourteen Taboos without finding even the faintest mention of Pride, Ravian had begun to grow genuinely suspicious.

Even now, Ravian could separate Sovereign Pride from himself.

Yes. Somehow, he could do so while in his spiritual form. He had sensed that possibility ever since he attempted to scout the border fortress in that form, and he had been certain from that moment onward that Sovereign Pride could be separated from him.

He also knew that Sovereign Pride was not a sentient entity, something he had confirmed through several different tests since arriving in this world.

Had Ravian noticed even the slightest sign that it possessed an independent consciousness, he would have detached it from his soul long ago. However, he was certain that it was not truly conscious. Its function more closely resembled that of a tour guide.

It existed, but only to guide him through the field in which it possessed expertise, and it could neither interfere nor assist him with anything beyond that purpose.

The clearest example was what had happened with the Taboo of Truth in the capital, specifically inside the tavern.

Ravian had truly been on the verge of death, and Sovereign Pride would have perished along with his soul. The System had known that. It had known that Ravian needed to kill himself, and it had also known that, in his condition at the time, Ravian was incapable of doing so.

What had it done?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

There had been nothing within its power except to advise Ravian and urgently tell him what he needed to do.

And what if Ravian had been unable to follow those instructions?

They would simply have perished together at the hands of that Taboo.

That had been Ravian’s final test for confirming that the System possessed no true consciousness. Had it possessed an independent will, it would have killed Ravian as a "precautionary measure" the moment the danger became unavoidable, or done something similar.

However, such an action would have been completely unrealistic for an entity that had described itself merely as an assistant responsible for explaining the path of ascension, would it not?

But... if Sovereign Pride had no origin connected to any of the fourteen Taboos, if no Sin of Pride existed in this world, and if nothing called Sovereign appeared anywhere in the historical records...

Then where the hell had "Sovereign Pride" come from?

And what had the Taboo of Truth meant when it called Sovereign Pride the Nightmare of the Taboos?

Were there other beings whose power rivaled that of the Taboos? Was anyone else capable of standing against them?

If so, where were they? Why did the records contain neither a single mention of them nor even a warning about their existence?

There was only one possible answer.

Nothing equal to the Taboos currently existed. If such beings had existed in the past, then they were either gone now or had fallen so completely that every trace of them had been erased, even from the history books.

After thinking for a long time without reaching any clear or useful conclusion, Ravian decided to investigate something else entirely—something that had become extremely important to him now.

The Golden Scriptures.