Finally, Gawain asked the most important and important question about his trip to Tallund.

About the chains that connect mortals and gods.

If when he was in the Loren Continent, he only had some one-sided concepts and rough conjectures about this "chain", then since he came to Talrond and saw more and more "real sides" of this dragon kingdom, his impression of this chain has become clearer.

This is an "intraplanetary civilization" that has developed to the extreme, a stagnant country that seems to have completely ceased to move forward, from the social system to the specific technology tree, Tarlund has many shackles, and these shackles seem to be completely created by their "people". Thinking of the operation laws of the gods, it is not difficult for Gawain to imagine that the birth of these "civilization locks" is inseparable from the dragon god.

In the lower city, he saw what a completely locked civilization would look like, and at least saw part of the truth about it, and he believed that it was the dragon god who took the initiative to let him see—it was this "initiative" that made people feel extremely weird.

For he could sense from the details of the dragon god's words and deeds that the god did not want to lock up his people—but he had to, because there was a supreme rule, a rule that could not be broken than the gods.

Gawain and his experts and scholars have tried to analyze and demonstrate this rule, and they think that they have at least summarized part of this rule, but there are still some details that need to be added, and now Gawain believes that the "god" in front of him is the last piece of the puzzle in these details.

Hearing Gawain's question, the dragon god fell silent for a while, as if even he needed to organize his thoughts before this ultimate question and answer carefully, and Gawain paused for a moment and then said: "I actually know that gods are also 'involuntarily'. There is a higher rule that binds you, and mortal institutions are influencing your state, and too drastic changes in the ideology will cause the gods to slide towards madness, so I guess you have to impose a lot of restrictions on the dragons in order to prevent yourself from falling into madness......"

"Extraterritorial loiter, you're only partially right." At this moment, the dragon god suddenly spoke, interrupting Gawain's words.

Gao Wen frowned slightly: "Only part of it was right?" ”

"God is indeed involuntary...... But you're underestimating how much we can't help ourselves," the dragon god said slowly, his voice low, "I really don't want to fall into madness, and I'm indeed a dragon shackle myself, but all this ...... I didn't do it on my own initiative. ”

A pale golden glow descended from the top of the temple hall, as if condensed into a hazy aura around this "god", and the low roar from outside the temple seemed to have weakened a little, becoming like a hallucination, Gawain had a thoughtful look on his face, but before he could open his mouth to ask, the dragon god took the initiative to continue: "Do you want to hear the story? ”

"Story?" Gawain was stunned for a moment, but then nodded, "Of course—I'm interested. ”

The dragon god smiled and gently shook the delicate cup in his hand: "There are three stories.

"The first story is about a mother and her child.

"A long, long time ago, long before the world was inhabited, a mother and her children lived on the earth. It was the barbaric age of antiquity, all the knowledge had not yet been summed up, all the wisdom was still hidden in the young minds of the children, at that time, the children were ignorant, even their mothers, did not know much.

"The world was dangerous at that time, and the children were still vulnerable, and in order to survive in the dangerous world, mothers and children had to live carefully, be careful in everything, and not dare to make mistakes at all. There are biting fish in the river, so the mother forbids the children to go to the river, there are man-eating beasts in the woods, so the mother forbids the children to go to the woods, the fire burns the body, so the mother forbids the children to play with fire, and instead, it is the mother who uses her own power to protect the child and help the children do a lot of things...... In primitive times, this was enough to sustain the entire family.

"But as time passes, the children grow up, wisdom begins to burst out of their minds, and they acquire more and more knowledge, and they can do more and more things—the fish that used to bite people in the river can now be caught with a harpoon, and the man-eating beasts cannot beat the clubs in the hands of the children. The growing children needed more food, so they took the plunge, to the river, to the forest, to make a fire......

But the mother's mind was dull, and the child she saw as a child was always a child, and she only felt that those actions were dangerous, and she began to dissuade the children who were getting bolder and bolder, repeating over and over again the teachings of many years ago—do not go to the river, do not go to the forest, do not touch the fire......

"Her blocking was somewhat useful, occasionally slowing down the children's movements a little, but generally it was of little use, because the children were getting more and more mobile, and they were ...... It is necessary to survive.

At first, this sluggish mother could barely keep up, she was slowly able to accept the growth of her children, and she was able to let go little by little to adapt to the new changes in the order of the family, but ...... As the number of children grew, she finally couldn't keep up. The children changed day by day, and it used to take them years to master the art of fishing, but slowly, it only took them a few days to tame new beasts, set foot on new lands, and they even began to create a variety of languages, and even the communication between siblings changed rapidly.

Mother was at a loss as to what to do—she tried to continue adapting, but her sluggish mind was finally unable to keep up.

She could only repeat over and over again the dogmas that were already too old, and continued to restrain the children's actions, forbidding them too far from the house, forbidding them from touching dangerous new things, and in her eyes, the children were still very early to grow up—but in fact, her restraint could no longer protect the children, but only made them irritable and restless, and even gradually became a shackle to their survival—the children tried to resist, but in vain, because when they were growing up, Their mothers are also getting stronger.

"Now that the mother has built a fence in her house, she can no longer tell what the children have grown up to, she just fences everything up, keeps everything out of the house that she thinks is 'dangerous', even if it is food that the children desperately need – the fence is finished, and it is full of mother's teachings, all kinds of things that are not allowed to be touched, things that are not allowed to be tried, and the children ...... He starved to death in this little fence. ”

Gawain had a thoughtful expression, he felt that he could easily understand this simple and straightforward story, and the meaning of the mother and child in it was obvious, but the details revealed in it were worth considering.

But just as he was about to ask something, the next story began—

The second story is about a prophet.

"It was a long, long time ago, in the midst of the barbarism of the world, that a prophet appeared in the ancient kingdom. This prophet has no specific name, and no one knows where he came from, but people only know that the prophet is full of wisdom, as if he knew all the knowledge of the world, and he taught many things to the natives, so that he was loved by all.

"In those ancient times, the world was still very dangerous to man, and the power of man was very weak in the face of nature—so weak that even the most ordinary disease could easily kill people. At that time, the world did not know much about how to cure diseases or how to avoid dangers, so when the prophet came, he used his wisdom to lay down many rules for people to live safely.

"Do not eat wild beasts that live near the marshes, for most of the flesh of these beasts is poisonous; Do not drink water from a certain mountain, because it will cause gastrointestinal infections; You can't cross a river, because there are poisonous weeds growing on the opposite side of the river, and humans can't make an antidote to it......

After leaving these precepts, the Prophet rested and returned to his seclusion, while the people of the world took up the Prophet's wise teachings with gratitude and began to plan their lives according to them.

Soon the people benefited from these admonitions, and they found that their relatives and friends did not easily get sick and die, and that they did help them to avoid calamity, so they followed the rules of the admonition more carefully, and things ...... Gradually, things have changed.

"These precepts have become more and more important, even as they are regarded as more important than the law, and as time has passed, even forgetting their original purpose, and still carefully observing them, the admonitions have become dogmatics; People have become more and more reverent for the prophet who left the admonition, and even think that it is a being of supreme wisdom who has spied into the truth of the world, and even began to erect statues of the prophets—in their imaginary images of the prophets in a glorious and perfect image.

And so many years passed, and the prophet returned to the land, and he saw that the kingdom that had been poor had prospered, that there were many, many times more people on the land than there had been many years ago, that the people had become wiser, more knowledgeable, and more powerful, and that the land and the mountains of the kingdom had changed dramatically over the years.

"Everything has changed, and it has become more prosperous and beautiful than the barren world that once was.

Then the Prophet was pleased, and after observing the way of life of the people, he went out into the streets and cried out to them that the beasts that lived near the marshes were also edible, as long as they were cooked in a proper manner. The water on a certain mountain is drinkable because it is no longer poisonous; The land on the other side of the river is already safe, and it is now fertile land......"

The dragon god stopped and looked at Gawain with a smile: "Guess what's going on?" ”

Gawain took a light breath: "...... The prophet is going to be out of luck. ”

"Yes, the Prophet is going to be unlucky—angry crowds rushed from all sides, shouting slogans against heresies, because they had insulted their holy springs and mountains, and tried to lure the common people into the 'holy places' on the other side of the river, and they surrounded the Prophet and beat him to death with clubs.

"That's the second story."

Gawain's brow furrowed slightly.

At first, he thought he had seen the moral of both stories, but now, a sudden suspicion came over him—he realized that he might have thought too simply.

He looked up and looked at the other side, "Neither mothers nor prophets refer to gods, and children and commoners are not necessarily mortals...... Really? ”

"I'm glad you're thinking so deeply," Ryujin smiled, seeming very happy, "Many people will probably think this at first when they hear this story: mothers and prophets refer to gods, children and commoners refer to people, but in the whole story, the identities of these characters are far from being so simple.

"All people—and all gods—are just insignificant characters in the story, and the real protagonists of the story...... It's the formless but intangible, but hard-to-fight rule. The Mother would have built a fence, it had nothing to do with her own will, the Prophet was bound to be killed, it had nothing to do with his will, and the children and civilians who were victims and perpetrators...... They're just part of the rules from start to finish.

"You may think that it is not difficult to break the tragedy in the story, as long as the mother can change her way of thinking in time, as long as the prophet can become a little more tactful, as long as people can become a little wiser and more sensible, everything can end peacefully, and you don't have to go to such an extreme situation...... But sadly, it won't be that simple. ”

The dragon god's voice became ethereal, his gaze seemed to have fallen on some distant and ancient plane, and in his muffled and ethereal narration, Gawain suddenly remembered what he had seen in the deepest part of the eternal storm.

In that static battlefield, the two warring sides are so unsparing, merciless, as if there is bitter hatred, as if only you live and die can make everything end - but think about it carefully, did the two sides on the battlefield really get to that situation because of "hatred"?

Enya's voice sounded calmly: "...... The collective ideology is a powerful and inertial force that becomes ...... when a race has adhered to a set of rules for thousands of years, which in turn point to religion and gods Powerful. A lot of times, you can't change the ideas that have been built up for ten generations in one generation, and this kind of hedging will act directly on the current of thought, setting off a storm that you call 'God's madness' – but God is not madness.

"God is simply 'correcting' your 'dangerous behavior' according to the 'traditions' of mortals for thousands of years—even if He doesn't really want to, He must do it."

Gawain looked at the other party: "God's 'personal will' is separated from the 'laws of operation' that God must fulfill, and in the eyes of mortals, schizophrenia is madness. ”

"Indeed, from a mortal point of view...... When the gods choose to destroy all living beings, it makes no difference whether the act is 'corrected' or 'mad'. ”

Gao Wen was silent for a long time, and said in a deep voice: "From the perspective of the law of the development of civilization, in a healthy and continuously developing society, the birth of new things and new ideas is always faster and faster--it is inevitable to change the ideas accumulated by ten generations in one generation, because the productive forces must be developed, unless ......"

Gawain paused with some hesitation at this point, although he knew that what he said was the truth, but here, in the current situation, he always felt that he continued to speak as if with some kind of quibble, or with "mortal selfishness", but Enya continued for him-

"Unless you fall into the 'Cradle of Eternity.'"

His expression was flat.

"The dragons have failed, the gods have fused into one, and the chains of the mind have trapped all the members of civilization, so I had to turn Tarlund into such a cradle, let everything stand still, to make sure I don't miss out on killing them, and as you can see—they're still alive, but only alive, Tallrond is dead, it's the machines running on the land, and the lifeless steel and stone stained with some of the detritus that used to be called 'Dragons'...... Keeping these crumbs alive is already everything I can do for them.

"So, Extraterrestrial Wanderer, do you like this 'Cradle of Eternity'?"