This is the "lock" that connects man and God.

The rules of this world are even more cruel than Gawain imagined.

Now, he finally knew why Melita had such a painful reaction that was on the verge of losing control after confiding in him several times about the tide and the gods, and what the real mechanism behind it was - he once thought it was the punishment of the dragon gods for every dragon, but now he realized that even the dragon god who stood high above was just a prisoner under this set of rules.

The gods are chains, prisoners, and even executioners, and this whole "prison" is forged by the beliefs of mortals themselves.

Seeing that Gao Wen was silent for a long time, the dragon god asked with a hint of curiosity, "What are you thinking?" ”

"I just thought of Melita – she told me something old and now I know how much of a risk she took back then."

"Ah, Melita...... She was a child who made a deep impression on me," Ryujin nodded, "It's hard to see such complex traits in a younger dragon—curiosity, creativity, action and exploration, growing up in the cradle of eternity, yet as alive as creatures 'out there'...... The fact that the Jury, which is an old and closed organization, has undergone such a change in its younger members, is indeed ...... Interesting. ”

Are there young and enterprising members of the old, closed jury......

Gawain suddenly thought of Melita's origins, and thought that she and her "colleagues" were born from factories and laboratories, and were customized employees of the company.

He reined in his slightly drifting train of thought and brought the topic back to the Reverse Tide Empire: "Then, since the Reverse Tide Empire, the Dragon Clan has never interfered in the affairs of the outside world...... But the aftermath of that incident seems to continue to this day? What is the situation with that giant tower to the northwest of Talrond? ”

"You already know a lot about the mechanics of the birth and operation of gods, so you must also be aware that in this world, a sufficiently powerful group of thought can 'project' on certain things, thus causing the phenomenon of 'apotheosis,'" the dragon god said unhurriedly, "The giant tower northwest of Tarlund...... It was originally the legacy of the Voyagers, and it was also the place where the Dragons had allowed the 'original inspirers' to receive the 'legacy' when they were propping up the Tide-Tide Empire. ”

"Accept the legacy?" Gawain immediately grasped the word, "You mean to take advantage of the unique properties of the Voyager's relics......"

Ryujin nodded: "Yes." The legacy of the Voyagers has the power to record data, instill knowledge and experience, and influence the thinking of living beings, and with proper guidance, it is possible to roughly choose what knowledge and experience they want to pass on—the Dragons took a while to do so, and then brought the best scholars and thinkers of the Tide Empire to the tower.

"The experiment paid off, and they created a group of individuals with remarkable intelligence—and although mortals could only gain a fraction of the knowledge from the lineage of the Voyager, it was enough to change the course of a civilization."

Gawain had already guessed what would happen next: "So the Empire of the Tide after that regarded that tower as a 'god-given' sanctuary?" ”

“…… The dragons did not anticipate the volatility and shortness of the short-lived species, and miscalculated the level of greed of the civilization of that season," the dragon god sighed, "The individuals who returned from the tower did use the knowledge they had passed down to make the Tide Empire rapidly powerful, but at the same time they also made themselves absolute theocratic leaders—and that out-of-control and terrible faith was built from them."

"In a series of propaganda, the tower in the Arctic region became a sacred place for the gods to descend and bless, and gradually, it was even rumored to be the abode of the gods on earth, and in just a few hundred years, it was only a blink of an eye for the dragons, and many generations of the Tide Empire passed, and they began to worship the tower, and built a whole system of mythology and worship around it—so much so that when the Tide Rebellion finally broke out, the fanatics of the Tide Empire even shouted the slogan 'Take back the Holy Land'— They firmly believe that the Tower is their sacred place and that the Dragons are heretics who steal the gifts of the gods......

"So, in a sense, that tower is the source of the outbreak of the Tide War—once the fanatics of the Tide Empire succeed in contaminating the legacy of the Voyagers into true 'gods', then there will be no future for the whole world."

Gawain sighed: "I'm not surprised by this - for the short-lived species, a few hundred years is enough to completely remake the real history and redress it, not to mention that it also covers the needs of theocracy." In this way, the Tide-Defying Empire's deification of that tower led to the birth of a ...... in that tower What's that? ”

"Perhaps we can call it the 'god' of the tide," the dragon god said lightly, "The hundreds of millions of people of the Tide Empire believed that there was a god who sent down a blessing in that tower, so the god was born in response to the trend of thought, and the tower left behind by the sailer was polluted with divinity...... I have to say, this is really quite an ironic thing.

"The only thing we are thankful for during this whole event is that the 'gods' born in that tower are not fully formed. Before the situation can be reversed, the Empire of the Tide is destroyed, and the 'gestation' process in the tower fails at the last step. Therefore, although the tower is mutated and polluted, it does not produce true sanity, nor does it have the ability to act on its own initiative, otherwise it ...... Today's Tallund will be a hundred times worse than what you see. ”

"So the Voyager's legacy isn't so absolute and perfect against the gods," Gawain laughed, "at least now we know that it's not that effective against the contamination of its own interior. ”

"Perhaps...... To this day, we still have no way of knowing what happened in that tower, nor what the state of the 'god of the tide' was born in the tower, we only know that the tower has mutated and become very dangerous, but there is nothing we can do about it. ”

Gawain frowned, "Even you can't remove the divine contamination from that tower?" ”

"I can't get close to the legacy of the Voyager," the dragon god shook his head, "and the dragons can't fight the 'gods'—not even the gods outside, not even the gods of the tide. ”

"This is also a 'lock'?!"

"It's also a 'lock.'"

"Hiss......" Gawain suddenly felt a toothache, he had this feeling more than the first time since he came into contact with the truth about Tallund, "So you have been keeping that tower in front of your house all along?" Just leave it like that? ”

"There is no choice," the dragon god said calmly, "at least for the time being, we can monitor its situation at all times, if that tower is located elsewhere in the world is the real danger - the belief of the Tide Empire makes that tower have a strong tendency to spread knowledge to the outside world, if it is allowed to come into contact with other mortal civilizations, it will give birth to countless empires against the tide, and countless runaway catastrophes with the worship of the one who set sail as the goal." ”

Speaking of this, the dragon god suddenly glanced at Gawain: "What, are you interested in going to that tower to have a look?" Maybe you won't be affected by it—"

"No, thank you," Gawain said without hesitation, "at least for now, I don't have much interest in it. ”

Just kidding, it's a real legacy of the Voyager that has been mutated due to the pollution of divinity - divinity, mutation, Voyager, basically the biggest danger factor in this world It has been accounted for, wouldn't it want to go back to the coffin rashly in this situation? Gawain thinks that he has some resistance to divine pollution, but he knows that his resistance comes from the Voyager, and that tower is the legacy of the Voyager after being polluted by divinity, and it is completely unknown whether his resistance will work in front of that tower.

What's more important - he can use the "scrapped agreement" to deter a sane dragon god, but he can't deter a "god against the tide" who doesn't even seem to have developed his brain...... Why tempt with your life?

After all, curiosity about the Empire Against the Tide was nothing more than a pastime for Gawain, not a necessity—in his opinion, it didn't even match the level of Coke in a cup.

He picked up the oak cup full of "reflections" and took a sip to settle down.

At a certain moment just now, he actually had another idea - if the "fall coordinates" of some satellites and space stations in the sky were set at that tower, could they directly destroy it once and for all?

But the idea only came to mind for a split second before Gawain himself vetoed it.

Because he wasn't sure — he wasn't sure that those space facilities would crash into towers accurately, and he didn't dare to guarantee how effective it would be to smash the Voyager's legacy with the Voyager's legacy.

Regarding the former, as early as before departure, when using the system of the Sky Station to simulate the fall process of the in-orbit facilities, Gawain found that the fall errors of those old antiques are actually scary - the overly old systems and the power deviations caused by the energy shortage are affecting their fall accuracy, although the base of the tower may be the size of an island, but the fall errors of those in-orbit facilities may be directly biased to the nearby Tallund......

This is also why Gawain would use the method of discarding satellites and space stations to deter the dragon gods, but he did not think of using them on the situation in the Loren continent - there are too many uncontrollable factors. Of course, you don't have to think so much about smashing Talrond, anyway, the dragon country is so big, and it will definitely have an effect wherever it is smashed, but in the countries of the Loren continent, there are many complex forces, and if a booster engine deviates from the satellite, it may be smashed on itself, not to mention that the power of that thing is amazing, and it is impossible to use it in conventional warfare......

And as for the latter...... It's even more worrisome.

Use the Voyager's satellites to smash the Voyager's tower - it's fine, but what if it doesn't work, or if it just happens to smash the tower open and release the "stuff" inside? Whose responsibility is this?

After some thinking and weighing, Gawain finally suppressed the urge to "drag a satellite down and listen to the sound" in his heart, tried to calm down with a straight face, and continued to sip Coke with a serious and thoughtful expression.

The dragon god glanced at Gawain quietly, perhaps sensing the latter's thoughts, or perhaps he was also thinking about the possibility of asking the "Wanderer" to help solve the tower, but in the end he didn't say anything.

The talk of the Empire and the tower seems to have passed.

This seemingly slightly awkward silence lasted for a full two minutes before Gawain suddenly opened his mouth to break the silence: "Voyager...... What exactly? ”

"I thought you knew a lot about that," Ryujin raised his eyes, "after all, you're so connected to those legacies......

"I just came to this world by accident and made a connection with those legacies," Gawain said frankly - he has been in this world for so many years, and he has rarely encountered such an occasion to speak calmly, but he did not expect that the first person who can talk to him completely open up to himself is a "god", "I have lived with them for many years, but from those broken databases, I have not found a description of the person who set sail himself." ”

The dragon god's gaze stayed on Gawain's face for a few seconds, as if to judge the truth of the words, and then he smiled faintly: "Voyager...... Also mortal. ”

"Mortal?" Gawain's eyes widened in surprise.

"Yes, mortals, even if they are incredibly powerful, even if they can destroy the gods...... "The dragon god said calmly, "they still call themselves mortals, and they insist on it. ”

"Okay...... A race that insists on calling itself mortal no matter how powerful it is......" Gawain nodded, "And then?" How did they come about? ”

"It was an even more ancient era, so old that the dragon race was only one of several mortal races on this planet, so old that there were still several civilizations and different god systems on this planet......" The dragon god's voice sounded slowly, the voice seemed to float from the other side of the distant history, with vicissitudes and memories, "The voyager came from the depths of the universe and established an observatory and outpost on this planet......"

"They came from the depths of the universe?" Gawain was surprised again, "Didn't they develop from this planet?" ”

"Of course not," the dragon god shook his head, "their homeland is further away, an ancient galaxy they call the 'Penal Colony'. ”

"Penal colony?" Gawain couldn't help but frown, "That's a strange name...... Then why did they set up observatories and outposts on this planet? Is it for supplies? Or is it scientific research? At that time, there were already several civilizations on the planet, including dragons—all of which had come into contact with the Voyager? Where are they now? ”

"They all left with the Voyager—only the Dragons remained."

"Why? I...... Don't understand. ”

"Because at that time, the dragon clan had already developed too much on the wrong path, and it no longer had the conditions to break away, and the one who set sail ...... They had to keep sailing, they still had their own mission, and they couldn't stay and wait for the dragons. ”

Noticing an even more confused expression on Gawain's face, the god smiled faintly, and the table filled the cup again.

"We've got some time—and I haven't talked to anyone about the Voyagers in a long time," he said in a soft voice, "and let me tell you about them from the beginning—an incredible bunch of 'mortals.' ”