Chapter 88#
Genesis Ten#
The Tower of Genesis, thirteenth floor.
Claros also had a window before him, its view showing the Sunset Plaza’s Resurrection Day ceremony.
Yet he didn’t look that direction. Instead, he sat high in a black iron throne, one leg crossed over the other, chin resting on hand, gray-purple eyes fixed on the Door of Eternal Night.
The Door of Eternal Night trembled.
Forces from outside surged like sea waters, crashing against the magnificent pitch-black gate again and again. Wisps of power seeped through the cracks, wandering across various totems like countless malicious serpents.
After a long while, Claros finally spoke, his tone leisurely.
“Every epoch you come again. Don’t you get tired?”
Having finished, he tapped the iron armrest with his knuckles, speaking to himself: “Not good, I’ve cursed myself in the bargain. I used to report once every epoch too.”
The outside forces grew more agitated and frenzied, striking the gate with tenfold previous intensity. The sky suddenly darkened, darkness threatening to devour the sun, all surrounding light turning silent.
“Tch,” Claros’s eyes swept over. “All old acquaintances. Stop causing trouble so often, won’t you?”
Chaotic whispers came from beyond the gate, seemingly responding to his previous words.
Claros looked utterly disinterested: “I really have reformed.”
The reply was the Door of Eternal Night continuing to be struck and eroded with tremendous sounds. Claros glanced out the window—dark clouds hung low, twilight blood-red.
He sighed, rising to walk toward it.
“If you can’t defeat him, fine… but you can’t defeat us either.”
The Temple of Twilight.
Below, the Resurrection Day ceremony had reached its most critical stage, with the deity standing before the circular altar. Among the surrounding people were many believers seeing the supreme deity’s face for the first time, their expressions without exception fevered, eyes full of reverence. Those elder members who had witnessed more than one Resurrection Day had their fervor and reverence undiminished.
The sky was nearly pitch-black. The supreme deity stood in howling winds, the only light in this world. It placed the cradled knight’s helmet in the altar’s center, positioned at an upward slant—as if watching the deity before it, or gazing at the sky behind It.
Then the deity raised Its right hand, using the helmet’s broken edge to prick a fingertip.
A drop of fresh blood fell upon the altar, quickly disappearing from sight. In ancient legends, fingertips connected to the heart; blood flowing from here was the purest heart’s blood.
It released only a single drop. Yet that a supreme deity would shed even one drop of blood for Its believers was the world’s most solemn promise, declaring It would eternally remain with them.
Suddenly, it began to rain.
Yet looking closer, what fell from the dark clouds were not raindrops but countless points of golden light.
People raised their heads. Shouts arose from somewhere.
“There! The Sea of Dust!”
Yu Feichen raised his head at the sound. Through the clouds’ crevices, the Sea of Dust appeared faintly, each glimmering grain of dust a world, flowing across the sky like an ocean composed of mist—vast yet ethereal. And now, countless lights danced downward, arriving at paradise’s center.
The anomaly appeared not only above but also in the divine kingdom below. Identical lights rose from every corner of the divine kingdom, converging toward paradise’s center.
Attendant Xiatei said: “Those are the spirits of the sacrificed.”
The first light point fell upon the Sunset Plaza’s stone floor, gradually forming into a human shape.
The second light point fell, similarly slowly becoming a person.
Third, fourth… other light points fell and formed.
A bald head reflected light in one corner of the plaza. Yu Feichen looked over and saw the bald captain he’d encountered in dungeons resurrect alongside his entire team, several people embracing Xiamson amid tears and laughter. The same scene repeated in every corner of the Sunset Plaza. Those who departed returned, and those waiting still waited—in the vast sea of people, wish plaques would guide them to reunion in paradise.
No one stood apart, for across countless epochs, all eventually die. Yet in paradise, because of the supreme deity’s mercy, even death became something no longer fearful.
Yu Feichen withdrew his gaze, looking again toward the supreme deity. The deity, at some point, had retrieved Its knight’s helmet, standing quietly there—standing between the Sea of Dust and the boundless divine kingdom, standing in Its kingdom’s center, looking down upon Its believers and subjects.
In such circumstances, even Yu Feichen found himself compelled to acknowledge that this supreme deity truly deserved reverence and admiration.
When the last light point also became real life, the dark clouds dispersed, and gentle, bright evening light once again bathed paradise. A dove landed on the supreme deity’s shoulder and pecked at Its hair.
The ritual concluded. Next came the grand celebration. Yu Feichen turned and left the terrace. The entire temple now bathed in gentle light, attendants carrying flowers moving through its passages, children playing on grass—everything starkly different from the desolate graveyard he’d witnessed the previous night, as if that evening had been merely a dream.
Yu Feichen raised his head toward the sky’s brilliant clouds—hadn’t this epoch he spent in paradise been like an equally strange and wondrous dream?
After learning his homeland no longer existed, his past contained only the senior officer who brought him to paradise. And his sole desire was to escape paradise, to withdraw from the supreme deity.
Back then he hadn’t believed in deities so powerful as to truly love all people, nor that paradises of eternal peace genuinely existed. He thought people simply couldn’t fulfill their desires, so could only fantasize that the deity loved them.
Yet now the senior officer was a mirror-image reflection, a phantom. And such a deity and paradise truly existed.
He was utterly bewildered.
Looking back brought only emptiness. Moving forward led into blankness. He’d lost even his sole direction, and the one person he alone wanted to protect needed him not. He had desperately evaded reaching exactly this outcome, now descending upon him a thousandfold.
How could he stay or leave?
Yu Feichen couldn’t catch his breath. In this moment, if any person approached to tell him what to do now, he would take it as life’s pursuit—anything to extricate himself from this state.
Yet no one did. Only the attendant Xiatei followed like a phantom, neither distant nor close.
Finally he stopped in a vast semi-open hall. It was very high, its ceiling covered in murals, its walls lined with crystalline transparent windows. Evening sunlight streamed through the glass panes—scattered light like honey.
Broad staircases formed the hall’s main structure, extending gently upward to fill the space, flanked by pillars and statues, leading to a brilliant crystal throne at its end, carved beneath with eternal sleep flowers.
Xiatei disappeared at some point. Yu Feichen stood on the stairs below the throne, looking down, faintly able to see the faceless divine statue standing quietly in the twilight, and children playing beside the pool.
Paradise had no day-night cycle, but Landenworth did. The wind blowing in carried warmth tinged with dusk’s coolness. As the blood-red evening sun touched the distant mountain peak, footsteps sounded from behind Yu Feichen.
Yu Feichen turned.
Evening light streamed through the crystal windows onto the newcomer, as if time itself slowly paused.
It still wore the snow-white robes embroidered with gold from the ceremony, pale golden long hair curled slightly at its ends. The curl’s arc faintly resembled Anphiel’s, yet the youth’s tender delicacy had entirely vanished.
The deity’s appearance was difficult to describe. One could only say that people habitually project all beautiful fantasies onto deities, viewing them as embodiments of perfection—and the supreme god fulfilled this.
Yu Feichen looked at Its eyes.
They were golden like dawn light, crystalline in texture. In the gradient’s transitions, Yu Feichen glimpsed faint gold-green, yet it seemed like illusion.
In silence, gazes met soundlessly. Very strange, like meeting for the first time.
Yu Feichen was the first to look away. He sat down on the stairs.
Shortly after, the supreme deity sat beside him on the same step. At an appropriate distance, though Its long robe trailed, its edges touching Yu Feichen’s cape.
After a long while, Yu Feichen, watching the faceless statue outside, asked: “Do you have a name?”
After brief silence, he received an answer.
The deity said: “No.”
“Originally?”
“Yes.” The deity replied: “But I abandoned it.”
Yu Feichen: “Forgot it?”
The deity corrected: “Abandoned.”
So Yu Feichen didn’t ask further. People do indeed abandon their original names, like abandoning a past, just as he no longer went by Qi. The deity had far longer existence than he, and therefore logically had far more dramatic beginnings. As for what that beginning resembled, it bore little relation to him.
After a while, the deity said: “They habitually call me by the name they first encountered.”
Yu Feichen said nothing.
The deity watched Yu Feichen.
It foresaw he wouldn’t be in good spirits, much like that time needing a mechanical rabbit to soothe him. But this wasn’t the case. Instead, there was another faint, indescribable attitude.
After a long while, Yu Feichen asked: “You have nothing to explain?”
“It’s as you see.”
This person had already abandoned explanation, broken pottery accepted. Or perhaps “abandoned” wasn’t right—there was simply no need to explain. Were another believer in this situation, they’d probably already eagerly kissed Its fingers. Yu Feichen felt a vague sense of loss.
Yu Feichen: “Is there anything I haven’t seen?”
The deity slightly furrowed Its brows, seemingly thinking. Yu Feichen thought there apparently was.
“Your name,” the deity said, “I chose it.”
Upon finishing these words, It saw Yu Feichen suddenly stare intently, tears rimming his eyes.
—He hadn’t been angry before, so why now?
Yet It didn’t know what to say. Yu Feichen’s state resembled a glass doll on the verge of shattering.
Yu Feichen closed his eyes and breathed heavily several times.
That world’s scenes surfaced before his eyes—the murky yellow sky, pervasive dust and smoke, and the king on the bone throne. When he’d come to paradise, he’d not long been there, yet he’d encountered no one since who made him feel such threat as that king.
So… so—
So even his name was…
His senior officer was the supreme deity’s reflection. His name was the supreme deity’s mark. It had been watching him all along.
What he’d missed was what he’d wanted to escape. What he thought he possessed was what It granted him. The traces of paradise and the deity had long been branded upon him.
He’d spent an entire epoch contradicting himself, only discovering it today. He accepted it.
Yu Feichen’s voice became hoarse: “What do you want me to do?”
Upon asking, he saw the deity regard him with slight surprise, as if unprepared for such a question.
Seeing such an expression, Yu Feichen understood everything.
The deity didn’t need him to do anything—just as the deity loves the world yet needs nothing in return.
Thus Yu Feichen said only one sentence: “I don’t want to see you again.”
He rose and walked out.
Watching his departing figure, the deity felt faint confusion.
Mentioning that name, Its sole intention had been to tell Yu Feichen It had never forgotten him. Yet it seemed to have caused extraordinarily dire consequences.
The deity looked toward Xiatei, standing silently beside, and asked: “I… how can I win him back?”
Xiatei was utterly bewildered.
After leaving the Temple of Twilight, Yu Feichen returned directly to the Giant Tree Inn. The celebration continued, but he found it only noisy.
On the way back he encountered Bai Song, who was still mingling with that gossipy guide, but strangely Chen Tong was also there.
“Vincent… Murphy the official said Resurrection Day was approaching. Since the Tower of Genesis would consume enormous power anyway, but had accumulated enough for an entire epoch, they didn’t mind expending more. So Vincent brought us all back,” Chen Tong said. “Everyone else was left to work for him researching time spells. I couldn’t help and got kicked out. He told me in a few days to find myself the… gatekeeper to get work. Oh, that one not permitted to enter with dogs, hehe—”
Before finishing, he was muffled by Bai Song and the guide together.
Yu Feichen slept through the entire Resurrection Day in his inn room. Upon waking, it was already a new day—the first day of a new epoch.
Epochs ended with “Resurrection Day” and began with “Wish Day.” That is, today was Wish Day. On this day, doves would deliver to everyone a wish slip. All could write a personal wish—the so-called “wishing to the supreme deity.” After submitting, the slip’s reverse would display a number, large or small, representing the wish’s price, settled in radiant ice stones.
By expending the corresponding amount of radiant ice stones, any wish would be fulfilled and realized—whatever it might be. Some wished to end their adventures in paradise and return home enriched, wishes typically costing only symbolic stones. Others desired to become officials serving the supreme deity, yet such wishes often carried exorbitant prices.
Yu Feichen also received his wish slip, but desired no wishes from the supreme deity. He pressed the slip to his trunk’s bottom, then went to the Tower of Genesis’s thirteenth floor.
Claros lay listlessly on the iron throne, coughing. Seeing him arrive, he weakly offered greeting.
Yu Feichen asked: “What’s wrong?”
Claros: “Guarding the gate, too tiring.”
Yu Feichen recalled Xiatei mentioning “enemies outside,” responding flatly: “I see.”
Claros raised his brows: “You’re not curious what I did?”
Yu Feichen said: “Dealt with some of your former associates.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly. Claros suddenly sat up from the throne: “It told you?”
“Who?”
“The supreme deity.”
“No.”
The conversation resumed after a pause.
“…Then Murphy told you?” Claros asked.
Yu Feichen: “I guessed.”
Claros remained listless, sighing quietly: “Then you also understand what that card meant.”
Actually, when Claros asked him to guess at the tea gathering, Yu Feichen already knew the card’s meaning. After all, nothing else would cause all officials to so carefully avoid it.
“An outer god,” Yu Feichen said. “Your first card is an outer god. What’s your last one?”
Claros: “You keep guessing?”
Yu Feichen regarded him flatly: “A knight?”
Only Murphy didn’t oppose Claros. So on the prophecy card representing the future, he was no longer a threat to the supreme deity.
Claros: “…”
He watched Yu Feichen: “What exactly did you come find me for today? Haven’t been opening lately.”
Yu Feichen extended his right hand. A brass-colored fortress phantom materialized above it.
“Tch,” Claros watched that, narrowing his eyes. “Good stuff.”
Yu Feichen: “Teach me to use it.”
Claros’s lips curled. A crimson tongue licked his teeth, revealing an expression delighting in chaos: “…Alright.”