Chapter 963 — Echoes

"Do you like an eternity cradle such as this?"

Gaoyang suddenly thought of the young dragon that had just woken from its hatching sac, and of the cheerful cry it had made at him; he thought of those "inferior citizens" in the lower city who had already grown muddled on boosters and hallucinogens, reduced wholly to nutrients for the gods; he thought of that dazed, frenzied arena, of the dragons slaughtering one another there... a dozen or so cold steel machines locked in combat, with brains and nerve ganglia strapped to them, drowned in booster-induced hallucinations.

These dragons were indeed still alive—but Tarrond was already dead.

"How terrible," he said suddenly, softly. "Life and death alike, without value."

Then he paused, and asked again: "Can the eternity cradle be broken?"

"It would come at a great cost," the Dragon God said quietly, "and the odds of success are vanishingly slim—in the end, this cradle itself is already the price of failure, and the laws of nature are never forgiving toward the failed. Any species—even the mighty dragons—can scarcely afford the right to fail twice."

At this, He lifted His eyes suddenly, settling them on Gaoyang's face: "So. Do you wish to help Tarrond break this 'eternity cradle'?"

"Me?" Gaoyang pointed at himself and could not help laughing. "Where would I get the ability for that?"

"You could destroy it with a single command," the Dragon God said with a faint smile. "So why not suppose that you also have the power to break the 'cradle' of this continent?"

It seemed a joke, yet Gaoyang could not help but consider it seriously. After a few seconds of thought, he still shook his head: "No. Not at least for now."

"Why?" The Dragon God showed a flicker of curiosity. "Did you not find this cradle terrible?"

"I am not the dragon race's savior—there has never been any savior," Gaoyang said earnestly. "And as you said, breaking the eternity cradle would come at a great cost—I can imagine what those costs are, and I can imagine who would pay them. No one has the right to sacrifice what belongs to others to satisfy their own drama of 'salvation,' so I have no right to decide for the dragons either, no right to choose on their behalf whether to sacrifice or merely survive.

"So whether they sink into the eternity cradle and rot, or rise up and strike a blow to seek a future for their whole species—that is the dragons' own affair. It should be they themselves who decide, who choose whether to pay that price.

"Cecil does not meddle in other nations' internal affairs—that is my rule."

Gaoyang finished laying out his thoughts, yet the god before him looked him up and down with an odd expression for several seconds before speaking, half-smiling: "Hearing those words from the mouth of one the human world universally calls a 'hero' is truly remarkable. I had thought you had already cast yourself as the human world's 'savior,' but it seems that is not the case."

Gaoyang spread his hands: "I haven't saved anyone. All of us are saving ourselves."

"...You seem to have wholly taken yourself as one of humanity, as one of this world—wanderer from beyond the realm," the Dragon God said, watching Gaoyang with some curiosity. "And now I find myself curious—in your homeland, do people face the same difficulties as they do in this world? For instance... when you confront vast social upheaval, when your social groups must undergo enormous shifts in thought, when your faith is tested, when you too must abandon tradition and dogma and face a transformed environment... how do you deal with all of it?

"Ah, or perhaps I should first confirm—do you also have races, societies, faiths, and nations?"

"Of course we have concepts like society and nation," Gaoyang said with a smile, though soon a more complicated emotion crept into it. "And of course we face those... 'challenges' you mentioned. To be honest, when the people of my homeland confront shifts in tradition, reality, faith, and thought, they too experience turmoil and unease, and the whole process of change is often painful and dangerous. But unlike this world—those traditions are only traditions, and people's ways of thinking are only ways of thinking. They do exert enormous constraint, but... they do not become any 'entity' with real power to intimidate, nor do they generate 'forces' that transcend reality."

At this point Gaoyang suddenly realized that things which seemed only natural to an Earthling might well sound inconceivable in this world—perhaps even beyond the understanding of a god like Enya. He had to weigh his words carefully as he explained further: "A simple example—when a race that has lived in the deep mountains for generations, who revere the mountain as a god, decides to move out of the mountains, they need only face the opposition of the elders in their clan. They need not worry that the mountain god will actually rain down divine punishment."

The Dragon God listened with some astonishment, and at last He came to understand what rules of the world Gaoyang was describing. A rather dazed expression appeared on the god's face, and only after several seconds did He say softly: "How wonderful."

"It is hardly easy, in truth," Gaoyang could not resist explaining a little more. "Even if currents of thought do not become tangible forces, even if defying tradition brings no direct divine punishment, changing a traditional notion remains desperately hard for the people of my homeland. The resistance that old powers erect in the realm of thought is sometimes no less than..."

He trailed off halfway, hesitating.

The Dragon God sat across from him, countless black chains coiled about His body, the other ends of those chains binding the "Dragon of Disarray," which floated above Tarrond like a time bomb that could at any moment annihilate the entire dragon civilization. The whole nation was locked into this deadly equilibrium, lingering on in utmost caution for a million years.

"Yes. How wonderful," he sighed. "Compared to here."

Then something seemed to strike him, and his gaze settled on the Dragon God: "By the way, you said earlier there were three stories in all, but you have only told two—what of the third?"

The Dragon God looked at Gaoyang and suddenly wore a trace of—Gaoyang could not tell if he was seeing it right—a trace of a sly smile: "The third story has not happened yet."

Gaoyang: "?"

"Telling all the stories would be no fun. Consider it me whetting your appetite—let us leave the third story in suspense," this "god" said unhurriedly. "I am curious myself how the third story will unfold—if there is a chance in the future, I will tell it to you then."

Outside the temple, the faint rumble and howl had grown fainter still, as though a swift yet brief storm were gradually dying down. Gaoyang glanced toward the distant terrace, but saw only starlight and night, little different from before.

"Is there anything else you wish to ask?" the Dragon God's voice came from across the table. "It is still early. We can talk a while longer."

Gaoyang thought it over, sorting through the questions he had prepared before coming to Tarrond, and asked: "About the 'Rebellion of the Reverse Tide' in the ancient era, and that high tower to the northwest of Tarrond—could you tell me about them?"

"That depends on what aspect you wish to hear about," the Dragon God nodded. "I will answer as best I can."

"As far as I know, the Reverse Tide Empire went astray because it came into contact with the knowledge left behind by the Pioneers in the wrong way—from the clues we have found so far, the main problem at the time lay in 'classifying knowledge as divine miracle.' Did the Reverse Tide Empire deify the Pioneers' legacy? Was that also why the dragon race and the Reverse Tide Empire went to war?"