Chapter 1546 — What It Means to Be a Professional

"And what if it isn't the Theocratic Council issuing the order to sacrifice bombs, but their own gods?" Belantia said with a solemn expression. "Although the gods' 'human halves' no longer answer prayers from the mortal world, that shouldn't mean you've lost the capacity in that regard, should it? You can hand down divine oracles, designate new sacred objects of sacrifice... Of course, the process will need careful planning, and may require coordination with the Theocratic Council, but on the whole I see no problem."

By now Gao Yang could not help staring at Belantia. He saw the Silver Empress sitting straight and proper, her expression grave, looking for all the world as though she were delivering a speech at the Alliance's supreme council—yet deep in those eyes was, one hundred percent, the message: "I have already devised a flawless criminal scheme, and none of you will be able to talk me out of it." He had seen that look more than once in his memories of seven hundred years ago, and seven hundred years later, beholding Belantia again, now a fully accomplished empress, he had assumed that look had fallen into eternal slumber within this matured and majestic sovereign—only to discover now that the empress's little-terror side had merely been dozing...

Then, his expression somewhat wooden, he turned his head to look at the gods upon the assembly ground.

The gods were even more dumbfounded than he was.

"Theoretically... theoretically there really is no problem with this," the first to break the silence was Gaia, Goddess of the Earth. Her gaze was somewhat vacant, but her reasoning remained clear. "I mean, we can indeed hand down divine oracles requiring this. But isn't it still highly suspicious? Why would the lofty gods suddenly demand that their faithful change the offerings? That will inevitably breed doubt in their hearts..."

At these words, however, Belantia revealed a faint, deeply meaningful smile. She fixed her eyes on the bewildered Earth Goddess, and her tone was quietly suggestive: "You are a god. You understand the affairs of gods, but you do not understand your own mortal faithful... The truly devout never doubt a single word that comes from the gods. They have ten thousand ways to explain it and convince themselves, and whatever cannot be explained is simply the gods' trial and a profundity beyond mortal comprehension. Without that blind devotion, how could they, in mortal bodies, hear the words of the gods—much less perform the sacrificial rites?

"Of course, if you want to minimize the variables as much as possible, you can restrict the scope of those who hear the oracles and perform the rites, so that only churches and temples above a certain size, and priests above a certain rank, are eligible to take part. And this will also achieve a certain degree of filtering—priests who would obey a divine oracle will never doubt the will of the gods, and priests who would doubt the will of the gods will never come into contact with the oracle at all.

"In short, no matter what, the truth of the matter will find it extremely difficult to reach the 'divine halves,' because to connect these dots requires far too extraordinary an imagination—and anyone possessed of such imagination and skepticism, who would furthermore dare to connect matters in the direction of conspiracy and desecration... would never be a devout believer in the first place."

The gods on the assembly ground looked at one another. Even Amoen, who had been watching the spectacle from the sidelines, could not help lifting his head and craning his neck toward them with curious interest. Amber tugged at Gao Song's arm and muttered under her breath: "How come it never occurred to me that the Silver Empress's thinking could be this nimble..."

What could Gao Yang say? He could only shrug and lower his voice as well: "Belantia's been clever since she was a child..."

There were some things he left unsaid—that professional matters should after all be left to professionals. Belantia, after all, bore the divine title of "Archdruid of Nature," and might be counted the last surviving "theocratic symbol" of that ancient theocratic nation, the Silver Empire. Though she and her family had severed their ties with the God of Nature thousands of years ago, as the saying goes, "only understanding can overcome"—and Belantia had read the church classics and theological works since childhood. As an archdruid who rejected the gods, she nonetheless understood the affairs of faith better than the vast majority of devout believers in this world.

Which was how she had successfully exploited a loophole in this matter...

Yet even at this stage, voices of concern remained on the assembly ground. The Blood God, Danmo, looked deeply troubled: "But this only reduces the risk to the greatest possible extent; it does not eliminate it entirely. We are all well aware of the complexity of mortals. Once this is implemented on a large scale, no matter how much filtering and restriction we add, there remains a possibility of loss of control."

The Blood God Danmo's worry might seem excessive, but Gao Yang well understood such caution. This was, after all, a plan to murder the gods; what they were dealing with was the most powerful, most dangerous group of beings in the world, already teetering at the critical point. Even with the exquisite cooperation between the gods' human natures and the mortals, even with the loophole the Silver Empress had helped them exploit, the risk behind this affair still existed—and even the slightest risk could bring about utter and irrecoverable ruin. So it was always right to consider a few more possibilities.

After all, before a mortal actually takes action, you can never predict just how big a mess he might make—is the complexity of the human heart a joke to you?

Gao Yang sank into thought, and after pondering for a long while, a question suddenly occurred to him: "There's one thing I'm curious about—what exactly is the process when you receive a sacrifice? Is it a teleportation of the object? A decomposition and reassembly of matter? Or do you really open a gate to the divine realm and take the things back directly?"

"Of course we don't open a gate directly; establishing a direct connection between a divine realm and the mortal world is far too dangerous," the God of Commerce, Baufar, shook his head. "The first two situations you described are fairly close. The sacrificial rite 'transmits' the offering to the foot of our thrones; in the process the offering seems to be decomposed and reassembled once, and before and after the reassembly it fully maintains its 'correct state.' But we ourselves don't know the specific principle behind this process... just as with our own divine offices and the operation of our divine realms—these are things we cannot explain either, yet which take effect as though by instinct."

"This may still be related to the 'Unified Fluctuation Model,'" Gao Yang said, stroking his chin thoughtfully as he listened to Baufar's explanation. "But that's not important. Second question: when you receive a sacrifice, how do you 'designate the target'? Can you only accept things the faithful have explicitly designated as offerings, or can you accept any object within the bounds of the ritual site, or are you constrained by your own divine office? Is there a limit to the quantity of offerings you can receive each time? If so, what is the limiting factor?"

Listening to this barrage of questions from Gao Yang, Amber rolled her eyes instinctively—it had been a long time since she had seen old Zongzi's "hundred thousand whys" mode, and it seemed his rapid-fire interrogation was as formidable as ever.