Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"Your name...is it a curse?"

"For the weak, it is a curse; for the strong, a name is simply a name. It is like the language of stars, like solar flares and solar winds. To another star, language is just language. But to a tiny civilization that has not yet escaped its planet, the language of stars is a cataclysmic disaster."

"Then you can..."

“Of course I can,” the girl interrupted Flora for the first time. “But why would I do that?”

She closed her five fingers and, as Flora's eyebrows twitched, crushed the small ball into powder.

"What do you think God is?"

“…I don’t know.” Flora recalled her experiences in Mesopotamia, the images of goddesses flashing before her eyes, only to be rejected by her entirely. Finally, she looked at the girl before her… and shook her head, repeating her denial once more: “I don’t know what a god is.”

"A rather cunning answer. It seems you don't consider me a god either." The girl before her smiled and nodded slightly. "That's a good habit; you'd better keep it. Not readily defining everything around you is a sensible choice; it can help you live a long time in many places."

"However, people like you are actually very few. Most people have their own interpretation of the concept of 'God.' They regard the unknown beings that provide shelter as God and the unknown life forms that pose a threat as demons. They interpret what they consider to be virtues as God and judge what they consider to be manifestations of vices as evil gods or demons. Some even believe that God does not exist and that God is just a powerful being."

"Were they wrong? Probably not. Were they right? Not entirely. Because they were just bound by their own perceptions, just as I was confined to my own. They arbitrarily defined everything around them and then fabricated truths based on their own interests."

She made a gesture, and tiny bubbles appeared in Flora's eyes. From the bubbles, Flora saw thousands upon thousands of civilizations emerging, changing, flourishing, and declining in various forms—a large part of them were completely different from Earth's civilizations, and many of them were even more advanced than Earth's humans.

"I have seen many civilizations, but human civilization is the most amazing to me. Mortals seem to have an innate arrogance, believing that the world always revolves around their own kind. Within their civilization, they generally have a very interesting belief."

The girl paused for a moment, then continued.

"God is merciful; whoever is not merciful is not God."

"God is generous; if he is not generous, he is not God."

"God does not care about the offenses of mortals; if he cares about the offenses, he is not God."

"God will definitely protect mortals; if He doesn't protect them, He is not God."

"—And so on, and many more. The answer I've distilled from them is: 'Only those gods who are useful to mortals and obediently serve them are worthy of respect, and only respect. All others must be overthrown and trampled underfoot.'" She tilted her head, looking at Flora. "Don't you find that strange?"

Flora fell silent, unsure how to answer a question she had no data to back it up. But she felt she could offer a logical response.

"There must be a reason for this."

"Yes, that's right. There is indeed a reason for this, but that reason is about to become a thing of the past. Look up at the sky; that blood-red river is fading."

Flora instinctively looked up, and the next moment, a pale, long river stretching across the sky, flowing from an unknown origin to an unknown destination, came into her view.

—A girl's voice suddenly rang in her ears.

"Ah...you really can see."

Side Story: Divine Prayer

Beyond the chessboard, and beyond that, in some ordinary little world, in an unremarkable café, two young people, who looked no different from ordinary people, were chatting in a private room.

The man was wearing a very common T-shirt and glasses, and looked like a young office worker who was busy with work and could only occasionally steal a moment of leisure.

The woman was dressed a little more fashionably, with her waist-length hair tied in a side ponytail, and her clothes were neat and crisp, giving her a mature but unreliable, leisurely and lazy appearance.

They sat on opposite sides of a coffee table with a chessboard on it—it looked like Go, but they didn't follow the rules of Go, checkers, or even five-finger chess when placing their pieces. Soon, the black and white pieces had filled half of the board with a crisscrossing pattern, and some pieces were even placed directly inside the squares instead of between the lines.

Suddenly, the man's hand holding the chess piece paused for a moment.

"You should concentrate when playing chess." The woman casually placed a white piece on the chessboard, and then several black pieces next to it turned white. However, one or two white pieces silently shattered and vanished into nothingness.

"Sorry, something suddenly came to mind." The man smiled and shook his head, then with a flick of his wrist, the black and white worlds regained their balance. "The huge skew in one part of the worldline is because you, Lady God, are not in that worldline."

"Oh?" The woman sitting opposite him raised an eyebrow, and two more white pieces were placed—their game seemed to be real-time rather than turn-based. Then the woman called Lady Goddess lowered her brow. She uttered a single word. "Has a part of you become the Final Emperor? Pei Xi."

"you saw it?"

"Of course I can see it." The goddess smiled and said slowly, "You are the Human Emperor, and also the Final Emperor. This is an inevitable fact. When you sit across from me, intending to play chess with me, you are destined to relinquish the position of Human Emperor and fall into eternal darkness. And at that time, what else can you be but the Final Emperor?"

"I didn't meet you in those timelines, Lady God."

"Oh, there's not much difference. As long as you start playing chess, as long as you have choices, then resigning from the position of Human Emperor is an inevitable thing to happen. Because this is not the path that belongs to you, and all life, as long as it exists, will instinctively want to climb to a higher realm. You will choose to give up because the position of Human Emperor is very much in the way of your own path, not because of how much injustice you suffered in the Primordial Heavenly Court."

She reached out and placed a white stone near a corner of the board, but the surrounding black stones did not change or disappear. This was because Mr. Pei immediately placed another black stone near the same spot where the white stone had landed.

The white pieces want to destroy, the black pieces want to protect; this cycle repeats itself several times.

“You see, you only need to relinquish your protection of the Primordial Heavenly Realm to defeat me on the big picture.” After several failed attempts, the Goddess gave up on that corner and placed her pieces elsewhere. While she abandoned the contest in that area, she gained an advantage in other regions, and Black's position immediately fell into decline.

“If you had simply released the great formation sealing the Primordial World, you could have taken advantage of my actions to eliminate all the saints of the Primordial Heavenly Court and expelled me from this multiverse. You would have achieved ultimate victory, both eliminating the external enemy and transforming the Primordial World, which you believed had become corrupted, into what you considered the right form. But you did not do that.”

"Obviously, you know it's meaningless. Because the path to becoming the Human Emperor is not in your best interest at all." The Goddess smiled faintly, pushing Kuroko into a corner step by step. "So you are destined to become the final emperor, perhaps sooner or later, but this will inevitably happen. After all, no intelligent being would believe that they are born to be enslaved."

“You hate humans,” the goddess said with absolute certainty. “Because you think they are unworthy.”

Mr. Pei, sitting opposite her, paused slightly with his fingers, then continued to maintain his losing streak.

“They are indeed unworthy,” he said calmly. “Otherwise, why would I be here playing chess with you?”

"I know perfectly well how the myriad races 'oppressed' humanity back then. But being oppressed is being oppressed, so when my predecessor led the primordial human race to conquer the myriad races and create a golden age of humanity, I did not believe that my actions at that time were wrong or biased—"

"Blood debts should be repaid with blood. Stance is more important than morality. Regardless of the reasons why the myriad races of antiquity oppressed humanity, regardless of their hardships, since I was born human, I should stand on the side of humanity and fight for them. And that's exactly what I did."

He pressed down on a black piece, and the vast, primordial battlefield silently appeared on the side of the piece—

It was an extremely brutal war. From the blood and mud, ancient sages and their newborn sons stood shoulder to shoulder, raising their banners, over the bones of countless compatriots and allies. Humans and gods, united as one, finally faced their most mortal enemy after paying an immeasurable price. They were comrades in arms, they would die with them. When the final step was taken, even those long-deceased comrades rose again from the void, willing to face eternal annihilation that would erase their very existence from the memories of sages, to contribute to the final victory.

It was truly a glorious war, a great war, a decisive war. At that time, mortal soldiers were even able to withstand the Dao erosion of all the saints of all races with their own will, break through the gaps in time and space, and even the gaps between universes, and then prove to the entire multiverse that even true saints would bleed under the swords of mortals.

What a wonderful era that was... Although my predecessor in that era did not agree with the ancient ways of the Human Emperor, I was genuinely proud to be born as a human being. Back then, even the most worthless mortal possessed a dazzling brilliance that would make the saints of today take notice. Mortals in that era should have been the protagonists of this multiverse.

But why did it turn out this way?

Why have the descendants of those steadfast, persistent, fearless people who could even defy fate and death become like this?

"You regret it." The goddess pressed down on a white piece, shattering the black piece, and then the myriad scenes after the war reappeared.

The primordial human race emerged victorious. Under the leadership of the Human Emperor Fuxi, most of the myriad races that once dominated the entire primordial celestial realm were wiped out. The remaining few fled in panic, hiding in unknown secret realms under the protection of a few remaining True Saints, barely surviving. The golden age of humanity arrived, and then this golden age spread throughout the entire multiverse.

Humanity desired to be the eternal protagonist, so it used the primordial celestial realm as an anchor point, triggering the Dao Erosion phenomenon that affected the entire multiverse. Countless worlds across the multiverse, once occupied by myriad races, were degraded, and the civilizations once created by those races subsequently declined and perished.

All races were reduced to demons. Then the demons were reduced to livestock—the multiverse originally had no chickens, ducks, pigs, or dogs; they were originally races with advanced intelligence, some even possessing great civilizations among the stars. Most of them were actually unaware of the war in the primordial celestial realm, but after the Dao Erosion phenomenon occurred, they all faced uncontrollable degeneration.

Intelligent life forms became livestock and food, while mortals easily seized the remnants of these former overlords' civilizations, occupying their lands on the planets they developed, devouring their offspring, and taking it all for granted.

That was the first disagreement between the Human Emperor and the Primordial Heavenly Realm.

“I still remember that argument.” Mr. Pei’s hands continued to move, the chess pieces falling one after another. The timeline in his eyes went back to the distant past, countless eras ago, and the fierce words of his former comrades who had fought alongside him echoed in his ears.

"When humanity was weak, they didn't stand by humanity's side! Now they are humanity's enemies, and they deserve this fate!"

"Destroying them has nothing to do with them!?"

"I chose to compromise at that time, even though I felt it was wrong. People shouldn't vent their anger on those weak civilizations in the multiverse who never knew about or participated in the wars of the primordial world, and who didn't even understand what humanity was. But at that time, I was still the Human Emperor, and as the Human Emperor, I naturally had to think from the perspective of humanity."

The flow of time in Mr. Pei's eyes vanished silently, replaced by a soft sigh. "So I chose to acquiesce. I left the Primordial World when they decided to do so. I went to suppress the Four Symbols and transferred the backlash caused by this erosion to the four neutral True Saints."

The Four Symbols appeared on a chess piece between his fingers—the Four Divine Beasts from the multiverse—Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise, imprisoned in four separate universes and banished to the four corners of the earth. They were constantly tormented and consumed by the deep-seated hatred of countless civilizations, bearing the brunt of mortal sins while simultaneously facing eternal confinement—they could break free at any moment, but they would not. For the descendants of the Four Divine Beasts were a rare race capable of surviving on the primordial land…

...even if they are born to be slaves and servants.

—The sacred path of the race lies in the continuation of the race.

"However, you didn't expect that this was just the beginning. After that, everything would get even worse," the Goddess said calmly, casually 'eating' the 'Four Symbols' between his fingers.

Meanwhile, in an infinitely distant, extremely remote material universe—a corner even on the periphery of the multiverse—on an unknown, tiny planet, a newly hatched blue snake suddenly grew scales, horns, and claws. As it stared blankly at the wondrous changes on its body, it discovered that a stone beside it, shaped like a dragon, was weeping!

The next moment, all the dragon-shaped sculptures, landforms, buildings, and mineral veins on the entire planet began to weep!

In the vast expanse of space, all the dragon-shaped celestial bodies and galaxies are weeping. If we look extremely upwards, until we can observe the inner universe from its outer reaches, we will discover that the trillions of galaxies combined together ultimately form a trapped dragon shape, with a single tear rolling down its cheek!

Even a true saint bleeds, bleeding under the sword of a mortal.

Even a true saint will shed tears, even if it has never uttered a word or shown a single expression since it was trapped in this universe.

—Because at this very moment, in the entire multiverse, the first Azure Dragon was finally born that was not born with the all-pervasive phenomenon of Dao erosion implanting submission to humanity deep in its soul, and was born only to be a slave until its flesh and blood turned to mud!

“Yes, everything is getting worse.” Mr. Pei sighed softly. “The enslavement of the neutral Four Holy Beasts was just the beginning. Not long after that, even many races that had once sympathized with humanity, provided shelter for humanity, and even fought bloody battles for humanity in the final war suffered misfortune.”

"Because they were alien races, the Minotaur and the Horse-Face, who had even killed sages in the Node Battle, were banished. From then on, the multiverse saw the emergence of oxen born to plow the fields and horses born to be ridden."

"Because they were a different race, the Blade Armor Clan, which had taken a blow from a True Saint for me before I reached my goal, was wiped out of the Primordial Continent, with most of its members perishing. And their offspring became dung beetles in the multiverse!"

"Because they were of a different race, the spirit cats that had served as scouts and eyes of humanity before the war even began were all exterminated. Even the young spirit cat chieftain, who had been by my side since childhood, whom I had raised and taught, and who had made great contributions in the subsequent war, was skinned and dismembered without any reason and turned into an acquired spiritual treasure!"

“She’s a spirit tablet, you know… When that operation started, she even begged and pleaded with me to go to the Abyss of Death to find her a Destiny Fruit that she’d never been interested in before.” Mr. Pei stretched out his hand, and a delicate, pure sphere of fruit appeared in his palm. Within the fruit were countless world lines shifting and fitting together, making it look like a complete world.

“Fate, fate… I should have realized it sooner.” He clasped his hands together, putting the fruit that had always been by his side but which he could never give away back into its original place. “It was at that time that I left the Primordial Heavenly Realm. And then… the humans of the Primordial World fell.”

"What the myriad races did back then, they have inflicted upon their descendants a hundredfold, a thousandfold. They have inflicted upon their own kind a hundredfold, tenfold, greed, violence, jealousy, arrogance... Even after the obvious warning signs of imbalance between heaven and man, and the natural emergence of new alien civilizations in the multiverse, appeared, they would still, and dared to, arbitrarily choose an unfortunate universe and randomly kill a quarter or a third of all intelligent life in that universe, including mortals, to use as slaves and expendable objects for their amusement."

"One person turns all living things on a planet into sentient but eternally immobile sculptures. Another person surpasses the first by forcing all parents on another planet to turn their children into stone. A third person surpasses the first two by repeating this process hundreds of times, preserving the memories and sanity of all living things each time. And a fourth person..."

He paused for a moment.

“I don’t acknowledge that this thing is human. I don’t acknowledge that this thing, which flows with the blood of the former humans and has a similar appearance to the former humans, is human. If it were Gu, he might laugh and say, ‘We risk our lives so that our descendants can lord it over us.’ But I’m different. I’ve never been the same as him.”

“That’s why you’re here,” the goddess said calmly.

“That’s why I’m here.” Mr. Pei took a deep breath and nodded. “I want to sever the root of humanity’s decline, which has led to such nobility and brilliance. I want to sever their arrogance, their self-righteousness, I want to… sever this blood-red destiny!”

The next moment, more than half of the black pieces and empty spaces on the chessboard turned crimson! The black and white pieces, which had been locked in fierce combat, suddenly shifted from a battle to a pincer attack on the crimson pieces!

Meanwhile, other forces appeared on the remaining empty spaces of the chessboard, with several indistinguishable pieces of various colors suddenly appearing and completely covering all the empty spaces on the board!

“I really like your human saying, ‘Are kings and nobles born with a special destiny?’ That’s why I’m willing to play chess with you here, instead of flipping the table and starting a full-scale war with the source of that blood-red destiny.” A smile appeared on the goddess’s lips. “I will not forgive humanity on behalf of ‘Gaia.’ But I will make her reconsider.”

"Is this a promise?" Mr. Pei snorted and continued placing his pieces.

Instead of answering him directly, the goddess turned her gaze to the distant stage of the Daoist contest.

“My daughter is confused. She is thinking about what use mortals are to gods when mortals don’t need gods and gods don’t need mortals.”

Why do you think she would think about this question?

Chapter 51 The Second Cycle: Shackles and Arrival

Flora tilted her head in confusion.

"What does seeing that river of blood mean?"

“It means a lot, a lot,” the girl in front of her replied with a smile. “But most of it has nothing to do with you, and the few parts that do have to do with you are that you are a qualified person.”

"...A qualified person?"

"Yes, the great era of humanity is coming to an end. Those who can foresee this sign are all people favored by destiny. Humanity in the past was indeed powerful. The reason why they were powerful and did not decline was because of the existence of that blood-red river. Now they are about to lose this support. This means the change of eras and the transition of ages."

"Humanity is about to have a new role, perhaps as the protagonist, perhaps as a supporting character, but in any case, it can no longer be the 'unchanging stage itself' as in the past. Those former sacred beings who had to accommodate humanity and these incredibly insignificant yet incredibly arrogant creatures will soon have a new choice, and the survival of humanity will depend on their own value."