Inside the shelter of the legacy ruins, the orc Chikala hoisted the coffin on his shoulder. Watching Yaxiu and the others' expressions grow grim, he felt rather perplexed.
Was Senluo not being real so worth being surprised over? What difference did knowing this make anyway? Would it get you a twenty-percent discount when buying fruit?
Besides, hadn't this always been common sense?
The world was never real in the first place; what each person could perceive was merely "one facet" of it. For instance, Chikala had discovered that he was somewhat blue-green colorblind, yet the upper limit of his high-frequency hearing was higher than that of other races, which seemed to be an orc racial trait.
Yet this also proved that the world he perceived was different from that of others.
Later, the orc discovered that beyond mere senses, identical events looked different through everyone's eyes. Some saw war, some saw opportunity, some saw evil, some saw goodness... What was reflected in each person's eyes was merely a reflection of one facet of the world. In other words, the world perceived by everyone was false.
He had surrendered to the Four Pillar Cult, and now surrendered to Yaxiu and the others, for this very reason: he had none of the pride of a Sanctuary Sorcerer, nor did he care what others thought. He only wanted his own desires satisfied...
Because the orc had long known that people could never truly understand one another; each person could only be responsible for themselves.
This was perhaps the most prominent difference between the Four Pillar Cult and other cults: the former sought to make everyone understand this, while the latter were essentially all trying to deny it.
Thus, the orc didn't overthink things and instead stared thoughtfully at Gwen beside Igola. As the saying went, take pride in whatever trade you ply. Chikala swiftly settled into the role of a lackey and pondered how to elevate his standing: his current status was essentially below the quartet and Alice, but on par with Gwen, who was likewise spoils of war. His pressing priority now was to demonstrate his usefulness so he could step all over Gwen!
"A dignified man like me, Chikala, can't possibly rank lower than some two-winged wench!"
The others glanced at Chikala, who had no clue he was blurting out his inner thoughts, thinking to themselves that the Four Pillar Cult's influence on orcs was truly immeasurable.
After Yaxiu fed him a sip of water, Igola finally calmed down completely. Handing his scratch paper to Yaxiu, he said, "Look here. We never connected the dots before, but as long as you think carefully about it, you'll realize Senluo is far too strange."
"The Gospel Country has the Gospel System because the Yisu royal family worships the Gospel god. But what about Senluo? Its civilization is severed, reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, yet the grand law system remains operational. What kind of entity is sustaining this system?"
"Gods? Gods require energy to run, and Senluo rarely has a unified regime—who could worship a god?"
"It's only because we learned about the grand laws the moment we arrived in Senluo that we grew accustomed to it over time. But if you told anyone else, they would never believe a grand law system could exist: it counters the laws of death, allowing people not to fall into Hell when they die, but instead condense into an even more powerful obsession to continue existing!"
"It grants death a second ending—this is undeniably a miracle!"
Igola was right.
Blood Moon was the most "primitive" country, having no plug-ins at all; at most, the Blood Moon Ultimate Lord had forcibly fostered two new races.
Gospel had installed a "Gospel System" plug-in, but operating that plug-in required dozens of Legendary and Sanctuary Sorcerers as maintenance personnel, which was understandable, and the Gospel System did not interfere with the world's underlying logic.
Senluo was utterly astonishing. Yaxiu and the others had not seen any maintenance team to this day, yet its "grand law system" plug-in, capable of interfering with the foundational laws of life and death, was still operating!
Mortals dying to become grand laws, and grand laws ascending to become gods—in Senluo, this was taken for granted as the progression path.
Only, by what right?
In other countries, whether you were a Legendary Sorcerer or an earthly sage, upon death you obediently took a stroll through Hell before turning into study material in the Void Realm for future generations.
Death was the ultimate equalizer, yet Senluo had broken that rule.
"Besides, haven't you realized that the effects of the God Era legacies are simply absurd?" Igola pointed at his scratch paper and said, "'Kaleidoscope,' 'Gemini,' 'Shelter'... Even if the effective range of these legacies falls short of the Gospel System, their effects are on the same level. Especially 'Shelter'—even a divine miracle might not be able to stretch ten hours into thirty thousand years, right?"
Yaxiu glanced at the scratch paper and nodded gently. "Indeed."
"None of that is the main issue, however. The biggest problem is the Abyss!" Igola looked around at everyone. "Do you know how the Abyss is formed?"
The people of Senluo naturally couldn't answer this question. Harvey thought for a moment. "If I remember correctly, wherever sorcerers congregate, an Abyss appears."
"Correct," Igola nodded. "Because the Abyss is a product born of sorcerers."
He paused. "After a sorcerer dies, their soul is pulled down by gravity into the earth all the way to Hell. But on the journey to Hell, the negative energy of the sorcerer's soul already contaminates the earth. Death is an unavoidable fate for all living things; whether you are a legend or a hero, the moment of death inevitably produces immense terror, unwillingness, and even despair. Therefore, the souls of mortals after death are almost entirely pitch-black and filthy."
"Only after passing through the Six Hells does a purified soul reach the Void Realm."
"The Abyss is the fissure between reality and Hell. Thus, the more sorcerers there are in a place, the stronger the Abyss inevitably becomes."
"For Senluo to have no Abyss, there are only two possibilities: either the souls of Senluo's sorcerers never pass through Hell into the Void Realm—"
"Impossible," Yaxiu shook his head. "I've seen projections of Senluo sorcerers in the Void Realm."
"Then there is only the second possibility," Igola said. "The earth is fake. Even if a sorcerer's soul falls into the earth, it cannot pollute a single inch of soil."
Everyone fell silent for a moment. Harvey stamped on the floor. "Are you saying that if I just stomp hard enough, the earth will be pierced like paper under my feet?"
"Igola," Yaxiu reminded him. "We've seen more than one underground city."
"Any area an observer can perceive will collapse into reality, but places unobserved by anyone are false." Igola pulled out a third sheet of scratch paper and pointed to it. "There's another crucial clue: there is no starlight in the night."
"That is because the people of Senluo have never seen a starry sky at all. They cannot imagine a night illuminated by a multitude of stars."
Yaxiu vaguely caught onto Igola's key word. "Imagination?"
"Exactly." Igola had spoken so much in one breath that his throat felt parched. Gwen immediately handed water over to him from the side. Igola drank and continued, "Senluo is not a real world, but an idealistic world where will dictates matter."
"Here, sorcerers can rely on powerful obsessions to turn into grand laws, and rely on the faith of countless people to ascend into gods. Beyond relying on technical prowess, sorcerers can infuse imagination into phantasm creations, which is why they could forge so many legacies rivaling gods. The reason the people of Senluo united as one to strive toward their ideals was that they, too, were swept up by this idealistic power."
"In truth, we should have realized this long ago." Igola looked toward Yaxiu and Harvey. "Why was Senluo so powerful, yet we had never heard of it?"
Indeed.
Two hundred years ago, Senluo already boasted the productive forces of millions of Legendary Sorcerers. At that time, the Blood Moon Country had just entered the industrial era, and the Gospel Country had not yet entered the electrical era. If a Void Realm passage had opened between Senluo and other countries—even just a Level 2 passage passable by two-winged sorcerers—so long as Grey Fox sorcerers were equipped with legacies on the level of 'Shelter' or dispatched god-hosters, they could have easily shattered those other realms.
Yet, while Yaxiu and the others could find technological traces of many other countries in Senluo, they had never found any evidence of Senluo's advanced development in those other lands.
"Because the God Era civilization is a civilization that belongs solely to the Senluo Country," Igola said. "Legacies, god-hosting, grand laws... Once these local specialties leave Senluo, they become utterly meaningless; they can only take effect within Senluo. Unless other countries invaded Senluo, Senluo held no advantage whatsoever against them."
"Don't forget, if Senluo's sorcerers were truly so exceptional, sorcerers of other countries would also have been able to obtain the knowledge of Senluo sorcerers from the Void Realm."
Yaxiu felt a glimmer of understanding: the Void Realm was an online game, while each country was a single-player game. A god could add all kinds of elements to their own single-player realm, and when outsiders entered that single-player realm, they had to obey its particular rules—such as Senluo having grand laws and god-hosting, or Gospel having the Gospel System.
However, when it came to the online multiplayer realm (the Void Realm), only the most primal, universal laws could take effect. And knowledge that could circulate within the Void Realm had to be universal knowledge applicable to all regions.
Black Crow suddenly spoke up, "Could all this not simply be aid from the god to the Senluo Country?"
Indeed: the grand law system, creations born of will, the absence of the Abyss—these could well be the Senluo Azure Lord's benevolence toward Senluo. If the Omniscient Weaver could install the Gospel System for the Gospel Country, couldn't the Senluo Azure Lord install a few more plug-ins?
"Setting aside whether the Senluo Azure Lord could directly interfere with reality, if it were truly divine aid, He couldn't possibly have harmed you intentionally, could He?" Igola asked. "Then what is with the Strangling Green?"
Black Crow froze, remaining silent for a moment before saying, "That is a cruel system designed to spur us to keep striving and eliminate the sluggish and weak."
"There was no need for that at all. Amid the wave of united faith, even without the Strangling Green, everyone would ultimately follow the grand laws and strive forward," Igola said. "The Strangling Green is actually a mutation of the Abyss."
"Even though the sorcerers' souls ultimately still went to the Void Realm, their souls' despair remained behind in this world. There was no soil here for an Abyss to form, so that negative energy gathered in the unseen night, transforming into the Strangling Green that devours will and turns everyone of weak resolve into monsters."
"Whether the Strangling Green was part of the Senluo Azure Lord's plan or not, it happened to complement the grand law system, so He never intervened against this mechanism."
"He merely needed a realm capable of stably manufacturing gods," Igola said. "Everything in the Senluo Country serves this single purpose."
At this point, everyone understood Igola's line of deduction.
Perhaps the Senluo Azure Lord had initially only wanted to create an idealistic environment where mortals could ascend to become gods. However, altering the world's underlying laws would inevitably spawn countless derivative consequences: the Strangling Green, phantasm creations, and the surges of collective faith were all byproducts of this idealistic world. Whether the Senluo Azure Lord intervened or not, the Senluo Country had indeed seen four generations of gods ascend; He had succeeded.
Yaxiu and his companions could naturally accept this outcome quickly, as none of them were natives. But for others, coming to terms with this truth was far more difficult.
Yaxiu patted Black Crow on the shoulder. "Even if the world is idealistic, it is still yours."
"Don't worry, I am not shaken in the slightest," Black Crow replied. "I will never yield this world to those hideous wicked crows."
*Pfft.*
The orc suddenly chuckled. As everyone looked over at him, he hurriedly explained, "I just thought of something funny."
"If it isn't funny, you'll be carrying that coffin upside down on your head," Igola said.
Seeing Harvey nod in agreement, Chikala hurriedly said, "I just thought, based on your words, Mr. Bogin, this Senluo Country is just like those dream bubbles with affix modifiers. Ah, I've always been terrible at cracking modifiers; I usually have to blast through bubbles by brute force..."
Igola froze, murmuring, "Dream bubbles..."
"Honestly, there's no need to make such a big deal of it. What difference does knowing this make anyway?" Hearing this earth-shattering secret, Yaxiu seemed quite calm instead. He clapped his hands and said, "Things like the nature of the world don't really have anything to do with us, right?"
Harvey glanced at him. "Yaxiu, we are already Sanctuary Sorcerers."
Even in the Senluo Country, a Sanctuary Sorcerer qualified as elite scientific research talent capable of delving into cutting-edge technology and the world's origins.
"Setting that aside, Igola, can you even read what you wrote?"
Yaxiu handed the scratch paper back to Igola. The Swindler nodded. "Of course. I'm not you."
"Then what is this character called?"
"This character is 'Gospel Country'..." Igola caught himself mid-sentence, bewilderment washing over his face. "How could that be..."
Yaxiu had noticed earlier that the writing on the paper wasn't proper script at all, though neither was it mere gibberish. Hearing Igola say that, he recognized that several characters had been fused into one.
Presumably as a side effect of 'Truth Link,' when Igola was making his deductions, his writing speed couldn't possibly keep up with his mental speed, so he had subconsciously compressed the characters further, producing systematic yet illegible compound characters.
Harvey suddenly said, "The Silver Lantern might be connected to this place."
He glanced across the others. "Her philosophy of 'illusion' seems to overlap with this truth to some extent."
Having clashed with the Silver Lantern for so long, everyone had harbored a lingering question: where did the Silver Lantern's worldview actually come from?
None of the cults in the wasteland shared her perspective, and not even the Four Pillar Gods were as extreme as she was. A person's beliefs could not spring from nothing; consciousness was inevitably shaped by one's environment. And now, they seemed to have finally caught a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg hidden behind the Silver Lantern.
Although "Senluo is not real" was still some distance from the Silver Lantern's "reality is merely an illusion," they had only solved the first mist wall; the deeper ones might provide more detailed answers.
"Perhaps so," Black Crow spoke first. "But what does it matter?"
"At best, this only proves she is not a madwoman without reason; it does not change the fact that she is still a wicked crow drenched in guilt and countless murders." His distorted voice was filled with solemn gravity. "We can understand her to find her weaknesses, but we must never harbor any pity for her simply because we understand her."
"Only the dead souls in Hell have the right to forgive her."
"Do I look like someone who has any pity for the living?" Harvey glanced sideways at Black Crow.
Igola narrowed his eyes, fixing a gaze on Black Crow. "I believe we sorcerers don't need a lecture from an illiterate—"
"Alright, that's enough," Yaxiu cut them off, taking the lead to pass through the mist wall. This time, the mist wall no longer barred him, now that he knew the truth. "Tamashi is right."
"Let's keep exploring."
Chapter 620