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Taking a deep breath, the smile on Astraea's face blossomed even brighter, and she felt a little flustered in her heart.
"Returning to the heroic age... the key is the immortal spirit!"
"The Immortal Spirit is the incarnation of God. It destroyed Orario and sent the gods back to heaven. The gods passed away and the era of adventurers has come to an end!"
"Where's the fairy spirit?"
"When the gods are sent back to heaven by humans, will they definitely differentiate into immortal clones again? Will they naturally transition back to the heroic age?"
"If we anger the gods and don't differentiate the immortal spirits, what can Alfia and the others do?"
"If the gods were really so harmless that they wouldn't get angry even if they were beaten, there wouldn't be any agreement at all. The gods would have gone down to the mortal world to wipe out the monsters in the dungeon long ago. Why would they seal their divine power down to the mortal world?"
Astraea concluded: "The evil deeds that Alfia and others committed to destroy Orario were to serve as stepping stones for you and give you experience!"
Astraea sighed. Her child still hadn't reacted yet...
The truth is at hand - knowing clearly that Alfia was expecting a hero who could surpass her to defeat the Black Dragon, and knowing that if no heroes surpassed her, she would plan to destroy Orario and bring the world back to the Age of Heroes, but not realizing that Alfia had been letting her go from the very beginning, holding back time and time again, giving the new generation the opportunity to surpass her.
Astraea was also present at the time and saw clearly that when Alfia stated the reason for her fighting during the battle, Riveria, who was present, sensed something was wrong and seemed to hold back in the subsequent battle.
Riveria didn't believe it at the time, but she just thought that it might be a tactic from Alfia that she should hold back, so she only held back a little bit of her strength to ensure that if this was a tactic from Alfia, she could immediately burst out with all her strength to rescue Astralia's newcomers and Ais who was present.
But after Alfia's death, Riveria compared the battle process in his mind and probably guessed the truth immediately.
Astraea didn't know what expression to show since her own child was unable to realize the truth that was so close to her.
Liu opened his mouth, feeling a little confused.
No, she was beaten up by Alfia and dissed + pua by Erebus. Now you tell me that Alfia was testing her on purpose to give her experience?
——Wait a minute?
Liu noticed something was wrong and quickly asked, "Then, where is Erebus?"
"It's just as you thought." Astraea said faintly, "Play the role of a necessary evil, destroy Orario yourself, wait for a hero who can surpass you, and use your own evil as a stepping stone for a new generation of heroes."
"Ryu, when you faced the questioning of the Evil God, you got your own answer."
“Justice is circling.”
“Justice is fragile and perishable, but the living will bear the weight of their predecessors. Even if justice is destroyed, there must be something in it that can be passed on to future generations.”
“It will be passed down from generation to generation, and it will continue in a cycle from generation to generation. Even if it is not satisfactory, even if it is not you who achieves justice, one day, the world will achieve the so-called justice.”
"But now, you haven't seen the other half that the evil god read from your words."
“…Justice is cyclical, but the cornerstone of justice in the eyes of later generations is not only the justice of the past, but also the necessary evil.”
“Before reaching the ideal, justice and evil are just stepping stones in the process.”
"For his own ideals, the evil god is willing to become a stepping stone for the new generation of heroes."
"But Liu, you don't seem to have this awareness."
Astraea sighed and said, "Ryu, do you remember what I said to you when I left Orario?"
Liu Nannan said: "...throw away 'justice'!"
Liu still remembers this sentence, but he never understands its meaning.
Did Lady Astraea feel that she was no longer worthy of being her Familiar? No longer worthy of bearing the name of justice?
——Ryu felt this in his heart, but he didn’t think Astraea was such a heartless person, and he was torn between these feelings for several years.
Astraea was also at a loss whether to laugh or cry.
At that time, he and Liu were probably having a cross-server conversation.
"…I mean, with the blood of innocent people on your hands, you can no longer convince yourself that you are righteous."
"If you can't uphold justice from the process to the result, then you might as well throw off the shackles of so-called justice."
“It is not to act with justice as an end, but to act for the sake of justice.”
"It doesn't matter if the blood of innocent people is stained on my hands in the process. If justice is to be passed on, the process will definitely not be all bright."
"Even if it is evil, necessary evil will become the cornerstone of justice."
"This is the answer you came up with, Leon!"
Astraea sighed.
She felt that there was no need to remind Leon at that time. Two years before she left Orario, Liu had figured out the answer to what justice was. She believed that justice would be passed down from generation to generation.
As long as he realized that Alfia had let him win, Liu would be able to guess Erebus's true intentions and the meaning of her words "giving up justice".
It's not about asking Liu to give up justice, but about asking Liu to give up upholding justice and giving up insisting on red tape. As long as the correct result can be achieved, it doesn't matter if a few mistakes are made in the process.
——Since innocent people have been killed indiscriminately, Liu will never be too serious about it. He will keep a close eye on even the slightest violation of the process.
Even if Liu didn't realize that Alfia was letting him off, as long as she realized that she was exiled because she took the blame for Liu, Liu would never think that she thought Liu was not worthy of being her family member at that time.
But Liu has been struggling with this for several years.
It was a coincidence that seemed like a joke of fate, and...Freya's fake best friend protected Liu, so she couldn't find a chance to explain to Liu!
Now, she really wanted to take the sword of justice and stab Freya a few times.
Among the things she wanted to do when she returned to Orario this time, stabbing Freya a few times ranked third.
Astraea took a deep breath.
The top two include dealing with Ryu's inner problems, and -
Astraea looked at Su Qing and said, "Sir... this is the answer I gave to Liu, and it is also my own answer."
"I am not obsessed with justice. Even if it is a necessary evil, I can still do it."
"This kind of answer..."
"Are you satisfied?"
Chapter 41
Astraea felt a little uneasy.
As the goddess of justice, she chose to stick to the path of justice no matter what.
If justice is divided into process justice and outcome justice, then Astralia is the type who insists on process justice.
It's not that she wants to do this, but that she can only do this. It's a multiple-choice question.
With all the rotten gods in heaven, how could she, a mere goddess of justice, insist on justice?
Just as Hestia, the guardian of the family, became a shut-in after developing schizophrenia, Hestia is incapable of choosing a family that protects the lives of the upper world, and Astraea is incapable of upholding justice in the upper world.
Hestia herself suffered from schizophrenia, and created a personality named Vesta to carry that side of her. She hid in the temple and ignored worldly affairs.
As the god of travel, Hermes changed his goal to creating a world without gods to hinder his travel because there was no place worth traveling in the heavens, and joined Uranus' plan.
Relatively speaking, Astraea is much luckier.
Justice is inherently subjective.
If she is a goddess who holds justice, then naturally she must have both process justice and outcome justice, only then can she be considered healthy. But if this is not possible, then it is not a bad idea to take one or the other.
If you see evil and injustice and have no way to uphold justice, then at least you should keep yourself out of it, make sure you never get involved in it, and make sure that your actions do not contain any trace of shadow.
When the evil god harms others, if she has the ability to stop it, she will stop it. If she doesn't have the ability, then there is nothing she can do. She can only comfort the victim or make up for the victim as much as possible... just do her part.
Astraea has always done this.
Or perhaps, this is Astraea's sorrow. Giving up completely like Hestia, or changing her goal like Hermes, although the process is very difficult and painful, it may not be a relief after making up her mind.
But Astraea's justice can be maintained as long as she continues to endure the guilt and pain.
Sometimes, just being able to hold on can actually be a torture.
After all, Astraea is a god, she is also an eternal and immortal being accompanying the heaven - this is also her sorrow, even if she wants to die for justice, she does not have the ability to do so.
She is obviously the goddess of justice, but when Astraea really talks about the so-called justice, she feels that she can argue a few words, but she is very confused in her heart.
The justice she upholds is not the justice she wants to recognize, but the only justice she can choose.
So much so that when she returned to Orario this time and learned some inside information from Uranus, she did not hesitate at all.
When she learned of Su Qing's existence, her first thought was that she must seize this opportunity at all costs.
What kind of person is the goddess of justice if she can’t decide what is justice?
A goddess of justice who can only take care of herself and is powerless in the face of evil and injustice? A goddess of justice who sees evil gods oppressing others but has no way to enforce justice and can only let the relatives and friends of the dead and injured mourn?
It would be better for you to die in the beginning and not be born into this world!
In Astraea's family, Liu is the darling of the entire family because Liu is extremely persistent in justice, just like Astraea once was.
When facing Erebus, Liu was deceived and Astraea could only say that it would be better if he was beaten by reality a few more times.
After being slapped in the face by reality once or twice, a hundred or two hundred times, after hundreds of millions of years, she has become the same as she is now. While adhering to the ideal called justice in her heart, she recognizes the cruel boundaries of reality.
Sometimes, Astraea envied the humans in the underworld. It wasn't just her, probably Erebus too.
The lives of humans in the underworld are short and fleeting, and because of this, they can maintain their pure ideals.
When faced with Erebus' question "What is justice?", Liu finally gave the answer "Justice is in a cycle", and Erebus and Astraea, who were standing by at the time, were very pleased.
Justice is short-lived and fragile, but despite its fragility, that little flame can be passed down from generation to generation and will never dissipate. A person's justice may deteriorate, but the flame passed down from generation to generation is the purest.
Perhaps one day, the ideal of upholding justice in one’s heart will no longer flicker, but there will definitely be new people who still uphold this ideal.
But despite being relieved, Astraea and Erebus felt deeply helpless in their hearts.
Liu's answer is not applicable to gods.
The gods are eternal.
If you can sacrifice yourself for justice, it will not be a bad ending for the goddess of justice.
If the evil god who intended to destroy the underworld finally died at the hands of a hero and became a stepping stone for the hero, then Erebus would surely be very pleased.