Chapter 1538: The High-Quality Replica of Lady Ye
Lady Ye had successfully separated the divine beings’ human aspects from their godly essences, and she had pointed them toward a path to resolve the divine calamities on their own. Now, Gawain was making a few subtle adjustments to that path.
After all, letting the gods “self-terminate” was not something he wanted to see. It didn’t align with his vision for the “ultimate order” between mortals and gods, nor did it suit the long-term development needs of the Loren civilization. As an integral part of civilization, “gods” were an undeniable force. They couldn’t simply be discarded just because their power might spiral out of control. The Noyans had already proven with concrete examples that gods could safely and harmlessly serve the greater good of civilization. The “ultimate order” sought by the Divine Authority Council was precisely this kind of harmless coexistence.
As long as that possibility existed, Gawain couldn’t just let the gods self-destruct.
Of course, he wasn’t about to blame Lady Ye for the “suggestion” she gave the gods. After all, she had only chosen the safest path she could find. As an ancient deity who had lived through the Age of the Starfarers, she had her own blind spots. Gods were neither omniscient nor omnipotent—something Gawain had long known. And in times like these, his flexible way of thinking came in handy.
While the “divine essences” trapped in their godly seats were still unable to act, he and the mortals, along with the “human aspects of the gods,” coordinated to set up a trap to slay the gods. To Gawain, this plan was rock solid.
The Three Fertility Sisters looked genuinely pleased. They clearly hadn’t considered that the problem could be solved this way, and their reaction confirmed Gawain’s thoughts—if there was a way out, of course they wanted to survive.
After all, they were the “human aspects of the gods.”
“But speaking practically,” Eve began, once the initial joy had settled, “if we want to kill the divine essences with these mortal weapons, the quantity needed won’t be small. After all, it’s not just us sisters who need them—even if we don’t count the weak, insignificant gods hiding in the wild mountains of the western continent, there are still a dozen or so gods of various sizes across this land. Is the supply really enough?”
That was a valid concern. Gawain thought it over carefully before answering: “We have plenty in reserve. During the Waste War, the situation was dire, and all the major arms factories in Cecil worked overtime to stockpile weapons. The result is that after the war ended, there are still mountains of ‘inventory’ in arsenals across the country. And that’s not even counting other nations’ stockpiles. Basic things like magic crystal bombs and magitech shells are also produced domestically by other countries, so the total supply should be sufficient.
“Of course, it’s possible that some gods’ life forces are so strong that ammo consumption might be higher, and the stockpiles might fall short. But I don’t think that’s a big problem. We can produce more quickly if needed. After all, we still have a year’s buffer period…”
“Can we really produce more?” Flora couldn’t help but ask, clearly unfamiliar with this kind of logistics. “Won’t that affect the construction of the homeworld’s shield?”
Gawain smiled at that: “No need to worry. These weapons will be stockpiled inside the divine realms and detonated directly as traps. We don’t need to worry about precision, range, or even stability. Purely piling up explosive power isn’t technically difficult. Any small factory supplying the mines can handle such orders easily. It won’t affect the homeworld shield’s construction at all.”
The three goddesses exchanged relieved smiles. With their last worry lifted, they could finally focus on planting bombs at home without distraction.
Meanwhile, Amone, standing nearby, was completely stunned. The situation had spiraled so fast since earlier that he barely recognized what was happening. After an unknown amount of time, the “God of Nature” finally snapped out of his daze and muttered, “You… you really think this will work? Such a serious crisis, and this is the solution?”
“How could it not?” Gawain spread his hands, looking perfectly reasonable. “The gods’ ‘divine essences’ are powerful and terrifying when mad, but right now they’re just puppets stuck on their thrones. They can’t think or act freely—they only follow fixed patterns. But we can think. The freed human aspects of the gods are thinking with us. Isn’t that just brains versus no brains?”
“Exactly, exactly,” Amber immediately nodded enthusiastically, chiming in. “It’s like hitting a wooden stake with a live person. How hard can it be? The only difference is this time the stake is tougher, but as long as its health bar lights up, even a light scratch can kill it…”
Amone blinked in confusion. “Health bar? What’s that?”
The three goddesses all asked in unison, “What does ‘light scratch’ mean?”
“Don’t mind them,” Gawain waved off Amber, who was about to start recommending books again, and quickly changed the subject, his expression growing serious. “I have to emphasize: although we’ve found a way forward, it doesn’t answer all the questions. There’s one crucial issue I haven’t figured out—why did Lady Ye do all this? Is her action really a continuation of some directive left by the Starfarers?”
“Directives left by the Starfarers…” Amber frowned. She hadn’t considered that angle before. “Why did you suddenly think of them?”
“The Starfarers left and never returned, but they left behind so much,” Gawain said thoughtfully. “They’re on an eternal expedition with no known end, flying across countless star systems as if searching for the edge of the universe. Given the scale and length of this journey, it makes sense they wouldn’t retrace their steps. But if they don’t go back, why did they leave behind two monitoring systems—the ‘Firmament’ and the ‘Sentinels’—and a ‘Star Chart Keeper’?
“The Sentinels monitor the divine realm, the Firmament watches over the mortal world, and the Star Chart Keeper carries an ancient mission and free will. Are these relics’ only purpose to record data? The Starfarer fleet is now far from this sector, and even the highest-level Firmament stations can’t connect to the main database. If all monitoring data can’t be uploaded, what’s the point of the surveillance?”
The Three Fertility Sisters looked somewhat bewildered. After all, probably only Gawain would seriously ponder the Starfarers’ secrets and such distant questions. But Amber seemed to understand his line of thought, her expression thoughtful. “So you think the Starfarers didn’t leave those three systems just to send monitoring data back to the fleet, but to let them operate independently, waiting for something?”
“The Sentinels said they took on an eternal and hopeless task—one meaningless, endlessly repeating until time itself runs out. I didn’t think much of it then, but later I wondered if that was a literal description or an extreme way of saying a certain ‘condition’ would take forever to appear, with little hope,” Gawain recalled. “Now, thinking back, the Starfarers seem like travelers who never return, but who plant seed after seed along the way. The environment on this journey is harsh, so those seeds lie dormant in the soil almost forever. But there’s a simple truth…”
Gawain paused, searching for the right words. Amone beat him to it: “When you plant seeds, you always hope they’ll sprout someday.”
Amber caught on immediately. “…So you think Lady Ye is preparing for that ‘sprouting’? You believe the ‘condition’ the Sentinels waited for until death is finally approaching?”
Gawain nodded slightly, his thoughts already drifting. “Lady Ye, as an ancient deity, became the Starfarers’ Star Chart Keeper. On Noyan, though there’s no Star Chart Keeper, there are other ancient Starfarer relics. Imagine how many life-friendly planets the Starfarers visited along the way. Did they leave ‘gardeners’ on each planet, waiting for the seeds to sprout?”
He tilted his head back. The golden crown of oak leaves shaded his eyes, beyond which lay the eternally dark sky of the Shadow Realm. Yet his gaze seemed to pierce through the darkness and obstacles, seeing the stars of the real world. In his imagination, many stars were already shining brightly, connected by shimmering routes. “If these Starfarer relic worlds could be linked in the night sky… it would be a magnificent star chart.”
This was a vision the Three Fertility Sisters had never imagined in their long divine lives, a “realm” absent from the entire divine information system. They listened in awe as Gawain described it. The youngest, Flora, was the first to react: “Then… if we really reach the ‘sprouting’ stage, what will happen?”
The young goddess suddenly felt a vague unease. She didn’t know where it came from. She was also somewhat hopeful but couldn’t say what she was hoping for.
“I don’t know. No one knows. That’s why I’m especially curious about what kind of directive the Starfarers left Lady Ye,” Gawain said calmly, withdrawing his gaze to look at the goddess of spring. “It could be a ‘harvest at the right time’ order, a gift spanning millions of years, or maybe just a message or blessing—like a little card a mother leaves in a child’s coming-of-age gift… The possibilities are endless.”
Flora thought for a moment and shook her head seriously. “We don’t have a mother.”
Gawain: “…”
Then Flora pointed to the sacred giant stag beside them and added, “If we had to say, our mother would be Lord Amone, but he doesn’t admit it, and he didn’t prepare any gifts for us.”
Gawain couldn’t help but glance at Amone. “…What exactly were you all talking about before I came?”
“Don’t ask me. I don’t want to say,” Amone buried his head as if trying to disappear. If he had hands, he’d be facepalming. “Don’t take what they say too seriously. They’ve hardly ever been human.”
What could Gawain say? His thoughts were already scattered, let alone his emotions.
Fortunately, Amber was there. This rough-and-ready shadow assault goose somehow managed to pick up where Gawain left off: “Anyway, one thing’s clear—we’ll have to talk to Lady Ye face to face sooner or later. You have a ton of questions about the Starfarers, and I have plenty to ask her too.”
Gawain nodded slightly. The Gaia sisters shot Amber a strange look again, prompting Gawain to finally ask the question he’d been meaning to since earlier: “I want to ask—why did you react that way when you saw Amber? Is it because she looks like Lady Ye?”
He asked bluntly. The question startled the three sisters, but after a moment of panic, Gaia nodded slightly. “There are subtle differences, but she really… looks very, very much like her. Especially the eyes—they’re exactly the same.”
As Gaia finished speaking, Eve immediately chimed in: “And it’s not just that they look alike—there’s this feeling… a subtle connection in their aura. It made us almost believe we were actually seeing Lady Night herself, which is why we reacted so strongly before.”
The outcome was no surprise. The answer they had long suspected was finally confirmed. Although this revelation carried a lot of weight, both Gawain and Amber showed almost no change in expression.
They had been mentally prepared for this for a long time.
“To think they even look almost identical,” Gawain muttered, glancing sideways at Amber standing beside him. He couldn’t help but imagine what her face would look like on a primordial god like Lady Night—what a mythic form of Amber magnified hundreds or thousands of times would be like. But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t picture it. “I can’t find a trace of majesty anywhere…”
Amber immediately got flustered at that, hopping on the spot to protest, “Wait until I grow up, then I’ll be majestic for sure!”
Gaia watched their reactions, but inside, waves of emotion stirred. Realizing that Gawain and Amber were unsurprised by this astonishing truth, she began to suspect something deeper. “So… what exactly is the connection between her and Lady Night?”
“The details aren’t clear yet,” Gawain sighed, not hiding anything. “But I suspect Amber is Lady Night’s shadow on this earth.”
Gaia blinked in confusion.
“Here, take a look at this and you’ll understand,” Amber said thoughtfully. She casually drew a short staff from thin air—a black-and-white rod. “Does this look familiar?”
The moment the staff appeared, Gawain saw the three goddesses before him all instinctively step back half a pace. Their reaction was expected, yet a bit exaggerated, which made him both amused and a little sympathetic—Lady Night’s surgical handiwork had been a bit too ruthless.
“This is more than familiar,” Flora said, blood trickling down her forehead again as she stared at the shadowy club in Amber’s hand. “Not long ago, this was on my head… Though it looks a bit different, this should be Lady Night’s scepter. But the one you have…”
“A high-quality replica,” Amber sighed, twirling the club in her hand. “I’ve got quite a few of these fakes here. Want to take a look?”
The three goddesses shook their heads in unison. “No, thank you!”
(Time for a book recommendation! Here’s a budding sci-fi novel from Luo Sanguan.CS called A Thousand Stars Ablaze. The brief intro is below:
Flames roar, steam powers gears that mesh and turn. Riding a riveted metal behemoth, humanity travels through the starry rivers.
The great Emperor shines brilliantly, and under his protection, the benevolent empire has found a place to survive among the countless star seas.
But Dusand feels this world’s tone is off… maybe there’s another possibility.
The author is also a fan of my work, so I think you all should check it out!)
(End of chapter)