Infinite spooky game

The end of the First Age destroyed the first generation of gods, including the world, creatures and civilizations they created.

The originally flourishing rules were cut off, leaving only the most core and original ones, which turned into a sapling growing in the depths of nothingness.

The last surviving god of the first generation of gods awakened under the half-rotten world tree and created the world from scratch following the guidance of the rules.

One fruit of the world after another was born at his fingertips, and after falling to the ground and sprouting, they spread to various planes. Living beings and new rules grew on them, enriching the branches of the world tree and becoming part of the rules.

To the Ancestral God, there is no difference between humans, animals, gods, and ghosts. They are all His “children” created by Him and are part of the operation of His rules.

He has no personality of his own, and never has subjective emotions such as anger. He just silently puts everything in its proper place, smoothly smooths out all disobedience, repeats, and repeats again...

Until he was tripped by the twisted roots of the world tree and entangled to the earth by vines, and the gods shared his flesh and blood and authority, a tear fell from the corner of his eye for the first time, and then he calmly accepted his eternal sleep, just as he calmly accepted his resurrection at this moment.

The priest bowed before the statue and asked his god: "Lord, can I tell the believers about your coming?"

God said: "Gods and humans are just living beings. When people find out that gods can also become weak and can be killed, they will no longer have faith and respect for them, and will only breed greed and ambition."

The priest asked, "Then may I tell the priests about your coming?"

God said, "When I was a dumb idol, they were willing to sweep my halls; when I appeared as one of the living beings, they would stay away from me."

The priest asked, "How can we let the world know about your grace?"

God lowered his eyes and said, "I am who I am. I have always existed. Why should I let people know? Life is the greatest blessing."

Father Rach was sleeping in chaos, and in a trance he heard the voice of God, the God he once truly believed in.

God seems to have changed a lot, but he is still selfless and compassionate, casting a peaceful gaze on us across the vast space and time.

He didn't know whether he was dreaming or not. He just looked around blankly, and suddenly a golden light appeared in the darkness before his eyes.

The light was not dazzling, but rather soft, warm and peaceful. It could dispel the darkness and protect humans from monsters. It was like the first bonfire in ancient times, but not too blazing to burn people.

Father Rach walked over as if possessed by a spirit, and saw the phantoms of golden vines dancing like snakes beside him. The mysterious and bizarre scene changed unpredictably in front of him, like a celebration, like a welcome, and then suddenly dissipated after condensing into a definite shape, turning into light spots that fluttered in the sky, soon painting the scene with a golden glow.

It looked very familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen it before. Father Laci simply stopped thinking about it and moved forward confidently following the instinctive tendency to move towards light in his genes.

The ray of light seemed to always keep the same distance from him. No matter how close he approached and stretched out his hand, it was always separated by the unattainable darkness and was difficult to touch.

People in dreams are unable to think rationally. He suddenly felt anxious, so he quickened his pace and stumbled towards the light.

This time he was finally closer and saw the full picture of the light. It was clearly a thin, glowing line that extended from somewhere and hung in front of his eyes.

He stretched out his hand again, begging the light devoutly and desperately to wait for him, or at least let him see him.

This time, as if his prayer was heard, the silk thread wrapped around his fingers with gentleness and compassion.

The moment he felt the coolness of his fingertips, he saw the shadow of God, and the golden oracle was written in floating words before his eyes:
"The evil god who occupied the magpie's nest wanted to enjoy the flesh and blood of the true god. The sins accumulated over a long period of time. When the end of the world ushered in the apocalypse, the punishment of the gods would finally come."

……

The memory of the scene is read out, the memory of the object is extracted, the dust gathers into clues, weaving out scenes of the past.

Qis almost understood why he could only control some NPCs after entering the Holy City, but not Father Lachi and the priests.

The reason was simple. The ancestor god had already taken advantage of the situation and controlled their souls with spider silk, but then he fell into a deep sleep and allowed them to move freely.

The degree of revival of the ancestor god is quite high. Now that he can start to regain faith, it is only a matter of time before he fully recovers.

But His degree of recovery was not high either. Even the people who controlled the Holy See were powerless. Just by withdrawing the influence, the spider silk became so faint that it was difficult to detect.

It’s no wonder that Qi Si didn’t notice anything unusual at first when he first arrived.

In this case, rather than retreating, ignoring it, and waiting for Him to complete all the arrangements step by step, Qis would rather take a gamble.

First, help the Ancestral God gather a new body, and then use all means to completely seal Him in the last step, or kill Him again, both are good options.

Even if he failed, the consequence would only advance the inevitable revival of the Ancestral God, thus increasing the difficulty of his competition for the final copy.

If you win the bet, you will make a big profit, and if you lose the bet, you will suffer a small loss, so the overall profit is positive. What's more... Qis doesn't think he will be so unlucky.

Similarly, Father Rudge was also gambling.

Lacking the knowledge and vision of a god, he did not know that the revival of the Ancestral God was destined to succeed, nor did he know that the Sacred City was not the Ancestral God's only backup.

He even thought that with Qi Si's obstruction, the ancestor god would certainly not be able to be resurrected, so he had to compromise and obey Qi Si.

He bet that Qisi's plan would fail, and accordingly, the ancestor god would win the game.

……

In room No. 3, Yuko Asakura and Wade sat opposite each other. Countless orange-red spots of light were floating on the stone bed in the middle, which were the fire that could be used to unlock the ending.

After a brief negotiation with the players in the lobby, those people spontaneously handed over all the fire in their hands to them. Such a development was undoubtedly extremely strange, but compared with the performance of the players, it was nothing.

Silver-gray eyes, rigid movements, faint threads on fingertips... Asakura Yuko could tell that these people were puppets of the puppeteer. She just didn't know whether they were parasitized before entering the dungeon or after entering the dungeon. If it was the latter, it meant that the puppeteer's eyes had fallen on the Holy City, and the situation was extremely bad.

"No wonder even a figure like Fu Jue failed. It turns out that the puppet master sent someone to snipe him..." Wade said in amazement, "I was saying that those big shots would never wait until the final instance to take action. They must have fought several rounds in private."

Asakura Yuko shook her head slightly: "Fu Jue may not be dead. He can obviously sense the existence of the puppeteer. The enemy is in the dark and he is in the light. The situation is not favorable to him, so he deliberately faked his death to escape and went from the light to the dark. Otherwise... the identity card holder would not die so silently."

"That's right." Wade agreed and asked, "So what should we do now? What does it mean that they gave us these fire seeds? Should we use them directly, or..."

"Use it directly." Asakura Yuko said, "The nature of puppets is that they are dead, and they cannot trigger many mechanisms. The puppeteer obviously hopes to use us to push this instance to the end as soon as possible. With our strength, we will not end well if we disobey him."

"Wow, it's really unpleasant to be used as a knife." Wade shrugged, as if he suddenly thought of something, and asked, "Yuko, you are also an ID card holder. They won't kill you with a knife at the end of the fight, right?"

Asakura Yuko shook her head again: "No, I am ranked low. People of their level will not care about a small person like me."

This was just to appease Vader, in case Vader decided to use her as a token of his allegiance after weighing the pros and cons.

In fact, Asakura Yuko knew that once the competition between identity card holders began, no one would be able to stay out of it.

Of course, the three cards, [Blind Dictator], [Fallen Savior], and [Forbidden Scholar], correspond to different gods respectively, and theoretically do not constitute competition, but too many truths are lost in the long river of history, and all her cognition is pieced together from the sand on the shore, which may not be true.

The figure of the ancestor god in the historical fragments made her feel uneasy, and she began to be unsure which god she corresponded to.

"Never mind, I'll unlock the ending first." Wade yelled, grabbed a fire starter and pressed it against his heart, colorful spots of light instantly flowing out from between his fingers.

Tiny specks of light floated and settled in the room like windblown sand. The fine gauze of light wrapped around the two people and floated into a bright and dazzling star ring.

The flickering colored lights rose and fell on the stone bed between the two people, forming a half-human-high phantom of the sacred city. The buildings of the temple, bell tower, east district and cemetery were clearly visible and countable.

Runes written in unrecognizable characters appeared on the surface of the stone bed, outlining a mysterious and dangerous stone altar.

On the system interface, a large paragraph of text was refreshed below the original ending:

[…Dissatisfied believers claimed to have received divine revelation in their dreams, and relayed divine oracle to everyone. God said: “They have betrayed me, used my name to tamper with the original teachings, bullied and coerced my devout believers, and sought their own interests. Go find those scattered records and return the truth to the world.”]

Asakura Yuko saw two golden options appear in the void before her eyes:

[Incite] or [Save]? (Consume 1 fire to make a choice)

The [Forbidden Scholar] identity card is automatically parsed, and a large prompt text pops up next to the option:

[Incitement: As a rebel and pagan, you naturally know that the original sin of most human beings is stupidity, and rational statements are far less easy to spread than emotional slogans. People don't care about the truth, nor do they need to know the truth. It is enough to know what they should know.

You extract the most inflammatory information from the information you know and relay it to them, using emotional language to exaggerate the suffering and injustice. They are ignorant sheep, and you are the only shepherd who knows the right direction. You will whip them and guide them to use violent means to fight for freedom, or... death.

[(After unlocking this ending, believers will attack the temple, and you may ascend to the throne and become the fourth god of the Holy City.)]

Asakura Yuko was slightly stunned.

She hated the description corresponding to the option "incitement". Everyone has the right to know the truth. This is the belief that runs through her career as a journalist over the years.

We should not whitewash the mistakes, but present the full picture of the incident objectively. The public has the right to know and should not be deceived... She has always claimed this, and indeed, for a long time she has been committed to exposing the federation's shortcomings and opposing the federation's official propaganda.

But at this moment, she was truly placed in the position of a decision maker, with the stakes clearly before her eyes, and the price of spreading the truth would also be reflected on her...

Asakura Yuko's eyes fell on another piece of text:

[Salvation: Your rebellion was not motivated by selfish desires, but simply because you could not turn a blind eye to the devastation. Rather than being an evil god who repeats the same mistakes, you would rather be a prophet who leads the people out of the cycle of sin. You tell them about the sins of the church, make them believe in the inherent rights of man, you encourage them, comfort them, and propose to lead them out of the Holy City.

[The truly eternal promised land should not be given by God, but should be found by humans themselves. Past history has proven that over-reliance on the gift of God will not lead to good results. This time you decide to let humans save themselves and create a heaven on earth without God. ]

[(After opening this ending, the Holy City will disappear, and all NPCs and players have a chance to get lost in the wasteland)]

The price of the truth is too high. Asakura Yuko told herself that there was no need to give up the readily available benefits for the NPC's right to know, which would harm others and herself.

After all, they are all fake. No matter how much they behave like humans, they are not of my kind, and it is not her turn to save them.

"Yuko, what are you going to choose?" Wade asked suddenly, "[Believe] or [Rebuke]? According to the normal routine, I must choose [Believe], but is the weird game really that simple?"

Different people see different options... Is it because she has the identity of a [Pagan] and Wade has the identity of a [Believer]?

Asakura Yuko had a plan, and said calmly, "Choose [Believe]. The acquisition of the fire and the various unexpected events during the ending are the difficulties of this main quest. Generally, there will be no threshold for the options."

After she finished speaking, she picked up a spark with two fingers and silently chanted the word "incite" in her heart.

The fire melted into a hot stream that flowed down the wrist and then dissipated into the void in an instant. A hint of bright red glaze appeared in the golden shadow in front of him.

Vader also picked up a fire starter and made his selection in about the same time.

Two shades of red intertwined between the gilded characters, flickering from time to time, like new flames in a fireplace.

New text appears:

【The believers were willing to believe those inflammatory words. It turned out that the gods loved them, but the priests had tampered with the will of the gods; the ones who inflicted suffering on them were never the gods they believed in, but their own kind who had deliberately plotted against them. Hating humans is always safer than hating a great being with great power. They took up arms in anger and rushed to the temple...】(End of this chapter)