Chapter 84: Pure Memetic Lifeform
Back when he fought the Death Evil God, along with the Chaos memories that Joshua suppressed, there were also the divine essences of his 'Battle,' 'Kill,' and 'Destroy.'
Compared to the Chaos memories, which could be weakened through the trick of the 'Continent of Strife,' divine essence was even more ethereal and even harder to resolve.
However, through his exchange with the Knowledge Seizer, and his own contemplation on the path after Legendary, on the Sage realm, Joshua discovered that he might have found the essence of deities, the truth of divine essence, and even possibly found the realm between Legendary and Sage.
What is divine essence?
It is the reflection of the mind of a sentient being within the First Flame.
In the currently observable multiverse, all material and spiritual worlds originate from the light of the First Flame. Within the First Flame exist the information and power of all things. All creation originates from the derivatives of the First Flame and has an essential connection to the source of all things.
Divine essence is an overly powerful reflection of a sentient being's mind within the First Flame. This reflection corresponds to and connects with the material world. If a breach can be opened, infinite divine power will surge forth from within.
But the essence of this breach is actually a wound torn in the connection between all things and the First Flame by an overly pure will, an overly pure conviction.
Infinite divine power is essentially the power to heal the wound, like platelets flowing with blood to clot and heal a wound. Divine power is essentially just that.
"Primordial transcendent species like the Steel Serpent and the Primordial Gods are naturally connected to the First Flame, so they hold divine power without suffering the erosion of divine essence like later deities who use divine essence to communicate with the First Flame and gain divine power."
After purifying the Chaos essence, Joshua remained in place, watching the small spheres orbiting around him as he began to ponder. "My divine essence has already penetrated very deeply into the First Flame, surpassing most Steel Serpents, and even most gods."
Divine essence is a valve that tears and fixes a wound. The pain of divine erosion they endure is the price of constantly strengthening their conviction and will, repeatedly tearing the wound, driving their divine essence deeper into the First Flame to gain more divine power.
Although Joshua possessed divine essence, he did not use divine power to deliberately create wounds. So he was only eroded, not yet at the point of divine annihilation.
As for the ruler of the Siberia World, the Time Pusher Fatlervi, he possessed the divine essence of Time and Fate but did not become a god to use it. He used divine essence to create a wound valve, using human souls to build a small dam to store energy and water, accumulating divine power while avoiding risks... but the price of doing so was killing hundreds of billions of lives.
In essence, a god, especially a god at the moment of divine annihilation, is a standard memetic lifeform, and divine essence is a memetic core similar to the Chaos essence.
The Earth Goddess, through the conceptual meme of 'Earth,' gains divine power over Earth from the First Flame. The God of Forging and Flame, through the conceptual memes of 'Forging' and 'Flame,' gains related power from the First Flame. So, the essence of a god is a typical manifestation of the fourth level of survival mode, 'Self is Cognition.' They themselves are a concept, a meme.
Because of this, the Father of Nature was bound by the memes of Nature and Elves, prioritizing nature and elves in all matters, even doing things like deserting. This is indeed unavoidable, because he himself is this concept, so how could he go against his own essence?
Later true gods with opposing divine essences, such as the previous God of Might and Justice, Xing Zheng, constructed a complete orderly cycle through two seemingly opposing yet unified divine memes. This is like using one divine power to counter another, automatically maintaining the opening of the valve, allowing them to freely mobilize divine power while retaining considerable free will.
From the primordial Steel Serpents and Primordial Gods, natural possessors of innate divine power, to the subsequent ancient gods like the Father of Nature and the Earth Goddess, who incarnated themselves as conceptual memes, and finally to the true gods of today, like the Seven Gods, who hold opposing divine memes and construct orderly cycles—this is the evolution of gods through the ages.
After confirming that 'Malicious Chaos' and the Evil Gods are essentially a peculiar type of memetic lifeform, Joshua could finally determine by comparison that the essence of divine essence and deities is similar. One relies on the strange transcendent power essence of Malicious Chaos, and the other relies on the First Flame, the source of all things.
"Moreover, even if a god undergoes divine annihilation, it doesn't necessarily mean they are dead."
In his mind, Joshua perfected his model regarding deities, muttering to himself, "It's very likely that they are just pulled into the interior of the First Flame by the divine wound expanded to its limit—like a fisherman being pulled into the infinite ocean of divine power by a divine line that has penetrated too deeply."
How could an individual's will contend with the First Flame? This is almost equivalent to death.
Understanding this, Joshua finally figured out some issues regarding authority settings from the Era of Radiance.
Gods are memetic lifeforms that transcend ordinary sentient beings and go a step further. This is why, although some Legendary beings are powerful enough to rival or even surpass gods, most gods have higher authority than Legendary beings.
Just as a Void Behemoth is powerful enough to surpass a civilization but is still a beast, no matter how strong a Legendary being is, they cannot transcend the essence of their survival mode... It's just that the existence form of a god is too unstable and dangerous. To this day, no civilization belonging to gods has been accumulated. All gods' methods of using divine power are like ordinary people with great brute strength.
Just as in the early days of studying magic and battle qi, many sages and geniuses died in the process of research, the current realm of gods is a path full of flaws and deficiencies. It requires a long time and the demise of countless gods before a method of divine cultivation without side effects can be perfected one day.
The 'Myriad Worlds, Myriad Gods' plan of the Mycroft Civilization back then was probably intended for the entire civilization to ascend to godhood, becoming the first 'memetic civilization' in the multiverse, using the power of the entire civilization to advance the realm of gods. Only by reaching this step could they transcend the original level of life and become a new dividing line, like the original division between 'beasts' and 'civilization.'
But have gods truly transcended ordinary sentient beings in essence?
Not necessarily.
Not to mention the numerous flaws and constraints of the divine realm, powerful beasts can destroy civilizations, and powerful humans, i.e., Legendary beings, can naturally slay gods.
Just as an extremely powerful beast like the Undying Phoenix Void Behemoth, its very existence is on the verge of crossing the boundary, reaching the realm of 'Self is Civilization.' Once it advances and gains the correct mode of thinking, it could use its immense power to reverse-engineer knowledge and technology, and it probably wouldn't take long to rival a powerful civilization in terms of knowledge and technical reserves.
And the strongest batch of Legendary experts must have, like him, Joshua, groped for the essence of divine essence and deities. If they also successfully cross the boundary and become memetic lifeforms, they would naturally be among the most powerful of memetic lifeforms—just as the Seven Gods often told Joshua that if he became a god, he would surely be an exceptionally powerful deity.
"But that doesn't mean only divine power can achieve this."
Thinking this, a deep crimson light flickered in Joshua's eyes. The light of divine essence radiated from the warrior's body, finally manifesting behind him as a pure wheel of divine essence, rotating endlessly. This rotating Φ-shaped symbol was Joshua's representation, just like the black ring of the former God of Might, or the forked eye of the God of Wisdom and Choice, an embodiment of his essence.
Joshua didn't think that gods were the only path to memetization. This wasn't a guess but had a solid basis.
Just as Malicious Chaos can create memetic lifeforms like Evil Gods, proving that deities are not the only method of sublimation... every Sage of a transcendent power likely experienced a process of memetization related to that power.
This also proves that every transcendent power likely has a corresponding method of memetization—but divine power is the oldest, most primitive, and most researched transcendent power. The methods of sublimation through becoming a god are numerous, far surpassing those of other later transcendent powers, both in quantity and safety.
In fact, the Psionic Worms might very well be the result of a super civilization that rashly attempted psionic memetization and ultimately failed.
"Although I don't know if it's correct... the direction of advancement for a Legendary expert is likely to become the 'god' of that corresponding transcendent power on the path of that power, to become that transcendent power itself."
Then, the next step is the 'Sage Realm' of creating a brand new transcendent power.
Of course, Joshua knew that these were just his speculations. He had no actual evidence to prove them. Analysis and research were almost like pure fantasy. If he truly believed it all, it would only prove his own shallowness.
But as the saying goes? Bold hypothesis, careful verification. Researching unknown knowledge indeed requires a bit of boldness.
"So, it seems there's no other way."
With this in mind, the warrior stood at the center of his world and let out a rather helpless sigh, causing the surrounding Silver Fairies, who were sorting through the collapsed debris of the Crystal Obelisks, to imitate (repeat) the sigh. Joshua thought to himself, "I'll just have to try and catch a few more Evil Gods in the future."
"After all, besides gods, they are the only type of transcendent power memetic lifeform I can encounter."