Chapter 963 — Echoes
Blade of Dawn · Page 4 of 4
"Overreliance on the Voyagers' legacy, together with the act of deifying them, drove the entire Reverse Tide Empire into an uncontrollable theocratization. Even the few clear-sighted among them who recognized the danger could not halt that process. The Reverse Tide Empire styled itself the faithful of the Voyagers, and regarded the dragons of Tarrond as heretics who had betrayed and stolen the Voyagers' legacy—and all of this... was the exact opposite of Tarrond's original plan.
"And so the War of the Reverse Tide broke out."
Gaoyang opened his mouth, and it was several seconds before he found the words: "...You permitted all of this?"
"You could say that."
"Why?" Gaoyang could not help asking. "Did you not see the risk in it?"
The Dragon God's voice was low and deep: "The dragons of Tarrond did not see it, and so I did not see it either—and even had I seen the risk, so long as the dragons' cultivation of the Reverse Tide Empire did not itself violate Tarrond's 'traditional zeitgeist,' did not trigger a 'transgression,' I could not stop it."
Gaoyang thought of the "two stories" the Dragon God had just told him—and in that moment, he gained a deeper understanding of the rules those two stories concealed.
"That war destroyed the entire Reverse Tide Empire, ended an age of civilization before the Magic Tide arrived, and dealt Tarrond a severe blow," the Dragon God continued. "The losses the war brought were not in themselves the terrible thing; what was terrible was the blow to confidence and faith—the whole society of Tarrond was profoundly shaken, and that shock was reflected almost at once in the dragons' 'collective zeitgeist'..."
Gaoyang reacted in an instant, his eyes going wide: "That formed a new 'Lock' as well?!"
"In an ordinary civilization, such a brief collective emotion, lacking any accumulation, would amount to little. But the dragons' gods had already become one, and the mutual influence between god and people was stronger than ever before, so that any intense, collective psychic fluctuation would swiftly produce a wide-ranging echo in the zeitgeist—and then the echo became a new Lock.
"For more than a million years since, the dragons have never again interfered in the world beyond Tarrond; they even strictly limit the number of dragons who leave Tarrond each year.
"They cannot reveal too much about the War of the Reverse Tide to other civilizations, cannot casually disclose the Voyagers' secrets, and must, the moment another civilization comes into contact with the Voyagers' legacy, find a way to recover those 'dangerous objects'... All of these were 'echoes of reflection' produced by the dragons as a people after the turmoil of the Reverse Tide. These echoes became compulsory 'Locks,' and every dragon must obey the constraints they impose unconditionally—even after ten thousand years, a hundred thousand years, a million years... even if the Voyagers' legacy is worn away entirely by time, even if no one remembers what the 'Reverse Tide Empire' specifically refers to, the dragons must still obey them forever."
Gaoyang listened in astonishment, then suddenly could not help saying: "But when Metzen spoke to me of recovering certain dangerous objects or sealing certain information, he only said it was an order from above, a 'corporate regulation'..."
"That way, at least it sounds a little nicer."