Chapter 808: The Gods Are Dead

The gods are dead.

Gawain stared long and hard at the words carved into the stone. For a moment, he was at a loss for how to react, his face unreadable. Behind him, Yuri and the other two approached, their eyes catching the twisted, dark-red engravings.

“…All my ancestors…” Magnan’s eyes widened. “What does this mean?”

Gawain finally shook off his initial shock. Though seeing such blasphemy at the temple’s entrance had stunned him briefly, he still remembered the cardinal rule of Sandbox One: never trust anything at face value, never jump to conclusions. His first move was to ask Selina for more information.

“Did the previous exploration team see this phrase anywhere in the city?”

“No, I’m certain they didn’t,” Selina replied immediately. “The last team hadn’t yet explored the interiors of the buildings, but they had already found the temple’s entrance. If they had seen this inscription, there’s no way they wouldn’t have reported it.”

“The gods are dead…” Yuri murmured. “The last time we explored, this sandbox world was already deserted. Who could have left this message?”

“Think of Phantom Town,” Magnan muttered. “Empty… maybe it’s just that we can’t see them.”

“We should search the temple,” Selina said, turning to Gawain. Though she and the other two archbishops were the sandbox’s “experts,” their actions had to follow Gawain’s lead. After all, they might be facing gods—and in that realm, the “Outsider” was the true specialist.

Gawain knew how the Sleepless viewed him. He didn’t really consider himself an expert in battling gods—this field was far too advanced. He couldn’t imagine anyone qualified to give advice on godslaying. But he had encountered many divine secrets and had even taken part in the siege and “cooking” of a nature god (a folk imitation). At least in terms of confidence, he was far ahead of most.

Add to that the theoretical knowledge gained from conversations with Veronica and Kamail, plus his own research into ancient texts and the Holy Light sect’s archives, and he could indeed be considered an expert in theology and anti-divine matters.

“Let’s search the temple,” he nodded. “Religious sites are the ‘channels’ through which gods influence the mortal world. They often reflect the nature and state of the deity they honor.

“But stay alert. If you see anything strange or hear suspicious sounds, speak up immediately. Don’t trust your mind too much here.”

The three archbishops nodded, and together with Gawain, they stepped inside the temple, its architecture steeped in desert style.

No one knew how long the temple had been abandoned. Inside, it was worn and ancient, marked by the passage of time.

A short corridor led to the main hall where religious ceremonies were held. The lamps that once lit the space had long since gone out. Massive pillars and hanging drapes cast layered shadows across the room. Slivers of sunlight streamed through narrow high windows, cutting bright paths through the gloom. It was afternoon in the sandbox world, and the sunlight was gentle, adding a mysterious, ancient atmosphere to the space.

Gawain glanced casually toward the narrow window, catching sight of the sun on the horizon—a giant orb with a radiant corona, faintly patterned like wood grain, much like the sun in the real world.

Living on a moon orbiting a gas giant, the Sleepless had no idea what suns on other planets looked like. In this sandbox, they had set a sun almost identical to the real one.

“This place has been abandoned for at least decades… maybe a century, but no longer,” Yuri said, bending beside a collapsed stone altar, his fingers brushing a heavily weathered piece of cloth. “Otherwise, these things wouldn’t have survived.”

“But the inscription at the entrance looks freshly carved,” Magnan muttered, frowning.

Watching Yuri’s movements, Gawain asked casually, “Do things in the sandbox world weather and decay like in the real world?”

“Yes,” Yuri stood up. “The forms and speed of decay are very similar. We base these details directly on reality—rewriting all those parameters from scratch would be nearly impossible for mortals.”

Gawain sighed helplessly. “The real world gave birth to gods. How could a world so similar not spawn similar religious phenomena?”

Selina shook her head. “Before this, who even knew gods were ‘born’ and not ‘eternal’?”

The three archbishops fell silent, continuing their search for clues.

Magnan moved to the front of the hall, where a special circular high window cast light onto a platform resembling a pulpit. Dust motes danced in the beams, disturbed by the unwelcome visitors.

Yuri came over and casually asked, “You’re sure you’ve removed the psychic storm from your subconscious, right?”

“Damn it, how many times do you want to check? Of course I have!” Magnan glared. “Have I ever accidentally hit you with it? Are you really holding a grudge?”

“…I even developed a specific resistance to psychic storms, remember?”

“…I—definitely—removed it! Absolutely removed it!” Magnan emphasized each word, scanning the pulpit platform. Suddenly, his gaze froze on a corner of the floor. “…It’s here too.”

Yuri followed his gaze and saw a crude carving etched deep into the stone slab—identical to the inscription at the temple entrance:

The gods are dead.

The two archbishops were silent for a moment before Magnan finally spoke. “Yuri, honestly… do you believe what this says?”

“There’s only one ‘god’ in the sandbox,” Yuri said with a bitter smile. “If this is true, if the god really is dead, then we could go back and celebrate. But unfortunately, the corrupted are still corrupted, and the out-of-control sandbox shows no sign of recovery. Seeing this phrase here only makes it feel twice as eerie and terrifying.”

Magnan nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Whoever left these terrifying words here doesn’t seem to be in their right mind…”

Meanwhile, Gawain and Selina were inspecting several rooms connected to the hall.

In a display room behind the pulpit, meant for storing important items, they found many offerings left by worshippers, carefully placed in square niches carved into the walls.

Selina frowned slightly, looking at the exquisite gold and silver vessels, jeweled ornaments. “The Outer Narrator enjoys the devout faith of the locals… these offerings are probably just a small fraction.”

“Sadly, these mundane things probably mean little to a god,” Gawain said casually. Then his eyes were drawn to a single ornate one-handed sword, set apart on a platform at the room’s far end. Unlike the other offerings, it wasn’t placed in a wall niche but protected by magical seals. The platform bore an inscription, making it stand out.

Gawain approached and read the text:

To the Most Holy and Great King Balmora, offered to my Lord, on a summer day in the Year of Chamomile.

“Seems like a king’s offering to the Outer Narrator…” Gawain said offhandedly.

“King Balmora…” Selina’s expression grew thoughtful. “I think I’ve heard of him.”

“Oh?” Gawain raised an eyebrow. He had thought it was just an insignificant name but sensed something unusual from Selina’s look. “What did King Balmora do?”

“According to the log system,” Selina pondered aloud, “he was a virtual personality generated by the sandbox. Born a slave in the city-state of Nim Sandro, he earned his freedom through gladiatorial combat, became a city guard, and gradually rose to captain of the guard…”

“A slave turned guard?” Gawain was surprised. “How did he become king?”

“Let me think… According to sandbox time, about two hundred years before the system went haywire, Nim Sandro was ravaged by insect plagues. Water was polluted, crops failed, locusts and beetles devoured most of the food stores. The nobles fled, and the king escaped with his retinue and treasure to a neighboring country. In this crisis, the survivors chose a new king—someone who could find a way to fight the plague, secure food and water.

“As you guessed, this Balmora managed all that. He uncovered the root cause of the insect outbreak, led people to new water sources, and with soldiers, chased down some fleeing nobles, reclaiming part of the stolen grain… remarkable feats, even beyond our preset ‘script.’ No other virtual resident has ever driven history forward like this—usually such events require external script input. That’s why he left an impression on me.”

“What happened to this great king in the end?” Gawain asked, curious.

Selina hesitated, then whispered, “…He was deleted.”

“Deleted?”

“The script deviation was too large. The sandbox saw a risk of imbalance and auto-corrected. Balmora died suddenly in his prime—that was the deletion. But his reputation remains in Sandbox One’s history; that part wasn’t reset.”

Gawain was silent for a moment, quietly staring at the sword on the platform. It was like watching a virtual personality born from a dream world, created by the system—rising from slave to soldier, soldier to general, general to king, to mighty ruler… and finally, deletion.

Suddenly, he felt a strange empathy for the countless souls rising and falling within the sandbox world.

His attention snapped back to the temple of the Outer Narrator.

“So, according to these clues, King Balmora offered his sword to the god,” he said to Selina. “Meaning that during Balmora’s time, the faith in the Outer Narrator had already been established—perhaps even the core belief of Nim Sandro.”

Selina clearly thought the same, her expression pensive. “Looks like it.”

“At that time, the sandbox system hadn’t lost control yet—but you external monitors had no idea this temple even existed.”

“Exactly.”

Gawain raised his eyes. “Why do you think that is?”

Selina pondered for a moment, then spoke slowly, “Either…the higher-level narrators twisted time and history after the sandbox went out of control, weaving a sequence of events in the sandbox world that never actually existed. Or the sandbox system lost control far earlier than we thought, and even the monitoring system has been deceiving us all along.”

Gawain fell silent.

Neither possibility was good news.

If it was the first, it meant the higher-level narrators’ corruption and control over the sandbox system were far more severe than expected. They might even have the power to manipulate time and history within the sandbox world itself—something beyond mere mental contamination.

If it was the second, it meant the contamination had leaked out much earlier than anyone anticipated, suggesting that hidden dangers had already taken root in the real world, waiting to erupt at any moment…

Honestly, Gawain would rather face the first scenario.

(End of chapter)