Antilene Heran Fouche

Zesshi Zetsumei (絶死絶命) lit. Certain Death is the current holder of the Extra Seat in the Slane Theocracy's Black Scripture. She is also highly implied to be the illegitimate child of the Elf King of the Elf Country and the Scripture's former ace.

Appearance
Zesshi Zetsumei is a woman with heterochromia, for both her eyes and hair. One side of her hair is silver, while the other half is black. Moreover, the skin tone of Zesshi's body is apparently pale white. Though she looks fairly young to the point of looking like a teenage girl, her current appearance does not actually match up with her current age. As such her looks have presumably not changed or aged for a long time.

Personality
It seems that Zesshi is bored with everything, as there is no one who can barely stand a chance against her. In spite of that, she was implied to have been a bit hopeful of facing eventual defeat one day by someone stronger than her through combat. In particular, Zesshi wanted it to be that kind of individual who she can potentially mate with if such chances are actually possible regardless of their looks or personality or even Race, expressing genuine giddiness and excitement at the prospect and possibility of how powerful their children could be if she indeed mated with such a man. Crazy and overly excited about that sort of idea, Zesshi yearns for a very strong guy who can help the former genetically conceived a powerful child that shared both of their respective bloodlines and genetics combined.

At the same time, she hardly ever bears emotion or sadness for the death of someone from the same side. According to the Captain of the Black Scripture, Zesshi's attitude was similar to asking about something unrelated to her. For him, this type of attitude fits right in with the style of Zesshi. As well as usually ignoring an important announcement from the Cardinal Conference, like the circumstances of her own group.

Due to the circumstances of her birth, she seems to be ashamed of her elven heritage and would constantly hide her ears. Zesshi didn't like it when others such as the Captain of the Black Scripture looked at her ears. Nevertheless, she is hardly filled with either curiosity or joy on any specific subject until mentioning a potential candidate for doing battle with. It was the urge to fight that spurred her to have such blood-lust emotions excitingly.

Other than her blood-lust and desire for battle, the only other times Zesshi has shown strong emotion is when things regarding her mother arise. As it was implied by the Six Cardinals, Zesshi felt genuine love for her Mother and cherished her deeply enough to feel immense anger, hatred and contempt for her father the Elf King who violated her. Having already known her mother's fate for a long while, she insisted the higher ups of the Slane Theocracy to start a war of retribution against the Elf Country to avenge her. This goes to show that Zesshi is indeed capable of developing genuine feelings of love and attachment to someone despite her generally bloodthirsty and bored disposition.

Background
Zesshi was supposedly described to have been born into the New World by a human woman who was once regarded as the Slane Theocracy's previous trump card and strongest God-kin. Prior to Zesshi's birth, the Cardinals stated that her mother was kidnapped by the Elf King of the Elf Country, who later then raped her to the point of pregnancy. Eventually, Zesshi's mother was then rescued by the Black Scripture, but by that time they came to her aid, she was already pregnant with his child. In a way, she is technically considered to be a bastard child that was brought to life incidentally as a result of an illegitimate relationship between a female human and a male elf.

Ever since Zesshi's birth and at her own urging to the Cardinals, a war of retribution has been waged against the elves for what their King did to her mother. As a half-elf, she dislikes the mere thought of people especially her fellow Black Scripture members looking at her ears, but for unknown reasons why. It had been hinted from the Cardinals' discussion that they didn’t think it was a good idea to snatch Zesshi away from her mother’s side. Among the Cardinals, one of them thought it was a mistake done on their part at some point in the past to have raised her with that sort of personality. However, some partly thought the blame also lied with the "barbaric" elves of the forest who had a nasty influence in her upbringing. Compared to her father who wants to rape powerful women and have them give birth to an army of his own potent children, Zesshi harbors the desire of getting defeated for the first time in a duel since she had never once lost in any battle before so far in her life. Through this, she sees the end justifies the mean for being able to finally find a special someone who is not only above her in level and strength, but also acknowledged the kind of man as a potential husband. In short, she wants to have a baby child with the victor that bested her face-to-face in direct combat.

As the Extra Seat in the Black Scripture, she was given the sole task of guarding the Treasury within the Slane Theocracy as her way of life. It was wherein which the Six Great Gods' sacred items are supposedly preserved in secrecy. In other words, her main job was to focus on safely protecting that sanctuary, a place that even held their five holy equipment. Although Zesshi is willing to fulfill her duty at home, she still yearns to go outside and look to challenge potential foes who're likely more powerful than the former, strong enough to outmatch and impregnate her. On that note, Zesshi even holds a certain degree of political influence over the minds of several Cardinals to pull them into going to war with the elves. It was believed by the Cardinals that Zesshi remain restless and unease of not getting the opportunity to take revenge for what happened to her mother.

The Dark Warrior Arc
Clementine described to Khajiit how it is impossible to steal items belonging to the Six Great Gods as long as it is guarded by the strongest monster of the Black Scripture (Zesshi Zetsumei). She states that Zesshi is the strongest among members of the Black Scripture. Though Khajiit doubted that God-kin's might, she reaffirmed her statement again that Zesshi is not a person bound by humanity's ideal strength.

Moreover, information about Zesshi is kept a hidden secret to only a very few who know about it and that being the Slane Theocracy's higher-ups or high ranking members of the Black Scripture. Clementine considered a scenario where that if some unknown individual who knew about Zesshi was interrogated with mind-affecting magic, the situation wouldn't look good for the Theocracy. For instance, Clementine heard that it will lead to total war with the surviving True Dragon Lords, which means the Theocracy would accidentally get destroyed in the crossfire.

During her brief clashes with Momon, Clementine ranked his superhuman physical abilities to those of the two God-kins like Zesshi as a comparison between the three.

The Lizard Man Heroes Arc
Zesshi is playing with a Rubik's Cube and asked the Captain of the Black Scripture about the powerful undead that the Black Scripture encountered. She guesses that the vampire's identity might be one of the Dragon Lords, like Vampiric Dragon Lord or Elder Coffin Dragon Lord who they must have fought. He awkwardly responded back, stating that these Dragon Lords are already destroyed. However, she refuted his idea about the said Dragon Lords being dead and said it is close to impossible as they're part of the undead and could possibly be alive even now.

Additionally, Zesshi later questions him on which one of the two between her and the vampire is more powerful and that it is her spoken by the Captain of the Black Scripture. Hearing his answer of her being the stronger of the two, she instantly loses her interest in regard to the vampire, believing that the undead may stand no chance against her in a battle. Later, she would engage in a discussion with him concerning his marriage and the rules that follow. For instance, the Captain's future spouse will be forced to stay in the Theocracy indefinitely.

The Ruler of Conspiracy Arc
When a Cardinal thought of calling for a ceasefire with the Elf Country, another one of them rejected that idea after all the sacrifices they have done to get this far. The Cardinal didn't want the fighting to stop as they didn't fully exact their revenge for Zesshi or her mother yet. Worried about Zesshi's well-being, the unknown Cardinal stated that she was always in the same room near their conference area. Among the Cardinals, there was one who was hoping to give Zesshi the chance to seek vengeance for her mother.

To some extent, another Cardinal happens to agree with that notion, so she may finally be at ease once her revenge is carried out successfully. One of the Cardinals then started laying blames about how their predecessors raised Zesshi in life. However, a different Cardinal thinks that fault also lies with the Elves as well as not having Zesshi be kept by her mother's side. Additionally, they decided not to deploy Zesshi to fight against the Elf Country in fear of retaliation by the Platinum Dragon Lord.

The Craftsman of Dwarf Arc
The Elf King proclaimed Zesshi to be his child by birthright exclusive to him. He always believed that the Slane Theocracy must respectfully hand over his daughter back to him ever since the day Zesshi had been born. After his country falls to ruin, he considered the idea of invading the Theocracy in person with the intention of reclaiming the lost child who was stolen from him by them. He went on to justify his aggressive action, noting that his interracial child shared the bloodline of himself and the Theocracy's previous ace. Realizing how potentially powerful Zesshi can become than his other offspring, he plans in producing and using an army of children such as her to encompass the New World under his rule.

The Half Wood Elf God-kin Arc
and The Half Wood Elf God-kin II Arc

Abilities and Powers
As the strongest Extra Seat within the Black Scripture, Zesshi is considered to be extremely powerful in the New World and was an interracial child born from almost impossible odds. Also, she has the blood of the Six Great Gods running in her veins. However, as the Captain have once done battle against Zesshi and Shalltear before, he believes that her pure strength alone is inferior in contrast to the vampire's if fought one on one. Still, the Captain of the Black Scripture predicted that Zesshi could defeat Shalltear (unequipped) in various ways. This includes him supporting Zesshi in battle, her owning the equipment of the Six Great Gods, and many other items at their disposal.

In one of Maruyama's tweets, he acknowledged that Zesshi is stronger than Lupusregina Beta, one of the Pleiades when asked a question about it.

According to Clementine, it was stated that Ainz's superhuman physical abilities (without the use of 'Perfect Warrior' spell) were second only to Zesshi's and the Captain of the Black Scripture. Clementine sees someone like Zesshi as the strongest monster in the Black Scripture. She refers to Zesshi as being an "ancient beast" that's beyond the realm of humanity and stronger than the idea of strength. It was to the point where even the higher-ups kept Zesshi's abilities confidential to a very few in their country who knows about the extent of it. The only ones who might know something about her true strength so far is the Captain of the Black Scripture, and Clementine. Additionally, her talent is counted among the top ten strongest across the continent.

Main Equipment

 * Cross-Shaped War Scythe: It was shown to be stationed beside its owner Zesshi. The war scythe looks almost like a polearm. Nonetheless, her war scythe is most likely considered to be a weapon once under the possession of the Six Great Gods.

Captain of the Black Scripture
According to the Captain, he considers Zesshi to be the "Guardian of Mankind." She apparently knows about the Captain's situation and would offer reminders concerning the conditions when marrying his spouses.

Black Scripture
As seen during her interaction with the 1st Seat, Zesshi is shown to possess little to no emotional connection/attachment or a sense of empathy for her teammates despite being in the same Scripture and working together for the Slane Theocracy and cares very little if they die or not during battle. So far Zesshi has only shown that she only truly pays attention to them when hearing if one of them is defeated or killed during battle fighting a powerful opponent due to the potential prospect of her fighting against the said opponent who defeated them to satiate her starved craving for a good battle and the prospect of finding a worthy mate for herself.

Her teammates in turn, such as Clementine and the Captain, are shown to be actively wary and even outright fearful of her due to her immense power and unpredictable personality and try to avoid her as much as possible if it can be helped.

Elf King
Seemingly, Zesshi appears to despise her father for what he did to her mother. Since both she and her dad are elves, he may have partly been the reason why Zesshi has a dislike for her elven traits inherited from him. With this much hostility held against him, she went as far as to convince the Theocracy's Cardinals in helping her get vengeance on the Elf King. While she was never given the time in carrying out her revenge, the Theocracy decides it was justly right of them to fight a war of retribution over the Elf Country on her behalf. They believed that Zesshi's heart won't be at ease as long as her father is still alive and well. However, it was made apparently clear among the Cardinals that they are planning to someday give Zesshi an opportunity to do what she really wants. This meant that she will eventually get the chance to avenge her mother at some point in the coming future.

Unnamed Mother
Zesshi's exact relationship with her biological mother is unknown due to the circumstances of her birth and her having been snatched away from her by the Theocracy's higher-ups at the time. However, it can be assumed that Zesshi cherished or at least greatly respected her. This was even based off her actions of persuading the Theocracy to start a war of retribution on the Elf Country against the Elf King. Her motivation and revenge for wanting to kill the Elf King stems from how her mother was treated by him. Nonetheless, it can be noted that the ones who raised Zesshi this way had also purposefully raised her to develop a vicious/vengeful personality. As such, this may have been a factor in how she grew up to hate and loath the Elf King. Before being taken away by the Cardinals, she used to be by her mother's side as a child.

Six Cardinals
During her early childhood, Zesshi was stated to have been snatched away from her mother's side by a previous generation of Cardinals in order to raise and nurture her themselves. They train and develop her potential abilities and powers as a God-kin for the Theocracy's military, effectively taking over as parental figures to her while growing up.

Under the previous generation's guidance, it was noted by the current generation of Cardinals that they had done a terrible job raising Zesshi due to her resulting difficult personality. Due to how their predecessors developed Zesshi's current mind set and personality, it made the current generation come to grow somewhat sympathetic towards her. It was said that the previous generation of Cardinals had raised her to be vicious, vengeful and somewhat childish based on the circumstances of how she came to be that then ended up negatively affecting her mentality on herself. It ended up causing the current generation feeling actively frustrated on Zesshi's situation that has only made their attempt to hold her back from leaving Theocracy to carry out her revenge all the more difficult due to the previous generation's actions of raising her up to have a difficult to manage mindset.

As a result of Zesshi's nature and what she was groomed to become over the course of her lifetime, the current generation are now responsible for looking after her in their predecessors' stead. However, the current generation of Cardinals have already plan to take care of Zesshi in a positive way differently than what their predecessors had negatively done to influence her in the past. Nevertheless, the current generation are left in a difficult position as they are now having to deal with Zesshi's troublesome personality. This made them ponder that if their predecessors should have instead left her by her mother's side little bit longer to make her develop a better personality.

Zesshi's exact relationship with the current Cardinals are unknown, but due to her appearance it was noted that they had a tendency to still treat her as a child despite her chronologically being older than them. Zesshi in turn is shown to still more or less follow their orders without issue and they in turn they put much care in handling her and giving in to her demands. As she is their "Ace," they did everything to appease her and keep her in a good sense of mind. For that reason, they gave in to Zesshi's demands to go to war against the Elf Country to get retribution for her mother against the Elf King. They dislike the idea of offering a temporary ceasefire with the Elf Country as Zesshi would likely not take lightly to it. If not for the Cardinals' wariness of Platinum Dragon Lord, they would have considered allowing Zesshi to be dispatched to the Elf Country and killed her father.

Trivia

 * Unlike the Web Novel where she does not exist, the author Maruyama considered Zesshi to be a new character made for the light novel only.
 * Her Epithet means "End of Death, End of Life."
 * Her name "Zesshi Zetsumei" is also the Japanese pronunciation of her Epithet and not her real name.
 * The author expressed her as "Overlord of the New World." She might be one of the most powerful natives alongside Platinum Dragon Lord in the New World.
 * The author said that when Zesshi is present, there are five ’Godly Equipments [hashira no soubi], but when that girl is not around, there are only 4 Godly Equipments. There is a possibility that the sacred items are unified with her, or Zesshi Zetsumei is wearing a God's full equipment herself.
 * Despite Zesshi being much older than the higher-ups, the Cardinals still happen to treat her as a child because of her appearance.
 * The Mass for the Dead game has featured her with the ability to both use time stop and dark and light attribute attacks. Whether this is true in the main light novel is not yet confirmed.
 * Ironically enough, despite her intense hatred for her father, the Elf King, Zesshi has displayed the same obsession with him in finding a male more powerful than her to mate with and create powerful children with.

Quotes

 * (To the Captain of the Black Scripture about the Rubik's Cube): "It's quite easy to get one side, but it's really hard to get two, right?"
 * (To the Captain of the Black Scripture): "So it's 'Thousand Wall Shield' and 'Divine Chain'. The 'Earth Miko Princess' died from a mysterious explosion recently, and the Black Scripture lost two more good men...what a disaster. Who is the heavily injured?"
 * (To the Captain of the Black Scripture): "What a pity, I thought I had a chance to taste defeat."
 * (To the Captain of the Black Scripture): "After the marriage, your partner will be detained within the Theocracy... but don't worry, she can still raise a child."
 * (To the Captain of the Black Scripture): "That's true. Ah, it would be better to tell your prospective wife that you need to marry multiple wives. There is no problem in the eyes of the law, but there are people who dislike polygamy despite being educated about it."
 * (To the Captain of the Black Scripture): "Well, if there is a man who can defeat me, we could get married. Even if he is ugly and had a twisted personality...It doesn't even matter if he is not human if that man could defeat me. How strong would our child be?"

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Zesshi Zetsumei