"I represent the end of the world?" Zhang Heng frowned. "I'm just a mortal. Why would I have anything to do with the end of the world? And speaking of the end of the world, the Twilight of the Gods is related to you, right?"
"The Twilight of the Gods is only the end of the Norse gods," Loki said. "I have to admit, well, two thousand years ago, the war was quite magnificent. Bards sang about it, and many famous guys wrote many beautiful poems, mourning the fall of the gods, singing about the heroic fighting of Thor and Odin, and the bravery of the Asgardian gods … Not much, not much, not much, not to blame me, but unfortunately, they are too old."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not targeting those brothers. Really, I quite like some of them. I even collected some of their skeletons to make some furniture as souvenirs. But with the productivity of that era, the craziest thing you can imagine is a drunkard with red hair, a big beard, and a head full of muscles, carrying a sledgehammer from east to west. And what was his mount? A chariot pulled by two goats, two ridiculous and funny goats! "
Loki repeated again. "Do you understand what I mean? This is the limit of imagination that people had back then. Now, you can ask anyone to name a hundred things that look cooler and cooler than this, such as a Ferrari, a Long March 5, not to mention a Helicarrier … But we can't blame them. Their material conditions limited their imagination. Those poor guys did their best.
"Whether it's the Twilight of the Gods or the Armageddon, all these doomsday stories, these elegant poems, they … how do I put it, are like a peerless beauty, unable to resist the erosion of time. Now, they are no longer worthy of their illustrious reputation, just like us old guys."
Loki took out another bottle of champagne, opened the cap, and said to Zhang Heng, "Want a glass?"
Zhang Heng shook his head. "I need to stay sober before I kill you. I'm not going to drink."
"Well, I'll have a small glass myself, and leave the rest here. You can drink it after you kill me." Loki, on the other hand, seemed to be very reasonable. He poured himself a glass, drank it in one gulp, and raised his glass. "To the good old days."
Zhang Heng was indifferent.
"Speaking of which, some of us should thank television, comics, the internet, or more specifically, Marvel, Netflix, and Sony … After being reworked by modern creators, some old stories have been revitalized. I'm also a beneficiary of this, even though I don't want to be paired with that hammer-wielding idiot. By the way, in Norse mythology, I'm actually Odin's brother, not Thor's. But I guess no one cares about that.
"All in all, I've recovered quite a bit of my strength. This is a good thing. It shows that humans are still unable to live without lies and deceit." Loki said, "But most of the old gods don't have a good life. It's not an exaggeration to describe them as struggling at death's door. In order to gain a believer, they have to do everything they can. But as I said, these days, no one thinks that a guy riding two goats is more handsome than a guy driving a Lamborghini and waving money. In contrast, a group of new gods has risen. They are young and powerful.
"The God of Media, the God of Luxury, the God of Two Dimensions, the God of Air Conditioning … Sometimes I don't understand humans. Some of them believe that air conditioning is the greatest invention of mankind every summer, and it is the air conditioning that saves their lives. Compared to us, the new gods are more flexible in absorbing faith. They don't need to pray or sacrifice, and they don't even care if their believers respect them. This was unimaginable in the past. Those old gods would punish blasphemers for some trivial things. But now, who the f * ck would think of the God of Air Conditioning in winter? At the same time, the rituals are constantly being simplified.
"A lot of old guys have complained to me that the threshold has been pulled down. Some time ago, I met a guy on the road. He owns several websites that everyone likes to see. One of them seems to be called P Site. His believers are all over the world, and they come from all walks of life. The way he obtains his faith is very simple and crude. The old gods can't imagine it at all. You just need to send the short videos he provides online, and the ritual is completed.
"He is simply the Einstein of the gods, a complete genius. Since the day he was born, his believers have been growing rapidly, and his believers are particularly sticky. Basically, as long as you log on to his website and become his believer, you can never leave him again. You can only provide him with a steady stream of faith. This thing is more effective than the most stringent blood oath." However, the new gods also have their own troubles.
"However, the new gods also have their own troubles. Most of them have powerful divine powers, but they have lost the killing and fighting nature of the old gods. Take the gods of Asgard as an example. At the beginning of our birth, we faced all kinds of enemies. We had a mortal enemy, the giants, and there was a civil war among the gods. At one point, we were on the brink of extinction. Then, in the Twilight of the Gods, we all died in battle … We have never really had peace. Every period of time is full of blood, or fighting against strong enemies together, or killing each other. If you can't fight, you will be killed.
If you can't fight, you will be killed. "But the new gods in modern society are not like this. Except for a few who have the ability to fight, most of them are like the brothers who opened the website I mentioned above. They are very good at collecting faith, but they don't know how to fight at all. In addition, many old gods think that they only have faith in their eyes and have abandoned the dignity and honor that the gods should have. Moreover, their various behaviors have seriously disturbed the market, so many old gods regard them as cancer in the industry.
"But as I said before, there are also some anomalies among the new gods. Here, I have to say that human beings have never disappointed me on the road to death. This time, they have played a new game — fear. It has always been the most primitive and purest instinct of human beings. They have also developed many ways of entertainment to deal with fear, but most of them are small-scale until they set their sights on the end of the world. As I said before, whether it is the Apocalypse or the Twilight of the Gods, they are all old antiques and cannot keep up with the trend of the times. Human beings have long lost the fear of the pictures of hell painted by their predecessors with their barren imagination. They want to create new fear, the exciting and magnificent new apocalypse that belongs to the 21st century!"
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