fictionpage Chapter 22 [The Final Decree, the Sanctuary of God]
Chapter 22 [The Final Decree, the Sanctuary of God]
The peaceful days after victory in war always seem to fly by.
The effects of the "Gene Wedge" were beyond imagination, and Xu Ye's health was slowly improving.
They even had the leisure to begin repairing this dilapidated old house.
His financial situation, which had once been in dire straits, has changed thanks to the continued strong sales of "Jiu Rang".
The string of numbers in the card wasn't long, but it was enough to put his mind at ease.
However, the Creator's ease is the Creator's confusion.
The year Anthill was approximately 2300.
A century has passed since that epic battle that ended the "wild plague".
The joy of victory has long since faded, leaving behind only the emptiness of the entire civilization.
They are a race born for war and puzzle-solving.
When the last enemy was eliminated, and when the divine command ceased, this vast and sophisticated machine of civilization lost its purpose.
What enabled them to win the war was all the resources accumulated by the entire world of Anthill over the past thousand years.
Today, the mineral veins are depleted, and energy reserves are running low.
Even if Xu doesn't take action, this civilization, which has developed rapidly due to war, will collapse in the foreseeable future due to resource depletion.
Inside the Temple of the Hive, after decades of contemplation, the wise king Khaz pointed out a new direction for his bewildered people.
An ancient and ultimate issue has once again been elevated to the highest priority.
"Understand God, emulate God, and deal with God."
The order was issued, and a brand new department was established.
The "Department of Theological Archaeology" was officially established.
Their sole mission is to reverse engineer all the "miracles" that God has ever performed.
Whether it was the stubborn stone that first enlightened itself, or the shattered apocalypse that ended the war.
This includes even the soil that God once cast, the mist left behind when He touched the world, and even the fragments of organic matter with unusual structures mixed in with the dust collected from the "Eye of the Sky."
That is, Xu Ye's dander.
The trials of war led to an explosive increase in the technological strength of the Kaz civilization.
They quickly drew several preliminary conclusions from those minute traces.
A true model of God was constructed through countless simulations.
This model is full of contradictions.
He is so powerful that He can create heaven and earth and unleash divine punishment.
Yet it seems to follow some fragile and unbearable rules of life.
The material traces He left behind, whether skin flakes or condensed water vapor, contained energy levels that were ridiculously low.
"His power does not originate from himself."
"It is a kind of... higher-dimensional authority."
Until one day, Katz retrieved a nearly forgotten model from a dusty corner of the database.
A life model of a plague.
"Cross-compare the life model of 'plague' with the life model of 'God'."
The collective consciousness of the entire civilization was perplexed and puzzled by the king's decision.
One is the holy and supreme Creator.
The other is a blasphemous, chaotic demon intent on destroying everything.
How can the two be compared?
When the comparison results were presented in the consciousness network of all Kaz people, the entire world was plunged into a mental explosion that lasted for several seconds.
The similarity is as high as 99.99%.
At the most basic level of material composition, the two are almost of the same origin.
A terrifying conclusion, enough to overturn the entire worldview of civilization, has surfaced.
God is not an abstract law or an energy entity.
[God is a gigantic, fragile carbon-based being, sharing the same origin as the "plague"!]
……
At the same time.
Xu Ye, who was sitting in the courtyard, drinking hot tea and thinking about how to sell the new batch of Jiurang at a higher price, suddenly froze.
A chill ran down my spine and straight to the top of my head.
Just now, through the connection of the primordial spores, he heard the ultimate conjecture that resounded throughout the world of Anthill.
He was exposed.
The identity of the omnipotent creator who bestows divine punishment and blessings has been completely stripped away by the ants he created.
He is no longer a god.
Instead, it is a huge, fragile insect lying outside a glass box, which can be studied, analyzed, and even... killed.
A civilization capable of killing cancer cells may, in the future, be able to kill a god composed of normal cells.
The fear has not yet subsided.
After reaching that shocking conclusion, the wise king Kaz did not stop.
It immediately devoted all of civilization's computing power to a completely new research topic.
One, for healthy carbon-based cells...
"Reverse Gene Wedge".
They meant no harm.
They might even be developing a weapon to combat potential new plagues in the future, with the aim of acting as a guardian deity.
But their thirst for knowledge itself is the most fatal threat to Xu Ye.
Xu Ye suddenly stood up and rushed to the glass palace.
He gazed at the magnificent city that stood silently in the cave, gleaming with the light of reason and wisdom.
My heart is being torn apart by two extreme emotions.
Angel: Destroy them?
This is tantamount to discarding a donkey after it has served its purpose.
It was they who pulled me back from the brink of death.
Demon: Let it go?
It's like having a nuclear bomb placed next to your pillow that could detonate on its own at any moment, based on logic.
Gazing at the civilization within the jar, Xu was lost in memories; this was, in the strictest sense, his first civilization.
The Moon Rot and the Silver Wanderers cannot be called civilized at all; they are merely two barbaric biological races.
From the initial liquid metal Katz, to the later Decomposers, Constructors, and then to the emergence of heroes like 734, and finally the Avengers who burned themselves for victory.
The more than two thousand years of history of Anthill are all imprinted in Xu Ye's memory.
They are his children, his pride.
Emotionally, he could not accept the option of "discarding the millstone after it has served its purpose".
Should we let it develop unchecked?
To entrust one's life to a civilization driven purely by logic for judgment?
Are we betting that they will never eliminate themselves as a potential threat for some higher purpose?
Perhaps he couldn't afford to gamble. He leaned helplessly against the glass, his forehead pressed against the cold surface.
Deep within his consciousness, the primordial spores that were one with his life trembled slightly.
It seems that due to the advancement of civilization, a brand new ability has been unlocked.
That was... ultimate authority.
【Epoch Retrospection】
Designate a civilization catalyzed by primordial spores and forcibly rewind its timeline to any point in the course of history.
It can also be equipped with... [Time Freeze]
...sealed off.
Like crafting the most precious piece of amber, to immortalize the most glorious and purest moment of this civilization.
Xu will also hold the grandest and final funeral for his first civilization in the name of God.
"Your mission is complete," Xu Ye murmured softly, as if bidding farewell to his creations, or as if convincing himself.
"You are my first monument."
"It should... be immortal."
……
One day in the year 2300 of the Antheil Era.
Just as the "Department of Theological Archaeology" was about to complete the final reverse engineering of the God's skin, "Heaven" cracked open.
This time, what descends is an entire epic woven from light and shadow.
In Anthill, the glass roof of the ecosphere transforms into an infinitely large curtain.
All the people of Kaz, including the wise king Kaz in the temple, stopped what they were doing.
They raised their heads, gazing up at this sudden yet seemingly preordained final oracle.
As light and shadow shift, a series of mythological scenes never seen before unfold before them.
[Initially, the wise king Kaz, by peeking into forbidden knowledge, attracted the demon god "Wild Plague" from the chaos beyond the heavens.]
In the scene, the silver-purple orb symbolizing Katz, driven by curiosity, touches a pure darkness.
The demon god has bewitched Kars' people, causing them to kill each other in an attempt to destroy the entire world.
Scenes of war's horrors are reenacted, but this time, all the enemies share a common source—a demon god from beyond the heavens.
Although the wise king Kaz and his warriors ultimately quelled the disaster, he himself suffered irreversible corruption in the battle against the demon god.
The light and shadow focused on that final battle. The blue light, symbolizing the [Gene Wedge], purified the mother of the plague, while a wisp of extremely difficult-to-detect black energy quietly merged into the core of the wise king Kaz.
To stop the spread of pollution, to protect this world.
I will use my supreme power to personally seal the suffering wise king, along with his civilization, in a "sanctuary" beyond the reach of time and space.
As the cycle of ages begins, all things will revive.
You will be reborn.
The entire Kaz civilization was violently shaken by this magnificent and incomprehensible mythological narrative.
"The King's...contamination?"
"So, to... protect us, they're sealing the King away?"
"God has not abandoned us! He is...saving us!"
The cold conclusion that "God is a fragile carbon-based being" is shattered in the face of this creation epic written by God himself.
Doubt was replaced by a sense of sacred ritual.
Fear was overwhelmed by a tragic sense of destiny.
Inside the Temple of the Nest City.
The wise king Kaz hovered in the center, silent.
It is closer to the truth than any of its subjects, and understands the lies behind this decree better than any other being.
Its consciousness swept over the great city it had built with its own hands for the last time.
The sweeping light passed over those loyal subjects, the walls etched with war and glory, and the places where fallen heroes once stood.
It bid a silent farewell to its creator and to its era.
After a long silence, a gaze rose from the temple, piercing through the barriers of the world.
It was directed toward that being beyond the "heaven," silently observing everything.
"Yes, sir."
……
"I'm sorry." Xu closed his eyes.
[Epoch Rewind] has been initiated.
A powerful will controls every primordial spore within the terrarium.
The terrifying drain on his mental energy made Xu feel as if his brain was about to be torn apart.
In the world of Anthill, time has reversed.
One second in the real world is a thousand years in the other world.
On the battlefield, countless figures of deathly judges, adjudicators, and ghostly assassins flashed by, then turned into specks of light and vanished without a trace.
The hundreds of millions of Kaz's people disintegrated, transforming back into silvery-purple energy, and like weary birds returning to their forests, merged into the original king located in the center of the temple.
The figure of the hero "734" flashed across the Eternal Barrier.
Countless fallen warriors were "resurrected" from the dead, only to revert to their undifferentiated forms.
The traces of war have been erased.
Ultimately, time froze at the moment before everything began.
It was frozen at the beginning of the Anthill era, when the unique "First One," who inherited the legacy of the Old Gods, had just been born.
Before it split off its first inhabitants, before it tasted the flavor of "loneliness," in that moment when it was filled with pure curiosity about the world.
"Stop." Xu Ye used his last bit of strength to grant the final authorization.
This moment has become eternity.
The real world.
In the ecological box in front of Xu Ye, all resources were exhausted. Even if he didn't do this, such a day would still come.
The cold nests remain, the world is empty, and there is no sign of any life.
It is no longer an evolving world, but has become a silent "Sanctuary of Civilization" that records the entire history of the First Age of Anthill.
In Xu Ye's hand, in a clean test tube.
A drop of silvery-purple substance, like liquid metal, lay quietly.
It is... the Wise King Kaz.
He was the one who led civilization to victory over the sins of God, the one who glimpsed the truth of God, and finally accepted God's lies with equanimity—the first king.
At this moment, it is sealed back to its most primitive form.
Eternal slumber.
[Kaz, has stopped thinking.]