Chapter 390: Incitement |
The apocalypse of the First Age wiped out the first pantheon of gods, along with the worlds, creatures, and civilizations they had created.
The once-sprawling branches of universal law were brutally pruned, leaving only the most fundamental, primordial principles. These coalesced into a sapling, taking root in the depths of the void.
The last surviving god of that first pantheon awakened beneath the half-decayed World Tree and, guided by these new rules, began to create the world anew.
Fruits of creation blossomed from the god’s fingertips, each one falling to sprout and expand into a new plane of existence. Life and new laws flourished upon them, nourishing the branches of the World Tree and becoming part of its very fabric.
To the Ancestral God, humans, animals, deities, and ghosts were all the same. They were all "children" created by the same hand, cogs in the grand machinery of universal law.
The Ancestral God possessed no personality, never experiencing subjective emotions like anger. It simply and silently placed all things in their designated places, smoothly erasing any defiance, repeating the process again and again...
Until, that is, it was tripped by the gnarled roots of the World Tree and bound to the earth by its vines. The new gods feasted on its flesh and authority. For the first time, a single tear fell from its eye, and then it calmly accepted its long slumber—just as it now calmly accepted its resurrection.
The priest bowed before the statue, addressing his god. "O Lord, may I announce Your advent to the faithful?"
The god spoke: "Gods and men are both merely living beings. When mortals discover that gods can be weak, that they can be killed, faith and reverence will vanish, replaced by greed and ambition."
The god replied, "When I am a silent idol, they are willing to sweep my halls. But when I manifest as a living being, they will shun me."
The priest inquired, "Then how can the world know of Your grace?"
The god lowered its gaze. "I am who I am, eternal and self-existing. Why is there a need for others to know? Life itself is the greatest grace."
Father Laki slept in a sea of chaos, and in his daze, he heard the voice of a god—the one he had once truly believed in.
The god seemed to have changed a great deal, yet it remained selfless and compassionate, its serene gaze reaching across the vastness of time and space.
He did not know if he was dreaming. He could only gaze around blankly as a golden light suddenly flared in the darkness before him.
The light wasn't blinding. It was soft, warm, and serene, capable of dispelling the darkness and protecting humanity from encroaching monsters—like the first bonfire of a forgotten age, yet not so fierce as to scorch the skin.
Father Laki moved toward it as if compelled. He saw phantom-like golden vines dancing beside him like a nest of serpents. Miraculous and strange visions shifted unpredictably before him, suggesting celebration or welcome. They would coalesce into definite shapes only to dissolve in an instant, scattering into a shower of shimmering motes that soon painted the entire scene a brilliant gold.
It felt familiar, yet he couldn't recall where he had seen it before. Father Laki decided to stop thinking, simply following the phototactic instinct buried deep within his genes as he walked forward with resolve.
But the line of light always seemed to maintain the same distance from him. No matter how he tried to approach and reach for it, an impassable, unreachable darkness separated them.
One cannot think rationally in a dream. A sudden urgency gripped him, and he quickened his pace, stumbling as he ran toward the light.
This time, he finally got closer. He saw the light in its entirety: it was a slender, gleaming thread, suspended before his eyes, its origin unknown.
He reached out again, pleading with devout desperation for the light to wait for him, to let him at least see it properly.
This time, as if hearing his prayer, the thread wrapped itself around his finger as if alive, gentle and compassionate.
The moment he felt its cool touch on his fingertip, he saw a divine phantom, and a golden oracle inscribed itself in floating words before his eyes:
"The usurping god covets the flesh of the true deity, its sins have festered over long ages. When the apocalypse brings forth revelation, divine retribution will finally descend."
...
Memories were read from the scene, extracted from objects. Dust gathered into clues, weaving together scenes from the past.
Qi Si was beginning to understand why he could only control some of the NPCs in the Holy City, but not Father Laki and the other clergy.
The reason was simple: the Ancestral God had already taken advantage of the void to seize control of their souls with its silken threads. It had merely fallen back into slumber afterward, leaving them to act freely.
The Ancestral God's revival was well underway; if it could already begin reclaiming its followers, a full restoration was only a matter of time.
But its revival was also incomplete. It lacked the strength to fully control the entire church; as soon as it withdrew its influence, the threads became almost imperceptible.
No wonder Qi Si hadn't noticed anything unusual right away when he first arrived.
That being the case, rather than shy away and ignore it, waiting for the god to methodically complete its plans, Qi Si preferred to take a gamble.
He could help the Ancestral God gather a new body, then, at the final step, use every means at his disposal to either seal it away completely or kill it once more. Both were appealing options.
Even if he failed, the only consequence would be accelerating the Ancestral God's inevitable revival, which would merely increase the difficulty of his own contest for the Final Instance.
A big win if he succeeded, a small loss if he failed. The overall return was positive. Besides... Qi Si didn't think his luck was that bad.
Likewise, Father Laki was also gambling.
Lacking the knowledge and perspective of a god, he didn't know that the Ancestral God's revival was fated to succeed, nor that the Holy City was not its only contingency.
He even believed that with Qi Si's interference, the Ancestral God would surely fail to resurrect, forcing him to compromise and obey Qi Si's commands.
He was betting that Qi Si's scheme would fail and that, consequently, the Ancestral God would win this game.
...
In Room 3, Asakura Yuko and Vader sat facing each other. Floating above the stone bed between them were countless orange-red motes of light—the very flames that could be used to unlock the instance's ending.
After a brief exchange with the players in the main hall, those people had unanimously handed over all their flames. The development was bizarre, to say the least, but it was nothing compared to the players' behavior.
Silver-gray eyes, stiff movements, the barely visible threads at their fingertips... Asakura Yuko could tell that these people were all puppets of the Puppet Master. The only question was whether they had been taken over before or after entering the instance. If it was the latter, it meant the Puppet Master had set his sights on the Holy City, and the situation had become dire.
"No wonder even someone like Fu Jue went down. So the Puppet Master sent people to ambush him..." Vader clicked his tongue in amazement. "I knew it. There was no way those big shots would wait for the Final Instance to make their moves. They must have already gone at it several times behind the scenes."
Asakura Yuko shook her head slightly. "Fu Jue isn't necessarily dead. He must have also sensed the Puppet Master's presence. With his enemy in the shadows and him in the open, the situation was against him. So, he likely faked his death to escape, moving from the light into the darkness. Otherwise... an Identity Card holder wouldn't die so silently."
"Good point," Vader agreed. "So what do we do now? What's the deal with them giving us these flames? Do we just use them, or..."
"Use them," Asakura Yuko said. "The puppets are classified as the dead, so they can't trigger many of the game's mechanics. The Puppet Master clearly wants to use us to push this instance to its conclusion as quickly as possible. Given our strength, defying him won't end well."
"Man, it sucks being used as someone's knife," Vader grumbled, shrugging. Then, as if a thought struck him, he asked, "Yuko, you're an Identity Card holder too. You don't think they'll just get rid of you as well once this is all over, do you?"
Asakura Yuko shook her head again. "They won't. My ranking is low. Beings on their level wouldn't bother with a small fry like me."
This was just to placate Vader, to prevent him from weighing his options and using her as a bargaining chip to win favor.
In truth, Asakura Yuko knew that once the contest between Identity Card holders began, no one could remain on the sidelines.
It was true that the [Silent Dictator], [Fallen Savior], and [Taboo Scholar] cards corresponded to different gods and, in theory, weren't in direct competition. But too many truths had been lost to the river of time. All her knowledge was pieced together from grains of sand collected on the shore; none of it was guaranteed to be real.
The image of the Ancestral God in the historical fragments troubled her deeply. She was beginning to doubt which deity her own card was truly connected to.
"Whatever. I'm unlocking the ending," Vader declared, grabbing a flame and pressing it to his chest. A kaleidoscope of colored light instantly streamed through his fingers.
Fine motes of light drifted and settled around the room like wind-blown dust. A delicate, luminous veil woven from this light swirled around the two of them, forming a bright, brilliant ring of stars.
Flickering, colorful light rose and fell on the stone bed between them, constructing a half-meter-high illusion of the Holy City. The temple, the bell tower, the East District, and the cemetery were all rendered in clear, countable detail.
Runes written in an indecipherable script materialized on the surface of the stone bed, outlining the form of a mysterious and dangerous stone altar.
On the system interface, a large block of text appeared below the original ending description:
[...Disgruntled believers claim to have received a divine revelation in their dreams, and they relay the god's oracle to all. The god says: "They have forsaken me, using my name to twist the original doctrines, to bully and coerce my devout followers for their own selfish gain. Go and find the scattered records. Restore the truth to the world."]
Asakura Yuko saw two gilded options appear in the air before her:
[Incite] or [Save]? (Consume 1 Flame to choose)
The [Taboo Scholar] Identity Card automatically analyzed them, and a large block of descriptive text appeared next to the options:
[Incite: As a rebel and a heretic, you instinctively know that the original sin of most humans is foolishness. Rational statements are far less effective than emotional slogans. The masses don't care about the truth, nor do they need to know it. They only need to know what they *should* know.
[You will extract the most inflammatory information you possess and relay it to them, painting a picture of suffering and injustice with emotionally charged language. They are a flock of ignorant sheep, and you are the shepherd who knows the only true path. You will guide them with your whip to seize their freedom through violence... or death.
[(Activating this ending will cause the believers to storm the temple. You may ascend to godhood, becoming the fourth god of the Holy City.)]
Asakura Yuko froze.
She despised the description for the [Incite] option. Everyone had the right to know the truth—that was the conviction that had guided her entire career as a journalist.
One shouldn't whitewash misdeeds but present the full picture objectively. The public had a right to know and should not be deceived... She had always proclaimed this, and for a long time, she had indeed dedicated herself to exposing the Federation's flaws, working against its official propaganda.
But now, she had truly been placed in the position of a decision-maker. The stakes were laid bare before her, and the price of spreading the truth would be hers to bear...
Asakura Yuko's gaze fell on the other block of text:
[Save: Your rebellion is not born of selfish desire, but simply because you cannot turn a blind eye to the devastation around you. Rather than become another corrupt god repeating past mistakes, you would prefer to be a prophet who leads the people out of this vicious cycle. You will tell them of the church's sins, make them believe in their own innate rights. You will inspire them, comfort them, and propose to lead them out of the Holy City.
[The true and eternal promised land should not be a gift from the gods, but something humanity finds for itself. History has already proven that relying too heavily on divine grace leads to ruin. This time, you have decided to let humanity save itself, to create a paradise on earth without gods.]
[(Activating this ending will cause the Holy City to vanish. All NPCs and players have a chance of becoming lost in the wasteland.)]
The price of truth was too high. Asakura Yuko told herself there was no need to sacrifice a readily available prize for the sake of some NPCs' right to know. It would only harm everyone, including herself.
In the end, they were just data. No matter how human they seemed, they weren't her kind. It wasn't her place to save them.
"Yuko, what are you gonna pick?" Vader asked suddenly. "[Believe] or [Denounce]? I feel like the obvious choice is to [Believe], but would this game really be that simple?"
Different people saw different options... Was it because she had the [Heretic] identity, while Vader had the [Believer] identity?
Asakura Yuko made her decision. "Choose [Believe]," she said, her expression unchanged. "The difficulty of this main quest lies in acquiring the flames and dealing with the unexpected events along the way. They usually don't set traps in the options themselves."
After she spoke, she picked up a flame between two fingers and silently chose the word [Incite] in her mind.
The flame melted into a warm current that flowed down her wrist and vanished into the void an instant later. A streak of crimson glaze appeared within the golden illusion before her.
Vader also picked up a flame and made his choice at roughly the same time.
Two ribbons of red intertwined among the gilded words, flowing and flickering like newly kindled flames in a hearth.
New text appeared:
[The believers are willing to trust those inflammatory words. It turns out their god *does* love them; it was the clergy who twisted the divine will. The ones who inflicted suffering upon them were never the god they worshiped, but their own scheming kind. It is always safer to hate other humans than a great and powerful being. Enraged, the masses take up arms and storm the temple...]