Chapter 1139: The Emergence of the Ultimate Critical Point

Most of them had gone dark.

Enya’s words cut through the rising excitement like a cold, biting wind, instantly cooling every spark of enthusiasm within Gawain. His expression grew calm and serious as he carefully weighed the implications behind that single word—“gone dark.” After a long pause, he finally broke the silence. “Gone dark… what exactly do you mean? Are you saying they all perished for various reasons?”

“The signals were like distant lights flickering in the night,” Enya replied slowly, as if sifting through faded pages of a long-forgotten book. “Perhaps due to technological limitations, those flickering lights could only convey extremely limited information. Sometimes, the messages were so simple they amounted to nothing more than ‘I am here.’ Then, at some point, the signals would abruptly cease, and no new messages would ever come through again. The vastness of the cosmos hides countless secrets and truths. In that endless darkness, I see nothing.”

She paused, her voice tinged with melancholy. “I don’t know exactly what befell them. Like all other minds trapped on this planet, I can only speculate based on the phenomena we’ve observed. But for some of them… I managed to decode fragments of their transmissions. It’s almost certain they were destroyed either by natural disasters or by their own gods.”

Gawain instinctively repeated the last phrase, disbelief coloring his tone: “Destroyed by their gods?”

Enya’s voice dropped to a whisper. “By their own gods. Among the very few signals I successfully deciphered, I heard their final cries amid the wrath of their deities. Even across the vast distances between stars, those cries were unbearably desperate and heart-wrenching.”

“So, just as we suspected,” Gawain said softly, drawing a breath, “if intelligent life exists on other worlds, and if their realities follow the natural laws we understand, then they too must face what we face…” He trailed off, voice heavy with foreboding. “At a certain stage of development, they triggered the ‘Final Rebellion’ ritual, which led to the gods’ loss of control and the destruction of their worlds…”

Enya remained silent. After a moment, Gawain pressed on, “And what about those destroyed by natural disasters? What kind of disasters are we talking about?”

“The few signals that managed to cross the star rivers are mostly vague and fragmented,” Enya explained calmly, as if dissecting a corpse. “After a ‘natural disaster’ strikes, the civilizations sending those signals often descend into chaos—chaos far worse than the arrival of gods. They lose the ability to organize any coherent ‘final calls’ into space. Because of this, descriptions of these disasters are scattered and broken. But it is precisely this chaotic pattern that leads me to believe they faced the ‘Magic Tide.’”

The Magic Tide.

At that moment, Gawain’s face betrayed no outward reaction, though inside, a strong ripple of recognition stirred. Enya’s conclusion matched what he had long suspected—the Magic Tide was not confined to this planet but was a universal phenomenon, sweeping periodically and indiscriminately across the stars, erasing the traces of civilizations time and again.

The golden sphere in the room remained silent. Enya seemed to be studying Gawain’s expression carefully. After a brief pause, she spoke again: “All of this is merely my interpretation of the phenomena I’ve observed. I cannot guarantee absolute accuracy. But one thing is certain—the universe is far more vibrant than we imagined, yet also far more desolate. Countless flickering lights of civilization shine in the dark, deep cosmos, but beneath those lights lie even more graves, long extinguished and cold.”

“Do the dragons know about this?” Gawain asked, curiosity piqued.

“They know only a fraction,” Enya said calmly. “But no dragon dares to delve deeper. For 1.87 million years, dragons have watched the stars from dangerous thresholds, but I have blocked all external signals and interfered with their perception of the cosmos. As you know, in ancient Talrond, gazing at the stars was forbidden.”

“But their gods have always listened to the voices between the stars, conducting extensive research,” Gawain said, his gaze fixed on the golden sphere with a strange expression. “If no dragon is allowed to look at the stars, then how do you…”

“Close your eyes and listen carefully,” Enya said with a faint smile. “Remember the highest observatory atop the Great Temple of Talrond? I often stood there, listening to the universe’s whispers. Actively reaching out to the stars is dangerous, but if the signals have already reached this planet, passively listening is less likely to cause loss of control.”

“Still, it’s not easy,” she continued. “Every time I stand on that observatory, I must resist two forces: my own fear and aversion to the unknown depths of space, and my divine impulse to destroy the mortal world. So I carefully control how often I visit, keeping myself balanced on the edge of losing control.”

Listening to Enya reveal secrets known to no one else, Gawain couldn’t help but ask, “Why do you go to such lengths? If it causes you so much pressure…”

“Curiosity,” Enya replied simply. “Don’t you have curiosity?”

“…Instinct and nature don’t always align, do they?” Gawain said with a wry smile after a brief moment of surprise. “You know, what you’ve described reminds me of a theory from my own homeland.”

“Your homeland… the realm of the Outer Wanderers?” Enya’s tone shifted. “What kind of theory?”

“The Great Filter,” Gawain sighed softly, then patiently explained. “A filter that stands before all civilizations, determining whether they can step into the stars. We believe the process of life evolving from nothing to advanced interstellar civilization can be divided into stages. At least one of these stages is extremely dangerous, with a near-zero chance of survival. Some catastrophe wipes out almost all species at this point, preventing them from ever leaving their home planet. This harsh selection mechanism is the Great Filter.”

“We don’t know when or how the Great Filter will appear. Before truly venturing into space, we can’t be sure if a civilization has passed it or if the test lies ahead. But in this world, it seems scholars may have found an answer.”

“Are the Magic Tide and divine disasters the Great Filter we must face?” The golden sphere’s voice was gentle and calm. “Ah, what a fascinating theory… It seems your world also has many insightful scholars probing the mysteries of existence. I would love to meet them someday.”

The topic had already ventured into complex, difficult territory. Gawain carefully paused before continuing—he had already shared far more than he ever would with others. Yet he never imagined he could discuss such matters of the stars, the future, and extraterrestrial civilizations in this world. The rare feeling of kinship made him eager to explore further with the dragon goddess.

“You mentioned you’ve ‘heard’ the voices of the cosmos hundreds of times,” he said, “and those signal senders were not experiencing divine disasters when they called out. Does that mean building interstellar communication itself doesn’t trigger the gods’ loss of control?”

This was crucial. The question of where exactly the “ultimate critical point” of divine chaos lies had long preoccupied the Theocracy Council and the rebels of old.

Scholars have separated the “collective loss of control by all gods” from the “divine disaster” caused by a single god’s breakdown, naming it the “Ultimate Divine Disaster.” In other words, before resolving all divine crises, the “Ultimate Divine Disaster Critical Point” marks the developmental limit of mortal civilization. The more precisely this point and its related technological limits are understood, the better nations can prepare before the disaster strikes, increasing humanity’s chances of survival.

So far, the Council has identified the “Ultimate Divine Disaster Critical Point” with the “Final Rebellion” ritual of Talrond’s coming-of-age ceremony—when mortal civilization, through its own technological progress, enables explorers to physically leave their home planet and enter uncharted space. Scholars agree this act triggers the symbolic “Final Rebellion.” Survive it, and gods and mortals coexist freely; fail, and civilization detonates in ruin.

But many uncertainties remain. The biggest question: Does the Ultimate Divine Disaster only erupt at the Final Rebellion? Is the dragons’ experience the “standard answer” to divine behavior? Could the disaster strike earlier?

If physically leaving the home planet triggers the disaster, what about the preparatory stages before launching a ship? What about global observation of the stars? What if mortals send an unmanned probe? Or if another interstellar civilization sends greetings, and mortals respond—what then?

None of these are idle worries. Each question marks the boundary of apocalypse, defining the survival window of mortal civilization.

Enya clearly sensed Gawain’s concerns. After careful thought, the former goddess finally spoke: “I believe what truly determines whether the gods lose control is not the symbolic ‘Final Rebellion’ ritual itself, but what that ritual represents.”

Gawain frowned. “What does the Final Rebellion represent?”

“That mortals have glimpsed truths beyond the realm of cognition—truths that are irrefutable and unshakable,” Enya said. “As a god, I cannot fully grasp the significance of this from a mortal perspective. But imagine someone who firmly believes the world is flat, not a planet; who believes the sun is a glowing orb rising and setting at the edge of the earth, not a star our planet orbits. How can such a belief be broken?”

“External voices won’t work, because they might be lies. Accepted knowledge won’t work, because people could be deceived. Even images from space won’t work, because they could be faked…”

“No matter how strange the explanations, as long as they make sense, the flat-earth believer can remain trapped in a closed, ‘self-consistent’ model. They don’t need to care about the world’s true shape, only that their logical barrier remains unbroken.”

“Unless… they see it with their own eyes.”

Gawain listened intently as Enya spoke, his brow furrowing. “I understand what you mean, but this is exactly the point we’ve never quite grasped— even if a handful of mortals act as observers, enduring countless hardships to reach space and witness firsthand what lies beyond the known world, that only changes their personal perception. How does such an individual act create a ritualistic effect that influences the entire ideological current? As gods born from collective thought, why would a few humans suddenly glimpsing the world beyond cause them to lose control?”

“…That shows you’re still caught in a misconception,” Enya said softly, a faint smile playing on her lips. “The stubborn, pitiable one I mentioned who needs to ‘see with their own eyes’ isn’t any mortal who’s been launched into space—it’s the gods themselves.”

Gawain blinked. “You mean…”

“You’ve been looking at the nature of thought currents too narrowly,” Enya explained. “It’s true that gods emerge from the collective consciousness of countless mortals—this is a macro-level process. But that doesn’t mean the only way to throw a god into chaos is by causing a large-scale shift in collective thought. Sometimes, a tiny ripple in a small tributary is enough to shatter the entire system.

“Imagine a god as a vast ‘entangled entity.’ Within this entity lies all the knowledge and cognitive patterns of every living being regarding a particular way of thinking. Take me, for example—I am a god of the dragon race. My essence contains all the logic and understanding the dragons held about the world during the mythic age. These threads of thought are tightly wound together like a ball of yarn. No matter how many strands there are, every end is contained within this ball. In other words—it’s a closed loop, fiercely exclusive, rejecting any outside information.

“Now, if even a single thread breaks free from the order of this ball and pokes outside the closed system, it breaks the fundamental rules that hold the ball together.

“Under normal circumstances, such a ‘thread escaping’ is nearly impossible within this closed loop, because every thread’s path is predetermined, and the ball itself resists any boundary-crossing. The system cannot create a ‘window’ that allows one of its members to leave. So, for most of civilization’s development, the only way to collapse the ball is through gradual overload and chaos—what you’ve come to understand as ‘a massive, macroscopic shift in collective thought causing a god to lose control.’ In other words, a critical mass of mortals changing their thoughts within the closed loop triggers a qualitative transformation that destroys the entire system.

“The closest example to you is the God of War.

“But there’s another scenario. If information from outside the closed loop intervenes—information completely beyond the ball’s control—even a tiny bit can cause a thread to jump out of the loop. This makes a system that once explained itself suddenly incoherent. It introduces a ‘factor’ that violates the rules within the god’s originally flawless logic. No matter how small this factor is, it contaminates the entire system.

“The closest example to you is me.”

(End of chapter)