Chapter 460: Evil God Festival · Houseboat |
“I gave this creation named Tawil all the qualities I believed would endow it with a soul, then made it into a god and cast it into all the world lines that came through the door, hoping that some human in those world lines could make him feel love, and thus possess a soul.”
Bai Six slowly raised his eyes, letting out a sigh as if in regret:
“But no matter how many world lines it experienced, it was like a cold statue, a shattered mirror, sitting on the divine throne looking down indifferently at the humans kneeling before it. It bestowed external things upon them step-by-step, yet was never able to feel human emotions.”
“I realized that this method was not feasible, so I summoned it back from all the world lines.”
“I asked it.” Bai Six lowered his gaze and tilted Tawil’s chin up, asking the still-sleeping Tawil in a soft voice, “Why are you unwilling to become an evil god?”
“Why are you unwilling to feel love and pain, and become a gatekeeper with a soul?”
Bai Six’s gloved hand lightly caressed Tawil’s closed eyes, his tone becoming increasingly gentle: “I received a very interesting answer.”
“It looked at me with those pure black eyes and said that it felt humans were fine just as they were; there was no need for the existence of a god or the door.”
“In Tawil’s eyes, the way they existed in this universe, huddling together for warmth with love and pain intertwined, was good enough.”
Bai Six looked up at Bai Liu and smiled slightly: “I told it that it’s not that a god wants to exist, but that a god inherently exists. If it isn’t you, it will be someone else.”
“It couldn’t understand and asked me: Does a world line without a god not exist in this world?”
“I told it there wasn’t.”
“To be honest, Tawil made me feel somewhat disappointed.” Bai Six backed away slowly. With a light flick of his hand, the silk threads wrapped around Tawil lifted him up like a string puppet. “Because no matter how I told it these truths or taught it how to become an evil god, it could neither understand nor do it.”
“It has an ignorant, naive perception of humanity.”
“I gave it so much divine power, yet in the process of fulfilling human wishes, it foolishly consumed its own power bit by bit.”
Bai Six looked at the suspended Tawil as if with pity: “I originally thought that Tawil’s unconditional giving and gifting would make these humans love Him, but it didn’t. What He received in return was forever only more greedy demands.”
“No matter how much Tawil, as a deity, sacrificed for humans, what He took back from them was always only desire—endless, infinite desire.”
*(T/N: Oh my sweet Tawil….)*
“I felt bored. After the last bit of my patience for this creation that didn’t fit my heart’s desire was exhausted, I chose to exile Him.”
“Since humans cannot make you learn [Love], then I will let humans make you feel [Pain].”
Bai Six lowered his eyelids. He released the silk threads in his hand that were suspending Tawil; Tawil instantly plummeted into the endless dark universe.
Then, with a spread of his hand, the threads shot out and suspended Tawil once again.
Bai Six looked at Bai Liu across the water-ripple wall with a squinting smile: “Don’t be so nervous, I won’t really let go.”
“He is the only bargaining chip I have to sit face-to-face and chat with you. I wouldn’t dare discard him casually, otherwise, I wouldn’t find any other way to make you sit down honestly and listen to my words.”
Bai Six’s attitude toward Tawil was clearly that of a toy; he was playing with Tawil at will, and playing with Bai Liu as well.
Bai Liu, gripping the arms of his chair, stared at Bai Six: “So what did you do to him?”
“I installed a part of the [Door] onto Tawil’s eyes.” As the silk threads in Bai Six’s hand expanded, Tawil finally slowly opened his eyes.
Tawil floated in the universe, eyes slightly open. It was a pair of flowing, translucent silver-blue eyes, as if the entire reverse side of the universe was reflected within them—starry rivers swirling, radiant and shimmering—but they held no emotion. They simply reflected all things in the world with a pure indifference, like a well-made piece of glass, completely and emptily reflecting what lay behind it. It was not at all like the way Xie Ta looked when he opened his eyes normally.
There was no emotion in that gaze, and no soul.
“When humans look into Tawil’s eyes, they can see the abyss-like universe on the other side of the [Door]. Countless frantic world lines struggle within, and desire reflects from the other side of the door into the eyes of these people, causing them to fall into the same madness as the other side.”
Bai Six explained briskly to Bai Liu: “Soon, they will produce extreme hatred toward the gatekeeper who can both fulfill their wishes and restrain their desires.”
“So they will wantonly harm the carrier of this door, the owner of these eyes, until their desires are satisfied.”
Bai Six curled his lips: “—Until those abyss monsters from the other side of the door, through the harm they inflict on Tawil, successfully pass through the cracks of the door on Tawil’s eyes to come to this side, becoming what these humans call ‘heretics’.”
“Those monsters weren’t caused by Xie Ta.” Bai Liu countered calmly. “It was the desires of these people that damaged the door on Xie Ta’s eyes, allowing the monsters from the other side to cross over. But you induced Xie Ta to think it was his fault, and made the people around him think it was his fault too, so they would hate him more and make him more miserable, right?”
“Bingo.” Bai Six laughed. “That is exactly right.”
Bai Six shrugged and sighed with regret: “Actually, with things developing to such a tragic stage, I personally feel there were things I didn’t do well.”
“I originally hoped Tawil would have a soul because of love, so I carved it into a god without any aggressiveness. But my ultimate goal was for it to kill me. A Tawil with this kind of personality, even if tortured to the point of destruction by me, would never actively attack me, its creator.”
“So I changed my strategy.”
Bai Six smiled: “I wiped its memory and told it that it was the original old evil god and gatekeeper, and [I] was just a greedy human who snatched its divine position.”
“If it wanted to maintain the order of the universe and the integrity of the door, it had to kill the greediest, most destructive existence in this world—which is [Me].”
“I exiled Tawil into the subsequent 658 world lines like this, while simultaneously deploying my derivatives into those world lines. I induced, hinted, and regulated my derivatives, whispering in their ears in their dreams—’As long as you completely kill Tawil, you can obtain the most valuable thing in this world’.”
“I know what kind of god I am, so I clearly know what my creations are like and what they will do—they cannot resist such enticement.”
Bai Six lifted his eyelids, and the eyes he used to look directly at Bai Liu turned silver-blue in an instant:
“—Because they, like me, are inherently the collection of the greatest desires of the two universes on both sides of the door.”
“I thought Tawil would resist me to protect the door and maintain truth and order, but it still didn’t.”
“It was just like the countless world lines where it was a god; it allowed me and other humans to slaughter, abuse, and harm it. In that moment, I realized that this fellow didn’t fulfill human desires out of compassion at all.”
“It is pure innocence and indifference. It has never even looked at humans or me directly. Its eyes simply do not see any existence full of desire like us—even when [I], as the enemy who killed it and seized its godhood, stood behind it in those 657 world lines, it still coldly and seriously looked at its books, never turning its head even once.”
“Because it felt books were more interesting than humans.”
“Later, even when [I], as its enemy, intensified the torture and even further exiled it into the game, it still had no emotion toward me—love, annoyance, hatred, none of it.”
“Because it has no desire toward me or any other human.”
“Speaking of which, it’s interesting.” Bai Six gave a light laugh. “In this regard, as my creation, it is actually even less human and more arrogant than I am.”
“Just as I was preparing to give up on this creation, in the 658th world line, two miraculous things happened.”
Bai Six looked at Bai Liu on the other side of the water-ripple wall, the smile on his face deepening: “The first thing was that my derivative escaped my control.”
“I had no way to enter his dreams, contact him, induce him, or hint to him. This had never happened before. This derivative grew up lonely in this world line like a completely normal human child.”
“This is truly very interesting. I observed him and found that he actually survived in an environment that extremely rejected him.”
“Humans in their childhood easily commit suicide when they have no peers or are rejected by all peers. To put it simply, they commit suicide when they don’t receive love from their kind. But interestingly, he actually survived despite no humans accepting him.”
Bai Liu’s face turned cold inch by inch.
Bai Six continued as if he hadn’t noticed, smiling squinty-eyed: “This childhood derivative not only survived, but in an environment of hatred and rejection from all his kind, he mistakenly identified Tawil—a creation completely incapable of producing emotion whom I had placed near him—as his own kind.”
“—And this mistaken perception was only because they were both in a state of being isolated.”
“And this perception made this derivative develop feelings for his destined enemy, a creation that didn’t even look at him directly.”
“Day and night, he wandered around the one he thought was his only peer, observing Tawil while thinking he was hiding himself well. Because he didn’t want the other to starve to death, he even pretended to unintentionally share his meager food with this ‘only peer,’ and secretly hid the books he liked to read in the places where Tawil frequently borrowed books.”
“Next, an even more amazing situation occurred.”
The curve of the smile on Bai Six’s face widened: “This derivative, under circumstances where he received absolutely no emotional response from Tawil, relied on the feelings produced by his own mistaken perception to generate a soul by himself.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen a human generate a soul without receiving love.”
The last trace of expression vanished from Bai Liu’s face.
—
*(T/N: Shut up Bai Six. Tawil does love Bai Liu.)*
