Chapter 961 — "The Gods"
Blade of Dawn · Page 4 of 4
"Tarronde is already dead—dead within a technological framework developed to its limit, dead within a social structure rigid as stone, dead within this... sanctuary you call the 'Eternal Cradle'. Frankly, when I looked upon Tarronde I even felt as though I were gazing at ruins—ruins running themselves on automatic."
At the last, Gaoyang could not suppress a sigh: "This country is called the Nation of Dragons, yet the dragon race seems to have become the most superfluous thing in it—whether the citizens of lower Tarronde or the so-called upper citizens, all have in truth been decoupled from the advance of civilization. That is the fact I saw."
After much hesitation, he at last did not voice the words in his heart: "the ultimate stage of capitalism".
After all, though Tarronde's condition resembled that stage as he knew it, he knew the two were fundamentally different—what had brought Tarronde to its present state were causes far more complex.
One of those causes was, at this very moment, sitting before him.
This time the Dragon God fell silent for a long while—so long that Gaoyang began to worry she might smash a cup as a signal for five hundred axemen to rush in. But at last she spoke, and after a sigh, her expression turned as though a burden had lifted: "To render such an assessment, you have indeed looked with great care."
"Which is precisely why I am now all the more curious—" Gaoyang said aloud. "What exactly is the chain between gods and mortals? How does it take effect, and how does it hold mortals and gods alike in bondage? Where does its power manifest? And if we wish to break free of it... where must we begin, if we are to be 'correct'?"