Chapter 1182 — Enya, Full of Experience

It was like dropping in on the neighbors' sanctuaries—so Gao Yang thought to himself. The metaphor sounded rather crude, but he thought it fairly apt.

He had not expected Myrmina to shake her head at once: "No. I would get beaten."

Gao Yang: "...?"

"Think about it. All the gods are bound fast to their places by the chain of thought-current; their sanctuaries are their cages, and not one of them can take a single step away," Myrmina glanced at Gao Yang and explained her misgivings with a helpless air. "And now suddenly a fellow god who answers to no bonds comes running out, dashing about inside their cages, flitting from sanctuary to sanctuary..."

"I understand. That would certainly invite a beating," Gao Yang said with sudden enlightenment once she had finished, his expression somewhat odd. "It's a bit like limbering up with a jog and a few jumps in front of someone paralyzed from head to toe—that would spike the 'victim's' blood pressure in an instant..."

Amoen, seated to one side, for some reason suddenly pressed a hand to his forehead and let out a silent sigh.

Myrmina nodded: "Somewhat similar, but riskier—after all, those gods still in their seats are free to move within their own sanctuaries and are formidably powerful in combat, whereas a paralyzed man cannot suddenly stand up and give someone a beating..."

Amoen at last could not help raising his head and fixing his eyes on Myrmina's. At the same moment, a line of text surfaced in the air before her: "User 'High-Speed Stag' has issued a duel request. Decline / Accept."

Myrmina declined without a moment's hesitation—the fluency of the gesture made it plain this was not the first time she had done so.

Amoen's expression sagged at once, and he turned to Gao Yang with a look of profound helplessness: "Is there nowhere in this neural network beyond the reach of the administrators?"

Gao Yang looked at Amoen, then at Myrmina, and something suddenly clicked in his mind. He was astonished by certain facts that had unfolded without his knowledge, and then he shook his head with regret (and sympathy): "Unfortunately, the entire neural network is under the surveillance of the upper narrators and the Imperial Computing Center. Unauthorized attacks will definitely get you kicked offline..."

Amoen let out a sigh, while a faintly smug look appeared on Myrmina's face. She raised her eyebrows with considerable self-satisfaction: "Actually, just the other day I discovered a blind spot in the management system's surveillance—but I certainly won't be telling you..."

"Let us return to the matter at hand," Gao Yang, seeing the conversation inexplicably veer off in another direction, at last could not help speaking up to remind these retirees who had once been "gods." "I understand Lady Myrmina's concern now. Investigating the situation in other sanctuaries does carry enormous risk—though the problem of contamination is gone, the hostility of the other gods is an even bigger trouble..."

"The biggest trouble is that their attitude has nothing to do with their own will," Myrmina's expression finally turned serious again, and she nodded slightly. "Because of the exclusivity of faith, apart from gods like the 'Triad of Abundance' who are 'bound together' by doctrine from the moment of their birth, all gods mutually exclude one another. Mortals regard believers who differ from themselves as heretics or infidels, and so the gods must regard other gods as enemies. Especially within one's own sanctuary, this exclusivity is itself a link in the 'chain,' utterly beyond the control of one's own will."

"And I, though from the mortal perspective I am already a 'fallen god,' in the eyes of other gods remain Myrmina, the Goddess of Magic. Unless they are freed from their bonds, that perception will hold their actions in an iron grip."

Here she sighed softly: "Among the gods there is no friendship, no communication, no alliance; this is the greatest obstacle standing in our way. If it were not so, I would long ago have gone to contact the other gods, like a messenger, so that they might exchange views. Perhaps then I could even establish a 'divine united front'—create an organization on the side of the gods acting in concert with the 'Divine Council,' to coordinate with your mortal decoupling efforts..."

The scene Myrmina described set Gao Yang's imagination running. He pictured what an exhilarating, joyous situation it would be—yet the more vividly he imagined it, the more he could only turn it into a sigh. An imagination doomed never to be realized could only ever remain a daydream; the more one thought of it, the deeper the regret.

Amoen, meanwhile, could not help looking at Myrmina with great seriousness: "I never imagined you harbored such... ideals all this time. I thought you..."

"Thought what?" Myrmina glanced at Amoen. "Thought that I race off into the depths of the Shadow Realm every few days, risking attack to wander and gaze out at the borders of those sanctuaries, simply because I love running?"

"That is not what I meant... Never mind. I did indeed misjudge you in the past."

Listening to this exchange between the two former gods, Gao Yang found his curiosity growing about how they usually got along in the Courtyard of Defiance—but clearly this was no time to dig into such matters. He turned his eyes to Myrmina: "Though the idea you describe sounds very hard to realize, it is not as though we cannot do some research. All along, what our scholars do is precisely this: analyze the laws of nature and put them to use. I will tell the experts of the Divine Council your idea—perhaps... it may give them a line of thought."

"If they truly find a way, this feat will surely leave all the gods in admiration," Myrmina said with the utmost solemnity. "Though I still believe it is a near-impossible task, you people seem to have accomplished a great many things once thought impossible..."

Amoen was pondering the matter too, and after a long silence he could not help but mutter: "The isolation and mutual repulsion among the gods... that is indeed a very difficult problem to solve. I believe every god must wish, as we do, to break free of the chains that bind us now, but even with a common goal, the gods cannot form an alliance, let alone act in concert. Is there no... 'catalyst' of some kind that could bring the gods into agreement? Something like iron filings combed by a magnetic field, that could make the gods—who by nature repel one another—move in the same direction..."

Beneath the Golden Oak all fell quiet for a time. Amoen's notion sounded even more fanciful than Myrmina's, and yet after a moment's silence Enya suddenly spoke: "It is not impossible. The gods truly can reach agreement—but you will certainly not like that 'catalyst.'"

Three gazes settled on her at once, and then Gao Yang, turning something over in his mind, seemed to grasp what she meant.

As expected, Enya gave the answer Gao Yang had anticipated: "When the Final Defiance comes—at that time the gods will reach agreement, and the goal of every god will be the destruction of all mortals. A goal so perfectly unified could even force the gods to stitch themselves together, becoming a monstrous chimera of divinity.

"In that regard, I have experience as well."

Gao Yang pressed a hand to his forehead and heaved a long sigh: "I knew that was what it would be..."