Chapter 823 — Three Stages

Hedy, Kamael, and the others received their work assignments for the near term and soon left the study. The vast room fell quiet, until only Gao Yang remained seated behind the desk, with Verodai/Ophelia standing before it.

Amber was present as well, of course, though since she had long since dissolved into the air, she could be left out of the count.

Gao Yang glanced up at Verodai, who held the platinum scepter, and gave a calm nod. "Regarding this 'Upper Narrator,' there are a few questions we might discuss. Have a seat."

Verodai nodded and settled into a high-backed chair beside the desk, speaking softly as she did. "Your operation this time has provided us with a valuable reference example—this should be the first time we have ever come into such direct, such close contact with a deity, and a deity in a rational state at that."

Gao Yang said gravely, "Strictly speaking, there are still differences between Him and the gods of the real world. We cannot yet be certain whether the Upper Narrator gestated within the sandbox world is sufficiently 'complete,' and He has undergone the complex processes of madness, death, and division—it is hard to say what changes may have occurred to Him along the way."

"But as a reference, He is sufficient," Verodai said. "At the very least, we can analyze from Him many of the 'traits' peculiar to deities."

"Such as... the purity of divinity, and its responsiveness to mortal currents of thought," Gao Yang said slowly. "The Upper Narrator is composed of two parts, divinity and humanity. The human part appears radical, chaotic, emotionally charged, and insufficiently rational, yet at the same time more clever and cunning; the divine part is far simpler. I could sense that He holds an unconditional protection and regard for His people, and that He will act to satisfy the collective currents of His believers—moreover, in a certain sense, His human part also acts to satisfy the believers' currents of thought, only by different means."

As he spoke, Gao Yang's brows gradually knit. "This confirms a conjecture I held earlier: all deities, regardless of whether they ultimately turn mad and harmful, act in their early stages out of a purpose of protecting mortals..."

"The Defiers have never denied that possibility; we even believe that right up to the final moment of madness, a deity will retain, in certain respects, the instinct to protect mortals," Verodai said evenly. "There is abundant evidence of the shelter the gods have given the mortal world. In humanity's primitive era, the existence of the gods even allowed the fragile mortals of that time to survive countless catastrophes. The madness and degeneration of the gods is a gradual process—and after this operation against the 'Upper Narrator,' I am all the more certain of it."

As she spoke, Verodai lowered her head slightly, resting her fingertips lightly against her chin, as though pondering, as though marshaling her words. "We may regard the 'Upper Narrator' as a deity of an earlier stage—in the early period of His birth, the relatively pure currents of thought endowed Him with a purer divinity. This is the stage closest to the gods' 'essence.' The gods of the real world, by contrast, stand at a later stage. According to our observation records from those years, the gods of the real world have already entered a highly chaotic and bigoted state, and this condition will clearly only continue to worsen..."

"We might divide the gods into several stages on this basis," Gao Yang said, musing. "The deities first born from mortal currents of thought are pure individuals produced by relatively intense psychic projections. They usually arise from a comparatively singular emotion or desire—fear of death, reverence for nature, and so on. These are the 'primordial gods,' and the Upper Narrator stands at this stage.

"Once born, a deity is ceaselessly subjected to the influence of mortal currents of thought, and as that influence grows more enduring, the deity becomes mixed with too many 'impurities,' growing ever more chaotic and ever more prone to madness. This is likely the longest stage in a deity's entire 'life cycle'—the 'stage of the polluted god.'

"In the final period, the pollution reaches its peak, and the deity is utterly transformed into a chaotic, maddened existence. When all reason has been extinguished by those chaotic currents of thought, the deity enters its final stage—the very stage the Defiers strive with all their might to oppose: the 'mad god.'"

As Gao Yang's words fell, Verodai gave a slight nod. "Judging by the traits the Upper Narrator displayed, your method of division should be correct."

"...So it is not only that divinity pollutes humanity, but that humanity pollutes divinity as well," Gao Yang said with a soft sigh. "We have always held that the gods' mental contamination is the earliest and most powerful contamination, yet we overlooked that the vast multitudes of mortals exert an equally tremendous influence upon the gods...

"The complexity and divergence of mortals have caused the gods to slide ceaselessly toward madness from the very moment of their birth. The gods who shelter all things were 'created' by mortals themselves, and the 'mad gods' who will ultimately destroy the world were likewise made by mortals themselves."

"Such is the nature of this world," Verodai said quietly. This Defier, who had lived more than a thousand years, spoke in a placid tone, and in her eyes—beautiful as carved crystal—there was only a machine-like calm. "Neither just nor partial; it merely has a set of rules, and all of us—gods included—must operate within them. The only thing worth mocking, perhaps, is that we 'Defiers' are a pack of mortals who refuse to obediently die according to the rules—and refusing to die is, perhaps, the greatest defiance of this world."

Gao Yang was silent for a few seconds, then shook his head with a sigh. "...Survival is the instinct of all living things; morality is confined to the boundaries between groups. In a sense, both humans and gods are pitiful creatures."

Just then, Amber's voice came from the air nearby. "But why must humanity inevitably pollute divinity? If mortals are complex and chaotic, weren't the mortals at the dawn of the gods' birth the same?"

Gao Yang glanced to the side and casually plucked Amber out of the air. Beside him, Verodai spoke. "Because we have never stopped developing. Our kind grows ever larger and ever more complex—not only materially, but in thought as well.

"The ancients who first gestated the 'gods' may have simply revered certain natural phenomena; their greatest wish may have been nothing more than to eat their fill and stay warm, to live to see the next day. But what of us today? How many kinds of desires do mortals have, how many expectations and impulses regarding the future? And all of these point toward that deity who originally existed only to protect people's food and warmth..."

Listening to Verodai, Amber could not help but slowly furrow her brow.

"That sounds like a dead knot... unless we never develop at all, never even let the population change, and keep our thoughts unchanged for a thousand years, we can avoid producing 'mad gods'... but how could that be possible?"

"It is indeed a closed loop," Gao Yang said mildly. "That is precisely why we must find a way to break it. Whether it is the All-Ending Society attempting to create a deity wholly governed by humanity, or the Sleepers attempting to sever the 'pollution link' between humans and gods by breaking the mind's steel seal, both are attempts to break this closed loop—only... neither of their paths has succeeded."

Amber suddenly looked up at Gao Yang. "Will there be another path?"

Gao Yang looked into those bright eyes and slowly smiled. "Where there's a will, there's a way. A path will always exist."

"I hope it's found soon," Amber pouted, muttering under her breath. "Good for people, good for gods..."