# Chapter 2: The Heavenly Father of All Things, The Target of Civilization (8800)
The life of a Light Chaser is destined to be turbulent and wandering.
In the twilight regions where eternal light does not shine, Light Chasers must drive their enormous mobile world cities, chasing the trajectories of stars, absorbing their light and heat. Throughout the Nine Heavens, there are very few stars that mobile cities can utilize—either because they are too close to the Steel Continent, enough to turn everything to ashes, or because they are too far from the continent, their light unable to provide enough energy for the mobile city to move and maintain the ecosystem of its internal world.
Even if they are fortunate enough to find a suitable star, due to the terrifying and ever-changing gravity of the Steel Continent, these blazing suns can fall out of the equilibrium line at any time because of its gravitational pull, and then crash down to the earth—at that moment, the mobile city must quickly change direction, avoid this area, and evade the destruction caused by the star's crash.
Although it is said that the Steel Continent will absorb all the kinetic energy released when the star collides with the earth and is destroyed, preventing a massive earthquake that could last for several light-hours or even light-days, and will recondense the star's dissipated gas into a new star, regardless, this means that the mobile city will lose its energy source. They must set sail as soon as possible and head to the next usable star.
Chasing the light, chasing the stars, sometimes for a thousand years, sometimes only for a few decades—the mobile city is a huge steel shell that eternally travels across the continent, coming with the stable operation of a star and leaving with its fall. The Light Chasers are the insects hiding within this shell—for most ordinary Light Chasers, even the gravity of the Steel Continent and the various radiations and pollution from the outside world are enough to threaten their lives. If they are not inside the city, protected by the artificial world barrier, ordinary people without supernatural power will die within a few minutes.
Therefore, even within the Shining Region, there is no such thing as "stability." Even though the endless intense light from dense star clusters means that the beings in the Shining Region don't have to worry about energy problems, more and denser stars also mean more "star falls"—every year, some mobile city accidentally encounters a "star rain" and is destroyed by hundreds or even thousands of falling star clusters simultaneously. This natural disaster occurs almost every day in the Shining Region.
Stars rise and fall, stars are born and crash. On this Steel Continent, all things endlessly rotate and move, with absolutely no stability to be found. Beyond the light, endless Chaos Minions surge from the edge of the world. They fear the light but travel through the twilight—all Light Chasers yearn for stability, for eternal and peaceful illumination, without having to constantly migrate and flee.
This seemingly unremarkable wish has been an unsolvable problem for a hundred thousand years. Countless people have devoted themselves to stellar science and astronomy, or explored the distant reaches of the stars, trying to find the laws governing the movement of the stars, wanting to uncover the reasons behind all this turmoil. But until now, no one has ever found the answer.
No one can even guess how this world was born, how it was created. Based on stellar models, the fundamental properties of physics and supernatural power, the most intelligent scholars of the Ten Thousand Nations Alliance have deduced countless models of how the world might have been born, but never has any model been able to give rise to such a peculiar and bizarre world as the "Three Realms and Nine Heavens." Regarding this, they can only helplessly admit that this world might indeed have a "Creator," a true "Deity."
Not the gods—the gods of the Age of Gods were merely "powerful beings" who couldn't even reach the "Nine Heavens," unable to enter either the Sword Realm or the Axe Realm. They too were creatures chasing the light.
So, everyone can only attribute all these reasons to the omnipotent "Heavenly Father," the creator of this endless Steel Continent, the creator of all things and beings, and call all this suffering a "Trial"—because apart from this, they can find no other reason.
But now, Alpha Farster, this ordinary scholar of stellar science, a former renowned explorer, has discovered that he might now be walking on the path toward the "Truth"—in this distant lightless zone, he saw the black giant star rotating at the center of the world, and saw countless dazzling stars sinking into it, turning into specks of firelight, like firewood added to a bonfire.
"...Regardless, I have no other choice. They took my Alice, took my daughter and son. I have lost everything, leaving only the 'Truth.'"
The silver-haired middle-aged man smiled bitterly. He shook his head, turned around, and looked behind him.
Not at the advanced exploration ship left by Carlis. Alpha was looking at the origin of the "mountain" beneath his feet, the ultimate goal of this journey.
He was looking at a "high mountain."
A mountain that was over four hundred million kilometers high, requiring light to travel for twenty-four minutes just to go straight up and down, so enormous that it was larger than many stars—a "mountain peak."
But on this infinitely huge continent, even such a colossal mountain was not considered the tallest. The "Great Divine Mountain" in the Shining Region, the former sanctuary where the gods lived, was two light-hours high. Yet even so, such a mountain and the continuous mountain ranges around it were nothing more than something smaller than the wrinkles on human skin.
—And the Light Chasers lived in such a huge world, tiny as they were, struggling to survive in this world.
One could see that at the very top of this mountain, at a height completely beyond the range of ordinary vision, there was an extremely conspicuous tip exposed—a tip made entirely of silver, luminous crystal, shaped like a sharp prism, shining like a star, releasing specks of starlight.
Alpha stared at this light. He felt the blood in his veins boiling, a strange resonance beginning to appear... What kind of feeling was this? What was in his blood? Why did he, who had always lived in the Shining Region, feel "familiar" with this crystal tip on a high mountain in this distant lightless zone?
Could it be that he really wasn't as ordinary as he thought? Was this why Teacher Carlis chose him as a student? And what exactly did "Son of the Silver Fairy" mean?
Countless questions lingered in the weary middle-aged man's heart. But even though he had lost his wife, children, and everything he had fought for all his life in the Shining Region, he had not yet lost his courage, his curiosity—he had not yet lost the passion and impulse in his heart, nor the will to march toward the "Truth"!
"Let's set off."
Saying this, gathering his courage, Alpha once again entered his exploration ship. As the light of the jump engine started to shine, he began to advance toward the top of that "high mountain"!
[——Alpha's Exploration Log——]
[In the dark and lifeless area of the lightless zone, I discovered some puzzling objects. It was a crystal-clear prism tip made entirely of crystal, emitting blue light.
It was located at the top of an unnamed mountain, emitting a bright but cold light without any temperature. I had prepared a full set of heat insulation measures, which turned out to be completely wasted. But this couldn't be said to be a bad thing, because it allowed me to leave the exploration ship and, together with other shipboard artificial intelligences, bring tools to observe and explore its condition up close.]
[After several days of careful investigation, I can finally confirm with astonishment that the shining crystal prism at the top of the mountain range is actually the tip of a huge crystal obelisk! Its main body is buried beneath the mountain range, and this mountain range—completely, entirely!—is composed of the remains of Chaos Monsters! Heavenly Father above, it's hard to imagine that such a huge mountain range is actually formed by the accumulation of endless Chaos Monster remains. After a long time, these Chaos Monsters have lost their strange and maddening toxicity, turning into earth and stone with only a little residual pollution, and this obelisk is buried within.
I am certain that this obelisk has a way to enter. Teacher Carlis guided me here for a purpose, certainly not just to surprise me. Moreover, such a huge obelisk, if it's not for me to enter but to dig out, that would really be too difficult... And for some reason, I feel that something inside this obelisk is attracting me.]
[I searched for a long time—actually just two and a half hours—and found the way to enter this obelisk. The method is simple: without any protective equipment, enter the silver cold light, touch the crystal with my bare hands, and it will naturally suck me in... To be honest, if I hadn't felt that the protective suit was too stuffy and happened to want to get some air, I would never have done this. With my strength at just Mid-Gold Rank, any accident in the lightless zone would mean certain death. But when the cold light shone on me, I felt that I didn't even need to breathe; it would naturally provide all the energy I needed to survive.
Anyway, I had no other choice, so I entered. At the moment I was sucked in, I felt an extremely huge force, far greater than that of a star, sweep over my entire body—this force was far stronger than the supernova explosion Teacher and I observed decades ago, enough to instantly annihilate thousands upon thousands of mobile world cities. Presumably, those Chaos Minions must have recklessly touched this crystal obelisk and were thus eliminated by it. Over tens of thousands of years or even longer, they piled up and buried the entire obelisk.]
[And I discovered that the light in this crystal is transforming my body—I gradually no longer need to breathe, the feeling of hunger and thirst has disappeared. I can feel that the surrounding energy is becoming friendly to me. But at the same time, my ears are starting to become pointed, my skin is beginning to feel a bit like metal, and my demand for energy has greatly increased... This should have been the ability of Gold High-rank, or even Ultimate-rank elementalization and psionic transformation, but it is appearing on me... Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure. Anyway, when I woke up from my daze, I had arrived at an exceptionally vast crystal hall, with many small caves scattered around it.
And at the center of the crystal hall, there was a staircase, somewhat narrow for most Light Chasers, leading to the depths of this obelisk—it seems that this obelisk was built by a creature smaller than the average Light Chaser, yet this building is far larger than many stars. I have to say, this is an astonishing miracle.
Without hesitation, I chose to continue deeper.]
Stopping the recording pen, maintaining this good habit he had kept for over a decade, Alpha took a deep breath. He walked toward the central staircase of the crystal hall and continued deeper downward.
The initial hall was semicircular, with a radius of about fifteen kilometers. With his optimized vision, Alpha could see that the four walls of this crystal hall were full of many large and small holes, with wind coming out of them, apparently leading to other places. On the walls on both sides of the central staircase, countless extremely complex runes were engraved, along with many neatly and beautifully written carvings in an unknown language.
Alpha felt that he could vaguely understand a little of the meaning of these carvings. Perhaps this was some relatively rare ancient language? There happened to be translation equipment on the exploration ship. He would take these images back to the ship and try to see what they said.
After walking a long distance, the carvings gradually disappeared, and layers of murals began to appear. Alpha quickly took out his recording equipment and recorded these layers of murals.
Unlike language, murals could be understood just by looking. It could be seen that this series of murals seemed to tell the life of a "Clergy." He was born into an ordinary farmer's family. Because of an attack by a Magic Tide (Alpha felt it was like a Chaos Monster attack, but he didn't recognize any of the Chaos Monsters in the murals), the Clergy's parents died, and he was adopted by a kind village priest, allowing him to cultivate the path of the supernatural.
The god that priest served had a total of seven, which was very rare, because these seven gods formed an alliance of gods and shared glory equally. The young Clergy cultivated diligently, traveled through the world cities, and helped the poor commoners. Until middle age, he remained unknown, his deeds at most being praised among some ordinary people. But after the previous Pope abdicated, he participated in that debate conference witnessed by the gods and defeated all opponents in knowledge and strength, becoming the Pope.
A very inspiring story—Alpha felt a bit envious when he saw this. From an ordinary person with nothing to the highest Pope of the entire world, this was not something anyone could achieve. It required great courage, great determination, great perseverance, and great wisdom. As for himself, at most he had a little courage, determination, and perseverance; wisdom was out of the question.
The murals were not over; the story continued—after becoming Pope, this Clergy always tried to seek the welfare of all people in the entire world. He once fought against a race of monsters that looked like giant lizards, killed many Chaos Monsters, confronted other evil gods, and joined forces with the Seven Gods and many other powerful beings to seal a black mist monster many times larger than a star.
His first half of life was obscure, his second half magnificent. At the end of this Clergy's life, he stood shoulder to shoulder with a giant god standing above the Star River, charging toward what seemed to be the eternal, endless dark Chaos cluster like the lightless zone.
"This should be the deeds from the end of the Age of Gods, when the last remaining gods and their churches fought against the Chaos surging from the lightless zone, right? Which prehistoric mobile city experienced this, so legendary, yet I have never heard of it?"
Alpha had no doubt about the authenticity of these murals—who would be bored enough to build a huge star-sized monument just to deceive later generations? Instead, what puzzled him was that the logic of this matter was a bit inconsistent.
Could gods and their Pope... really build this huge, incomparably massive wonder monument, twenty-four light-minutes high? If it were the gods, Alpha could barely believe it, but this mural clearly only told the story of a Pope.
And... at the end, that four-armed giant god standing above the endless Star River... who was he? He was not one of the Seven Gods, nor any god from myths and legends. There were no rumors or descriptions similar to him.
"Come to think of it, it's strange. Have all the defensive facilities inside this obelisk failed?"
Shaking his head, temporarily putting aside his doubts—Alpha recorded all the text and murals, preparing to go back to the exploration ship and use the translation system to see what they said. Compared to these academic questions, he was more puzzled that, along the way, he had clearly seen many crystal sentry devices that were obviously defensive. They sparkled, with energy flowing in their semi-transparent cannon bodies. But for some reason, these sentry cannons didn't move at all when they detected him, as if they were broken.
However, as soon as the drones Alpha brought into the obelisk were released, they instantly disappeared, turned to ashes by invisible beams of light... This immediately scared Alpha so much that his legs went weak and he almost knelt down. After all, those drones were much harder than his head. If they could instantly burn up a drone, they could also conveniently burn his head.
Such advanced micro-weaponry, capable of instantly killing Gold-rank and severely wounding Ultimate-rank—and this might not even be its limit—was not found even in the Ten Thousand Nations Alliance, or even in the ruins of mobile cities from the Age of Gods!
What kind of building had such high technological capability? The Great Divine Mountain in the Shining Zone, the Great Temple of the Ten Thousand Gods, was not even one percent as magnificent as this building. Their decorations were certainly luxurious, but they were far inferior in terms of a sense of power. The strongest deity of the Age of Gods, the "Star Sea Voyager," the god of the star sea and exploration, his temple was not as solemn as this ruin. Not to mention, what was celebrated here was merely the deeds of a Pope, a Clergy.
"Could it be... that this is a ruin from 'the beginning of all things and beings,' before the Age of Gods?"
Thinking of this possibility, Alpha couldn't help but shake his head. This silver-haired middle-aged man didn't look dashing at all; instead, he looked very old and tired. But precisely because of this, his serious expression appeared all the more genuine. He murmured: "Legend says that the 'Heavenly Father' created the Three Realms and Nine Heavens. He expelled the primordial Chaos in the dark void, creating the endless stars. And in this initial light, the gods were born from the stars."
"But expelling Chaos was too difficult. Even the Heavenly Father, after eliminating most of the Chaos, was so exhausted that he could only fall asleep. He entrusted the world to the gods and then transformed into all things in these Three Realms and Nine Heavens—this prehistoric mythological era is 'the beginning of all things and beings.'"
Could it be... that this ruin was a creation from that ancient era, lost for a hundred thousand years? And what this mural said, could it be about the first gods and their followers fighting together with the Heavenly Father against the counterattack of the primordial Chaos?
But how could this be possible!
"'Heavenly Father' is just a myth created by Light Chasers to avoid despair... He doesn't exist at all, and there are no temples or ruins... Well, what's in front of me might count as half, but this doesn't prove the existence of the Heavenly Father. I would rather believe that this is the creation of seven powerful gods from prehistoric times..."
Almost reaching the end of this staircase, Alpha continued recording while his thoughts drifted to the infinite distance. He muttered to himself with a slightly bitter tone: "In essence, 'Heavenly Father' and 'Trial' are just fig leaves created by ancient scholars to explain problems that couldn't be explained at the time. It's like attributing the answer to God when encountering something you don't understand—whether the Heavenly Father exists or not is completely unimportant."
"No, you are wrong. The existence of the Heavenly Father is very important."
Suddenly, a voice sounded from behind Alpha. This voice was loud, serious, like an iron-skinned giant drum being struck. Along with this voice, a series of footsteps appeared behind the middle-aged man.
Alpha turned around in shock—he had no idea when this voice and those footsteps had appeared behind him. As he turned around, the man saw a white-haired man wearing a coat of interwoven black and red, like the embers of a flame, standing on the staircase behind him. He was walking down the staircase step by step, and behind this man was an entire squad of guards wearing the same "Ash Clothes"!
These people were all members of the [Ash Church]!
Facing Alpha, who was dumbfounded and seemed unable to react in time, the white-haired old man at the lead, apparently a high-ranking member of the Ash Church, stood steadily on the steps. His figure was robust, his face dignified, his walk like a dragon's stride, his coat tails fluttering in the wind. Except for his white hair and wrinkled face, no one could tell that his age had reached the period of decline.
"Alpha Farster, do not speak recklessly about the Heavenly Father and the gods—even if He has never manifested His divine miracles, He is extremely important to our civilization."
Ignoring Alpha's evasive movements, as if he wanted to retreat and find a chance to escape, this high-ranking member of the Ash Church looked around at the murals on both sides of the staircase, then turned around and met Alpha's gaze. His tone was solemn: "I know that for you scholars, whether it's the Heavenly Father or the gods, they are far less important than 'Knowledge and Truth.' Compared to ancient and illusory glory, you think that everything that actually exists on this Steel Continent is real—but have you ever thought that if we lost the 'gods,' lost the 'Heavenly Father,' we might never have developed the great civilization we have today?"
"This..."
Although Alpha appeared flustered on the surface, he was actually very calm inside—he understood many things in an instant. For example, why the Ash Church had captured his wife and children but only warned him not to come back and continue investigating the truth, instead of capturing him as well. They wanted to follow him and find the location of this huge "Crystal Obelisk"! The only thing he didn't quite understand was why this high-ranking member of the Ash Church in front of him didn't order his guards to capture him but instead met his gaze and discussed these "rather strange" questions?
As for hatred... a rational person wouldn't casually show their anger when at a great disadvantage. After all, he was a scholar; he couldn't be that foolish.
Seeming to see through Alpha's disguise and the hidden hatred beneath his calm expression, the white-haired old man smiled slightly and didn't take it to heart. He started walking, continued forward, passed Alpha, and arrived behind him, at the end of this staircase. He continued in that solemn tone: "Many people nowadays, especially scholars, find it hard to understand that at the beginning of civilization, 'rational thinking' actually didn't bring progress. Do you understand? The rationality of that ancient era wasn't used to explore truth and knowledge, but to think about how to defeat beasts, how to find food, how to continue the bloodline, how to survive as long as possible."
"'Rational thinking' didn't make ancient people, like today's scholars, explore the truth between the stars, the laws of the operation of all things—it was only used to summarize knowledge practically applied to life, such as farming, herding, building houses, and making traps. On the contrary, it was the initial 'emotional thinking,' the earliest romance, fantasy, and primitive 'imagination'—only these things would think about why the sun rises and why it sets, why water flows downhill instead of uphill. In the suffering ancient era, rational people wouldn't waste energy thinking about these questions meaningless for survival. Only emotional and impulsive beings would fabricate various 'stories,' the so-called 'explanations,' for all these unknown phenomena. Similarly, only 'gods and religion' needed to explain to all things and beings, to their believers, what was 'why' behind all these phenomena."
"Only this kind of irrational thinking would ponder the stories among the stars. Only the gods created by this primitive worship needed to explain why fire could burn wood, why water could extinguish fire—why flapping wings and spitting fire could generate upward momentum to fly into the sky, why the stars would repeat the cycle of rising and falling, causing us to suffer so much."
Saying this, the white-haired old man had arrived before an archway. This was the end of the staircase. The guards of the Ash Church also followed forward. They completely ignored Alpha, leaving him behind, as if they didn't care whether he ran or stayed. Alpha's heart was in turmoil for a long time, but finally, he gritted his teeth and decided to follow.
The old man seemed to have known he would make this choice. And so, Alpha and the group from the Ash Church crossed the archway and arrived at a magnificent hall so vast that its end was nowhere in sight.
One could see that this hall was filled with gentle silver light, but a spectrum of seven colors swirled at the highest point of this hall. Countless bubbles of light, rising and falling, merging and splitting, emerged and disappeared at the highest point. And all this light, all these bubbles of light, revolved around a crystal pillar suspended at the center of this hall.
And inside this crystal pillar, a beautiful youth with light golden hair was curled up like a fetus, sleeping peacefully—endless colors of light enveloped his surroundings, presenting a dreamlike, ethereal holiness.
"God is the most romantic explanation that intelligent life gives to the truth behind all things in the world! Because we are curious about the truth behind fire, the Fire God appeared. Because we worship the great power of the sun, the Sun God was born. We respect that water is the most important component of life, so the Water God appeared on the divine throne—but all of this is far less significant than the existence of the Heavenly Father!"
Looking up at this youth sleeping in the crystal pillar, gazing at this 'life' being nurtured in this huge, colossal obelisk, the white-haired old man of the Ash Church's tone began to grow excited: "Believing in countless gods is actually equivalent to believing in no god at all. Human curiosity will be worn away by this false 'explanation' of the gods. After all, deities do not represent truth; they merely hold power, existing as the ultimate product of 'emotional thinking'..."
"But the Heavenly Father is different. Unlike the gods who were 'created' because 'we needed them,' the Heavenly Father created this world yet made us suffer. This 'resentment' or even 'hatred,' this emotion unrelated to faith and worship, forces countless people to demand that religion provide an 'explanation.' After all, a god that can't even explain 'why' doesn't exist, and no one would believe in such a god."
"So, the earliest pioneers, in order to explain the reason why the Heavenly Father created all things, to explain the laws of the movement of the stars, thus created the first mobile cities. They chased the trajectories of stars and discovered 'universal gravitation.' They dissected the sun, decomposed matter, and discovered the 'authority of splitting and fusion'—but this was not the end. Universal gravitation could not explain the existence of the Steel Continent. The authority of splitting and fusion was not the most efficient way to use energy. At the very least, the Heavenly Father's creation of the world could not have used this method to obtain energy. So, above this, there is a higher truth!"
"The existence and faith of the Heavenly Father are very important. Civilization must have a target. Only through constant doubt and constant debate can it progress. Rational thinking must step on the bones of emotion, spiraling upward bit by bit through the method of 'negating imagination.' Otherwise, it will never step out of the fence of rationality and will only live to live, like intelligent insects."
"The Heavenly Father is the sole and supreme Creator, the God of Creation. He is naturally eternally correct. But in what way is He correct? Some people set up a target and begin to explain how the Heavenly Father created the world. Then another group will refute them, pointing out the other's incorrectness. Human wisdom, lost and at a loss, will thus progress through 'struggle.'"
"It is precisely because of this that, in endless struggle, one law after another, one rule after another, has been discovered. The world as we perceive it has become increasingly closer to reality—because of this, society has gradually progressed, productivity has gradually developed. This is what allows you rational scholars to not have to think about 'how to survive,' but to look up and use that wisdom to gaze at the sky."
"...I don't deny that your theory is somewhat interesting, but..."
Hearing this, Alpha frowned deeply. He suppressed the hatred in his heart, wanting to denounce the other's words as nonsense. But not to mention that the other side had numerical superiority and everyone's strength was higher than his, even just for the safety of his wife and children, he couldn't be impulsive. So, after thinking for a moment, feeling that the situation couldn't get any worse, he couldn't help but ask: "But, old sir, what does all this you've said have to do with the ruin we're in now? And what does it have to do with your Ash Church kidnapping my wife and children, exiling me from the Shining Region, and following me here?"
"A great deal. And don't call me old sir. I am the Grand Inquisitor of the Ash Church, Groen Danis. You don't have to pretend; you can call me 'damn old bastard' or 'vicious kidnapper.'"
Grand Inquisitor Groen turned around. He no longer looked at the light golden-haired youth sleeping in the light, but met the silver-haired middle-aged man's gaze again. He squinted his eyes and said in a solemn tone: "The Grand Scholar of the City of Knowledge, Alpha Farster. I said all this mainly to tell you that Light Chasers, and indeed any intelligent beings, can never be purely rational creatures. They must be impulsive, emotional, and will make 'wrong' choices outside of 'correct' ones due to romance, impulse, and various other reasons—and these mistakes are the steps of our progress. So don't be bound by the habitual scholarly thinking that 'the Heavenly Father doesn't exist.' Only then can you understand the true truth."
"Moreover, the 'Heavenly Father' does indeed exist—compared to the speed of light, compared to physical laws, compared to all these so-called 'truths' that might be changed, this alone is the 'reality' that can never be shaken! And whether it's you or me, or your disappeared teacher and superior, we have all come for Him."