Chapter 1558: Chapter 285: Protogenoi

Accompanying the sound of the coffin opening, both the girl and Boss Luo simultaneously looked towards the Princess… The girl’s gaze seemed to carry a hint of helplessness—perhaps due to the Princess’s current initiative.

Boss Luo, on the other hand, felt more intrigued… If possible, he hoped everyone he encountered would treat him equally.

“What is this!” It wasn’t just a simple question; there was a trace of terror embedded within the inquiry… Terror about the contents inside the coffin—the Princess suddenly raised her head, looking towards the mysterious girl, “A mummified corpse?”

Upon hearing the word “mummified corpse,” Boss Luo, whose curiosity had increased exponentially this past year, became instantly interested, his pace quickening slightly.

He approached the coffin, looking down, and within this huge coffin lay a dried, brown corpse—indeed a mummified corpse, but not the kind commonly spread across the world as a mummy.

Inside the coffin, the corpse’s hands and feet were securely nailed to the coffin boards… No one knew how much time had passed, yet these few nails still shone as bright as if they were new.

The corpse’s mouth was open, its face even distorted, imaginable the immense pain it endured before death—it might have been nailed alive into the coffin.

It was an unimaginable horror.

Because the faintly visible features on the mummy’s face… That expression of pain and distortion seemed, through a thousand years or even longer, to allow a direct view of its original fear, anger, and resentment. Even someone as strong as the Princess couldn’t help but reveal a trace of shock.

“Naturally, it’s a mummified corpse.” The girl suddenly sat on the edge of the coffin, looked down and softly said, “Yamana, with your knowledge, wouldn’t you recognize this as a mummified corpse?”

“Of course, I know it’s a mummified corpse!” the Princess coldly responded, “I’m asking whose mummified corpse is this?!”

The girl raised her head, a sly glint flashing in her eyes, “Yamana, you know that the Balance can separate good and evil… So, do you know what happens to the good and evil aspects if the entity being separated by the Balance dies?”

“This is my mother’s entity?” The Princess suddenly stepped forward, her gaze cold as if wanting to devour someone.

“Take a guess.” The girl blinked, “If you guess correctly, I’ll tell you… Oh, the so-called Divine Artifact in your hand doesn’t work on me. Such toys are only barely effective against ordinary people.”

The Princess felt she was about to go insane—she thought she had touched everything, but things were unraveling layer by layer, yet also emerging layer by layer, as if endless—everything occurring today seemed more than what she had experienced throughout her life!

“What exactly do you want?” The Princess deeply inhaled, “What purpose do you have in bringing me here!”

The girl slightly shook her head, then looked at Boss Luo by the coffin, suddenly saying, “Do you still want to hear the story we were just discussing?”

“Of course.” Boss Luo didn’t hesitate at all.

That unquestioning, absolutely certain attitude inexplicably made the Princess feel a sense of envy.

The girl was still sitting at the edge of the coffin, her feet gently swinging, “A long, long time ago… Hmm, doesn’t this opening sound like a mother telling bedtime stories to her daughter?”

Seems like a very lively personality.

“Stories usually start this way.” Boss Luo chuckled, “I, personally, like openings like this.”

The girl curiously asked, “Why?”

Boss Luo casually replied, “That way, I would think the story will have an ending.”

“Strange fellow.” The girl shook her head, “Well… In a long, long time ago, the Sun God Ra among the Nine Pillar Gods had two daughters, the Goddess of Truth, and the Goddess of Justice…”

The story had just begun, not even a couple of sentences in when the Princess couldn’t help but frown, “Truth and Justice Goddesses are Maat! Sun God Ra only had one daughter! What is this story!”

The girl looked at the Princess and somehow conjured a small wooden mallet from somewhere, directly knocking it on the Princess’s forehead… Despite the Princess’s martial skills, she couldn’t dodge it, letting the mallet hit her head.

“You!”

“You shouldn’t interrupt when listening to others’ stories!” The girl stood with her hands on her hips, bending over from the coffin’s edge, looking at the Princess like a female lioness, “Look at this gentleman here, how polite! You should learn from him!”

This mother-teaching-daughter tone made the Princess furrow her brow… But she knew she probably couldn’t handle this mysterious girl, so she could only suppress her anger, pondering counteraction strategies.

“Hmph!” The girl snorted, “Don’t think reading a few more years in the outside world means you know everything! Do you know how many times the outside world’s history has been distorted?”

Saying this, seemingly intentionally or unintentionally, the girl cast a glance at Boss Luo.

Speaking of distorting history, Boss Luo suddenly recalled he was also not entirely clean in this regard, so he didn’t blame the prior round; instead, he simply maintained… decorum, offering a smile.

“Finally, the carefully nurtured mood is nearly gone!” The girl sighed deeply, shook her head, sat back down, cleared her throat, and continued, “The Goddess of Justice was born first… Though only slightly earlier than the Goddess of Truth. However, the Sun God Ra favored the later-born Goddess of Truth more, extending all his love and care to this goddess who represented truth. She almost received the love of all gods and earthly living creatures, but she couldn’t gain the affection of a single mortal. What mortals cherished was the sister who was born slightly before her, the Goddess of Justice.”

As she spoke, the girl suddenly glanced at the twisted face of the mummy in the coffin, “Unable to earn this mortal man’s love, the Goddess of Truth fell into an obsessive state she couldn’t comprehend herself; an emotion named envy began to blossom in this goddess representing truth’s heart, and simultaneously, the conflict between the Goddess of Truth and the Goddess of Justice continuously accumulated… Let’s guess again, who is inside this coffin? The Goddess of Justice, or the Goddess of Truth?”

The Princess frowned. This time, she guessed – just to quickly make this peculiar girl finish her story, she mused, “The Goddess of Truth, perhaps.”

The girl giggled, then said, “The Goddess of Truth, unable to quell the jealousy in her heart, attacked the Goddess of Justice, only to be countered and trapped in a coffin… and that’s the end of the story!”

This left the Princess momentarily stunned… She opened her mouth, instinctively frowned, “Is… the Goddess of Justice?”

The girl giggled again, “Out of jealousy towards the Goddess of Justice, the Goddess of Truth ambushed her in the cruelest way… and that’s the end of the story!”

“You… better stop this nonsense!” That was probably the limit of the Princess’s patience… but no matter how fierce she might appear, it seemed impossible to make this girl behave seriously.

As expected, the girl pitifully said, “Yamana is the most impatient. Women like you won’t get married! I’m really worried as a mother, you know?”

The Princess slowly released a breath… She quietly moved away from the coffin and began tapping on the walls of the underground chamber where the coffin was placed.

The girl asked curiously, “What are you doing?”

“Looking for something,” the Princess replied without turning her head. “I’m not interested in listening to your nonsense… I want to find what I’m looking for. If I can’t, I won’t waste my time here.”

The girl blinked, “If you don’t listen to the story till the end, what you’re looking for won’t appear.”

“What do you want me to do?” the Princess asked indifferently.

The girl suddenly beckoned the Princess over… The Princess hesitated for a moment, but eventually walked silently to the girl’s side.

This time, the mysterious girl didn’t pick up the mallet, but gently rubbed the Princess’s head, “Be good, Yamana. Remember, don’t interrupt the story! Otherwise, Mama won’t tell you stories anymore.”

The Princess bit her tongue, trying hard to hold back, as if she might explode at any moment.

Just as the Princess was about to explode, the mysterious girl said leisurely, “In fact, it’s not like the fairy tale where the envious Goddess of Truth plotted against the Goddess of Justice and ended up reaping what she sowed. The Goddess of Justice lived happily ever after with a mortal… The Goddess of Truth easily dealt with the Goddess of Justice and punished the insolent mortal man.”

The Princess snorted lightly, as if not resisting such an outcome — the Goddess of Truth was beloved by many, while the Goddess of Justice was not favored by the Sun God. It was too simple for the Goddess of Truth to plot against her.

A good hand like this, if the Goddess of Truth could play it poorly, it only showed her lack of intelligence.

“So, that’s how there are both the Goddess of Justice and the Goddess of Truth,” Boss Luo said out of nowhere.

The mysterious girl responded with a nonchalant nod, “Gods can die, but their functions must not be lost. The Goddess of Justice was just an accident. From the beginning, it was clear that Justice and Truth should be the same… Maat.”

“What was the punishment?” Boss Luo asked again.

The mysterious girl said calmly, “As you can see, the Goddess of Justice is pinned inside this coffin. These nails were actually made by the Goddess of Truth, using the bones of that mortal man forged with Divine Power. This way, the mortal and the Goddess of Justice can be together forever… Are you starting to fear women, sir?”

Boss Luo simply shook his head.

The Princess coldly smiled at this moment, “Using the bones of a lover to forge a weapon that pins yourself, indeed, for two in love, it’s the cruelest punishment… In legend, the dead had to weigh their sins against Maat’s feather on the Balance, but surely there are few whose hearts would be lighter than Maat’s feather.”

The mysterious girl, as if she hadn’t heard, continued, “Many years later, a man named Xie Jiatu, who had lost everything in the fires of war, stumbled upon this tomb. He not only acquired the Scale of Good and Evil, touched a part of the body of the Lord of the Desert, Seth, from the Balance, but also opened the coffin that entombed the Goddess of Justice. This man always wanted to fully master the Power of the Balance… so he had a mad idea: to create a vitreous container.”

The Princess suddenly sighed in relief; since it was the Goddess of Justice inside the coffin, it meant it wasn’t her mother’s true body… this was probably a rare source of comfort at the moment.

“But no matter how many times, he failed.” The mysterious girl suddenly sighed, “How could mortals grasp the power of the Gods? Not to mention, he was also influenced by the lingering Will of Seth, gradually losing himself… Eventually, a more insane idea than creating a vitreous container was born — Xie Jiatu planned to resurrect the Goddess of Justice.”

“He failed?” the Princess glanced at the corpse inside the coffin… the answer seemed obvious.

“He didn’t fail, because even he didn’t know if he could succeed, so how could it be called a failure?” the mysterious girl smiled, “This plan hasn’t stopped… look, am I not standing right in front of you, Yamana?”

“You…” The Princess abruptly was taken aback, instinctively saying, “You’re one of the dualities of the Goddess of Justice? Impossible! The Balance doesn’t have the power to divide the dead!”

“Of course, the Balance can’t divide the dead… but what if it’s a living person?” the mysterious girl whispered, “Outside, there is a civilization fundamentally different from Divine Power… Xie Jiatu, he successfully extracted a substance called genes from the corpse, and through this substance, he successfully brought a female infant into this world. And then, that female infant, was probably me.”

The Princess couldn’t help but rub her forehead, trying to comprehend this unbelievable situation — the Goddess of Justice, having died as a God, but eventually having her genetic fragments extracted, born through cloning technology.

From theology to science… such vastly different fields, yet…

“If Gods can be cloned through biological methods, then what is left of Godhood?” The Princess suddenly raised her head, “Wait… the body of a God?”

“Yes, Gods used to be humans,” the girl said while touching the Princess’s head, “Or rather, they were just humans who developed earlier than modern humans. I call them… Protogenoi.”