The growth of humanity often stemmed from the decline of divinity.
In the vast Shadowy Courtyard, the two gods of the past fell into silence and thought at the same time. Only the magic net terminal was still projecting light and sound from the mortal world. The silence lasted for a long time before Mirmina suddenly broke the silence. "It seems that I was right to find you to kill some time … If it were me, I'm afraid it would take a long time to observe the changes in myself."
Amoun's eyes quietly fell on Mirmina. "So that's why you've been bothering me?"
"No, the main reason is that you have the net here."
"… Well, at least honesty is a good character." Amoun seemed to want to sigh, but in the end, he returned to the topic. "So, let's talk about your 'humanity'. Do you have any clue why your humanity is improving so quickly?"
"How would I have any clue?" Mirmina shook her head, and the confusion in her voice came from the bottom of her heart. "In the end, everything I've done so far is an adventure, an experiment. There's no example for reference, and there's not much exact data in the process. I'm just guessing the changes in my divinity and humanity based on my feelings. Maybe this is the normal situation now? Anyway … the growth of humanity and the decline of divinity is always a good thing. "
"Divinity means madness. The more we lean towards it, the further away we are from reason. But on the other hand, divinity also means the connection between us and the mortal mind. Mortals won't suddenly forget something collectively, so this connection can't disappear into thin air …" Amoun's eyes were as clear as crystal, and his voice gently echoed in the courtyard. "According to our understanding, the mortal world has not experienced a large-scale population decline recently, and it's impossible for there to be a worldwide shift of thought in a few months. And now, the decline of your divinity is obviously much faster than the speed of the mortals forgetting you … This is a huge anomaly, and I think it's best not to casually explain it away with a 'it's all a good thing'."
"… Well, I also think that in just a few months, the mortals would not have forgotten me." Mirmina was silent for a moment, and had to put away her nonchalant look and began to take Amoun's question seriously. "But speaking of my 'humanity' … Old Deer, you seem to have changed recently, haven't you noticed it yourself?"
"I don't like the nickname you gave me?"
Amoun immediately said.
Then his eyes narrowed a little. Was this a sign that he was deep in thought?
"You said that I have changed recently?"
"Yes?
And a lot of changes, "Mirmina said directly.
"The biggest change is that you are more talkative now, and there is more and more 'initiative' in your personality. I still remember when I first met you, you were lazy and slow?
Although you are still slow now?
But you are not lazy at all. "
Amoun was deep in thought, and he slowly said, "So … your and my divinity is declining, and because of this, we are showing a more 'human' state. This change has happened recently … and the mortal world has not had a corresponding huge change recently. So what do you think is the most likely explanation?"
"Something is interfering with the connection between us and the 'ideology'?"
Mirmina's mind worked very quickly.
She immediately said her thoughts. "Or it is filtering out the influence of the ideology on us!"
"What could it be?" Amoun's voice sounded a little cautious and even a little nervous. Although he was once the supreme god of the elves, he was now trapped here.
He was almost powerless to control the direction of anything, so he was very sensitive to the unknown changes.
"Who would have the intention to interfere with the connection between us and the mortal ideology? Who would have the ability to do so? "
"I don't know. I am as emotionless as you are …" Mirmina shook her head.
But in the next second, her eyes suddenly fell on the broken ground in front of Amoun. This broken ground was connected to the atrium of the Courtyard of Disobedience and the door of the Fortress of Disobedience in the distance?
Was it once empty and barren?
But now there were a lot of 'things' from the mortal world?
There were shimmering Weave matrices, crystal devices floating in the air, and many new things that even Mirmina could not recognize, which seemed to be invented by the human experts after she left the material world. These large and small arcanotech machines were distributed around Amoun, quietly operating without supervision. They looked orderly.
For the huge god, they were as inconspicuous as the many small glowing stones scattered around him, but they were a little beautiful and cute.
Mirmina had a thoughtful look on her face. "When they set up these things for you, did they tell you the name and function of each of these machines?"
Amoun sighed. "I told you, it was that mortal named Kamel who came here to set up the machines. He came and went in a hurry and did not explain much to me. Why, is there something wrong with these machines? "
"Although I highly suspect that you just did not remember or understand the explanation of the mortal, I have no evidence," Milmina said, her eyes that were filled with arcane light narrowing slightly. "I can't see the problem, but I have seen how the 'magic net communication' system that the mortals invented works. I did not notice the machines around you before, but now that I think about it … if you just want to maintain the communication between the Courtyard of Disobedience and the material world, you don't need so many machines, especially these floating crystals …"
"What are these floating crystals for?" Amoun could not help but ask curiously.
"Most of the time, they are used to spread the signal of the Weave or stabilize the magical environment. The Courtyard of Disobedience is huge, but in fact, it only needs one crystal to cover such a large courtyard. Even if you include the backups, you only need two or three of these devices. But you have a dozen crystals of different sizes around you, and these matching matrices, and that extra-large … I can't even tell what it is for."
Mirmina finally got to her feet as she spoke, her body rising like a tower. She walked to the middle of the devices, her eyes sweeping across the area around Amoun, and finally understood. "… Probably only a small part of these things are used to maintain the communication function of your Weave terminal. The rest … are used to create some kind of 'environment' around you."
Amoun finally understood, his eyes clear and bright. "So, this is an experiment — an experiment in the name of helping to set up the Weave communication."
Mirmina turned her head and looked at the former God of Nature with a half-smile. "What? Do you feel that they are lying to you? Are you unhappy that they are hiding their true motives? "
"No, they are helping me." After a few seconds of silence, Amoun softly broke the silence. His voice was as gentle and pleasant as ever. "I have been lying here for three thousand years, but my thinking ability has not deteriorated."
"They are helping us." Mirmina looked at Amoun for a while before slowly returning to her seat. "While I do not know what they are doing, they are clearly trying to break the chains on you and me … Facts have proven that it is not only us so-called 'gods' who are working hard to break free from the chains."
This time, Ah Mo 'en did not refute the word "we". He only thought about it quietly. After a long time, he said, "So, they are still standing with us …"
"That requires a little bit of tacit understanding," Mirmina said.
Amoun did not say a word. He closed his eyes, and no one knew what he was thinking. After a long time, his voice rang again in the dark and chaotic world. "Don't go too far. The power of these devices may only be able to cover my small yard."
There was no reply. Amoun could not help but open his eyes. He looked to the side and saw that the lady, who was as tall as a clock tower, was leaning against the wreckage of a huge spaceship engine. Her head was lowered as if she had fallen asleep. For the past few days, she had consciously kept a distance from the wreckage because the legacy of the Voyager had always made her divine part uncomfortable. But now, she was leaning against the wreckage and had fallen asleep.
Amoun looked quietly in that direction and did not wake her up. It was not easy for a god to have a good night's sleep.
"Good night."
…
In the experiment hall of the Imperial Computing Center, Yuri gently rubbed his forehead that was a little sore because he had been concentrating for a long time. He glanced at the data projected by a surveillance device on the side, then withdrew his gaze and continued to pay attention to the rising and falling "tide" behind the mind hub.
The essence of the 'tide' was actually the 'non-directional thought' that came from the deepest layer of the neural network. It was data ripples produced by tens of thousands of human minds in collective unconscious dreams. The data originated from the human mind but had no meaning, and was constantly being refreshed and reorganized. It was a byproduct of the neural network.
In the past hundreds of years, the Eternal Sleepers had regarded it as an extremely dangerous "mind swamp" because it could almost devour any ordinary mind that fell into it. In that chaotic and disordered mind swamp, the most broken, illogical, and incomprehensible fragments of human consciousness were surging like disordered turbulence in the ocean. Rationality and madness were meaningless in the face of such absolute emptiness and chaos. If a mortal's mind accidentally fell into it, it would instantly wither and collapse. But no one had ever thought that this "swamp" that could drain any mind to death was actually something useful.
The anti-divinity barrier.
A beautiful lady in a white researcher's uniform with her hair tied up came to Yuri. Her voice was as sweet and soft as a song. "It seems that the barrier generators we have set up in the courtyard area are all effective. After the non-directional thought was set up as a barrier around the target, the leaked divinity pollution is quickly weakened to a safe level."
"The extreme of human nature is divinity, and the extreme of divinity is madness. But the premise of this chain is that the 'thought' must point to God. If even the thought has no direction, then even the strongest chain will break as if it has lost its key link. It is such a simple truth, and yet we have not understood it until today."
"There are many simple truths in the world, but if we are unlucky, we may not think of them until the end of the world." The lady with the sweet voice smiled, and then changed the topic. "Unfortunately, we still have no way to directly confirm the target's state. We don't know how the target feels during the process."
"Perhaps we can only hope for a tacit understanding, Madam Venti," Yuri said. "But the good news is that we are making rapid progress. Perhaps it will not be long before we can communicate directly with the 'other side', and we don't have to rely on feelings to cooperate with each other."
Venti nodded, and then her eyes fell on Yuri's face. There was a trace of tiredness in the depths of his face, and his eyes seemed to be darker than yesterday. This made her a little worried. "Shouldn't you take a break? You don't seem to have rested recently because you have been testing these things. "
Yuri waved his hand and pulled out a small glass bottle from his pocket. He unscrewed the cap and drank the alchemy potion in one gulp. Instantly, he was in high spirits again. Apart from the dark circles under his eyes, there was no change. "It's fine. Compared to the time when I was researching neural impulses in the Orlandale headquarters, this workload is nothing."
Venti looked at the alchemy potion bottle that Yuri had casually thrown into the trash can and sighed helplessly. She then took out an identical bottle of potion from her pocket.
Since when did the eternal sleepers of the past lose their sleep?
…
Under the solemn 32 quaint stone pillars, the conference hall fell into the final silence before the vote.
This was the last vote of the entire agenda. For the delegates present, this vote was more important than any previous vote, and the decision was more difficult to make.
As Gwen said, the establishment of a Theocratic Council was not as simple as the cost of manpower and resources for each country. It meant a lot of social changes. For some countries, it even meant that their social order would be tested. Not all rulers had the courage to face this challenge.
But for many delegates, this matter had another level of attraction. For those who already wanted to weaken the authority of the Holy See, and for those who wanted to strengthen the centralization of power, some of the concepts of the Theocratic Council were exactly what they wanted.
But for those that involved universal education and the promotion of citizens' rights, some people were hesitant.
Weighing the pros and cons, it was hard to make a decision.
Gwen calmly looked at the quiet conference hall. In the silence, Rosetta Augustus' voice finally broke the silence. "Typhon is in."
Under the stone pillar not far away, a layer of magic light appeared on the surface of the black flag with red stripes. Typhon's seat seemed to light up in the light.
"The Silver Empire is in." Bersetia's voice sounded, and then the flags of the elves lit up.
"Tarlonde is in." "The Duchy of Holy Dragon is in."
"The Kaolin Kingdom is willing to join the Theocratic Council."
"The Northern City-States are in."
"The Kingdom of Augulay …"
The difficult balancing finally came to an end. It was as if a halo had suddenly spread out in the conference hall. The flags representing the mortal countries lit up one after another. A clear light rose from the conference hall like the first rays of dawn, enveloping the faces of all the representatives present.
No matter how many of them were still wavering in their hearts, they did not draw their bows.
They turned around and shot back.
"Then, I officially announce the establishment of the Theocratic Council."
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