Description[]
In Swallowed Star the concept of death is complex but simple at the same time. The basic gist of this concept is that a being's Soul is its center and as long as the soul remains a being is considered alive. Novel puts death into two categories "Body Death" and "True Death", but we can also add "Deep Sleep" to the list:
- Deep Sleep
- Body Death
- True Death
Deep Sleep[]
Deep Sleep (generally described as 陷入沉睡, Xiànrù chénshuì, Lit. Falling into a deep sleep) is a physical and mental condition where a being is alive but has no idea of being alive. Beings fall into a Deep Sleep due to extensive damage to their souls. Immortals fall into this state if they lose enough of their Divine Body, since the Divine Body is a fusion of their body and their soul. As a result, True Gods do not fall into a Deep Sleep even after receiving heavy damage to their Divine Body, since their body and soul are no longer fused. Since True Gods and higher can be killed or enslaved via soul techniques, one would imagine they could also be forced into a Deep Sleep through soul techniques.
In the Deep Sleep state beings cannot control their physical bodies, energy, or mental state. Therefore they are vulnerable to all sorts of attacks, a common attack being Soul Enslaving (or similar techniques), where a being without their will is forced to become the Soul Slave of the attacker. King Heavy Arrow became Luo Feng's Soul Slave by being forced into Deep Sleep and then getting attacked by Soul Enslaving. Both Hong and Lei Shen fell into Deep Sleep after their battle in Golden Horned Beast Earth Incident due to burning their souls to perform their ultimate attacks. After Luo Feng was recognized by the Star Tower as its master, the extreme fatigue on his soul from the inheritance process caused Luo Feng to fall into deep sleep for 9 years.
Consequences of Deep Sleep:
- One can naturally recover from Deep Sleep after a few days, months, or years.
- One can spend resources and speed the recovery process of the body, soul, and mind. This is how Luo Feng quickly forced the recovery process of King Heavy Arrow.
- Or one can fall into a state of decay and eventually resulting in True Death.
Body Death[]
Luo Feng's Earthling Body Death
This type of death occurs when a living being's body has died but his or her soul still remains. Both Luo Feng and Xu Xin experienced a Body Death and not a True Death during Golden Horned Beast Incident. There are two ways a being can experience a Body Death and not True Death:
- If a being has other bodies or clones and their Soul is still alive then no matter how many times their bodies die they are still considered as alive. Luo Feng bodies die multiple times during the Novel but he is always considered as alive, because it was only the death of a body and not a Soul. Soul can remain outside the body but it is vulnerable, if there is no body remaining or there is no means of producing a clone then a body takeover (Possession or similar technique) is used to get new body.
- If a being has Eternal Love then upon Body Death, it will resurrect the owner with a new Eternal Body. Xu Xin was resurrected by Eternal Love because only her body had died and not her Soul.
True Death[]
True Death is as the name implies, it is an actual death where both Body (including clones) and Soul die. Eternal Love will not resurrect a being who has experienced True Death and the only way to come back from True Death is through Time and Space Reversal. Soul Attack or attack on one's soul (Soul Seal or similar techniques) will affect all the bodies therefore immediately resulting in one's True Death if they don't have defense (Tower of the Void or similar technique) against Soul Attack.
Self-Destruction[]
Self-Destruction (自爆) is a method of True Death typically taken to either avoid being turned into a Soul Slave or by a Soul Slave attempting to finish a final mission at whatever cost. Depending on the lifeform, self-destruction can be performed by those below Immortal (it is said that Kabu self-destructed[1]), but it is typically used by Immortal and stronger beings.
When an Immortal self-destructs, all of their Immortal Energy is detonated at once. With the difficulty of training to Immortal, even a low level Immortal contains energy comparable to a star, meaning their self-destruction is akin to a supernova[2]! As Immortals get stronger, their self-destruction is even more terrifying, as after reaching the level of Immortal Body, they can self-destruct in a way that allows regeneration from a single cell[3]. If an Immortal of that level decided to use the true self-destruction, resulting in their death, the power will be extraordinary, over 1,000 times the strength of their attack, allowing them to, in death, damage those much stronger than themselves[4].
The strength of an Immortal's self-destruction is determined by the state of their Divine Body; if the body has been weakened, then their self-destruction will also be weakened[5].