Chapter 62: It Really Is Them 5700
“Israel, what does it feel like to go from being a human to a god?”
In the silent, dark void, as two streaks of light were nearing the front lines of the joint fleet, Joshua, who had been silent all along, suddenly asked. His tone seemed somewhat curious: “I mean, you were a Legendary before. What’s the real difference between a god’s power and a Legendary’s? I’m a bit curious about that.”
Hearing this, Israel, who had been maintaining his silence and doing his best to regulate his own power, couldn’t help but turn his head to look at Joshua, who rarely showed such a curious expression.
Could this be another excuse for that guy to find an opportunity for a sparring match?
Of course, that thought was a rigid prejudice. Even Joshua wouldn’t casually seek a sparring match with an ally under these circumstances. Israel thought for a moment, then answered seriously: “The feeling of becoming a god… my feeling is one of omnipotence, yet deeply bound.”
“How should I put it? This feeling is actually very similar to being an emperor, you could even say it’s no different.”
Joshua’s expression didn’t change, and Israel seemed to know that this explanation was rather vague, so he continued to elaborate: “Back when I ascended the throne as a Legendary, what I felt at first was omnipotence. Joshua, you’ve never deliberately pursued power, so you might not understand, but you should be able to grasp this: when a person can use their own personal martial might to contend against an entire nation, and at the same time hold the highest authority of that nation, their feeling is bound to be one of extreme liberation.”
Saying this, Israel laughed. It wasn’t like the original Seven Gods, who were cold and mechanical most of the time. The current God of Might and Justice still retained the personality of the former emperor. His tone was quite humorous as he said: “At that time, I felt I could easily change the entire world. No one could stop me, no one could check my power. If I wanted to, I could indulge in pleasure and extravagance, turning the whole country into my personal playground.”
“But you didn’t do that.” Hearing this, Joshua nodded slightly, following his train of thought: “You still focused your energy on changing the nation.”
“Yes.” Israel’s tone cooled down a bit. He seemed to recall some unpleasant memories: “At first, I had just gone from a frontline imperial general to the Emperor of the entire Empire. My power had reached its peak. Logically, I should have been able to do whatever I wanted… but that wasn’t the reality.”
“As long as I still wanted the stability of the entire Empire, didn’t want to trigger civil war or noble rebellion, causing the Empire’s order to collapse and the people to suffer, I had to proceed slowly, spending decades to make gradual changes.”
At this point, the newly ascended god smiled: “Becoming a god is the same.”
“The moment I went from Legendary to god, my feeling was that countless layers of shackles had been removed. I instantly knew that many things I couldn’t do before, I could now accomplish. And the various details that had troubled me before—like energy, stamina, mana reserves—all ceased to be problems. For a god, these are infinite. Not long ago, the moment I just awakened, I felt I was omnipotent… but just like when I became emperor, after I became a god, many practical things also became shackles.”
Holding infinite power, yet unable to fully utilize it due to the limitations of divinity? No, that might be part of the reason, but it wasn’t the main one. It was a different kind of constraint.
Beside him, Joshua nodded thoughtfully. He had actually already guessed what Israel was feeling, but he didn’t interrupt the other’s narration.
Israel’s voice continued. He looked up at the distant void, at the forward base of the joint fleet, and said softly: “Not to mention the upper limit of divinity—exceeding it leads to ‘Divine Annihilation’—the responsibility alone is far greater than when I was emperor.”
“Hundreds of millions of people across the world believe in me, believe in the name of the ‘God of Might and Justice.’ A hundred thousand clergy recite my teachings, sharing the burden of divine erosion while also drawing divine power from the Great Source. The entire Empire, the entire civilization of the Era of Falling Stars, is watching me. They need a guardian, a patron god, they need me to use my power as a god to maintain the order of this world.”
Saying this, Israel paused. He turned to look at Joshua, then said in a complex tone: “Actually, the change in identity to ‘True God’ doesn’t really mean much to me… Before ascending to godhood, I always thought gods were relatively free beings, able to do as they pleased, using their divine authority to change customs I didn’t like. But I was wrong. The responsibility of a god is so heavy that every word and action needs careful consideration. The feeling being a god gives me is that of another kind of emperor. Possessing invincible power, yet self-limiting and restrained by various reasons, unable to unleash even ten percent of my full strength.”
“Is that so.”
Hearing this, even Joshua couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh.
Not long ago, he had also pondered similar questions. When resolving the chaos caused by the Death Evil God, Joshua had also thought about using his own power to cleanly solve some problems… but he quickly gave up. He had to be responsible for the entire civilization. He couldn’t let everyone lose the opportunity to experience conflict and ideological clashes just for his own momentary satisfaction. Without the impact of thought, civilization cannot progress. Without experiencing real contradictions, no one truly values peace.
Just like Emperor Israel, who had to be restrained for the stability of the entire nation, compromising with the nobility and changing the world bit by bit. Israel, who had become a god, also had to be patient for the progress of the entire civilization, guiding slowly. Not to mention, he had just completed his ascension and would soon have to go back to think about how to slowly revise his doctrine and carefully construct his own system of order.
For a moment, silence fell between Joshua and Israel once more.
In the void, two streaks of light sped forward.
Just as they were about to reach the front lines of the joint fleet, Israel, who had been silent for a long time, spoke again slowly.
“To be honest, Lord Radcliffe.”
When he said this, Israel’s tone carried a deep sense of worry. He said softly: “It’s precisely because I have become a god… that I feel confused… Can civilization and gods truly coexist?”
As he spoke, the newly ascended God of Might and Justice even stopped, raising his own hands, and said in a deep voice: “This kind of infinite power is enough to allow any god to break away from their mother civilization, go to some obscure corner of the World Star River, and create a new race that believes in them to maintain their own eternal existence… A god can truly ignore any conditions. They are a civilization unto themselves. Even if the mother world is destroyed, as long as one god survives, they can inevitably reshape that race and start over from scratch in some remote place.”
“Unlike an emperor, an emperor who loses his people is no longer an emperor. But a god who loses their believers can simply create a new batch, or go to another world to find another race, and reconstruct their own order.”
Just like the Father of Nature. Joshua thought silently. The Father of Nature had taken a small group of elves to take refuge in some small world. With the power of a main god like the Father of Nature, he could even change the world’s structure and twist the special environment shaped by the World Will. Not to mention having a group of loyal elves following him; even if he had gone alone, he could probably create a new batch of elves in a few hundred or thousand years.
Thus, Israel’s worry was easy to understand.
Since gods are so powerful, what constrains them to continue dedicating themselves to their mother civilization, rather than directly taking a group of believers to some corner of the Multiverse Star River to entertain themselves, probably relies solely on the god’s personal character.
The maintenance of the relationship between civilization and gods actually depends on whether one party has good character… As time passes, it’s no simple task to keep one’s original intention unchanged.
What a terrible joke this is.
However, faced with Israel’s worry, Joshua didn’t pay too much attention to the question he raised.
“Don’t overthink it, Your Majesty. Let’s not even touch on the most basic issue that gods also need a strong mother civilization to give back to them in order to become stronger.”
The warrior’s opening remark was a bucket of cold water: “You might not even live long enough to have your character degrade. Don’t look at me like that. I might not live that long either, and the same goes for the other six gods. The vast majority of gods don’t live long enough to change their hearts. Your character is too good. This problem is a bit of a groundless worry.”
Saying this, Joshua actually started to laugh. But soon, he returned to his usual serious expression and shook his head: “Our Era of Falling Stars has only been around for a thousand or eight hundred years. The Seven Gods, who didn’t even have memories at the beginning, could still hold onto beliefs whose reasons they had long forgotten, until not long ago when His Majesty Xing Zheng sacrificed himself… Not to mention that. The Era of Radiance lasted over five thousand years, and I haven’t heard of any god who could ascend becoming so degenerate.”
“Your Majesty, your age probably isn’t even a fraction of those gods’ ages. Besides, if the Mycroft civilization suddenly encountered a great disaster—say, it was directly shattered by a passing Star River-level Evil God—then if a god survived, wouldn’t that mean the people survived too? At least as long as a god exists, a civilization can never be completely extinct, and it’s extremely difficult to extinguish. They are an insurance policy for civilization. Whether that insurance needs an eternally unchanging heart is a different matter.”
Joshua’s viewpoint was a bit too pragmatic, leaving the worried Israel momentarily speechless. Most importantly, what Joshua said was correct. So far, in both the Era of Radiance and the Era of Falling Stars, there hasn’t been a single god who changed due to the passage of time. His worry was purely theoretical; there wasn’t even a real example in reality.
“…An otherworldly Star River has my divine enemy.”
Changing the subject, Israel set off again. His voice was a bit muffled: “It was precisely because I felt the completely opposite ideals of an otherworldly civilization that I awakened from the divine Great Source. Without the stimulation from that opponent, I might have slept for another two years before my faith could solidify.”
“Although it’s just a guess, if anyone else ascends to godhood after me, they can try using a similar method to accelerate their awakening. Having an enemy is like adding a lively catfish to a spiritual fish tank. It does have an extraordinary effect.”
“Alright, I’ll make a note of that and pass it on to the others.”
Joshua’s expression immediately became solemn. This was the experience Israel had summarized using himself as an experiment. When the original Seven Gods of Humanity awakened, they were already gods. They didn’t have this kind of experience. As the first to ascend, Israel’s entire process of sublimation is a huge reference for everyone else who wants to ascend to godhood. Its value is immense.
And at this moment, a familiar aura came. Joshua and Israel both looked up.
Not far away, at the front lines of the joint fleet, four Legendaries had emerged from their respective locations and gathered in the void, waiting for the arrival of this one human and one god. The four Legendaries—Faina, Galannod, Lamotte, and Yarnamirro—along with more fleet members waiting behind them, lined up to welcome the two.
And as a backdrop were the Star Shepherd’s massive void behemoth fortress, the celestial wall of the Mycroft joint fleet separating the two realms, and the endless steel fortress of the Knowledge Seizer spanning the distant void Star River.
It was only at this moment that Joshua somewhat belatedly and suddenly realized this one thing.
They had now officially integrated into the great maelstrom of the Multiverse Star River.
They were now a part of it.
…
Mysterious Star Domain, Twelve Sanctums.
“They are definitely not a recently emerged emerging civilization.”
In the First Sanctum, an elderly Takur with a heavy and cautious expression sat on the highest throne of the central great temple. He spoke in a low voice to the five positions arranged in descending order below the throne: “One of their fleets has over five ‘Venerable Masters’ (a different term for high-level Legendary; it wouldn’t be strange to use Legendary as a substitute later). Although some Venerable Masters don’t seem powerful on the surface, that’s only because they haven’t fully unleashed their power for combat. Moreover, the transcendent powers they possess are all different, and each path is very complete.”
Below the Patriarch’s throne, the five Takur prophets sitting in the positions of the Five Great Seers exchanged brief psychic whispers. No one dared to doubt the information personally gathered by the High Patriarch using his own avatar. But precisely because of this, they felt shocked.
“Just the path of psychic power alone, deducing realms like ‘Void Realm,’ ‘Manifest Lord,’ ‘Venerable Master,’ and ‘Spirit Venerable,’ is the precious experience our Takur people have gained over thousands of years of continuous experimentation and warfare with the Amos people. Any transcendent path requires a vast amount of experimentation, even the fall of countless geniuses, to tread out a bloody road… Those visitors from the otherworldly civilization each have a complete path behind them. No matter how talented they are, they cannot be a civilization that emerged only in the last few thousand years.”
Recalling the silver giant god who wielded the Steel Force, whose aura was clearly very young, yet could fight for so long against their veteran experts, and the subsequent sudden attack that nearly obliterated the Amos Emperor’s avatar, the High Patriarch’s aged face showed a hint of emotion: “Moreover, their research into ‘Divine Energy’ (a different term for divine power; the Takur have a special method of using divine power) is also very thorough. They have even developed a peculiar combat method of inscribing the source of divine energy onto an individual. Although this greatly wastes the lives of geniuses and cannot share the divine energy with everyone, it can create extremely powerful transcendent individuals in a short time.”
“Even otherworldly unbelievers have things worth learning from. First Seer, accompany me later to the ‘Infinite Divine Energy Fluctuation Source.’ I have a new inspiration. The rest of you, go mobilize personnel and collect information on super-ancient civilizations. A civilization this powerful cannot be an unknown nobody. Even if it’s not the ancient civilization itself, it must be an inheritor of that ancient civilization’s legacy. We must find clues about them.”
…
Amos Royal Court Core Star Domain, Outer Layer of the Super Nebula.
A bizarre fleet of Amos bio-ships, each with a different shape, was patrolling within the nebula layer. They were checking for any errors in the arrangement of celestial bodies and adjusting them back to their original state. This fleet was like the maintenance workers and gardeners of the Star River, responsible for adjusting the interior of the ‘Star River Garden’ into a beautiful and functional form.
But at that moment, a grand and majestic will swept across. Instantly, all the Amos people stopped their work and saluted the core of the nebula with reverence.
Then, a calm voice came.
“Go and collect ancient texts from seventeen thousand years ago.” Although he was irritable and quick-tempered, that was simply a matter of personality. The Amos Emperor had the right to express his emotions as he pleased. But whenever he wanted, he could be calm and rational in his view of things. From the center of the nebula, the vast will issued commands to all the Amos fleets maintaining his main body: “Go to the ‘Residual Archives’ of various ruined civilizations and retrieve the information of those civilizations that have been purified. Their races may be weak and easily bullied, but knowledge and truth have no distinction between weak and strong. I want to know the names and descriptions of all ancient civilizations in history.”
“Your will is our glory!”
All the Amos people said in unison, then simultaneously urged their ships, flying off towards different star domains of civilizations that had once been destroyed by the Amos people.
Meanwhile, in the core star domain, the super-massive nebula, whose size even exceeded the scope of the star domain, fell into a rare moment of contemplation.
“Clearly, that silver one fought more fiercely and was a greater threat.”
The Amos Emperor thought to himself in confusion: “But why do I find that golden one who appeared later more repulsive?”
Because he had used cunning to gather power and shattered his avatar with a single blow? A strong person wouldn’t quibble over such a common tactic. Failing to break free from the other’s entanglement in time was his own fault for being weak. Never make excuses for one’s own weakness, and overcome that weakness.
The Amos Emperor pondered for a long time, so long that the scattered light within the nebula began to shift slightly, causing the originally incandescent white nebula to transform into colors resembling the morning glow.
“Never mind.”
“Compared to this, and those damned Takur, it’s more important to deal with the problem of those ‘World Devourers’ first.”
…
At the same time, as Joshua and Israel arrived together at the front lines of the joint fleet, and the Takur and Amos both pulled back, beginning to search for the history of the Mycroft civilization in this Star River…
Within the endless fleet of the Knowledge Seizer, a vast and mighty flow of magical power was merging and interacting.
“Their appearance matches the description of the ‘First Type Human Standard Model.’”
“Their technology matches the description of ‘Profound and Unfathomable, Reaching the Source.’”
“Their multiple different transcendent paths match the description of ‘Ten Thousand Races, Hundred Paths, All Paths Lead Through.’”
“They use primitive sound wave vibrations for communication, but also possess high-level communication techniques such as psychic power, magical power, pure spiritual communication, and Steel Force information exchange. This also matches the description of ‘Bizarre and Varied, Each Different.’”
“They come from the previously sealed Lost Star River, matching the description of ‘Concealed from the Outside, Observing the Star River.’”
“They call themselves the ‘Mycroft Joint Expeditionary Fleet.’ When this magical language information flow is converted into the pronunciation of primitive sound wave vibrations, it is ‘Mycroft’ (the Knowledge Seeker uses runes from null magic as their language; their civilization has no sound, so conversion is needed). One hundred percent matches the description.”
“Based on the above, four hundred and forty-seven fleet commanders jointly confirm that the unknown otherworldly Star River civilization matches a total of thirty-seven descriptions of the ‘Exalted Civilization.’ After confirmation, this civilization should be the fragment inheritor of the ‘Ancient Pioneer Civilization,’ ‘Radiant Mycroft.’ After confirmation, they were once one of the super civilizations on the front lines resisting the ‘World Devourers’ in this Multiverse Star River. They must have won, which is why this Multiverse Star River could survive until now.”
“It really is them.”