The void was endless. It was everything and everything outside of everything. It was the unity of the known and the unknowable. It was the collection of everything and everything outside of everything. Everything that could be described, indescribable, solvable, unsolvable, orderly, and disorderly was all contained in the void. In this boundless realm, the dark tide surged. With every rise and fall, countless worlds were born, and countless worlds were destroyed. Whether it was the Plane of Dreams, the Surface World, or any other universe, they were all just bubbles in the void.
However, it was these bubbles that gave birth to endless brilliant sceneries. Innumerable natural phenomena and intelligent races, those without spirit, those with spirit, those who were ignorant, and those who were wise, shaped the Colossal World in these bubbles, and every scene in this Colossal World moved even the gods.
This was the first time Rheia had seen such a scene.
For a long time, she had been trapped in the small universe that she was born in. What she could see was only the limits of mathematics. Even if she used her divine power to sense, she could only vaguely sense the edge of the universe and the weak fluctuations of information beyond the edge. She had relied on calculation and reasoning to come to the conclusion that there were new worlds beyond the universe, but today was the first time she had seen with her own eyes the sceneries that only existed in mathematical formulas and theoretical models.
Countless nebulae, kingdoms, and universes stretched out on the surface of the water under her feet, and some of them gradually became clear. The fate of these worlds was also reflected in her mind, and she saw the history and future of these worlds with her own eyes. Even though the distance between these worlds and her had reached a scale that could not be described with mathematics, it was as if she had experienced it herself.
And the voice of the "mother" sounded directly in her mind.
"This is called the Great Nebula, and ten thousand years ago, it was called the Warring Galaxy. The entire universe is almost a battlefield, and more than a hundred civilizations live here. They are all mortals, and their opponents are a group of gods who have gone mad …
"This is Hysenwood-Redmunn. There are a dozen intelligent races living on this Gemini star system. Their civilization level has not even broken through the bottleneck of space travel, but they are facing a source of disaster that could cause the end of the world. Before the gods noticed this world, they had held on for a thousand years.
"This planet has been destroyed. I once personally stood guard here for tens of millions of years. My body is the seal, and this planet covers me like a tomb. A human civilization thrived on the tomb, but after the seal was broken, the civilization was instantly annihilated. But the survivors built a sanctuary on a nearby planet, and now that ten thousand years have passed, they are about to launch a deep-space spacecraft to the edge of the universe. The disaster of a mere planet is nothing to them."
Rheia's jaw dropped. "There are so many … so many worlds, so many disasters …"
"The void is boundless, and the number of worlds is endless. But to many mortals who can only live on a small planet, such a vast world does not mean much. The world they live in is their entire world, and against the disasters that happen in this world, they will explode with an unimaginable will to survive, because to them, that is their everything.
"That's why I have to correct you. My descendants, you do indeed protect them, but you're not just a protector, because 'protector' is too lofty a word. It means that you're looking down on them and giving them charity. As for mortals, they're more resolute and powerful than you think. Even if there's no god, they'll still protect their homes and inheritances, even more resolute than you are. So to put it more accurately, you are not protecting the mortals, but protecting their world with them.
"You feel that you have a responsibility and obligation to protect the mortals, and that is good, because a sense of responsibility has always been a good quality of the gods, but do not use this sense of responsibility to cover the efforts of the mortals. This will only blind your eyes, and blindness is often the first step on the wrong path."
Rheia felt that she had understood something. She nodded as her eyes moved slowly on the surface of the water under her feet, and the universes were living and dying under her gaze. Gradually, the scene on the surface of the water changed again, and the voice in her head continued.
"Now let me teach you the second thing, about the parts that we cannot save. You have seen the worlds that struggled to be reborn after the apocalypse, but in fact, there are more of these … these worlds that did not make it, and not even a scrap was left, and could only leave a number in the archives of extinct civilizations. "
The light and shadow that appeared on the surface of the water changed rapidly as the stars flew past, and Rheia saw ruins, fragments, and ruins. There were debris of celestial bodies floating in space, rugged steel ruins on the ground, and huge starships that had been torn apart floating alone in the clouds of the gas giant planets. Those starships might have meant a failed escape.
Time passed, eroding steel and tombstones, and cities and ships were gradually weathered into dust, but no survivors appeared, and no descendants of civilizations came to rebuild these things.
There were more and more such scenes, and at the end of each set of images was darkness, and a black cross was their last annotation, and below the mark was a cold word: Canceled.
Finally, Rheia saw a huge cylindrical space that seemed to be floating in the chaos. The space was endless, and in the cylindrical area floated countless neatly arranged crystal lattices, and countless blurry figures were shuttling in the space, putting things into the lattices. Under some inexplicable sense, her eyes suddenly looked in a certain direction, and the lattice at the end of her vision became clear in her eyes.
She saw some text floating in front of the lattice:
"The Plane of Dreams – Tannagost. Civilization Status: Extinct. Archived by: Hao Ren."
Rheia's mouth was agape. "… I remember this name …"
"Although they have been destroyed, the creatures that lived in these worlds had resisted resolutely. Some of them were lucky enough to leave behind a few words of records, or a few bloodlines that had been lost, but most of them only had a number left. The end of the world is happening every second in the endless void, and even if the gods fight to the death, and all beings in the world fight to the death, the number of 'tombstones' in this archive will still increase day by day. So, do you think that under the premise that these worlds are destined to be destroyed, is there any meaning to our efforts? "
Of course there is. Rheia wanted to say that, but she could not help but think of her initial negative thought.
"You are hesitating because you have realized the crux of the problem." The tall figure materialized out of thin air again, and she quietly looked into Rheia's eyes. "Perhaps we are destined to not be able to save everything, and perhaps sacrifices are inevitable, but our battle has never been a transaction with a clear benefit. The mortals resist because they do not want to perish, and we fight because we do not want to see them perish. This motive is enough, and as for the result … is there any meaning to it?"
Rheia silently clenched her fist and whispered, "I think I understand."
"No, you haven't fully understood yet," the Dark Valkyrie interrupted her. "Because what I've told you so far is just some grand principles. Grand principles are certainly useful, but the motivation they generate is very limited. Next, I'm going to tell you something more practical than grand principles.
"We fight, even if we have to bleed and sacrifice ourselves to kill a certain enemy, other than some grand principles, the more important reason is — dissatisfaction."
Rheia, "… Huh?"
"We want to protect something, but someone is trying to do the opposite, trying to destroy what we are protecting. So we will be dissatisfied, very, very dissatisfied, and this dissatisfaction is the first motivation for us to kill our opponent. No matter what the situation is, as long as this dissatisfaction exists, there is absolutely no reason for us to stop. Either we smash the opponent into pieces, or we press the opponent to the ground and make them call us ancestors, or else we will never stop!
"A qualified god will fight to the death after identifying his enemy. We will meet our enemy head-on, use all our strength to destroy him, crush him, turn him into ashes, and cut him into pieces. If he runs, then we will chase him to the end of the void. If he defends, then we will crush his defense. If he resurrects ten thousand times, then we will kill him ten thousand and one times. If he dares to spread his evil minions everywhere, then we will cut off every trace of his power, sweep every one of his minions, dig them out from multiple layers of dimensions, dig them out from different timelines, dig them out from the background radiation of the universe, dig them out until they regret being born in this world. And this is the violent means necessary for justice. "
Rheia's eyes slowly lit up.
"My blood kin, now tell me, does that guy called the Mad Lord annoy you?"
"Very much!"
"Will you find your enemy pleasing to the eye just because your career has been thwarted and your achievements destroyed?"
"Absolutely not!"
"Then, are you willing to fight for your slaughtered people, and turn your enemy into ashes?"
"Very much so!"
"Very well, it seems that you are ready for justice." The Dark Valkyrie smiled as she looked at Rheia approvingly. "Now, turn to the first page of the textbook. Lesson one, about the origin and definition of the gods. Highlight the key points, and you will be taking the final exam."
Rheia was speechless.
In another distant world, in another god's office, Hao Ren looked at the goddess before him with a little suspicion. "Do you think what the Dark Valkyrie left in the textbook will really work?"
"Of course it will." Raven 12345 waved her hand. "After all, if even your own mother can't do anything about it, then even if you really swing a meteor hammer, it won't work. Let's not talk about this, let's talk about the Umbral Realm … "
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