"Wait, my lord, I am sorry. What is this armistice? I have never heard of such a thing from the Production Guilds," Cynthia interjected.


    Yvonne also expressed her doubts. "I am also clueless about this Patron."


    I noticed that neither Connie nor Lucrecia expressed theirck of understanding.


    ''Truly, being able to leverage a Specter''s information made all the difference.''


    "In a nutshell, the Revenants believe that the world will end when the number of Reapers exceeds a certain threshold. Formless, to be exact. That is why the battlefronts not only strictly regte the number of Reapers, but also makes sure that none of the Formless can evolve," I exined.


    "What? THAT''s why the rogues were massacred?" "But why? Wouldn''t that ensure that Hellsgate would eventually fall?"


    As Cynthia and Yvonne expressed their confusion, it was Connie and Lucrecia who answered.


    "There was nothing to exin why the number of reapers had to be regted. All the records said was that the survival of humanity depended on it. And since all seven Revenants followed the order, everyone just epted it as truth," Lucrecia exined with a frown.


    "Zach never explicitly said why, but he mentioned on numerous asions that it was the lesser of two evils."N?v(el)B\\jnn


    Inwardly, I agreed with Yvonne and Cynthia. The two conflicting truths had a missing link. If the Reapers were so outnumbered, why did everyone deliberately limit their numbers by removing both rogues and ves from the official count?


    ''What did "official" even mean in this context?''


    "Anyway, when my lord became the individual who broke the armistice, the restrictions on the Formless and the total reaper poption were unofficially lifted. So while you would not be forced to pay the soul offering, please be weary that it will have an effect in the future."


    "Please don''t waste any more time on this, Phillip, what''s done is done. I may have been the one David used to break the armistice, but my concerns remain with closing Hellsgate and protecting my people."


    The monocled bastard nodded in agreement as he pulled out a tablet and began to fiddle with it. He then handed it to me as it disyed a certain image. Phillip prepared a pen and paper right after.


    Depiction of Man.jpg


    It showed a circle with threeyers. The outermostyer had thebel body. The 2nd or middleyer had soul while the innermostyer had spirit.


    Memorizing the image, I passed the tablet to the others while waiting for Phillip to continue.


    "Now for the 2nd requirement, which was the ability to purify the malice of thousands of people. I must first exin what it means to purify malice. The diagram before you is taken from the Abrahamic religions. It ismonly known as the depiction of man."


    Phillip then pushed up his sses as he drew the same symbol on a sheet of paper.


    "This picture is merely an attempt to exin what man is. Unconsciously, people have approached the truth as they have pondered this question over the years. Or it could have been something IRIS deliberately taught to the world, like other religions."


    After Phillip drew the image, he wrote the word man on a separate piece of paper.


    "Now, many people have often found themselves at a loss in defining what a man is. What constituted one. Was it his form? His mind? Or his will? Each definition was met with criticism.


    If it was form, are the handicapped and amputees no longer human?


    "If it was his mind, are mentally retarded people ssified as aliens? If it was will, then shouldn''t insects and animals with wills be ssified as human? It was a slippery slope because the opposite of these ideas were also valid."


    Phillip began to write down the definitions he was debunking. I found it annoying at first, as it seemed like a long lecture, but I was slowly drawn in.


    "If you built a human body out of silicon and metal, was it human? If logical thinking or a sound mind was our definition, then shouldn''t artificial intelligence be ssified as such? For reapers specifically, by what definition do we consider the undead to be no longer human?"


    As the monocled bastard went on, I found myself agreeing with most of what he said. Exa in particr would have found this topic relevant. As touched on the line between man and machine.


    "In the end, the only answer that made the most sense to the humans was this one. Surprisingly, it matched the beliefs of other religions to an rming degree, almost as if it were a universal truth."


    The other girls with me were all focused on Phillip''s words; he had a special talent for exiningplex issues. He could probably pass for a teacher or professor if he wanted to.


    "Which brings us back to this diagram. ording to it, a human being is only a human being if he has threeponents. Body, his form. Soul, the person''s human ego. And spirit, the life force thates from earth or heaven or whatever you believe in.


    "A body without soul and spirit is a corpse. A body with only soul and no spirit is aatose patient on life support. While a body with spirit but no soul is a vegetable, technically alive but is nonresponsive."


    Phillip''s words made my hair stand on end. As if I was about to learn something I shouldn''t.


    "Now, the nextbinations are only in Hellsgate, but they still fit that exnation pretty well. A dead body without a soul but with a spirit is a zombie. A human form with a soul but no spirit is either a golem or a sentient undead or something simr. Finally, a spirit with a soul but has no body would be a ghost."


    A ghost. A Wraith. Phantom. Specter. Revenant. A spirit with only a soul.


    But without a body. Something without reflection. Was this what we were?


    "Next, how does this rte to us? What we call souls, that we use as currency is more appropriately called soul energy which is the same thing as spirit. This energy is derived from the lives of other living beings, both human and monster. On the other hand, our true "souls" in this case is our soulgem."


    "I see, that is why when our soulgem is broken, our bodies behave like puppets whose strings have been cut. They are basically bodies with spirit but no soul," Imented in understanding.


    "Correct. Since the soul serves as an intermediary between the soul energy or "spirit" and the body, our "soul" or soulgem are what link them together. Reapers in particr have tangible souls in the form of soulgems. Now for the important part. The parts that make up a person are also separated into their characteristics between these parts."


    "What are you saying, Phillip?"


    "The body is physical, you hit it and the flesh bruises. The mind is in the soul, your memories, your fears, your will are all controlled by thisyer."


    The monocled bastard then stopped his exnations.


    "What? What about the spirit then?"


    "Well, this is a bit difficult to exin. An example would be when your heart hurts when you feel sadness, yet your body doesn''t really feel pain. Your heart is perfectly normal, although you may have problems with your pulse going faster. What is really happening is that your spirit is hurting.


    "Simply put, our heart is what controls the spirit. Your emotions, your desires, your trauma and your regrets. These feelings transcend your soul and are passed on to those who absorb your spirit when you die."


    "And that is the true nature of malice," I murmured in passing.


    "Correct, malice are the intense desires or strong emotions that could not be fulfilled by the soul. They are like stains etched on a piece of cloth. If they are not scrubbed, they remain and spread like mud to everything else. Whoever takes in the spirit must endure the malice lest he be consumed by it."


    Then I remembered the time I went on a rampage when my soul copsed.


    ''I see. My soul, which controlled my ego, was overpowered by my heart. The malice of the soul energy I had collected affected me to the point that my ability to maintain order copsed. That is why the event was called a soul copse.''


    "Now for the important part. The Revenants of each continent serve as the hubs for all the malice in their battlefronts."


    "What?"


    Fucking hell, I think this was one of those times where I needed to sit down.