Chapter 152: 7: Two Roads (Moon Tickets +6)

The night gradually enveloped the land.

Atop Mount of the Gods, the deities were about to witness the birth of a new king, while beneath the silence of the night, the shifting tides of the Origin Sea at the turn of the era concealed many secrets unknown to man.

Thousands of miles away, on a high mountain beside the Delphic Great Plains, two figures quietly watched the humans who had survived nearby.

Those were the Silver Humanity. They had endured many hardships, yet had miraculously survived. Struggling against the calamitous climate, they were probably unaware that before long, they would be erased by the new king.

The Earth had no need for them, and the gods loathed them. Perhaps it was as Mephisto, the once leader of the Silver Humanity, had said, “Let us all die, or let them all listen to us.” Now the one who spoke these words was working towards the latter, but the remaining Silver Humanity was about to live out the former.

Unlike the Golden Humanity, they hadn’t managed to leave any relics to proclaim their existence.

“A bunch of humans, is that why you brought me here? I really don’t see anything worth watching.”

The figure concealed beneath the black dress was somewhat hazy, her tall form unseen by anyone, riddled with mystery like the night itself. Standing by Laine’s side, Nyx’s attitude was as usual.

“There is nothing worth watching right now,”

Rubbing his temples, Laine felt somewhat exhausted. During the day, he had fought two Primordial Gods in succession and then opened up Samsara. Not long before, he had also secretly observed a special change, so although Laine’s divine body had recovered as usual, even better than before because of the birth of Samsara, he still felt somewhat listless.

Nevertheless, he had long invited Nyx out for a walk after a long time, preparing to thank her for her biased actions before, and incidentally to understand why she had done so.

“But it will be different in the future. You feel it too, don’t you? Because of the recent battle, shackles for all deities will soon descend upon this world.”

“Soon, the Earth will reject divine power, and other places will also be restricted to varying degrees. Even gods cannot resist the world itself and can only choose to comply.”

“And with the loss of divine intervention, at least direct intervention, in the future Third Age, mortals will be the masters of the Earth.”

Under his black robe, Laine couldn’t help but marvel at how useful Nyx’s previous gift had been.

As for the current laws of the world, hiding in history wasn’t very effective. After all, from the world’s perspective, the past and present weren’t much different.

But Secrecy was different. This black robe, woven from the fabric gifted by the Lady of the Night, concealed his presence very well; as long as he did not use divine power, he would not be discovered.

Luckily, the gods would soon be unable to use their divine power on Earth as well, so in this sense, everyone was not much different.

“Speaking of which, I’m actually a bit curious,”

With a smile, Laine turned to look at Nyx, whose face was indistinct and changing.

“What was your reason for deciding to stand with me before?”

When the Spirit Realm and the Realm of Lightless collided, Nyx was there by the sidelines, which Laine keenly noticed. If she were there to help the Lord of Darkness, she could have intervened directly, and probably ‘the Divine King’ would have had to hastily depart without much conversation with the ‘good children.’

Since she didn’t act, there was only one explanation. She intended to block Erebus’s assault for him, but seeing that he could handle it, she didn’t interfere.

Yet Laine truly couldn’t understand; did she have any reason to help him?

“Ha, do I need a reason for my actions?”

With a disdainful laugh, Nyx then denied:

“Only you and Erebus would count out everything so clearly. Besides, I was just there for fun. A clash of Great Divine Power is after all only the second such instance since the creation.”

Nodding, although Laine didn’t quite believe it, he decided not to pursue the matter further. After all, he had been prepared for the whims of a Chaos deity.

And just as Nyx said, during the struggle at the end of the First Age, the Titans thought they were the main force, but it was Gaia, the Mother Earth who fought against The Sky, who was the main power. But back then, the Lady of the Night didn’t have the time to go to the Earth to watch the battle; perhaps she really did just want to watch the drama unfold.

However, thinking it over, Gaia had been the real agent of action in two ages and yet had never gained any benefits from it, which was indeed rather unusual.

Sometimes, Laine didn’t feel much like targeting her. But there was no helping it; however pitiable Gaia was, she was all too easily influenced or acted on whims, and he had to respond accordingly.

His choice to come here had to do with checking if Mother Earth had already fallen into a brief slumber. He still needed to pick a suitable candidate related to the branch of the Golden Apple tree.

“Alright, then I’ll just assume you were here for fun. Even so, to thank you for not standing against me before, I still want to share an interesting discovery with you,”

Shaking his head gently, Laine spoke about something he had contemplated for a long time.

“Nyx, did you know? Long ago, I’ve been thinking about where we fall short compared to complete Great Divine Power.”

“You have to think about that? Don’t you know everything?” With a light snort, the Lady of the Night said, “Apart from maintaining the stability of personality, where else could the difference be?”

Laine nodded, just as Nyx had said, the Great Divine Power is the Law itself, and the reason they are not complete is that their will cannot permanently merge with the Origin without being assimilated.

“Yes, we need to allow personality to blend with the Law without being affected, but we can’t do that now. However, I have thought of a possibility, perhaps this can compensate for our deficiency in this respect.”

Looking towards where Silver Humanity was located, Laine stretched out his hand. Two humanoid phantoms slowly emerged, one wrapped in divinity, and the other without anything.

Nyx could tell that he was using this to represent Deities and mortals.

“Humans… is this why you invented ‘witchcraft’?”

She asked offhandedly, as the source of the Magic Net was crystal clear to the Divine Powers, thus the origin of the so-called witchcraft was naturally known without asking.

“One could say that, but so far, it’s still far from achieving my purpose.”

Gently nodding, Laine continued, “Authority is a part of us, but perhaps our perspective is too high, so even when we wield it, we don’t truly understand every bit of it, and that is where our deficiency lies.”

“From the perspective of a god, we will never truly understand it all. But if we can experience it from another perspective, perhaps we can fill that deficiency.”

He slowly clenched his five fingers, and the two phantoms disappeared.

“Because of the unknown, the Law affects personality. But if you understood everything, would that problem still exist?”

After a brief silence, Nyx thought to deny this statement, yet found some sense in it. She realized that she perhaps did not understand the Darkness as well as she thought she did.

It’s like a person not understanding the structure of their own brain, the flow of their blood. They know how to use it, better than anyone else, but not the internal principles.

“So what are you going to do, not become a deity, use that Samsara of yours?”

In the end, Nyx was still not optimistic about it.

“Not exactly, after all, this is just a conjecture, and in the current world, there is still no way to become divine without relying on any external forces, so naturally, I would not engage in a futile effort.”

“Moreover, the world is rather dangerous now, no matter how I think about it, I wouldn’t make such a decision.”

Shaking his head, Laine wasn’t ready to do such a thing. He gazed into the distance, pointed at Silver Humanity, and said slowly:

“But that doesn’t stop me from making some preparations.”

“I have prepared two paths for them, I will select some among them who are excellent but not excellent enough, and grant them the opportunity to become divine. Of course, that’s not what I want; I just want them to become a benchmark, to tell those truly potential beings that mortals can become divine.”

“Desire is the origin of all things, the driving force of civilization’s progress. Even I do not think my wisdom is omnipotent.” Laine spoke calmly, concluding, “I will create opportunities for them, then wait for them to inspire me.”

“They become sacred, and I advance further; that’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

“… it sounds like it.”

Indifferent, yet Nyx nodded anyway.

“Since you see hope in this, give it a try.”

Contrary to what Laine expected, Nyx found the process itself might be a little more interesting than whatever advancement it might lead to.

She was also curious to see what the ‘two paths’ Laine mentioned were; certainly, they wouldn’t be the current method of directly granting godhood.

After all, bearing godhood requires ‘qualifications’. For deities with immortal essence, their ‘qualification’, even if it cannot bear a powerful godhood, at least allows for becoming an ordinary True God. That’s the lowest threshold for an innate god, but it’s different for other beings.

The ‘excellent, but not excellent enough’ humans Laine spoke of might not have that ability.

“But the birth of the new humanity…is probably soon.”

“Your influence on fate is growing, perhaps the next generation of humans will come faster, and go faster too.”

Behind the veil of constant change, Nyx smiled a little, unknowingly.

As the Tri-phased Incarnation holding sway over Destiny, she had a somewhat vague understanding of the future. Humanity would be created and destroyed once more, an event that should have occurred a millennium later, but is now being accelerated.

She would just wait and see what interesting developments could happen among the future humans.