Chapter 430: The Gods - White Crow |
The Snow Mountain summit. A gale howled.
The crystalline blue glacier was dim beneath the night sky, encircled by a dense ring of dark shapes. Only upon drawing closer did one discover they were the corpses of countless birds and beasts, all arranged, without exception, in postures of worshipful prostration.
Yaks and mountain goats knelt in contorted poses of worship, with human bodies scattered among them—incomparably small by comparison, both in number and in size.
—In the vast expanse of time, humanity, too, is but one of the beasts.
But the Snow Mountain was so high. How had they climbed to this place? Why had they come? Or perhaps, who had brought them here?
There were no answers. In many faiths, the snow mountain is both beginning and end. As death approached, all living things made a pilgrimage to be buried at the origin of their souls. It was all so perfectly natural.
White Crow stood alone before the glacier. Millions of years of mountain winds had chiseled patterns into what should have been a smooth wall of ice. Viewed from certain angles, the markings uncannily resembled the silhouette of a woman.
Golden points of light converged on the summit from all directions. Phantom images of human faces flickered across the dome of the sky. In Gulan, Fragrant City, Jerusalem... across countless locations occupied by the Balance Church, magnificent altars had been erected. There, believers in white robes, their expressions solemn, plunged daggers into their own hearts.
The thick, metallic scent of blood saturated the pure white robes, dripping to the ground and spreading out in a network of veins like the roots of a plant. Thousands of miles away, on the ice wall of the Snow Mountain, the woman's silhouette sharpened, thread by thread, until it revealed the face of White Crow.
[Identity Card: Empty Talker]
[Effect: When upright, your dreams will become reality. When reversed, your ideals will shatter. (A draw can be performed after offering sufficient sacrifices.)]
White Crow calmly lowered her gaze to the system interface in the upper right corner of her vision. The phantom of her identity card was veiled in a watery red, a color that deepened with each passing moment, shifting through crimson, scarlet, and ochre, until it was completely enveloped in a brilliant golden light.
The number of available draws accumulated, finally settling on "9." White Crow declared, enunciating each word with precision, "I am the Ancestral God."
The draw began. Upright, upright, upright... Nine upright cards in a row materialized in the space before her. This was far beyond what mere luck could explain. Besides, anyone who had struggled for years to survive the Weird Game knew one thing: fate had long been predetermined by a higher set of rules.
But it no longer mattered. Having come this far, there was no turning back. To a great being so favored by the Creator, humanity had always been small and fragile.
White Crow tilted her face up slightly, watching as the woman in the ice descended the frozen steps and raised a hand to caress her cheek. A bone-chilling cold permeated her skin and seeped into her very marrow, and with it came an invasion of vast, complex memories.
Hundreds of millions of years of sun, moon, and stars flowed past her eyes—vast grasslands, boundless oceans, endless deserts... In this expansive world, life was but a trivial component. The Ancestral God's eyes had witnessed countless things, impartially recording all information into memory. Over the ages, this accumulated into a volume of data too immense for any human mind to bear, a weight that meant sanity would inevitably give way to madness.
Specific memories were diluted by a flood of meaningless data, and faces that were once clear began to blur. White Crow had anticipated this. Maintaining her composure, she recited a silent mantra in the depths of her mind:
"I know you will end this era of civilization and forge a new world. I also know that to a god, there is no distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, race, class, or gender. Unlike the unpredictable Qi, you are without emotion or selfish desire. The shape of the new world is merely a whim to you. For that reason, I am willing to let you reawaken in my body.
"I hope that you will create the new world as I envision it—one of absolute fairness, a true utopia—and allow those who sacrificed themselves for this ideal to be reborn within it."
Amidst the blurring memories, a few phantoms sharpened into focus. There was Zou Yan in her white lab coat, offering a gentle, awkward smile and rambling on about visiting a nearby orphanage. The same woman who always addressed her so formally as "Ms. White Crow" in letters was, in private, an enthusiastic meddler who nevertheless insisted on maintaining an air of calm rationality.
Nian Fu, wearing the same tight-fitting jacket she wore when she died, was perched on the edge of her desk. Her tone was light. "Sister, you're the one who gave me this life," she said. "I'd die for you in a heartbeat. Just... please don't ever lie to me again. It would really, truly hurt me..."
Asakura Yuko approached, carrying a cardboard box full of documents, her expression as impassive as ever. "Leader, these are my articles from over the years. I've already redacted all the sensitive information, so I doubt they'll need a shredder. If you still can't stand them, just find a place to bury the box."
From the moment she decided to ascend to godhood, White Crow had treated everyone with kindness and concern. She felt genuine sympathy for those who struggled and suffered, offering them help freely and without expecting anything in return. Yet with that same sincerity, she had cast them all upon the great sacrificial altar of her apotheosis.
All things are equal in the eyes of a god. White Crow was not yet a true god, and so she harbored a private affection for those she knew. Still, she did not hesitate to include herself among the sacrifices.
A beam of golden-red light converged on the woman's face. A mask materialized out of thin air, one carved with a hollow, eerie smile. Golden, vine-like patterns along its edges grew with wild abandon, like living things, piercing her flesh with an intangible reality.
[Name: God Mask]
[Type: Prop]
[Effect: When worn, severs all connection to the weird, the mystical, and faith itself.]
[Description: Legend says a faithless believer once used it to imprison a god. Others claim a god donned it willingly to abandon Their people.]
Forcing the legendary heartless and unfeeling Ancestral God to compromise would be no easy task. A human body and a mere thirty years of memories were insignificant bargaining chips. But one thing was certain: whether human or god, all beings were subject to the rules.
Therefore, as part of her plan, White Crow had personally traveled to Jerusalem—busy as she was—and journeyed into the ruins left by the largest resistance group of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. There, with her own hands, she had unearthed the [God Mask] from where it lay buried.
Now, the [God Mask], capable of sealing a deity, was embedded flawlessly in her face. The Ancestral God's divine power, spiritual form, memories, and authority were all locked away beneath it. A long, drawn-out sigh echoed in White Crow's ears—the sound of a mother facing a mischievous child, a sigh of both helplessness and indulgence.
White Crow acted as if she hadn't heard, murmuring softly to herself, "I originally prepared this mask for Qi. As it turns out, it's a perfect fit for the two of us. I also acquired the [God-Slaying Sword] and gave it to a worthy candidate. Let's hope the day never comes when we are forced to destroy one another."