Chapter 1040 — The Fire-Thief

Kamir was a pure scholar. Compared with the tangled web of powers woven among the modern human nations and the kingdoms of the nonhuman races, he was far more at home in his laboratory, analyzing data that would make an ordinary person dizzy after a single glance — but even so, after hearing Gao Song's words, he realized that these tests carried not only academic significance but political calculation as well.

Cecil was moving to establish a new kind of international relation — an order that spanned every race of the continent and embraced all mortal species. The premise of this order was that all mortal races shared a common interest when facing world-scale calamities such as the "Divine Calamity," that their fates were linked, that they must advance and retreat as one. At present this was little more than a political appeal raised by Gao Yang — but if someone could prove in a laboratory that the souls of all mortal races possessed a certain "synchronicity" before the gods, and that the fluctuations of the gods could affect every intelligent being in the world regardless of race, regardless of distance in space or time, then this concept of "community" would no longer be merely a political appeal.

Frankly, Kamir had no interest in politics.

Yet he was still more than willing to help Gao Yang build the new order the latter desired — as a Defier, that was the beautiful future he and his kind had envisioned a thousand years ago.

Mortals united as one, facing the world's crises together, surviving stubbornly through Divine Calamities and Demon Tides.

"I understand," the ancient archmage bowed slightly, his rune-armor plates chiming crisply as they shifted, "We will complete these tests as quickly as possible and produce solid, reliable evidence."

Gao Yan nodded, thought for a moment, and said, "In addition, prepare things for me — I am going to the courtyard of the Defiers' Fortress."

"You wish to see Amon?" Virodai reacted at once. "Shall I accompany you?"

"No need. I will go alone this time," Gao Yang shook his head. "I only mean to talk with him — the God of War has fallen, and I am curious whether he can sense anything, or what he makes of it."

"Understood," Virodai lowered his head in assent. "Then I will go at once to check on the state of the portal."

……

In the shattered world, deeper and darker than the Shadow Realm, in the courtyard of the Defiers' Fortress within the Gloom Realm, the holy white stag, vast as a hill, lay quietly as ever among drifting rubble and crisscrossing ancient relics. Hazy white radiance coiled and rose about him like thin gauze, unchanged for a thousand years.

This near-stagnant "dead silence" endured for no one knew how long — and then Amon suddenly opened his eyes.

Those eyes, like light-forged crystal, turned toward the courtyard entrance, where a peculiar "human" was walking toward him. The former god was silent for several seconds, and only after the other had drawn near did he project his voice outward by thought: "Gao Yang Cecil... it has been a long time. Welcome to my little courtyard — forgive me that I cannot move, and cannot rise to receive you."

"Your sense of humor is as it ever was," Gao Yang showed a faint smile and came to a stop at just the right distance before Amon. "Is all well with you here?"

Amon's voice sounded directly in his mind: "Apart from being unable to take a walk, all is well — quiet, peaceful, my thoughts undisturbed by the endless surging of mortal currents. One might call it a rather good holiday."

"Good, then," Gao Rong smiled, then came straight to the point. "I will state my purpose plainly — the God of War has fallen. It happened a few days ago."

Amon fell silent for a time.

A full minute passed before the former god broke the silence, a trace of a sigh in his tone: "Is that so... well. It may not be a bad ending."

"You did not sense it?" Gao Yang regarded him with curiosity. "The event caused a great disturbance. I would have thought its influence sufficient to pierce the barriers between the Shadow Realm and the Gloom Realm."

"A few days ago I did perceive some fluctuations, but I did not think they were caused by the God of War's fall... Though you once told me that He stood on the verge of losing control, and that mortals and the God of War would sooner or later have their battle, frankly I never imagined you would achieve such a feat just like that," Amon said slowly. "From the look of you, did it go smoothly?"

"We paid a heavy price. Many died, and the resources consumed were beyond counting," Gao Yang shook his head. "I do not know whether that counts as 'smooth.'"

"Ah, that is already remarkably smooth, Emperor of humans — you defeated a god in open confrontation," Amon's tone seemed to carry a sliver of heartfelt admiration. "Be proud. This is a thing to take pride in. But I suppose you did not come to me today merely to tell me this?"

"Indeed, there is another matter," Gao Yan nodded. "After the God of War fell, we found that His remnant corpse — the fragments left behind — no longer inflict spiritual contamination upon mortals."

Amon seemed to freeze for two seconds before speaking with a note of surprise: "You mean the God of War's fragments have lost their capacity for spiritual contamination?"

"No — it is not that the fragments lost their contaminating property, but that mortals are no longer affected by them," Gao Shao corrected at once. "The God of War's fragments underwent no change in nature. What changed was the mortals themselves. There is an essential difference here."

Amon fell silent once more. He seemed to be thinking hard, and only half a minute later spoke again: "You mean that, through a true act of 'godslaying,' mortals have now cast off the God of War's influence entirely — not only gaining freedom in the use of divine arts and in word and deed, but even gaining spiritual resistance against the God of War's relics — and that this 'effect' has appeared not only in the soldiers who took part in the battle, but in everyone?"

"Yes. Though we cannot test every person in the world, we infer that everyone has undergone this change — possibly even including races other than humans."

"...I would like to hear your more detailed view," Amon fixed his gaze on Gao Yang, his tone more solemn than ever before. "What have you discovered, what do you conjecture, and what do you intend to verify — if you do not mind, tell me all of it."

This was precisely why Gao Yang had come, and so he gladly agreed to Amon's request. Over the next few dozen minutes he recounted in exhaustive detail the phenomena the technicians had discovered in the laboratory, the information gathered through various channels, and the conjectures of Kamir and the others.

Throughout the telling, Amon remained exceptionally quiet, not even interjecting once; only when Gao Yang had finally finished did he release a long, richly suggestive sigh.

A few seconds later, the former god broke the silence: "It seems my original plan had a small flaw — it lacked a step in which mortals 'did it with their own hands.' So then... do you intend to take advantage of my inability to resist, organize a party to come in, and 'kill' me one more time?"

"Ahem..." Gao Yang broke into a fit of dry coughing. For a moment he could not determine whether Amon's remark was sincere or sprang from that singular sense of humor unique to the former god. "Of course not. You are overthinking it."

Then he paused, and explained to Amon once more what he had already explained to Amber in the laboratory. To set the other's mind at ease, he added a particular emphasis at the end: "...On the whole, our foremost aim is simply to let the mortal races survive in this world. Even though we have restarted the Defiance Project, we bear no subjective hostility toward the gods — so long as there is any choice at all, we will not resort to extreme measures."