MTL - Sword of Daybreaker-Chapter 1567 Arrive at the border

In the boundless gray-white desert, the vast and chaotic sky shrouded the four fields, the majestic throne of Lady Ye stood in the center of the kingdom of God like a mountain in the center of the world. To the distant voice, "Would you be surprised?"

"Not all living beings can choose to walk a hard and lonely road after confirming the existence of the gods. There are very few mortals who refuse to bow their heads in front of the god's throne..." The distant voice said casually, as if in the past For many years, Ms. Ye can hear this voice, but can never perceive where it comes from, it is a great consciousness that directly casts traces in his cognition, "After all, if you can do it in a relaxed environment Now that you can get everything you want, why pay a higher price to chase the ethereal future?”

"...Aren't you angry?" Ms. Ye hesitated for a while, but asked the question, "You are willing to find a way to help, but mortals refuse to bow to you...As a true god, you..."

"The real gods are just some more advanced civilization, some more powerful individuals, I reminded you of this at the beginning," the voice said with a smile, "and as for 'angry'... why do I Are you angry? Because they won't crawl on the ground? Because 'there are mortals who refuse the grace of God'?"

Lady Ye didn't speak, He seemed to be lost in thought, and the voice said quietly after a moment's pause: "I just said that there are very few mortals who refuse to bow their heads in front of the throne - since there are very few, it means that there are still some such groups. Yes. They knew the existence of the gods, but they still chose to walk alone. They came into contact with the fortress of the gods at the end of their voyage, but they still passed by with their heads held high. At the same time, more civilizations chose our shelter and chose In order to join the family's sequence, but for us... it doesn't make any difference.

"Those who are sheltered, we take care of them carefully, those who do not want to bow their heads, we treat each other politely, we welcome our people, and we accept friends, because in the end, we all sail in the same void, and such a vast void... It can contain everything.

"We call this philosophy 'guaranteeing the diversity of civilizations'."

Madam Ye finally raised her head from her contemplation, and he asked thoughtfully: "You once said that the 'Void' is an endlessly vast place, and the 'universe' like the one I live in is as vast as sand and dust. Numerous, in so many universes, and countless civilizations prosper or perish every minute and every second, at that time I always wanted to ask... Is it that all worlds are so... difficult to survive?"

That voice was silent for a long time this time. It seems that even gods outside the space-time order need to carefully consider the vocabulary to answer this question. What about hardship? For civilizations at different stages of development, is there a standard for hardship?

"For the primitive tribes in the cave, a blizzard in the cold winter is a disaster for the family. For the ancient kingdom, which has just established itself in the farming era, a few months of late rain can overturn the entire kingdom, and a prosperous kingdom can be overturned. The industrial awakening civilization can be free from these disasters on the earth, but a meteorite is still a disaster - the magic tide can destroy a primary stage of the parent star civilization, but as you said, for the sailor , home-use mind-calibration patches are even disposable, and stocked in every vending machine.

"On a mortal planet I once lived in, there was a periodic catastrophe, that planet would fall into a state of extremely low temperature called the 'Ice Age' at regular intervals, and the long cold winter would wipe out nine on the planet. life, and during the two glaciations there was only a very short 'warm summer', in which the warm summer was short to almost a breath relative to the entire planetary climate cycle, civilizations proliferated again and again, they rose , subsided, rose again, subsided again... And until the day when they finally had no fear of the glaciers, they never received the slightest help from the gods.

"Today, the civilization that has grown on this planet has prospered. Driven by a certain culture that they claim to be 'the homeland is inseparable', they even transformed their home planet into a distant aircraft carrier and named it For 'Steel Terra', as the first civilization in the galaxy to break out of the barrier of light speed, they and their 'Iron Terra' are still sailing in the long starry sky.

"But even so, they still have the possibility of dying at any time - the runaway neutron star debris and the turbulent gravitational discontinuity on the long voyage may be the next 'blizzard' they will face, and they may collapse in these blizzards. Down, like their cave-dwelling ancestors from ancient times, may also return from the storm stronger and more stalwart, ready to face the next catastrophe.

"My child, if that's what you're asking, then I'll tell you the answer—yes, life is so hard, childhood, and adulthood, life is fragile and ill-fated that any natural phenomenon in a particular Periods and specific forms of ethnic groups can become catastrophic in front of them, and even those ethnic groups that have been sheltered by us have moments of overturning in disasters - but it will be a bigger natural disaster, so terrible that even the gods will fall. "

The voice stopped, and Lady Ye remained silent on the throne for a long time. After a few minutes, He finally broke the silence: "So, all roads are covered with thorns."

"Yes, and that's the crux of the matter: Is a civilization still brave enough to take the next step, knowing that all worlds, all roads are littered with thorns—compared to the blizzard that roars outside the cave, in the The 'next step' that is still decided to take in the face of the blizzard is the greatest courage of a civilization, and it is also the greatest difficulty they will face.

"Compared with this 'step', all other options are secondary."

Ms. Ye was suddenly a little curious: "So...is there a civilization that chooses not to take that step? I mean, after it has developed to a certain level, it suddenly realizes that there are still dangers beyond the planet, and realizes that no matter how powerful the force is, it cannot be To ensure long-term survival, you will encounter difficulties in the process of development, so you choose to retract that step, is there really such a thing?"

The distant deity was silent for two seconds, then replied softly: "Yes, and many, even in various stages - some will crouch to die in the primitive city-state, some will die in a drunken dream in the age of empires, and some will be anesthetized by nerve medicine. Going down to the end, most of them have died silently before they have really seen what the world they live in looks like, and it is difficult to leave even a trace."

Madam Ye opened her eyes slightly: "Then how do you treat such a group..."

"They have the right to choose their own path, and every civilization has the right to choose their own path. It's just that when they start to pray at the end of the day with remorse... We will not give any response, after all, we are also very busy."

"...I understand," Madam Ye finally exhaled softly, He seemed to relax a lot, and his eyes were clearer than before, then he thought for a while, and asked another question, "You said, the sailors really Can you successfully reach the end of the recognizable universe?"

"I'm not sure," said the voice calmly, "since the Battle of the Spiral Rift dragged hundreds of worlds into the zeroth quadrant, the gods' observations of these universes have been greatly disturbed, and now the zeroth quadrant has become a A solidly existing area, and we have yet to find a way to recreate the channel in this quadrant.

"Perhaps as the Prophet and the God of Omen said, the only way to rebuild the waterway in the zeroth quadrant is to break the situation from the inside out, a civilization that has successfully survived in the ruins, a civilization that is willing to give up the opportunity to escape and choose to be a pioneer This group will naturally have the talent of navigating in the zeroth quadrant. They may be the 'Navigator' in your mouth, or they may be the successor after the Navigator, it may be Loren, it may be Noy, More likely a pioneering civilization in some other universe near you, who knows?"

Ms. Ye pondered for a while, and said somewhat uncertainly: "Then if one day, the Loren civilization becomes the 'pioneer' who successfully reached the end of the recognizable universe, but instead of continuing to go out, it stopped. , and even turned back and prayed to God, what would you...or your friend, what would you do?"

"We will accept—they have reached their promised land, they will be rewarded," said the voice indifferently, "every beings have the right to make choices, and it is not contemptible to ask God for help after doing all they can. On the contrary, it is normal to refuse to pray. In the final analysis, it is just that not every world needs to be saved by gods, and not every civilization has only the option of 'bending to God'. It's just..."

The voice suddenly paused, and then he seemed to put on a smile: "It's just that if they can really walk alone to the end... maybe they can be friends."

…

On the long bridge formed by the twilight light, Gawain suddenly stopped and looked back at the direction he came from with a thoughtful look.

The lofty throne has been hidden in the endless desert background at some point. Looking back on the road, all you can see is a monotonous and pale chaotic fog. The faint light forms barriers on both sides of this long bridge. The endless winds in the shadow desert are blocked by all the barriers. From this perspective, he feels as if he is walking on a road that has no beginning and no end and keeps repeating. How far has this come.

He turned his head again and looked at the night city on the other side of the road. The silhouette-like city was really standing on the border of sand and dust, but from just now, the silhouette didn't seem to be any closer.

"What are you looking at?" Amber's voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting Gawain's gaze, "Is there anything else I forgot to ask Ms. Ye?"

"...That's not true," Gawain frowned, "it just feels like we've been on this road for a long time, why don't we mean 'arriving' at all?"

"Who knows? The things in the Kingdom of Shadows are unreal, and the sights seen with the naked eye can't be used as a reference." Amber seemed quite relaxed, "Anyway, Ms. Ye said that she will go this way. Just go ahead, He will not joke with us about this kind of thing."

Gawain glanced at the Shadow Assault Goose: "...You trust him quite a bit."

"There's no way, who made him my 'source'? And it also helped me solve the 'stability' problem. Anyway, from the moment we met, I felt that he could be trusted," Amber said. He waved his hand and said, "By the way, you haven't finished talking just now, you said that Ms. Ye created a test illusion for you, and then you stayed in it for fifty years, and Ms. Midnight even dressed up as me. I fooled you, but you didn't get fooled at all? Have you really been fooled all the time? Isn't it just bragging?"

"As for me bragging in front of you?" Gawain pressed Amber's head casually, "A Amber who hasn't worked overtime for a day, never arrives late or leaves early for fifty years of meetings, don't you think this can scare anyone? I'm afraid that even if Heidi and Rebecca came over, they would have noticed something wrong within 24 hours."

Amber thought for a while, then bared his teeth: "Although you are right, why do I always feel that I am being mocked by you?"

Gao Wen Yile did not mean to deny it at all, but he did not stop at all, and continued to walk towards the night city at the end of his field of vision.

But in the next second, the scene in front of him was suddenly dazed, and then the lofty giant city suddenly "flashed" directly in front of him from a distance!

This scene is astonishing and strange, as if he skipped some discontinuous time and space at the moment of this step, and the city that was so far away that he could never reach it came directly in front of him, which made him even feel in a trance. I heard a "boom"!

Amber next to him was also taken aback by the sudden change. The guy jumped up and hung on his arm more than half a meter high, then grabbed his arm and pointed to the black city in front of him: "Mom...Mom! How did this thing jump up!"

Gawain quickly calmed down, and while he took off the amber, he thought of the information he had obtained before: "...Do you remember? It is said that there is an unreachable distance between Lady Ye's throne and the border of the Kingdom of Shadows." The road' is like an illusion of light and shadow mapped at a fixed distance, and the distance is always a silhouette that can't be seen or touched... This may be the embodiment of this phenomenon."

Immediately afterwards, he paused and said: "We came along the road built by Lady Night, and then we suddenly arrived at the City of Night, but if we were to go out along that desert... Probably no matter how far we went, this The city is in its original place in our eyes.”

"...he's still so obsessed with rushing to the road," Amber also reacted at this time, and his head that was a little frizzy gradually recovered, and at the same time, he rudely talked about his "source", "It seems that he is usually too idle. There's nothing to do, He's always..."

Before Amber's voice could finish, a young female voice suddenly came from the side: "I'm sorry, it seems that the border wall has caused you trouble?"

Amber stopped instantly, she raised her head in astonishment, and looked in the direction of the voice with Gawain.

A woman in a black cloak is standing at the entrance to the city.

The woman was not wearing a hood, her long white hair was casually draped behind her, and her complexion was as pale as paper, and even her eyes were equally eerily pale.

At this moment, those pale eyes were looking at Amber and Gawain next to him.

"Salute to you," the pale girl smiled, she took a breath at first, as if to calm down a little excited, and then lowered her head deeply, "Your Majesty Gawain Cecil, and Amber Director - Mistress of the City of Night."