Just like how every effect had a cause, every conclusion had its own reasons too.

  Roel was excited when he saw his distant ancestors from over a thousand years ago through the eyes of Flooding Death, but he couldn’t accept the conclusion that Kaldor Arde had come to, especially when it had come out of nowhere.

  He figured that Flooding Death was probably sealed in a gemstone back in that segment of its memories, similar to Tempest Caller’s egg. The seal had greatly limited the information it could gather from its surroundings, which, in turn, also limited what he could learn from it.

  To be fair, he did agree with Kaldor’s conclusion to a large extent.

  While he didn’t have a clear idea of how powerful the Mother Goddess’ was, the Six Calamities was a glimpse of Her power. The downfall of countless civilizations over the course of history had shown that it was nigh impossible to curb the Six Calamities, let alone the Mother Goddess.

  In the first place, mortals weren’t born with the strength to oppose gods, not to mention a being that transcended the gods. Anyone with any semblance of common sense wouldn’t have made an enemy out of the Mother Goddess.

  Unfortunately, that was already a null option for Roel.

  He had eliminated three of the Six Calamities and assimilated them as his Crown’s Stones, making it impossible for them to reconcile anymore. The Mother Goddess had bared Her hostility toward him on multiple occasions, suggesting that he was already on Her hit list.

  Furthermore, according to the prophecy made by the Tripartite Alliance, the awakening of the Mother Goddess and Savior would destroy the entire world. That was an outcome that they had to prevent at all costs.

  That being said, Roel harbored some doubts regarding what ‘Collector’ Kaldor Arde said.

  Kaldor had crossed paths with the Six Calamities on numerous occasions just like Roel, but the difference between them lay in the fact that Kaldor had the Twilight Sages Assembly behind him.

  It was worth nothing that the Twilight Sages Assembly was an exceedingly powerful organization back in the Second Epoch, wielding a tremendous amount of resources. It was even able to reinforce the Chaos Dream to seal off the Savior, albeit with Astrid’s sacrifice.

  This made Roel wonder just what could have led Kaldor to come to the conclusion he did.

  His intuition told him that the answer to the question would change how he looked at the Mother Goddess and the Six Calamities, but it was a pity he wasn’t granted the relief of a convenient answer. Kaldor didn’t elaborate on this to the very end… or it might be more exact to say that Flooding Death had no memories of that.

  This was disappointing to Roel, but nevertheless, he was able to come up with conjectures of his own. Looking at the frowning Charlotte, he wrapped his hands around his warm teacup and shared his thoughts.

  “The first possibility is that it’s impossible for us to stand up against the Mother Goddess, likely due to the vast gap in our strength. The Mother Goddess was a dominant existence that ruled over everything back in the ancient era, towering above the gods. It’s doubtful if Origin Level 1 Race Sovereigns stands a chance against her at all.”


  “That’s plausible. What about the second possibility?” said Charlotte.

  “The second possibility is that there might be a compelling reason why we shouldn’t go against the Mother Goddess.”


  “This…”


  Charlotte was perplexed to hear Roel’s second conjecture. She spent a brief moment in thought before posing questions of her own.

  “Darling, didn’t you say so yourself that a conflict with the Mother Goddess is inevitable? If your earlier deductions hold true, the rest of the Six Calamities will be constantly after our lives regardless of our will. It has never been our choice whether to take this fight or not.”


  “Indeed. That’s why I’m also confused by Kaldor’s words… but now that I think about it, not going against the Mother Goddess doesn’t necessarily mean getting on friendly terms with Her,” Roel muttered contemplatively.

  “You’re saying that…”


  “It’s possible for two hostile parties to grudgingly join hands to deal with a common enemy, like say… the Savior.”


  Those words sent Charlotte into deep thought.

  It was true that Roel and the Six Calamities had deep grudges between them, having fought on several occasions, but from a historical perspective, the one whom the Ascarts harbored greater enmity for was instead the Savior.

  The mastermind behind the Ardes’ downfall back in the Second Epoch was none other than the Savior’s worshipers. Even to this day, the Fallens were still keeping a close eye on the Ascarts, keeping them in check while awaiting for the final key they needed to release the Savior’s seal.

  Thinking about this put Roel in a forlorn mood.

  He could still remember how powerful and affluent the Ardes had been, based on what he had seen from Veronica Arde’s memories. Yet, all of it faded away as if sandcastles before the tides of time. All that was left in the once glorious Kingmaker Clan was just Carter and him.

  Even from the perspective of humankind as a whole, their greatest empire and most prosperous era had been unraveled by the Savior’s worshipers back in the Second Epoch. The current humankind was a mere shadow of its past self, still struggling to recover to its previous glory.

  On top of that, based on what Roel had gathered thus far, the invasion of the deviants was deeply linked to the awakening of the Savior. That was a major threat for humankind that had been ongoing for centuries, and it could potentially lead to their extinction.

  Even if the Six Calamities were destined to unleash an apocalypse, the Savior had most definitely caused greater devastation to humankind up to this point. If Roel had to point out the greater evil here, the Savior was definitely leading in the race.

  “We know with a high degree of certainty that the Mother Goddess and the Savior are hostile to each other. There are records of that in the archives, and the Ardes probably knew about them much more than we do.

  “No matter how powerful the Ardes were, there was no way they could deal with the Savior and the Mother Goddess simultaneously . It might be a good strategy for them to seek an implicit alliance with the Mother Goddess and focus their efforts on getting rid on the more dangerous Savior first,” Roel analyzed.

  This was the most persuasive reasoning he could think of other than the first possibility, but Charlotte disagreed with him.

  “My apologies, darling, but I can’t agree with your second conjecture.”


  “Charlotte?”


  “I do agree that the Savior poses a greater threat to humankind in the short run, but if we look at the longer term, the Six Calamities are the ones who have been destroying entire civilizations throughout history. They are the greater threat here, and the many destroyed civilizations in history can bear testimony to that.

  “We also can’t overlook the possibility that the Mother Goddess and the Savior are keeping each other in check here. If you kill the Savior, it might enable the Six Calamities to do as they please. Besides, you said so yourself… those ancient monsters are targeting our child,” Charlotte replied firmly.

  “…”


  Roel fell silent.

  Charlotte Sorofya, as the successor to the Sorofya House and the Rosa Merchant Confederacy, was one of the leaders of humankind. She harbored deeply enmity toward both the deviants and the Savior for the suffering that they had brought upon her people.

  But above that, she was a woman and a future mother.

  No mother in the world could tolerate harm befalling their child, and it was the same for her too. She wouldn’t take a single step back on this matter.

  Regardless of whether the Savior and the Mother Goddess were keeping each other in check or not, they were both ticking time bombs that needed to be dealt with as soon as possible before they destroyed humankind. It went without saying that it would be easier to deal with one rather than two, and the Mother Goddess seemed to be the lesser evil at the moment.

  However, as long as the Six Calamities posed a threat to her child, Charlotte would view the Mother Goddess as a mortal nemesis that had to be eliminated as soon as possible.

  This divergence in viewpoints meant that Roel would have to make a choice here.