Chapter 774
The Tenth Origin River?
—And shortly before this.
Aivass, who was slumbering in the Eternal Holy Kingdom, unconsciously opened and then closed his eyes for a moment.
Meanwhile, Aivass, in the liminal space between reality and the Dream Realm, abruptly stopped his free flight.
He frowned slightly and looked south, a hint of worry flickering in his eyes, which shone with a brilliance like the sun.
“What happened?”
—Just now, Alistair had completely lost contact with him.
Ever since Alistair set foot on the land of Star Antinomy, Aivass had a vague sense that something was amiss.
Previously, when Alistair was on the ship, Aivass and Alistair could communicate in real-time anytime, anywhere… But once Alistair entered Leipzig, their communication became increasingly blurred.
To describe it, it was like the difference between a voice call and typing in a chat window.
The former allowed one to easily perceive what the other was doing, speak at any time, and hear the other’s state and emotions through their voice.
The feedback from the latter was delayed… Not only could words not fully convey information, but one also had to wait for the other to receive the message.
Aivass, like a priest hearing confession, sensed Alistair’s vulnerability and melancholy, and perceived the other’s sentimentality and emotional fervor.
In fact, their connection had weakened. And as time progressed, it continued to weaken.
Until just now, when they lost contact entirely.
“How sad…”
Aivass closed his eyes slightly and raised his head. His free-flying spirit body hovered in mid-air as he spread his arms to embrace the sky: “So I have always been a mortal. I am not one who never grieves, just as I am not omnipotent.”
Within his half-closed eyes, a divine light filled with compassion shone.
This was the complete opposite of Alistair’s increasingly intense and uncontrolled emotions.
Aivass clearly felt his own emotions gradually growing faint.
Or rather—
He was beginning to understand the spirits of petrification and amber.
“Why would you have such dangerous thoughts?”
The voice of the Lord of Scales and Feathers echoed in Aivass’s mind.
Immediately after, the voice sounded beside him—in the sky where only Aivass had been flying, a black-clothed person with no face appeared. He was riding on a chair, his hands clasped on the backrest, his head resting on his arm.
The avatar of the Lord of Scales and Feathers spoke lazily: “Omnipotence… that’s not something you can touch.”
“Yes, I know.”
Aivass’s voice was calm, peaceful, and carried a hint of divinity: “Human perception, the human self, originates from human incompleteness, from fear and deficiency.
“Precisely because we can be injured, because we can die, we feel pain. That is a warning. Humans have touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste… these are all based on survival. They are perceptual tentacles extended from our deficiencies, from the fact that we are ‘not omnipotent.’
“If humans were to become omnipotent one day, these senses would become entirely unnecessary. How fragile and insignificant would the civilizations, cultures, nations, and emotions born from perception be?”
“—For this reason, there is no ‘perfection’ in this world, nor ‘omnipotence’.”
The Lord of Scales and Feathers casually said: “All extraordinary powers in this world are incomplete. No single power is an absolute, objective, and uniquely correct path, nor is there any ability that requires no price and has no flaws.
“Through a pane of glass, we see nothing—what we see is the essence of the world. But if this glass is shattered by an external force, we get beautiful shards of glass. Just as by breaking perfection, we obtain numerous imperfections… Your human civilization arises from this… and it is brilliant because of it.”
“Perhaps so.”
Aivass replied calmly.
He did not look at the Lord of Scales and Feathers, but stood in the sky, looking down upon the earth.
For the current Aivass, he could move freely as he pleased. He no longer needed to eat or drink, nor did he need sleep or labor—he needed to do nothing, and nothing could bind him. Living in the liminal space between the Material Realm and the Dream Realm, nothing could affect him.
With the power of the Supreme Holy Crown, Aivass could change everything at will. He had merged with the remains of the entire giant tree, and the entire Holy Kingdom had become his extended body. Everyone living on the giant tree had become his subjects, his children.
Like the sun, he quietly burned himself, bestowing light equally upon the earth.
That feeling… was like the game “Stellaris,” where after setting everything up, you enter “sea-watching mode.” Quietly gazing at the starry river, watching the colored blocks being dyed.
Peaceful, curious, bored.
While feeling an inexplicable sense of relaxation, time was passing meaninglessly. Like sitting by the sea, watching the tides ebb and flow, watching the sun and moon cycle.
Aivass felt his mood to be incomparably peaceful, without any distracting thoughts.
His pupils were clean and transparent, his mind clear and ethereal, his heart like a tranquil pool.
“Do you gods usually feel this way?”
Aivass suddenly asked.
“What feeling?”
The Lord of Scales and Feathers raised his head: “Acting freely? It’s not impossible, but it’s meaningless. The so-called ‘Pillar Gods’ are the pillars of humanity that stand tall… We are indeed pioneers on the Path, but also prisoners bound by the Path.
“Compared to the Pillar Gods, the Heavenly Envoys are much freer. The Heavenly Envoys possess power no weaker than the Pillar Gods, yet they are not bound by the Path. They do not need to consider the consequences of their actions, nor do they have to worry about violating the principles of the Path…”
“—I mean, this ethereal and peaceful feeling of the soul.”
Aivass’s eyes were hollow, his emotions indifferent: “I feel something is a little wrong, Boss.”
“Ah, don’t worry too much, this is a good thing.”
Although the Lord of Scales and Feathers had no face, his expression seemed to become solemn: “It’s best not to dwell on it too deeply. Just enjoy this hard-earned vacation. This is a super-long paid annual leave from your Boss…”
“I feel uncomfortable, Boss.”
Aivass said blandly.
He looked down upon the earth, his eyes as compassionate as a god.
And at this moment, in the Material Realm—above the twenty-second ring, in the “true sky” invisible to anyone, a giant eye silently opened.
—It was Aivass’s left eye.
Its appearance seemed to dim the sky a little—as if it absorbed light, or as if it obscured the sun.
“Is all of this really normal?”
Aivass whispered, his voice like overlapping thunder, radiant like the echoes in a shrine: “I feel my happiness decreasing every day… Do all Popes have to go through this?
“I can clearly feel the power of devotion deep within my soul constantly increasing. Logically, this should be a kind of enjoyment… or at least a trial. But conversely, I feel that my love for the children has become thinner, and the desire to actively contact Alistair has grown weaker…
“I feel like everything in the Material Realm is gradually fading. I seem to be… forgetting. No, not forgetting, but discarding…
“From what you’ve said, I might understand the secret behind this. But I don’t want to become a void and noble god. I just want to be an ordinary person, Boss.”
Aivass uttered a sound, which was rare.
He raised his head slightly, and the giant eye in the Material Realm disappeared.
“This is a trial, like a moth emerging from its cocoon—if I say this, will you still be determined to know the answer?”
“I’m worried about Alistair.”
Aivass replied softly: “If this trial only affects me… I think I might be able to endure it. But I cannot do so with another person…”
“—Another person?”
The Lord of Scales and Feathers interrupted Aivass: “Shouldn’t she also be you?”
Aivass was slightly stunned.
…Strange.
When did he start treating Alistair as another person?
As Aivass’s mind fell into confusion, the voice of the Lord of Scales and Feathers became a little more serious: “You should trust the cutting technique of the Hourglass enough, Aivass.”
“Naturally. That is the great technique that created the Great Philosopher and Supreme Heaven.” Aivass replied.
“In this world, cutting techniques are indeed great techniques… After all, when one ascends high enough, a mixed self is not enough to grasp more Path Power. To advance further, one must obtain a purer self. Hengwo’s Egg Moon Secret Art, the Ring Heavenly Envoy’s Tail-Cutting Method, the Hourglass’s Two Forms Rift… all are like this.
“And the ‘Two Forms Rift,’ in principle, will divide all your power into two complete and equal halves.”
“I already know this.”
Aivass’s voice was ethereal and divine: “What I want to know is why this ritual is making Alistair and me increasingly abnormal, and why I can no longer sense Alistair.”
“The Hourglass had already inquired about the details before. He hinted to you twice, but you still wanted to cut off the True Child of the Moon’s shell bestowed by the Twin Mirrors. This is undoubtedly a trial given by fate.”
“A trial…”
“It is a trial. You chose the highest difficulty of division—but if you can return in the end, this will also be the foundation for your Path directly to Heavenly Envoy or even Pillar God.”
The Lord of Scales and Feathers said softly: “Don’t forget, the ‘True Child’ body embodied by Alistair possesses the characteristics and power of a true Child of the Moon. If her Transcendent Path is equivalent to your Path of Devotion…
“Then what does her power as the Child of the Moon correspond to in you? If the powers on both sides are not equal, then it is not a perfect ‘Two Forms,’ is it?”
…The power of the Child of the Moon?
That was not a blessing from the Twin Mirrors? The mirror image of reality and illusion, which was also a kind of balance…
Just as this thought appeared in Aivass’s mind, he suddenly froze, and a memory suddenly came to him—
“—My Sacred Number is 11, which is the number of people of our kind.”
That was what the “Divine Entity” summoned by Jacob in the past said in an illusion.
Sacred Number is eleven.
The so-called Sacred Number is actually the number of Origin Rivers.
Origin Rivers possessed such immense power that even their mere numbers carried a considerable degree of mystery.
But there were only nine Origin Rivers in total, so it was impossible for “Sacred Number eleven” to appear.
Aivass had already realized… the “Sacred Number eleven” referred to the sum of two Sacred Numbers. By borrowing the power of two existing Origin Rivers, a new Origin River was created, a “power that could not exist.”
Devotion is three, Transcendence is eight—the Shepherd’s Method is the skill that can be mastered by learning both Devotion and Transcendence simultaneously!
And if Devotion and Transcendence were to form an equivalent mirror image in the “Two Forms Rift”…
The Sacred Number of the Path of Love is one.
In other words, its symmetric counterpart, the power that made Aivass’s emotions gradually grow faint, should come from…
“The Sacred Number is… ten?”
Aivass murmured, “The Tenth Path?”
…That’s right!
If the Ring Heavenly Envoy was to transcend the established principles of the entire world and become a new Pillar God outside the Nine Pillar Gods—then the Sacred Number should be ten, why eleven?
Unless… there had already been a Tenth Origin River.
And the Ring Heavenly Envoy knew about the Tenth Origin River, which was why he directly intended to create the Eleventh Origin River.
Once this was realized, Aivass’s gradually stiffening thoughts became active again—
As he gradually sensed a sense of crisis, it was as if he was about to wake up from a dream, his thoughts slowly becoming clearer:
The first god of this world was the Candlemaster Doe.
“—The Candlemaster ignited the sacred flame, burned away the thorns of sin, and distributed Origin River power to all living beings… Thus, this world gained extraordinary power, and the Paths and mysteries.”
Aivass’s pupils trembled slightly, and he suddenly awoke from that meaningless death, his expression instantly coming alive.
Just as his consciousness gradually returned to reality from his dream, even his speaking speed and tone returned to normal: “Then, in the very beginning… where did the Candlemaster get the extraordinary power to burn away the thorns of sin?”
As Aivass gradually awoke from that hazy dream, he once again restored that vague connection with Alistair.
—And it was at this very moment that Alistair also briefly regained clarity, with the noise in her mind and uncontrollable instincts disappearing.
“That is the non-existent, and the shouldn’t-exist, yet already existing Tenth Origin River. It is like a dry well, connecting to other worlds.
“The Candlemaster came from there, and I came from there. Your predecessor… also came from there.
“However, the Twilight Wall has now completely sealed off the path to the Tenth Origin River. What the Father Snake is curious about is the ‘world outside the Twilight Wall,’ which is the other side of the Tenth Origin River—what lies there.”
Seeing Aivass’s pupils gradually become clear, the Lord of Scales and Feathers also gradually relaxed: “But… although the Tenth Path is now broken, since you have walked that path, parts of its residue still remain on you. This is precisely why Alistair obtained the power of the corresponding Path of Love.
“That is a blessing from the Twin Mirrors… that guy is like an obsessive-compulsive disorder patient, he already gave you the corresponding power, but neither you nor she can exert it. But even so, the invasiveness of the Path itself is enough to erode her mind… However, just as your devotion can overcome the will of the void, Alistair should also be able to transcend the instincts of the Child of the Moon.
“What you need to do is to steady your mind. Walk firmly on the Path of Devotion… do not deviate due to temptation. Although telling you this will have some impact on tempering your true heart… with your devoted heart, you can break free from those slight remnants. As long as you do not tell Alistair this secret, the final outcome will not differ.
“Because your problem has never been the Path of Devotion—but rather your deficient Path of Transcendence. The Ring Heavenly Envoy only gave you a portion of the Transcendent Heart but gave you the whole Devoted Heart. In other words, you need to cultivate a Transcendent nature comparable to a saint again… Now is the best opportunity.
“—This is why I say this is a trial.”
“…I have one last question.”
Aivass realized something: “What is Alistair’s Path impulse… what Energy Level is it?”
“Naturally… Sixth Tier.”
The Lord of Scales and Feathers replied ruthlessly: “After all, the Material Realm can only accommodate Sixth Tier at most.”
(End of Chapter)
