The Heavens: A Qing, the Yue Girl at the beginning

Contrary to what most people would expect, it did not offer any gentle gifts or promises. Instead, the sharp claws, like divinely crafted blades, pressed against the lower edge of the left eye socket and then suddenly pierced in.

Without warning, without any preamble—He simply and resolutely gouged out one of his own eyes.

An almost solemn silence.

Shi Yiguang's breath hitched for a moment.

She clearly saw that when the claw was pulled out, it brought out a complete sphere that still shone with a faint golden light—it was a dragon's eyeball, as tall as half a person, with a liquid flame-like luster flowing on its surface, but inside it seemed to contain a swirling nebula.

Dark red dragon blood cascaded down like a waterfall, pouring over the girl with her head tilted back—not a destructive torrent, but a warm baptism imbued with ancient vitality.

She didn't hide—or perhaps there was nowhere to hide at all.

Dragon blood soaked through her animal-hide sacrificial robe, washing over her pale cheeks and seeping into her mouth, nose, ears, and every inch of her skin.

The blood seemed to possess life, carrying a burning and stinging sensation, yet strangely it did not harm her body. Instead, it acted like a powerful solvent, attempting to dissolve the boundaries of her mortal existence.

Then, her pupils began to melt, turning into countless points of light that seeped into her skin along with the blood flow and merged into her eyes.

“Since you want to ‘save’ me,” Nidhogg’s voice rang out, “then first… look at my world. With my eyes, look at this… cage that has imprisoned me for billions of years.”

The transformation begins.

"Well……"

The girl groaned and knelt down.

She felt that her "vision" had been forcibly torn open, expanded, and reorganized, and the colors of the world had been completely reconstructed in an instant.

It's like a "blind" person who has lived their entire life in a dark cave, suddenly dragged into the midday sun and forced to see everything.

She "looked" at the ancient silver-gray tree on the edge of the cliff.

In this new perspective, it is no longer a tree, but a book of unimaginable weight that is being read at the same time.

Each leaf is a page, on which flows all the "words" from the first bud to the last withering and decay.

Each ring of a tree is a chapter, recording hundreds of years of wind, frost, rain, snow, and the changing of the sun and moon.

She can "see" the "claw prints" left by a bird that briefly perched on a branch three hundred years ago, and she can also "see" what kind of flowers it will bloom in the next season.

It also “sees” how it sprouts from a seed in ancient volcanic ash, grows its first leaf, goes through countless ice and interglacial periods, gets struck by lightning and heals itself.

The trajectory of time is thus revealed, open to all who behold it.

She also "saw" her entire life.

No, it's a life with countless "possibilities".

In most of the "possibilities," she died on the altar, the stone knife falling, her blood staining the snow red; in other "possibilities," she died in the icy river, her ropes still in place, sinking with the current.
Of the many "possibilities," she died on that rock, completely frozen before dawn the next day.

In a very rare "possibility" that requires countless coincidences, she was randomly picked up by the gods, but was quickly killed out of boredom, or released after being granted a little insignificant favor, and ultimately died from the cold, wild beasts, or further persecution by her people.

In a thin, almost impossible, yet stubbornly extending line of "possibility"... she completed the gamble, stood here, covered in blood, and accepted this eye.

She suddenly turned her head and looked at the distant sea.

Then, she "understood".

The recent unusually severe cold wave, which lasted for more than a month and froze a herd of mammoths to death, was not simply a natural climate fluctuation.

Beneath the dark depths of the sea, in the abyssal chasm at the edge of the continental shelf, a colossal will is slowly moving.

Each time it turns over, it stirs up a surge of deep cold currents, and its breathing affects the water temperature and atmospheric circulation of the entire region.

That was an ancient being known as "Behemoth," one of the longest-lived of the first species. Sensing that the Black Emperor had stopped here, it awoke from its long slumber and came to "pay homage."

Its approach inadvertently altered the climate of this sea area, leading to that devastating winter.

Indirectly, she was pushed onto the altar.

In the past, such an existence was a world-ending natural disaster in tribal legends, an incomprehensible and irresistible terror, an ultimate nightmare that was on par with the gods, something to be looked up to and feared.

But now... the girl "stared" at the shadow in the deep sea, and a strange feeling rose in her heart.

An intuition told her that if she wanted to, and with just a little use of this newly acquired power, she could make the giant beast lose control of its mind with a slight thought, and immediately sink it into the trench, where it would be sealed away forever.

Let the warm ocean currents return to the coast, turning the dead of winter into the height of summer.

She completely surpassed the being that had destroyed her race countless times, simply because she received a gift from "God": half of her spiritual elemental authority, which she had severed at the cost of self-harm.

It was given to her in such a violent and direct way!
He ascended from human to god, transforming into an ancient dragon.

A heavy, fateful bond, like chains or an umbilical cord, bound her to the black god before her.

"I will do it," she said, her voice hoarse from her earlier scream, yet calm and resolute, as if making a vow.

The black dragon stared at her with its remaining single eye for a long time, the molten gold flames flickering slightly: "Then, the contract is established."

“I grant you the right to ‘see what I see,’ the ability to ‘know what I do not know,’ share half the weight of ‘mental imagery’ with you, and give you the means to intervene in earth, water, fire, and wind.”

"Now……"

"Begin your 'salvation,' I, the insignificant... 'shrine maiden'."

He gave her a new title, no longer just a sacrifice.

……

Shi Yiguang slowly exhaled.

"She offered not just an answer, but a 'problem' that we could all live in together, building a bridge between God and man."

“To gouge out eyes and offer blood, to share power. It’s truly…shocking.” She whispered, “This gift is far more weighty than I could have imagined.”

"But a promise made under such dire circumstances can't possibly be entirely from the heart, can it? It's undoubtedly a lie made in desperation to survive. Why would Nidhogg respond to such a lie so generously, almost recklessly?"

It's more like a rhetorical game played by someone in dire straits, an instinct to grasp at any straw, a cunning flower blooming on the edge of a cliff by intelligent life, rather than a well-thought-out belief.

Any rational observer would judge that the reliability of that promise is close to zero.

Shi Yiguang put herself in the girl's shoes and felt that if she were in the same situation, she would definitely feel hatred for the tribe whose wish was amplified and fulfilled, for the cause of the restart of the sacrifice, for the arrival of winter, and for the gamble where life and death were not in her own hands.

Salvation? It's already quite good that they didn't inflict a reverse curse.

If one values ​​the purity of a vow, and given the inherent conflict between gratitude and resentment, then at worst, one can exchange one's life for another, repaying the debt with death.

Of course, considering the simplicity and rudimentary thinking of primitive people, such emotions were probably not that complicated, but they were not entirely grateful either.

The pure white king remained silent for several breaths, the brilliant golden flame in his eyes gradually dying down, as if recalling every detail of that distant moment.

"Because for beings that have lived for billions of years, the line between 'truth' and 'lie' has long been blurred."

"When time goes on for a certain period of time, you will find that most of the so-called 'sincerity' is nothing more than a more sophisticated lie that even you deceive yourself, limited by hormones, emotions and cognition;

Many lies that begin with calculation, however, gradually develop a resilience stronger than sincerity over time.

“What Nidhogg values ​​is not whether she was ‘sincere’ at that moment.”

"The question is whether she dares to say it."

"Do you dare to propose such a blasphemous and arrogant idea as 'salvation' in the face of an absolute power imbalance? Do you dare to use your ant-like life to promise a miracle that will shake eternity?"

"As for whether her initial motivation was fear, calculation, or the instinct to survive—"

"It doesn't matter."

"If I wanted to give it, I did."

"They don't care about the cost, the risk, the reward, or how much of that promise is just empty words." "This is... the arrogance inherent in dragons."

An arrogance unique to the gods.

The extreme extravagance of squandering any "possible change" born from the loneliness of an immortal.

"Wanting to see what kind of ripples this pebble I picked up by chance would create on the lake of fate, I casually tossed it out."

His tone was tinged with sarcasm.

"That's all."

"Perhaps for the girl, it was a vow to risk everything."

"But for Black King, it was just a fleeting thought."

"A prelude to a play, which is worth paying a price for the right to watch during a long slumber."

"Ants give their all, offering only a few grains of dust; gods casually toss out treasures unimaginable to mortals. The measure of value is never the same."

Shi Yiguang remained silent, processing these words.

Arrogant? Absolutely.

But behind this arrogance lies a vast and empty void.

She understood.

For Nidhogg, this might truly just be an experiment. To invest precious "materials" and observe how a tiny consciousness, forcibly pushed into a new dimension, would evolve and where it would go.

Like a child placing an ant in an exquisite glass maze, observing its struggles and choices with great interest.

Whether the ants are in pain or willing is not a consideration. What children care about is "fun".

“So,” she said softly, “that so-called contract, that so-called salvation, was unequal from the very beginning.”

"One side is the experimental subject, and the other side is... the observer."

"That's understandable."

The king did not deny it: "But the contract itself still stands. Once the rules are established, even the one who established them must abide by them to some extent. This is the basis for the 'game' to continue."

Could this contract, and the situation between the two parties, be a useful clue to advance the war? Shi Yiguang stood to the side, deep in thought.

……

“As long as you continue on this path of ‘salvation’,” Nidhogg said to the girl who had gained a new perspective atop the mountain, “as long as you remember the promise you made today and continue to fulfill the contract… I will not take back this power.”

"Furthermore, now that you have gained initial control over the spiritual elements, your mind is no longer fully open to me."

"This is the nature of authority itself—it gives you the power to intervene in the world, and it also gives you the barrier to protect your inner self."

"From then on, I could no longer read your every thought, every hidden emotion, every fleeting association as easily as before. You now have your own 'dark room'."

"Therefore, you don't need to tell me your future plans, or how you intend to do them. No need to report, explain, or ask for permission."

The girl paused, then understood the unspoken implication:
Just as "gods" can easily see through the fragile thoughts of mortals, then, can a higher being who offers sacrifices to "gods" also freely browse the memories and thoughts of gods?

If the first step in "saving" Nidhogg is to free it from its unknown fate as a "sacrifice," then perhaps the first thing needed is mutual concealment and deception, establishing an information asymmetry with potential "observers."

She needs to have her own secrets, her own trump cards and paths that even Nidhogg doesn't fully know.

Nidhogg also needs to be an independent, unpredictable "variable".

“I understand,” she replied briefly.

I'll keep this unspoken understanding deep in my heart.

……

The picture flows.

The girl—or perhaps she should be called a priestess—turned and walked down the mountain. She didn't look back.

The first step is taken, and behind you lies the eternal prisoner and the lonely mountain.

With the second step, beneath his feet lay the wild earth and the roaring ocean.

She embarked on a long journey.

Her footprints traversed the nascent volcanic plains, lava beneath her feet solidifying into a smooth obsidian road; she walked across the perpetually frozen ice fields, where the frozen earth rose to support her floating ice throne.
She traversed the stormy fjord where thunder never ceased, lightning weaving a tamed crown around her.

Despite possessing power that would make even the first generation of beings take notice, the silver-haired priestess did not feel any "freedom" or "liberation" within her heart.

Instead, a deeper sense of "binding" followed her like a shadow—the Eye of God kept whispering in her consciousness, showing her the true face of the world: the latitude and longitude of time, the threads of fate, the tides of elements...

And deep within all things, there lies a loneliness that may be violent, cold, numb, or equally imbued with a sense of bewilderment.

She saw the mountains slowly aging, the birth and death of life like endless bubbles, the rivers flowing along their predetermined paths for millions of years until they dried up, and the stars burning in vain in the cold universe, unable to illuminate their own destiny of eventual extinguishment.

Every glance is a heavy burden.

It's as if the world's weariness and absurdity have been absorbed into oneself.

But unlike other dragons who gained power, she was not crushed by this burden, retreating into her lofty nest to fight the erosion of time with a long slumber, nor did she fall into the arrogance of self-centeredness.

Instead, she turned to her community.

The initial motivation may have been utilitarian:

She needs to understand this acquired power, learn to control it, and explore its boundaries and costs.

The best teachers are the dragons, who are born with the ability to control the elements.

She began her travels, searching for dragon settlements, lairs, and territories scattered throughout the continent.

She soon discovered that although dragons were powerful, they lived... a miserable life.

They act on instinct and are driven by emotions, sometimes soaring through the sky, sometimes lurking in the abyss, sleeping for hundreds of years. When they wake up, they wander aimlessly, hunt, and then fall asleep again.

They rarely communicate in a complex way, let alone collaborate.

Each dragon is a self-sufficient kingdom, needing no companions, no community, and no "meaning."

Power makes them independent, but it also isolates them.

They are isolated islands.

Wandering alone in the wasteland of time, until one day swallowed by a stronger island, or quietly decaying in slumber.

But the priestess is different.

She was once a member of a human tribe.

She was used to communal living and interaction: hunting together, sharing campfires, sitting together at night to listen to the elders tell stories, gathering berries together in the spring, and huddling together for warmth in the winter.

Her way of thinking is collectivist and social. She is accustomed to thinking about "our" survival, "our" safety, and "our" future, rather than just "my" sustenance and "my" continued existence.

This mindset has persisted.

Even after gaining the power of a dragon, the lifespan of a dragon, and even the perspective of a god, deep in her heart she still retains a longing for "connection," an identification with "common goals," and an understanding of "mutual need."

This goes against the nature of dragons.

She began to try to change.

It's not about changing yourself, it's about changing... the entire dragon race. (End of Chapter)