Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 318 - 317: The God’s Enigma

Tiel casually mentioned a few words, but they stirred waves in Gawain’s heart, because he recognized the vast amount of information within that short exchange!

The sea demon is an ancient and mysterious civilization, a deep-sea race that has lived beyond his "Satellite Surveillance Area" and was already quite advanced tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years ago. Although the race’s technological development seems to have stalled and hit a bottleneck due to the chaotic wave, they have at least persisted through the ages—and in the process, left extensive observation records of land civilizations.

Compared to Gawain’s later "waiting a thousand years for a frame" situation, the sea demons’ observations are evidently more continuous, detailed, and reliable.

Thus, Tiel’s words should be trustworthy.

This implies... Each time civilization breaks and restarts, each time all things are reshaped, the mortal races always establish similar religions and worship similar deities?

Even when the transmission of civilization is completely broken, and even the world itself reshaped, those gods’ faiths actually continue to endure?!

It long occurred to Gawain that gods can ignore the chaotic wave’s effects, but how do their beliefs continuously appear in the mortal world time after time? This season of mortal civilization gained knowledge of the gods through the "Eternal Stone Slate," so did past seasons of mortal civilization also have an Eternal Stone Slate?

According to Gawain’s speculation, the so-called Eternal Stone Slate might be a type of storage medium left by that ancient "Godslaying Fleet," a medium through which gods continually revive and spread their information anew. Or perhaps... all these are simply strategies of that ancient "Godslaying Fleet," intentionally left behind?

He felt he might have sensed a hint of conspiracy...

Seeing Gawain’s continuously changing expression, Tiel couldn’t help but ask curiously, "What are you thinking about? Are you unhappy because I mentioned those ’gods’? Aren’t you a non-believer?"

"No, it’s not because of that," Gawain quickly waved his hand, "I just connected this to other things... By the way, in your sea demon records, do all land civilizations have the same pantheon each season? Are they..."

"Wait, you probably misunderstood," Tiel interrupted him directly, flicking her tail in earnest explanation, "I meant that the land dwellers worship ’similar’ deities in each season, not the same deities—that’s a big difference."

"Big difference?" Gawain raised an eyebrow, "What kind of difference?"

"It’s like the objects of several religions seem to have similarities, but in reality, they don’t feel like the same deity," Tiel pondered, searching for the most accurate words to describe the known history, "Let me give you an example. For instance, in several ancient civilizations on land, there’s always been a tendency to worship concepts like ’light, protection, justice,’ resulting in the faith of the Holy Light. But in fact, each era’s ’Holy Light’ god is different. I remember the oldest Holy Light god recorded by the sea demons was an enormous male giant, but in the next generation of civilization, the god worshipped as Holy Light was a dragon, a crystal dragon... Hmm, in your previous or even pre-previous generation, the image of the Holy Light god was still female, it was called the Goddess of Light then..."

Gawain listened bewilderedly and quickly stopped Tiel at the end: "Hey, be careful! Don’t say this outside to others, especially not to the believers, this topic’s content is so blasphemous, if someone hears you, you’ll end up roasted over a fire like grilled fish..."

"Don’t worry, I know that," Tiel rolled her eyes, "Besides, sea demons aren’t afraid of fire roast; at worst, we’ll turn into steam, and when a wave of cold air comes, we’ll just rain back down..."

Gawain felt like he’d just heard of an incredible racial talent, but at this moment, he was more concerned about the constantly changing godly images: "According to what you said earlier, does the appearance of other religious deities also keep changing?"

"Yes, your current Goddess of Magic was a God of Magic in the previous season, and in the season before that, was called ’Camandor, the Dragon of All Magics.’ And your current War God was, in the last season, a Spiky-maned Giant Lion with four heads, while in the season before that, it was a busty woman," Tiel waggled her head as she spoke, "And not only do the images change, sometimes deities even merge or vanish—such as, in ancient times, the Blood God and War God were actually the same faith, which was called ’God of Slaughter,’ and the god of trade you worship now was, in a particular season of civilization, actually divided into a god of trade and a god of covenant..."

Gawain was utterly bewildered by Tiel’s load of ancient secrets, and after mentally wrestling with it for a long time, he realized he couldn’t possibly sort out all the changes and correspondences of these deities, at least not in the short term. So he directly gave up on these detailed problems and summed up a crudely simple and understandable conclusion:

Though each season of mortal civilization has its specific godly idols, in general, what mortals truly worship may not be a specific or immutable god, but rather some kind of unified "conceptual product" that almost inevitably arises throughout civilization’s development!

Mortals fear fire, thus creating a belief in fire; mortals yearn for light and justice, thus creating a belief in the Holy Light; mortals need trade and fairness, thus creating commerce beliefs; admiration for war and blood spawns a belief in war and blood; awe of the night breeds dark and shadow beliefs...

Their faiths were initially directed at a certain concept, with concrete godly images as its subsequent products.

Therefore, Tiel says that no matter how many generations the land’s civilization changes, they are still worshipping "similar gods," yet each seasonal civilization’s godly images are all distinct!

Gawain couldn’t help but think of Earth’s primitive god worship—during ancient times, Earthlings also experienced similar events: first developing awe for certain natural phenomena, and then from this vague, conceptual awe, more definite deities emerged. But unlike Earth, in this world...

The existence of gods and their powers is real.

Those ever-changing deities... If they truly have existed since ancient times and possess the human-like traits promoted by various religions, would they allow one mortal civilization after another to freely shape their images?

Clearly not, for within the Church of the Holy Light, even mispronouncing a few syllables during a prayer could incur "Divine Punishment" from the Holy Light, indicating that these gods are not so lenient towards mortals.

Thus, there is only one conclusion: in each era’s religious system, the gods have indeed changed... At the very least, their images have changed.

In Gawain’s mind, a rather bold question emerged: Did the gods create humans, or did humans create the gods?

Following this bold line of thought, he encountered a new question: If it is truly "humans who created gods," then how do we explain the tangible flesh and blood of the supposed God of Storms who died in the deep sea, or the God of Nature who died in the shadow realm?

Additionally, there’s another question. Sea demons have been excavating the "big squid" since ancient times, and during this process, there must have been more than one wave of belief in the "God of Storms" on land. Who exactly was occupying the "godhood" of the God of Storms during this time?

It’s known that the power of the God of Storms has always existed. Before the Sons of the Storm fell into corruption, their priests could pray to the God of Storms for a "response from the sea," opening a safe passage for voyagers in the chaotic Endless Sea. Such a great power could not appear out of thin air. Could it be that the God of Storms, amidst being continuously gnawed away by the sea demons, still found time to reply to their believers?!

If that’s the case, then the dedication of the God of Storms would indeed be impressive to Gawain.

With an uncertain expression, Gawain finally said softly, "The relationship between gods and mortals... How exactly is it connected..."

Tiel shrugged (and her tail tip as well): "This falls into my blind spot of knowledge, after all, we sea demons don’t believe in gods at all. Even if out of curiosity we performed ceremonies like you land-dwellers do, those gods wouldn’t respond to us. Your ’Divine Arts’ system is completely incomprehensible to us, much like you can’t comprehend the elemental technology of sea demons."

"There’s no way those gods would respond to you," Gawain couldn’t help but give this idle sea demon a sidelong glance. "Look at your diet—are those gods supposed to respond just to become your sashimi?"

Tiel licked her lips: "Speaking of which, I am indeed a bit tempted. By the way, can I have a bite of that big white stag..."

Gawain replied without hesitation, "No."

"Why not..." The sea demon was evidently taken aback. "You have no use for the big white stag, you neither cook it nor eat it, such a big piece of meat just sitting there is such a waste..."

"Amoen, the Giant Stag, is different from the ’big squid,’" Gawain glanced at the creature drooling and vigorously wagging its tail tip. "Amoen, the Giant Stag, is sealed by the field generated by those ancient weapon remnants. Didn’t Kamel say? It’s currently in a very delicate balance. Who knows what would happen if you went and took a bite? Besides, the door to the shadow realm is built on ancient Gondor technology. That ancient technology is prone to failure now. What if the door closes while you’re gnawing away inside? How would you return from the shadow realm? With your sea caterpillar-like way of moving, would you tunnel your way back?"

Tiel: "..."

Seeing the sea demon speechless, Gawain sighed and turned to look at the bustling Cecil Castle, glowing under the brilliant winter sun.

"Let’s continue basking in the sun."

Tiel pouted helplessly. Her long serpent tail gradually dissolved, transforming into a single snake tail. Then she twisted her body and lay down like a lethargic fish: "So tempting..."

Meanwhile, in St. Soniel, Santis finally set foot once again on the land of this ancient royal capital.

He looked up, observing the sunlight illuminating the densely packed rooftops of St. Soniel, shining through the colorful windows of the churches, and casting its light on the mottled, old city walls and towers.

After nearly a year, he had finally returned.