Chapter 964: Chapter 963: Echoes of the Inversion Tide

This is the "lock" between humans and gods.

The rules of this world are even more cruel than Gawain imagined.

Now, he finally understood why Melita had those near-loss-of-control reactions after revealing secrets about the Inversion Tide and gods to him. He now knew the true mechanisms behind it—it wasn’t just the punishment of the Dragon God on every dragon, but even the Dragon God in all its divinity was a prisoner under these rules.

The gods are both chains and prisoners, and even executioners, and this entire "prison" has been built by mortal faith.

The Dragon God saw Gawain lost in thought and silence, and asked curiously, "What are you thinking about?"

"I was just thinking about Melita—she told me some ancient things, and now I realize how much risk she took back then."

"Ah, Melita... she’s a child who left a deep impression on me," the Dragon God nodded, "It’s rare to see a young dragon with such complex qualities—maintaining a strong curiosity, possessing great creativity, passionate about action and exploration, growing up in the Eternal Cradle, yet as vibrant as the living beings ’outside’... The Five Kings Council is an ancient and closed organization, and such changes appearing in its younger members is indeed... interesting."

A young member, full of ambition, emerging from an ancient, closed organization like the Five Kings Council...

Gawain suddenly thought of Melita’s origins, recalling that she and her "colleagues" were born from factories and laboratories, customized employees of enterprises.

He pulled back his thoughts slightly and redirected the topic to the Inverted Tide Empire: "So, since the Inverted Tide Empire, the Dragonkin have not intervened in external affairs... but the aftershock of that event seems to persist to this day? What exactly is the situation with the huge tower in Talronde’s northwest?"

"You already know a lot about the mechanisms of divine birth and operation, so you must also realize that in this world, sufficiently powerful group ideologies can ’project’ onto certain entities, causing a ’divinization’ phenomenon," the Dragon God said deliberately, "The huge tower in Talronde’s northwest... It was originally the heritage of the Voyager, and was the place where the Dragonkin, when supporting the Inverted Tide Empire, let their ’First Enlighteners’ receive ’heritage.’

"Receive heritage?" Gawain immediately caught on, "You mean utilizing the peculiar nature of the Voyager’s relics..."

The Dragon God nodded: "Yes. The Voyager’s heritage has the power to record data, impart knowledge and experience, and influence cognitive abilities. When properly guided, it can be roughly directed to pass down specific knowledge and experience—the Dragonkin spent some time achieving this, then brought the Inverted Tide Empire’s finest scholars and thinkers to that tower.

"The experiment was successful, and they created a group of individuals with exceptional wisdom—although mortals could only gain a small fraction of the Voyager’s heritage, this knowledge was enough to alter the course of a civilization’s development."

Gawain had already guessed the subsequent development: "So the Inverted Tide Empire then regarded that towering structure as a ’divine gift’s’ sanctuary?"

"...The Dragonkin had not foreseen the volatility and shortsightedness of short-lived species, nor did they accurately gauge the greed of that season’s civilization," the Dragon God lamented, "Those individuals who returned from the towering structure indeed used their inherited knowledge to rapidly strengthen the Inverted Tide Empire, but they also utilized it to become absolute theocratic leaders—the uncontrolled and terrifying faith was established with them as its source.

"In a series of propagations, the towering structure located in the Arctic Region became a sacred site for divine blessings. Eventually, it was even spoken of as a god’s earthly abode. In the blink of an eye, from the Dragonkin’s perspective, many generations of the Inverted Tide Empire had passed, and they began to worship the tower and built an entire mythology and worship system around it—so much so that when the Inversion Tide erupted, the fanatic followers of the Inverted Tide Empire even shouted the slogan of ’reclaiming the sanctuary’—they firmly believed that the tower was their sacred site, and that the Dragonkin were heterodoxies usurping divine blessings...

"Therefore, in a certain sense, that tower was indeed the root cause of the Inversion Tide War—if the fanatics of the Inverted Tide Empire had succeeded in contaminating the Voyager’s heritage into a true ’god,’ the entire world would have had no future."

Gawain sighed, "I’m not surprised by this—for the short-lived species, a few hundred years are more than enough to completely rewrite history and repackage it, not to mention the overlay of theocratic needs on top of it. So you’re saying the divinization of that tower by the Inverted Tide Empire resulted in the creation of something... strange?"

"Perhaps we can call it the ’God of the Inversion Tide,’" the Dragon God said calmly, "The billions of citizens of the Inverted Tide Empire firmly believed that a god who bestowed blessings resided in that tower, so the god was born responding to this ideology, and the towering structure left by the Voyagers was thus divinely polluted... I must say, it’s quite an ironic situation.

"In this whole affair, the only consolation is that the ’god’ born within that tower never fully formed. Before the situation became irretrievable, the Inverted Tide Empire was destroyed, and the ’gestation’ process within the tower failed at the last step. As a result, the tower mutated and became polluted, but did not develop true sentience or the capacity for active intervention; otherwise... today’s Talronde would be a hundred times worse than what you see."

"So the anti-divine resistance of the Voyager’s heritage isn’t absolute and perfect either," Gawain chuckled, "At least now we know it’s not all that effective against internal contamination."

"Perhaps... to this day, we have no knowledge of what transformations occurred within that tower, nor do we understand the state of the ’God of the Inversion Tide’ born there; we only know that the tower has mutated and become extremely dangerous, yet there is nothing we can do about it."

Gawain frowned, "Even you can’t purge the divine pollution within that tower?"

"I cannot approach the Voyager’s heritage," the Dragon God shook his head, "and the Dragonkin cannot contend with ’gods’—not even external ones, not even the God of the Inversion Tide."

"This is also the ’lock’?!"

"This is also the ’lock.’"

"Hiss..." Gawain suddenly felt a toothache, having experienced this feeling more than once since confronting the truth about Talronde, "So you just leave that tower right at your doorstep? Just leave it there?"

"No choice," the Dragon God said frankly, "At least by keeping it in sight, we can continuously monitor its condition. If that tower were located elsewhere in the world, that would be the real danger—the Inversion Tide Empire’s beliefs instill in that tower a strong inclination to spread knowledge outwardly; if left unchecked to contact other mortal civilizations, countless Inversion Tide Empires would emerge, countless uncontrollable divine disasters with the Voyagers as their objects of worship."

At this point, the Dragon God suddenly glanced at Gawain, "Why, do you have an interest in taking a look at that tower? Maybe you wouldn’t be affected by it—"

"No, thanks," Gawain said without hesitation, "at least for now, my interest in it isn’t significant."

You’re kidding, that is a solid Voyager heritage mutated due to divine pollution—the divine, mutation, Voyager, basically this world’s greatest risk factor, it covers them all. In these circumstances, entering recklessly is like wishing to crawl back into a coffin. Gawain considers himself to have some resistance to divine pollution, but he knows his resistance originates from the Voyager, and that tower is the Voyager heritage polluted by the divine, whether his resistance would work in front of that tower is completely uncertain.

More importantly—he can use the "Abandoned Protocol" to intimidate a sensible Dragon God, but has no way to intimidate a "God of the Inversion Tide" whose brain seems not even to have developed. Such a thing can’t be fought, nor negotiated with, and it holds little research value for Gawain... why risk his life for a probe?

In the end, the curiosity regarding The Inverted Tide Empire is merely leisure for Gawain, not a necessity—in his view, the necessity isn’t even up to par with the cola in his cup.

He lifted the oak cup filled with "reflection," took a full sip, and steadied his mind.

At a certain instant just before, he actually harbored another thought—what if he set the "falling coordinates" of certain satellites and space stations above onto that tower, could it directly, once and for all, destroy it?

But this thought only emerged momentarily before being vetoed by Gawain himself.

Because he wasn’t sure—he wasn’t sure about accurately crashing those space assets onto the tower, and dared not guarantee the effect of smashing Voyager heritage with Voyager heritage.

Regarding the former, as early as before departure, when simulating the fall procedure of orbital facilities with Firmament Station’s system, Gawain discovered the frighteningly huge fall errors of those antiques—the aged systems and energy shortages causing power deviations affected their fall precision. Even though the foundation of that tower might be as big as an island, the fall error of those orbital facilities might directly deviate to the neighboring Talronde...

This is also why Gawain used abandoned satellites and space stations to intimidate the Dragon God but never considered using them on the Loren Continent’s situation—too many uncontrollable factors. Using them to smash Talronde needs less consideration anyway, as the Dragon Kingdom is so huge, wherever they fall there’s bound to be the same effect, yet on Loren Continent with numerous nations and complicated forces; a satellite fall with a booster engine deviation might actually fall on himself, not to mention that its power is astoundingly great, simply impossible to use in conventional wars...

And as for the latter... it’s even more cause for worry.

Using Voyager satellites to smash a Voyager tower—if it crumbles to dust that would be fortunate, but what if it has no effect, or what if it actually opens a breach in the tower and releases the "thing" inside? Who would bear that responsibility?

After careful pondering and weighing, Gawain finally suppressed the impulse to "drag down a satellite to hear its crash," struggling to put on a stern face and sink into contemplation, continuing to sip cola with a look of seriousness and deep thought.

The Dragon God quietly glanced at Gawain. Perhaps He was perceptive of the latter’s pondering, or perhaps He too considered the possibility of having this "Wanderer from Outer Realm" help resolve that tower, yet in the end He said nothing.

Thus, the topic about The Inverted Tide Empire and that tower seemingly passed just like that.

The slightly awkward silence persisted for a full two minutes before Gawain suddenly broke it: "Voyager... what exactly is it?"

"I thought you were quite clear on this," the Dragon God raised His eyes, "after all, your connection with those heritages runs deep..."

"I merely happened to establish a connection with those heritages by mistake when I came to this world," Gawain said frankly—after being in this world for so many years, he rarely encountered such occasions where he could speak candidly, only to be surprised that the first to fully open dialogue with him was a "god," "I’ve coexisted with them for many years, yet from those incomplete databases, I haven’t found descriptions about the Voyager itself."

The Dragon God’s gaze lingered on Gawain’s face for a few seconds, seemingly gauging the authenticity of these words. Then He faintly smiled: "Voyager... is mortal."

"Mortal?" Gawain widened his eyes in amazement.

"Yes, mortal, even though they are unimaginably powerful, even able to destroy goddesses..." the Dragon God said calmly, "they still classify themselves as mortal, and insist on this point."

"Well... a race that insists on calling itself mortal no matter how powerful..." Gawain nodded, "then what’s next? How did they emerge?"

"That was in a far older era, old enough that Dragonkin was just one of several Mortal Races on this planet, old enough that several civilizations and their different pantheons existed on this planet..." The Dragon God’s voice drifted like it came from the distant shore of the historical river, carrying agedness and reminiscence, "Voyager came from the cosmic deep, established observation stations and sentinels on this planet."

"They came from the cosmic deep?" Gawain was astonished again, "They didn’t develop from this planet?"

"Of course not," the Dragon God shook His head, "their home planet is in a farther place, a galaxy they called ’Exile Grounds.’

"Exile Grounds?" Gawain couldn’t help but frown, "That’s a peculiar name... why did they establish observation stations and sentinels on this planet? For supply? Or research? There were already several civilizations including dragons on this planet back then—did those civilizations all come into contact with the Voyager? Where are they now?"

"They all went with the Voyager—only the Dragonkin remained."

"Why? I... don’t understand."

"Because at that time the Dragonkin had already developed too far on a wrong path, were not equipped to leave, whereas the Voyager... needed to continue their voyage, they had their own mission, couldn’t stay and wait for the Dragonkin."

Noticing Gawain’s increasingly puzzled expression, this god faintly smiled, the cups on the table refilled once more.

"We have some time—I haven’t discussed matters regarding the Voyager with anyone for a long time," His voice was soft, "Let me tell you about them from the beginning—a truly amazing race of ’mortals.’

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