Chapter 1482: The Closed Loop

To be honest, when Jenny mentioned that the so-called “Unified Mental Field” was like an “inverse state” of the anti-divinity barrier, the first thought that popped into Gawain’s mind was—wait, isn’t the inverse of an anti-divinity barrier just a divinity barrier?

But the next second, he swallowed the words back down his throat. Of course, Jenny’s use of “inverse” couldn’t be taken so literally. The anti-divinity barrier flipped inside out wouldn’t suddenly become a divinity barrier—that’s like flipping a potato and expecting it to turn into a dry bean…

“Ahem,” Gawain cleared his throat lightly, maintaining a dignified and steady expression. “Explain it in detail, starting from the very basics.”

“Understood,” Jenny nodded immediately. She picked up the documents on the table, found a section, and pointed to it. “This is the original blueprint the Noyans sent us. After fully translating their annotations and adjusting it to fit the neural system characteristics of the Lorenzian sapients, we developed this device. Honestly, we still don’t fully understand how this ‘Unified Mental Field’ system operates, because the Noyans’ neural structure is clearly different from ours. Rebecca and I have only been able to analyze its overall architecture and speculate that it might have some connection to our neural networks and the anti-divinity barrier…

“As you know, the anti-divinity barrier works based on the ‘chaotic mental tide.’ It connects a vast number of mortal minds through the neural network, creating a powerful, underlying chaotic mental tide—also called a ‘non-directional mental tide.’ This tide is incredibly strong and almost impervious to external interference. We extract and release it as a field, forming the anti-divinity barrier that blocks divine spiritual contamination. Its effectiveness has been proven in practice…”

Gawain nodded slightly. “The goddess of magic, Mylmina, once used the power of the ‘non-directional mental tide’ to ‘wash away’ her divinity by immersing herself into the neural network’s depths… But how does that relate to resisting the magical tide?”

“That’s exactly the key question we’ve been ignoring—or subconsciously avoiding—when searching for ways to resist the magical tide,” Jenny met Gawain’s gaze squarely. “The gods themselves… are actually unaffected by the magical tide.”

“The gods themselves?” Gawain was momentarily stunned, then suddenly it clicked—just as Jenny said, the gods truly are immune to the magical tide!

Though mortals are instantly wiped out by the magical tide, and their extinction causes the gods to weaken and eventually fade, the magical tide cannot directly affect the gods—the gods don’t suffer from the ‘observer effect runaway’ problem!

In fact, not only are sufficiently powerful gods immune to the magical tide, they can also shelter mortals in the world, protecting them through the magical tide. This has happened before. The most typical example Gawain knew was Talrond—the dragon kingdom. Over the past 1.87 million years, Talrond endured wave after wave of magical tides. The dragons never found a technological way to fight the magical tide; their survival was thanks to the dragon goddess Enya linking herself to Talrond’s great shield.

Beyond the dragon kingdom, other ancient civilizations in this world also had groups that successfully “resisted” the magical tide. Gawain had even discussed this with Enya and other dragons—those who survived the magical tide did so only under the protection of their gods.

When the magical tide arrives, all beings surrender their entire minds to divine governance, avoiding being consumed by the runaway observer effect. This was the path walked by all mortal beings, including those in Talrond.

The dragons knew this. Gawain knew this. And the scholars studying magical tide resistance… they knew it too.

But they couldn’t take that path.

Because it’s a dead end—a poison they must drink to survive. Relying on gods to resist the magical tide requires giving up “adulthood,” locking the mental imprint between gods and mortals completely, and empowering the gods to far surpass mortal civilizations. Only then can the entire civilization be placed under divine protection. The dragons did this, and so they were locked in the Eternal Cradle for 1.87 million years. Other civilizations, less fortunate than the dragons, met even more tragic ends—

During the magical tide, the gods become overwhelmingly powerful, and the mental imprint is strengthened beyond measure. As soon as the magical tide ends, the gods almost immediately teeter on the edge of losing control. Ordinary civilizations, lacking the dragons’ experience, power, and luck, fail to build their own “Eternal Cradle” in time and are wiped out when the Black Trap arrives.

This matches the observations and records of the sirens regarding land civilizations. They recorded multiple land civilizations surviving the magical tide, but those seemingly surviving civilizations never made it to the end. Shortly after the magical tide ended, they mysteriously perished. Because this extinction was so sudden and strange, the sirens called it the “Black Trap,” symbolizing a black snare suddenly appearing in the endless ocean.

So this path seems to buy time but actually blocks all possibilities—a sure death. The Alliance will never willingly step into the Black Trap. From the start, no one, including Gawain, considered “gods” as a direction to fight the magical tide. And this… was exactly their blind spot.

“We’re only missing one ‘why,’” once the blind spot cleared, Gawain quickly found a new line of thought. He finally began to understand. “The gods aren’t affected by the magical tide… but why?”

“Yes, that’s the question we’re pondering too,” Jenny nodded gently. “Rebecca and I can’t fully explain it yet, but we suspect… it still relates to the observer effect.”

Like a ray of sunlight piercing thick clouds, a lightning bolt cracked through the gloom. The tangled mess in Gawain’s mind suddenly unraveled. He seemed to grasp the key to the problem. “The magical tide’s essence is the runaway observer effect on a macro scale. The gods’ essence is the product of mental tides—and this ‘product of mental tides’ is itself a kind of observer effect!”

Rebecca immediately nodded. “Yes, gods are also products of the observer effect. According to the latest theory, ‘mental tides’ are essentially a group-based, ordered observer effect that influences the macro world…”

“Wait, that raises a problem,” Gawain suddenly felt something was off. “If gods are products of the observer effect, shouldn’t they be more affected by the magical tide? After all, the magical tide is runaway observer effect… So why are the gods immune?”

“We can’t figure that out either,” Jenny shook her head. “But Rebecca and I both think this is the most critical part of the Noyan ‘Unified Mental Field’ system. No one can explain why gods, as products of the observer effect, aren’t affected by its runaway state. We even asked senior advisors of the Theocracy Council—they’re baffled too. Lady Enya said she’s never thought about this in her 1.87 million years.”

“Of course they haven’t,” Gawain waved his hand, but then suddenly stopped mid-sentence. His expression brightened. “Wait, I think I understand now…”

“Huh?” Rebecca and Jenny exchanged a glance, both speaking in unison, “What did you think of?”

“An information closed loop!” Gawain’s voice grew excited, his breathing quickened. A mental block suddenly cleared, almost breaking the dignified composure he’d been holding. “The gods are a classic model of an information closed loop. Although they’re products of the observer effect, in a sense, this ‘observer effect’ isn’t entirely based on the real world. A significant part is based on ‘internal evidence’ and ‘self-consistency’—it’s a process of ‘self-explanation’!

“Do you see? Gods aren’t born from nature itself. Instead, mortals first create a self-contained, internally consistent belief system, then ‘create’ a god within that system. All religious doctrines are trapped within this structure. This ‘self-explanation,’ ‘information closed loop,’ and ‘internal consistency’ means the gods aren’t affected by the observer effect—because their existence doesn’t depend on, or barely depends on, observing the real world!”

Listening to Gawain’s explanation, Jenny and Rebecca exchanged looks of shock. This entirely new hypothesis profoundly challenged all their previous theories and even seemed to fill the last blind spot in their understanding of the Noyan “Unified Mental Field” system.

Gawain didn’t stop thinking after speaking. His mind raced, and he quickly came up with more insights.

“I think this also explains why only sufficiently powerful gods can shelter mortals during the magical tide, and why the mental imprint must be completely locked—because in the early and middle stages of a god’s birth, mortal faith can’t fully detach from objective reality. For example, primitive worship of elements, forests, or beasts. These beliefs have tendencies toward ‘self-explanation’ and ‘information closure,’ but their origins lie in mortals’ awe and imagination of powerful natural phenomena.

“At this stage, gods can’t fully avoid dependence on reality. Changes in mortal understanding of the real world still heavily affect the gods’ existence. In other words, these gods haven’t fully ‘closed the loop’ yet. The magical tide outside the loop still influences the gods inside.

“But as the belief system advances, explanations of the gods gradually detach from ‘primitive awe’ and move toward purer philosophical speculation and theoretical models. People realize that mountains, rivers, thunder, and lightning are just natural phenomena, so they elevate their gods to a higher status to maintain their sanctity and authority.

“Take the nature god Amorn, for example—he went through this stage. Initially, the Great Stag was just a symbol of forest and beast worship. But when the elves tamed the forests and beasts, the original Great Stag seemed less ‘majestic.’ So the believers elevated him to ‘Master of Nature.’ If he continued to be elevated?

“Imagine if Amorn never left his divine status—he would eventually become a symbol of the origin of all things. At that point, he would be completely severed from the real world, becoming a fully closed, self-consistent pure god that doesn’t need any real-world support to ‘exist,’ just like the dragon goddess Enya.

“At that point, as a god who has achieved a complete information closed loop, he would also be immune to the magical tide.”

Gawain laid out all the speculations swirling in his mind with clear logic—speculations that neither Jenny nor Rebecca had ever considered before. No matter how startling or how much they clashed with their previous research, they had to admit one thing: in principle, it all made sense.

As a macroscopic manifestation of the observer effect, the gods were immune to the magical tide precisely because of their own “information closed-loop” nature!

“An information system that doesn’t open itself to the outside world won’t be affected by the observer effect spiraling out of control…” Jenny murmured to herself. “Right, that’s reasonable. We never thought of this before…”

“It’s not that we didn’t think of it,” Gawain shook his head, “we unconsciously avoided this direction because it inevitably points back to the gods. And if it doesn’t point to the gods, we can’t find any other ‘closed information system.’ But the Noyans clearly didn’t avoid this… If their unified mental field really is some kind of ‘inverted state’ of the anti-divinity barrier, then it means they found a way to evade the magical tide from the gods themselves…”

As he spoke, his gaze drifted back to the blueprints and documents, his expression thoughtful.

“So what happens when you invert the anti-divinity barrier? Does it cause mortals and gods to rebind?”

“We’ve never done it, not even theoretically,” Jenny shook her head again. “But one thing’s certain: although this process is called an ‘inversion,’ its effect isn’t simply to reverse the function of the anti-divinity barrier. Based on preliminary deductions between me and Princess Rebecca, this inversion likely flips the target of the ‘non-directional ideological wave.’ If originally the ‘non-directional ideological wave’ acted on the gods, then after inversion, its target should be… all mortals.”

She paused, then added, “Of course, the real process is probably far more complex and variable. Right now, we’re only making a rough interpretation based on the blueprints the Noyans sent us, broadly treating their force field generator and projection device as the ‘inverted state’ of the anti-divinity barrier. How exactly this works… still needs serious study.”

“I understand,” Gawain nodded gently, then rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “So the non-directional ideological wave is projected onto all mortals…”

Suddenly, he stopped rubbing his chin.

“Could it be… that the true meaning of this process is to treat all mortals as a single ‘god’?”

(End of chapter)