Chapter 123#
Genesis Seventeen#
——Do you want to see?
The answer was self-evident.
“You take Windsor back,” Yu Feichen said to White Pine.
White Pine nodded obediently: “I’ll help Windsor get familiar with Paradise.”
Windsor waved at Yu Feichen: “Have a pleasant time here, Langton.”
The two figures disappeared behind the closing elevator door. The thirteenth level fell into deeper silence, with only the Gate of Eternal Night and the black iron throne standing mutely.
After a long while, Claros’s voice finally rang out. His voice lowered, like a wandering poet walking through forests at night, telling strange ghost stories to spirits in the darkness.
“You can’t imagine how many Outside Gods in the Eternal Night covet the territory of Eternal Daylight. I was once among them,” he said. “The more power you possess, the harder it is to establish rules that perfectly govern them. This is our common understanding, with no exceptions. Therefore, everyone is waiting—for the day when the kingdom of Eternal Daylight collapses. You have your own power now. You should be able to appreciate this.”
Yu Feichen could imagine such a scene—surrounding the sun were densely packed devils waiting for opportunity. They waited for Eternal Daylight to fall apart, like vultures dreaming of a feast of death.
Claros extended his hand. Gray-purple light points scattered in his palm like embers of fire.
He continued: “Especially, the Godhead of Eternal Daylight loves Their subjects and established the ridiculous existence called Resurrection Day… You know, a person’s death is like the disappearance of a world. Birth is creation, death is dissipation. To reconverge dissipated power back into original life, They must use too much power. Thus, Resurrection Day is also the day when Their order is most likely to collapse.”
“Epoch after epoch, everyone can look up and see the sun. More and more people drift into the Eternal Night. Wars to divide power grow increasingly brutal. Slowly, they all learned of Resurrection Day. On that day in the last epoch, guess how many Outside Gods were waiting around? Almost half the Eternal Night’s possessed forces. Yet on precisely that day…”
The voice gradually faded to nothing. Claros waved his sleeve.
The surroundings suddenly changed, becoming an almost real scene.
——The scene of Resurrection Day. The sky was thick with dark clouds, so low they seemed ready to press into people’s bodies. People stood devoutly and solemnly. At the Sunset Plaza, the center of the world, a boulder altar seemed to come from ancient times.
Ten thousand people looked up. The white-robed Godhead standing at the altar’s center remained composed and noble, fitting every imagination people had of divine beings.
The handmaiden beside Them had told Yu Feichen that gods were invincible. But did truly invincible beings really exist in this world? Yu Feichen didn’t know.
The scene quietly changed. Just like the Resurrection Day he had once witnessed, the Godhead cut Their fingertip. In ancient legends, blood from fingertips connected to the heart.
Before, Yu Feichen hadn’t understood the meaning of this action. He thought the blood drop was just a ritual component, more ornamental than practical. But after seeing Windsor’s deconstruction and Murphy’s burning, he suddenly understood one thing: this was how the Godhead used Their own original power. In various religions, blood was always given special meaning.
The scene of the lizard greedily drinking Ludwig’s heart blood floated before his eyes again. Evil and holiness coexisted, like a metaphor.
The Resurrection Day ritual continued. Souls rose from all parts of Eternal Daylight, returning to Paradise. This scene was witnessed not only by Paradise’s subjects, but also fully observed by enemies in the Eternal Night. When Outside Gods saw this scene, did they feel longing or envy? Probably neither—the desire to plunder and devour surpassed everything. The Eternal Night was destined to have no peace.
Just as the ritual was about to end smoothly, change occurred.
In the solemnity, dazzling light suddenly blazed.
Lightning tore through the dark cloud curtain. The bolt pierced the entire sky.
Amid the crowd’s exclamations, the Godhead raised Their head to look there. No one knew what They saw, but something must have happened, because a wild wind howled forth, whipping Their long hair and robe sleeves. They narrowed Their eyes slightly.
An indescribable atmosphere suddenly arose, as if something was slowly awakening. An ancient torrent of time swept forth. In the wild wind, low wails issued from all parts of Paradise. Countless invisible spirits must be wandering here.
The cracks appeared at this moment.
They didn’t appear in one place, but everywhere. In the wails, Paradise shattered inch by inch. It was hard to describe such a scene—the peaceful Paradise was like a brightly colored picture, and now, the paper bearing this picture was being torn apart. Human faces, tree leaves, buildings—everything was falling apart. One person’s face was split in two by a crack: left eye and nose on one half, right eye and half a face on the other, with an abyss-like fissure between, yet he himself remained completely unaware.
At the same time, evil and violent auras from the outside Eternal Night swarmed forth, rushing toward Paradise and the Divine Kingdom like a torrential downpour!
Amid the fragmentation, only the altar stood majestically. The Godhead suddenly withdrew Their gaze. Their brow carried a layer of cold intent, cold as ice and snow. A sharp gleam flashed. Their palm and fingers instantly became bloody, then—Their slender five fingers spread apart, pressing onto the altar’s stone surface!
Blood instantly spread. With the Resurrection Altar as center, a solemn and cold imposing force swept outward, spreading like ripples.
Thousands of cracks suddenly sealed shut.
The picture remained vivid and vibrant.
Between heaven and earth, all sounds ceased. As if the second the world was born.
Their fingers still remained there, not moving away.
Above the Divine Kingdom, those flocks of Outside God vultures that had swarmed down already covered everywhere. Among them were pure forces, as well as concrete storms, bats, floods, and even fragment worlds, carrying endless malice to tear at the Divine Kingdom and Paradise.
——Then they stopped abruptly.
They were all seized by irresistible, invincible force and lifted upward, forming a pitch-black massive vortex above Paradise. The next moment, they were suddenly pressed into the Tower of Creation!
In an instant, dark clouds dispersed. Gentle twilight appeared. From somewhere came ethereal songs, faintly echoing, then faintly scattering.
People returned from stillness to normal. In their memories, thunder had never roared, the world had never shattered, nothing had happened. Because at the moment of near collapse, even time had been severed.
Atop the altar, the Godhead’s outline remained holy and serene. Truly making people believe They were a deity present now, present in the past, present forever.
Yet on the fingers holding the knight’s helmet, blood still seeped. The blood color slowly spread along those ancient sword and blade collision marks, finally staining the snow-white robe sleeves red.
As if unaware, They walked down from the altar. The long robe trailed on the stone steps. No one noticed those bloodstains, because they were truly too far from the deity.
The scene receded like a tide. In the ash floating through the thirteenth level, Yu Feichen looked toward the distant endless darkness, not withdrawing his gaze for a long time, as if by looking this way, the Godhead would emerge from there.
Yet a door opened from nowhere in the pitch-black background. They pushed open the door and came to the thirteenth level.
Yu Feichen snapped back to awareness. After a moment, he realized this was Claros replaying another scene.
The two scenes were temporally continuous. The Godhead had just walked down from the altar. No emotion could be seen in Their eyes. The aura around Them remained so solemn and quiet.
This place was the thirteenth level, but on this day, the thirteenth level didn’t have only Claros.
Claros sat on his black iron throne. Behind him was a massive silver-white cage imprisoning those external forces that had been pressed into the Tower of Creation. Standing before the cage was a divine official with cold silver short hair, features more mechanical than human, with an RGB running light still lit on a single-sided earring. Yu Feichen had met him at the tea party. This was the God of Law from the twelfth level. Beside Law was the God of Life, Sather. The others were also familiar faces: Murphy, the Painter, and the three goddesses of Power, Wisdom, and Destiny. All divine officials possessing powerful force in the Tower of Creation had gathered here.
After the Godhead arrived, the Painter spoke first, his eyes full of worry.
“What happened? The barrier between Eternal Daylight and the outside completely disappeared just now, and even now barely exists. Outside Gods are attacking. We…”
The Godhead’s voice remained as light as frost and snow, yet spoke content that shocked all divine officials.
“My power lost control,” They said.
“Lost control?” The Painter repeated, as if never having heard the term before. “Which powers?”
“Almost all of them.”
“As expected,” the Goddess of Wisdom said. “Almost all of Paradise’s functions stopped operating just now. We also lost the vast majority of our power, which still hasn’t returned. Right now Paradise is maintained entirely by Your original essence? This cannot continue.”
From all directions came thunderous collision sounds. The Outside Gods had finally waited for the day when Eternal Daylight had an incident. They were attacking frantically as if in carnival. The Gate of Eternal Night connected Paradise and Eternal Night—it could be said to be the only visible passage, and also the concentrated point of Outside God attacks. At this moment, the thirteenth level trembled constantly, walls shaking.
More severely, every other part of Eternal Daylight was also now in such danger.
The Goddess of Destiny frowned, her eyes showing worry.
Yet the Godhead walked toward the silently standing Gate of Eternal Night. On the path They walked, sporadic blood dripped from the knight helmet’s edges, hidden on the ground. With each drop of blood that fell, the thirteenth level’s state stabilized a bit more.
“Until I return, all authority belonging to the Godhead will be exercised by the Painter.”
They stood before the gate and said calmly: “Claros, you still guard the Gate of Eternal Night.”
Claros: “What about the others?”
“Maintain Eternal Daylight’s existence until I return.”
The Gate of Eternal Night slowly opened before Them. Night rushed forth. Countless Outside Gods crouched lurking in the shadow depths.
Murphy rushed forward but was held back by the Painter.
“You haven’t stepped into the Eternal Night for a very long time,” Murphy said.
The Godhead turned back. Their body was half in the pitch-black Eternal Night, half in the thirteenth level’s dim light, like a divine statue unchanged for millions of years.
“I understand the Eternal Night better than Paradise. For millions of years, never dissipating outside.”
Their words were always like vows.
Thus, They walked alone toward the outside of Eternal Daylight.
The Gate of Eternal Night closed with a thunderous sound.
The scene slowly dissipated.
“Then what?” Yu Feichen said.
“What happened after that… we don’t know. We only know that when They returned, Paradise remained peaceful. All forces that had attacked were completely dissipated. Many Outside Gods lost all news. Everything could continue, except some people heard there were benefits and always come to provoke.” Claros smiled. “Yet at that time, They had indeed lost all power and faced what might be the most brutal war in the entire Eternal Night’s history.”
Speaking of this, he sighed: “Honestly, even now I don’t know where those powers went, whether they’ve returned to Their control. I only know Eternal Daylight is normal now—just as we divine officials still don’t know what happened in the Eternal Night after They left. Do you know?”
Yu Feichen knew.
But he only knew the ending of this story.
In a world swept by sea winds, amid wavering flames of war, the Godhead had brought him back to Paradise.
He hadn’t spoken all along.
“Scared?” Claros saw what satisfied him and said: “This is the real Paradise. No safer than fragment worlds.”
“No,” Yu Feichen’s voice was a bit low. “I…”
What about me—he didn’t say it.
Claros was eagerly anticipating his next words, but saw this person heartlessly turn around: “I’m leaving.”
Claros said faintly: “You’ve deceived my feelings.”
Yu Feichen said seriously: “But I want to go to the Temple of Twilight.”
Claros was certain this person wouldn’t guard the gate with him.