Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1115: Against Extinction

Serenity had held a different name then, as did her fellow sisters.

Void was the oldest, followed by Emmae and then Serenity.

The world they resided in was modest when it came to the degree of magic it adopted compared to even Aigas. There was barely anything astounding about its power structure, and of course, this drove the living things born from this world to strive to find ways to empower

it.

There were many factors that could have caused the wild desire to improve.

It fell on everyone like a sickness.

During that time, those who took it lightly called it the Frenzy.

Overpopulation.

Starvation.

Diminishing resources.

One or all of these might have been the cause for the sudden surge in the desire to break through the common and reach beyond what was unknown. Perhaps the unknown had abundance, and only those who didn\'t fear it would taste it. That was the sentiment then.

Each person on this world was determined to make the discovery of the century where magic was concerned. Even greater than such a local goal, some hoped to explore the world outside and traverse it, becoming the first to usher in a new age.

Serenity, Void and Emmae were also caught in the Frenzy as well.

They were close and unlike many, they shared ideas without holding each other back.

Also, unlike most others, the three were guided by something... someone whom they had known since they were very young.

Wyrrim, also known as the Voice of Worlds.

Because they came to know this entity when they were merely toddlers, the three never bothered to ask why Wyrrim only catered to them three. Perhaps having their own sort of \'magic\' that no one else had access to made them wary about asking too many questions.

They were special, and that was enough.

Wyrrim helped the three sisters whenever she could. She warned them about dangers when she could and protected them when she could.

She was loving and caring, far more than the three sisters\' biological parents who were rather irrelevant in their lives. Wyrrim made sure they were.

All the girls had to worry about in this world, was growing and improving. That was what Wyrrim constantly reminded them. The idea stuck, of course. The girls did as they were told. They grew confident and intelligent.

When the Frenzy occurred, they amassed their collective knowledge to look toward a path no one else was looking towards.

In their world, what was even more stunning than the crime rates, housing costs, inflation and so on, was the death rate. There were more reasons to die than otherwise. Many took the initiative to end their own lives, especially after the Frenzy inspired them towards a goal only for them to fail miserably or when couldn\'t find the resources to begin their research.

Others fell prey to the dark, more ambitious desires of others, and this, in no small degree, cut down the population of the world.

Quite morbidly, this \'purge\' was viewed as a positive to come out of the high levels of social evil by major authorities. There were many lives to sustain.

Serenity, Void and Emmae took to studying death and finding ways to make it an asset rather than the form in took as a dark, natural force that only devoured without giving back much.

The three spent sixty years developing their research and attempting it through the most moral paths they could find.

After many years, they had found the first signs of success. Positive projections.

However, it was then when an event that Wyrrim never warned them about came to pass, changing the course of their lives and trillions of others.

...

Serenity recalled all this, but she would never tell it to Replicus as it was.

It didn\'t really have anything to do with Null Life exclusively, after all.

However, the relation she told about her siblings shocked Replicus. He almost exclaimed loudly enough for Yuyui and Baddan to hear.

\'You have siblings?! Wait! Void... Void is related to that guy, Aurolio, right? And this Emmae...\' Replicus thought - to Serenity - and recalled the face off between Serenity and Somanda months ago.

Who had Somanda referred to again?

The Eminence of Undeath?

"Yes," Serenity confirmed Replicus\' thoughts. "Void created the power called Voided Death, Emmae, who now calls herself the Eminence of Undeath, created Undeath. We three formed different iterations of how a living thing could dodge the natural force that is death. At first, it wasn\'t a contest. It was simply... an experiment, but that changed wildly. Rapidly, in fact." Replicus didn\'t miss the tone of sadness in Serenity\'s voice. She didn\'t bother to hide it.

He didn\'t dare to interrupt her.

"Emmae was the first of us to actualise her interpretation of what could be haven from the permanent end that was death. She wanted to remove the \'extinction\' part of death, I should say. She didn\'t think it in itself was an evil. What she ended up creating, she called Undeath. But that wasn\'t the ideal name she wanted, nor was it the power she desired. Emmae wanted to create immortality. In her eyes, life was pure, but so was death. Her original idea laid in reverse engineering death to create a soft, pure version of permanence. However, this failed. Her research turned corrupted. It worked, but it was impure. The kind of power she attained was unfriendly to both life and death."

Replicus reeled.

One of his phantoms immediately began screaming.

"I remember this! This is exactly what the Voice of Worlds said when she introduced us to Null Life! Maintaining the purity in death? That\'s what this Emmae wanted. She wanted to create Null Life, but created Undeath instead! Right?"

Replicus shared the sentiments of the phantom.

He was actually right. That was how VOW said it back then.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.9).

Serenity continued.

"I took after Emmae\'s ideas. A state of permanence that was soft, or rather, serene and yet also pure caught my interest. However, if I followed the same methods Emmae used, I would have ended up creating Undeath too. So, I went about it differently. When we each began our research, we tempered with the lives of small creatures to test out our findings. I felt that perhaps this was where our mistake lied. To some degree, Undeath was... ordinary. It was this way because it was forced to co-exist with the death and life in a universe that had its own rules. That\'s why I created my own pocket in this universe - the Null Verse - bound by its own rules and terms and then began trying out many theories. I made many sacrifices to accomplish this, but it was all worth it in the end, though it also meant I couldn\'t bring out the creatures I made outside my universe - my treasure easily. Hmm. I remember Emmae got

a little jealous and tried to replicate it."

Replicus would have raised a brow if he could.

\'Deadmanland?\' he asked.

"Yes," Serenity said with a chuckle.

Replicus grimaced.

This all made a lot of sense, but it was hard to take in all at once.

These concepts that had been so broad that he didn\'t know if he would ever comprehend

them, seemed so... normal now.

Speaking of broad...

\'What about Void? How did she create her variation of powers?\'

Serenity once again took on a sombre tone.

"If Emmae could be described as a jealous and bossy sister, Void would be greedy one. She wasn\'t always like that, but she devolved into such a state when... She didn\'t know how else to interpret death. To avoid extinction. Thus, she decided to tap into the concept of abundance that everyone I knew all those lifetimes ago sought for. In abundance, there was vanity. When there\'s literal infinity, there tends to be less of a meaning to anything. In a way, too much of something, is simply emptiness, and in a way, that is a more devastating form of death. To escape the impermanence that came with extinction, void became an endless entity that couldn\'t be taken away or killed. You can say she truly is immortal. After all, she makes up the void all around us, all around each and every single world."