Chapter 1140: The Second Type of Transgression and the Exile of the Observers

What Enya explained wasn’t difficult for Gawain to understand, yet after listening, he sank into deep, prolonged contemplation. During this process, some long-standing theoretical puzzles were confirmed, key points that had previously eluded him were filled in, and most importantly—he finally validated a suspicion he had harbored for a long time but never dared to confirm.

Gods are a kind of “closed system.” More precisely, the premise for a god’s existence within a civilization is that the civilization’s knowledge framework is “sealed.” When a system ceases to generate new understanding, when its members stop seeking answers beyond its boundaries and instead explain all questions solely through internal logic, the foundation for a god’s birth is laid.

Therefore, once this system opens up—when external information can serve as the “solution” to certain internal questions—the god born from that system immediately faces a shock, spiraling into madness amid fatal contradictions.

It’s akin to a software bug freezing a process or external contamination crashing a system.

“So, when the ultimate rebellion occurs, the collective mindset doesn’t actually change drastically—because only a handful of ‘observers’ step outside the system, and the information they see can’t instantly affect the entire population,” Gawain slowly concluded, gazing at the golden egg before him. “The ‘shift in collective thought’ isn’t the main cause of the final rebellion, not even an effective one. The real cause… is the god itself being negated.”

“From my own experience, that’s exactly how it is,” Enya’s voice was soft, as if recounting something distant and detached. “The relationship between collective thought and gods is extremely close. It’s never just a simple ‘breeding ground’ and ‘product’ relationship. In a sense, gods are the embodiment and integration of collective thought—God is thought itself. So when a branch of thought encounters specific information outside the system, it’s as if the god itself has encountered that information. And if that information cannot be denied by the system’s own logic… then the system’s collapse is inevitable.”

Her voice suddenly faltered inside the golden egg. She seemed to be gathering her fragmented memories. Gawain waited patiently for a few seconds before Enya’s voice resumed: “I still remember what happened in that final moment, when the dragon fleet broke through the atmosphere and entered a region untouched since the mythic age… Even though I had completely lost control, my thoughts had ceased entirely, that feeling still imprinted deeply on my memory through the link between divinity and humanity.

“It was a cold, painful tearing sensation, like being suddenly cast from a warm, comfortable womb into a cold, alien world—like a newborn abruptly severed from its mother, facing a hostile environment. My divine part had to acknowledge the existence of the stars, admit there was no heaven beyond them, accept that beyond the planets lay a vast, lawless ‘extraterritorial zone,’ recognize that my power was but a tiny flicker on a speck of cosmic dust, and concede my own insignificance in the boundless void… In a very short time, the mythic system built by mortals over millions of years was shattered by cold, harsh reality. Myths could no longer stand, and neither could gods.”

Enya’s voice fell silent. Gawain sat opposite her, propping his chin on his hand. After a long moment of reflection, he spoke slowly: “So, if we see civilization as an evolving system, then once it reaches a certain stage, ‘divinity’ must perish—because divinity is inherently a closed loop, incompatible with the system’s evolutionary direction. At best, only the human part, like you, can be preserved.”

“That’s an obvious conclusion.”

“It’s cruel to the gods,” Gawain sighed softly. “It seems anyone can survive—except the gods must die. Don’t you think that’s unfair? Like you—though your human side lives on, as a god, you’re dead…”

Enya was silent for a few seconds, then said quietly, “Gods can die. That is the greatest fairness.”

Gawain was moved and said, “Though this might be a bit off-topic, many of our technologies aim to grant mortals immortality…”

“I know. But even the oldest civilization on the Loren continent—the Silver Empire—has only existed for tens of thousands of years. For mortals, that’s practically eternity. The immortality mortals seek is meaningless on an astronomical scale. True eternal life does not exist,” Enya said gravely. “But from another perspective, what is meaningless on an astronomical scale still matters to individual mortals. That is the reason civilization moves forward… Look up at the sky, look down at your feet, never forget either, and civilization has a chance to go further.”

“The relationship between astronomical and mortal scales…” Gawain pondered briefly, then laughed. “We started talking about ultimate divine disasters and final rebellions—very practical issues—and ended up discussing philosophy.”

He shook his head slightly, then gathered his thoughts and said, “So we can conclude that the originally closed system of civilization suddenly opened outward, causing the ‘ultimate divine disaster.’ And this ‘opening’ only needs a very small but precise breach—just one or two individuals breaking through the system’s lock could trigger it… The essence of this process isn’t ‘humans looking outward,’ but ‘gods looking outward,’ right?”

“That’s one way to understand it. It’s like poking a balloon with a needle. The needle tip may be tiny, but for a balloon on the verge of bursting, even a small puncture causes total collapse.”

“Then the Divine Authority Council’s research institute can finally make a definitive judgment,” Gawain exhaled softly. “We’ve been trying to distinguish between ‘divine disasters’ caused by a single god losing control and the ‘ultimate divine disaster’ that wipes out civilizations. Now it seems the key lies in what exactly causes the collapse of the god’s ‘closed system.’

“If the closed system remains intact, and many individuals within the civilization generate continuous, widespread shifts in collective thought that cross the system’s critical threshold, causing the corresponding god to lose control, that results in a ‘divine disaster.’ We might call this the ‘first type of transgression.’

“If the closed system is broken, and any individual within the collective thought directly and undeniably contacts information outside the system—and the system’s logic cannot deny this contact—then the system collapses. Since all gods are based on the closed system premise, this inevitably leads to a god-level loss of control. We should call this the ‘second type of transgression.’”

“That’s a good summary,” Enya’s gentle voice came from the golden egg. “So far, aside from the lucky few taken away by the ancient voyagers who forcibly broke the cycle, more than one civilization in known history has survived the first type of transgression. But only Talrond has survived the second type.”

Gawain stared at the golden egg for a long moment before solemnly saying, “Yes, so far.”

“I’m glad you’re not deterred by this cold fact. I knew from the start that someone like you wouldn’t stop in the face of such hardship,” Enya’s voice seemed to carry a smile, mixed with admiration and comfort. “Now that the boundary of the ‘second type of transgression’ is confirmed, will it help with your next plans?”

“Greatly,” Gawain nodded immediately. “At least now we can be sure that launching unmanned probes into space won’t cause ‘system collapse.’ Only intelligent individuals within the collective thought can perform transgression—in other words, only rational beings qualify as ‘observers.’ This lets us boldly proceed with certain actions. But…”

He frowned, his expression growing strange. “Maybe I’m overthinking, but I’m curious—if an ‘observer’ as the god’s eye truly steps outside the closed system and contacts external information, is that contact really undeniable? Could the god’s divinity still claim everything the observer sees is false—a massive illusion or deception? Could it believe some force has tampered with the observer’s senses and cognition, fundamentally denying that the ‘transgression’ ever happened?”

“You mean… ‘denial’?” Enya wasn’t surprised by Gawain’s tricky, almost stubborn question. It seemed she had considered it herself. “Like burying one’s head in the sand, refusing to see the facts, deceiving oneself to reject information injected from outside the system, all to maintain the god’s self-recognition and logical coherence?”

Gawain looked serious. “Isn’t that possible?”

“For mortals, ‘self-deception’ is an effective escape. Sometimes it even helps people survive despair. But for gods…” Enya chuckled softly, tinged with self-mockery, “gods can’t fool themselves. We are a vast logical system. Everything we are is built on the process of ‘perception—interpretation—feedback.’ That means when a stimulus appears, even if our will tries to deny it, the feedback triggered by that stimulus… has already occurred.”

Gawain stared at Enya. “An uncontrollable natural reaction?”

A firm voice came from the golden egg: “An uncontrollable natural reaction.”

“Then I’m curious—do you still suffer from such uncontrollable reactions?” Gawain asked seriously. “Is there still some stimulus that can suddenly make you lose control of your will, causing your instincts to deviate from your nature?”

“If my human part hadn’t truly gained freedom, I wouldn’t be here discussing topics that could cause self-collapse,” Enya said calmly. “I know what you worry about. Rest assured—you’re facing the freedom won by the Talrond dragons through millions of years of endurance and the fate of an entire race. If even such a desperate strike can’t break free from the darkness, then this world need not seek hope.”

Gawain pondered for a moment, then nodded gently. “…You’re right.”

He exhaled and steered the conversation back to the beginning. “I remember we started by discussing those signals suddenly extinguished in the starry sky. We talked about two ‘filtering factors’ that made this universe, which should have been especially vibrant, so empty—why, apart from the voyagers, no other civilizations have broken free from their planets. One is the gods’ loss of control, and the other… is the magical tide.

“Now, let’s talk about the magical tide.

“What exactly is the magical tide? How does it sweep across and reshape this world? The disaster the Gondor Empire faced seven hundred years ago—how does it differ from the true world-ending ‘Great Magical Tide’?”

“Can you tell me now?”

The incubation chamber fell silent for a time. Enya seemed to be carefully weighing her next words. The faint hum of life-support and arcane devices filled the quiet like a gentle summer breeze—until Enya finally broke the silence.

“I know you’ve already realized that the magical tide that struck the old Gondor Empire and the true magical tide are actually two different phenomena. You call the former the ‘Minor Tide’ and the latter the ‘Great Tide.’ But in reality, the difference between them is far greater than you imagine—so much so that the former can hardly be called a magical tide at all. It’s related to the magical tide, yes, but at its core, it was merely an aborted ‘pre-shudder.’

“As for your understanding of the magical tide, there’s one thing I must correct: you believe the magical tide changes the fundamental nature of all things in the world. That’s not true.

“The true magical tide—the ‘Great Tide’ as you call it—does not actually alter the material world. In fact, it doesn’t even interact with any physical matter. It’s an invisible wind that sweeps across the entire celestial body.”

Gawain’s eyes widened in an instant, his usual composure shattered by overwhelming shock. “What did you say?! You’re telling me the ‘Great Tide’ doesn’t affect the material world at all? How is that possible?!”

“It is indeed the case.”

“Then what does the Great Tide affect? What about those apocalyptic events that actually happened?”

“It doesn’t affect the macroscopic world, but the ‘observer’ itself,” Enya’s voice came calmly from within the shell, carrying the cold clarity of one who has endured 1.87 million years. “It distorts all informational contact between the observer and the material world, causing the observer’s mind and reality to interact in a chaotic, disordered way. Its essence is not a storm of physical destruction, but a mass exile on a celestial scale.

“So, it’s not the world that’s destroyed, but the ‘world as seen through the observer’s eyes.’ Yet from the observer’s perspective, these two are indeed one and the same.”

(End of chapter)