I am God - Chapter 216
A ship welcomed the God-Created Man, the legendary Divine Boat.
It had a ram shaped like a giant’s face and carried lanterns that made one drowsy.
The one steering it was the essence of the ferryman, not a puppet avatar.
The God-Created Man boarded the ship and sailed through the gates of God’s realm, journeying towards the sun of the dream world. As they approached, the sun gradually transformed into a massive golden cup.
The God-Given Land floated above the Divine Cup, with enormous bubbles the size of mountains rising and falling beneath it. Endless beams of the Light of Wishes streaked past the edges of the island.
“He’s here.”
“The complete God-Created Man.”
“The ultimate mystery of life.”
At the edge of the God-Given Land, the witch doctors were waiting for him.
The God-Created Man disembarked and walked along a path through a sea of flowers towards the pyramid.
The witch doctors could only stop at the base of the pyramid, not daring to go further.
The God-Created Man ascended the steps to the temple, coming before Yinsai.
Inside the temple, the three supreme beings of this world – God Yinsai, the Mother of Life Shelly, and God’s Messenger Hila – were all waiting for him.
The God-Created Man knelt humbly on the ground.
He had no will of his own; he was merely a tool, a device created by God Yinsai.
Yin Shen gazed at the God-Created Man. His initial purpose in creating it had been to explore the power of the Life Ability. He hadn’t anticipated all the stories that would unfold around it.
But no matter how legendary, stories always come to an end.
Yin Shen held Shelly’s hand: “Shelly!”
“This is the answer to life, the seed of wisdom you gave birth to.”
“But we’re about to move on to the next era. Let’s leave everything for the next era.”
Yin Shen extended his hand.
The God-Created Man’s form immediately melted away, an endless sea of blood spreading out. From the blood sea rose a blood-red emblem.
The emblem depicted a person with outstretched arms, and on the reverse side were twisted images of the Ruhe beasts.
It had absorbed all the mythical power of life, radiating a dazzling light.
At last, it settled gently into God’s palm.
Yin Shen took this emblem and pinned it to Shelly’s clothes like a badge.
“Gurgle.”
Shelly looked down, and it was clear she didn’t dislike this little toy.
After doing this, Yin Shen turned to God’s Messenger Hila and said: “It’s time to leave.”
This departure held a different meaning than before.
Yin Shen would completely leave this world, reaching beyond everything once again, then descend into the next era.
God’s Messenger Hila looked at Yin Shen, then at the sea of sunflowers below the pyramid, her face showing reluctance and concern.
Without her speaking, Yin Shen knew her thoughts and worries. She was reluctant to part with the spirits.
“You want to take them with you!”
God’s Messenger Hila: “I can’t bear to leave them.”
Yin Shen: “We must say goodbye eventually.”
Hila’s eyes were full of reluctance: “But even knowing this.”
“It’s still painful.”
Yin Shen: “They are not myths.”
“I am a being that transcends space and time, you are anchored by faith and my dream, and Shelly is eternal life.”
“We do not fear the erosion of time, we ignore the washing of years.”
“But they.”
“After being washed by the river of time, perhaps nothing will remain when they return, and they won’t be the group you expect.”
God’s Messenger Hila had her own solution, or rather, she had already thought it through.
“I can use the Divine Cup and my dream realm as a vessel, letting the spirits give up all their power and transform into Spirits of Wishes, merging into it.”
“In the future, they won’t go out anymore, living forever in my dream.”
“Although they can no longer become myths or gain more powerful abilities, only living in my realm.”
“But there’s no better way.”
Some might think it cruel to deprive others of the chance and future to gain more powerful abilities, but Hila didn’t see it that way.
“After all,” she said, “power was never our pursuit. What we love most is being able to play happily with friends.”
This method of the spirits, or to put it more clearly:
If Hila were a deity who achieved godhood through faith, the God-Given Land would be her divine realm, and the spirits would all become worshippers within her divine realm.
The spirits would forever depend on Hila’s power, living within her divine realm.
However, this couldn’t be achieved with mythical power alone; it required the assistance of the Divine Cup, the root artifact of dreams.
However, this approach came with its own set of challenges.
Yin Shen pointed out the problem: “This way, you’ll bear a great burden.”
“You might be influenced by them, making it troublesome for you to wake up in the next era.”
God’s Messenger Hila smiled, looking at God.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Just as you said, God.”
“What we have most abundantly is time.”
Yin Shen’s lips curled into a smile; the spirit had truly taken his words to heart.
In the Spirit Country, Hila gathered all the spirits.
She told them: “We are companions, I will never abandon you.”
One of the spirits asked her: “When we go to the next era, will there still be spirits?”
Hila said: “Of course there will be, but those will be the spirits of the next era.”
“You will become ancient spirits, their ancestors.”
The spirits laughed and giggled, their faces showing admiration.
“How amazing.”
“We’ve all become ancestors.”
“We are the most amazing.”
Another spirit asked: “What will the next era be like?”
Hila thought for a moment, she wasn’t sure either: “I’m not certain, but according to God, in the next era, the world will be green, plants will cover the earth, and there will be all kinds of life on land and in the sea.”
“It will be a thousand, ten thousand times more lively than now.”
The spirits immediately cheered; they loved liveliness the most.
Hila led the spirits, forming a long queue to the edge of the God-Given Land.
Hila stood on the shore, granting the wishes of the spirits one by one.
“I want a divine body, like Lady Hila’s.” After saying this, the spirit immediately went “poof” and turned into the form of a human child, with light radiating from its body.
“I want the cutest face.” After making this wish, the little spirit found that nothing had changed, because Hila told it that its current face was already the cutest.
“I not only want a divine body, but I also want a pair of wings.” It passed through the barrier of the God-Given Land, first turning into light, then becoming a human-like form with wings.
“I… I… I want a balloon house, always floating in the air.” All the power within this spirit flew out, condensing into a balloon house in the God-Given Land, carrying it inside.
One by one, the spirits used their wishes to merge all their power into the God-Given Land.
They lost all their power; they even lost their bodies.
Their bodies became completely formed of the Light of Wishes, but since the Light of Wishes could become all sorts of things, there was no hindrance.
They were no longer independent spirits, but the attendants of the Dream Sovereign God, guardians of the divine realm.
Or to give them a more formal name, Spirits of Wishes.
They became part of Hila’s dream.
This was one of the mythical abilities of the Dream Spirit Hila after becoming a Dream Myth. Not only could she gain the Light of Wishes by fulfilling others’ wishes, but she could also allow spirits to become her Spirits of Wishes through faith and wish fulfillment.
This strengthened her realm and increased her mythical power.
Just like the racial ability of the Life Ability, the Myth of Life could become stronger by creating races and gaining part of the mythical blood when individuals of the race died.
The Myth of Dreams was the same, having its own method.
As one spirit after another merged into the divine realm, the Spirit Country also dissolved.
But the Spirit Country didn’t disappear; it appeared in the God-Given Land. Those dreamlike domains created by the spirits were pieced together in various corners of the God-Given Land.
The God-Given Land grew larger and larger, looking more sacred and fantastical.
It was so gorgeous that one glance was enough to confirm it definitely didn’t belong to the mortal world.
The shadows of these spirits slowly appeared on the Divine Cup, recording their names.
“Hee hee hee.”
“I’m going to claim a good spot in the flower sea.”
“Look at my wings, I can fly.”
“I have a flying house too.”
The spirits, now Spirits of Wishes, frolicked in the flower sea, just like before.
Dream Spirit Hila stood before the flower sea and said to the spirits.
“It’s time.”
“Time to sleep.”
The spirits, who had been playing in groups nonstop, immediately lined up like children listening to their teacher.
They found their places in the flower sea and fell asleep among the flowers.
“Goodbye!”
“It seems it will be a long time before we meet again.”
“How long is long?”
“The time it takes to have a dream!”
The spirits bid each other farewell. Some turned directly into flowers, some became balls of light merging into the flower cups, some became toys or stones.
This sleep would last until the dawn of the next era.
All the spirits were asleep, and the entire God-Given Land, or rather the entire Dream Realm, fell silent in an instant.
It was only then that Hila returned to the pyramid temple and said to God.
“Everything is arranged.”
Yin Shen nodded, removing Shelly’s small conch horn and taking out the God’s Grace Stone that was plugging it.
After getting it back, Shelly immediately blew it.
“Woo woo.”
Yin Shen didn’t stop her, only patting her head gently.
Then, Shelly’s Mother Conch of All Things grew larger and larger, eventually occupying the entire temple.
Shelly directly crawled inside, curling up like a child to sleep.
The Mother Conch of All Things floated up and settled at Yin Shen’s waist.
Yin Shen walked to the temple entrance. God’s Moon in the sky descended, transforming into a ring that fell into Yin Shen’s hand.
Immediately after, the entire Dream Realm began to shake, while the Divine Cup beneath their feet grew larger and larger.
At the same time, Yin Shen’s figure also grew larger.
It wasn’t that Yin Shen and the Divine Cup were growing; rather, the Dream Realm and everything within it was shrinking.
God’s Messenger Hila stood before the temple, watching God Yinsai gradually become more majestic, and asked, “God, what will become of the Trilobite people and the People of the Abyss? Will they forge new paths and create their own miracles?”
Yin Shen lowered his head and said to her.
“Life doesn’t become extinct, it only evolves and reincarnates.”
“Even if we can’t see them in the next era, their bloodlines will still be passed down, reclaiming dominant positions in another form.”
“Perhaps we’ll see them in a different form in the next era.”
With a final gesture, the Dream Realm merged into the Divine Cup.
Yin Shen waved his hand, tucking the Divine Cup into his sleeve.
He released the force that had firmly anchored him to this world, and an incredibly powerful force directly pulled him towards an unknown place.
Yin Shen saw billions of stars, saw the origin and end of everything.
He disappeared from this world, carrying the Dream Realm and everything he cared about—
In the instant God Yinsai departed, the third Sage of Truth, Vivien, was in the Temple of Yinsai in the God-Descended City, observing a second-rank priest attempting to break through to the next level. This was a very promising young man who was about to become a Seal Priest at a young age, certainly destined to be a pillar of Yinsai and the Temple of Truth in the future.
However.
After all his spiritual power was activated, the final transformation didn’t come. The divine technique imprint didn’t descend upon him.
After the breakthrough failed, this second-rank priest was at a loss.
He stood up and looked at everyone.
“This isn’t right.”
“This isn’t right, something’s wrong.”
“I can’t sense the Divine Cup, I can’t draw power from the Dream of Law.”
Others in the temple also began to discuss. Such a situation had never occurred before.
Failure was possible, and one might not form a divine technique imprint due to insufficient aptitude, but there had never been a case where someone couldn’t even sense the Divine Cup.
That was a privilege given to the Trilobite people by God, a legacy of the first king Redlichia.
The Divine Cup was the root power that protected the spirits, and also an important part of God’s Messenger Hila’s compensation for the eternity of dreams. At this moment, it had been taken away from this world by Yin Shen.
With the disappearance of the Divine Cup, the divine technique imprints that appeared in this world due to God’s dream, those seeds of powerful force that controlled the laws, also disappeared from this world.
This meant that no new third-rank ability users would appear in the future.
The Trilobite people had reached their own ceiling.
“Can’t sense the Divine Cup?”
“How is this possible?”
“Did something go wrong somewhere?”
The priests in the temple discussed among themselves, while the third Sage of Truth, Vivien, suddenly stood up and walked towards the outside of the temple.
She suddenly felt a strong chill invade her body, and immediately had a bad premonition.
She looked at the sky outside and suddenly murmured.
“What the Little Person in the Bottle said…”
“It can’t be true, can it?”
At the same time, all the ritual workshops in Yinsai and the Abyss Kingdom suddenly came to a halt.
The ritual stone tablets that had been constantly lighting up like wish-granting machines suddenly lost their luster bit by bit.
The priests in the workshops were at a loss, but no matter how they tried to activate these ritual stone tablets, there was no response.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s gone.”
“Why isn’t it working anymore?”
One ritual workshop after another stopped working. The ritual system that radiated from the Nine Great Ritual Temples to all cities of Yinsai instantly collapsed.
All ability users began to discover a startling change. With the disappearance of the Dream Realm, also known as the Spirit Realm, all priests above second rank could no longer use the power of ritual arrays. The so-called second-rank Spirit Realm priests had lost their ability to tap into the power of the Spirit Realm.
As the capital of Yinsai, the God-Descended City felt the strongest impact.
All the surrounding workshops lost their qualification to use miraculous power, and this news immediately shocked the entire city.
Someone hurriedly rushed into the temple and came to Vivien’s side.
“Great Sage, something terrible has happened!”
Various reports about losing connection with God’s realm were immediately delivered to the third Sage of Truth, Vivien. When Vivien received the reports, her whole body trembled.
She held the scroll, her hand falling powerlessly, then sat down in her chair, dazed.
“It’s really true.”
“It’s really true.”
“It’s true…”
She suddenly understood.
So that prophecy, the words spread by the Ghost Cult followers, was true.
God had really left this world. He had grown weary of this world and moved on to the next era—
Chaos erupted throughout Yinsai. Having enjoyed the benefits brought by miraculous power, the Trilobite people hadn’t lacked food for many years.
They used miraculous power to create everything they wanted, they used miraculous power to build their prosperous cities, they had taken less than a hundred years to evolve from savages in the wilderness to an advanced civilization.
With a sparse population and barren, narrow land, they had created miracles that were impossible to create.
But now, people realized the harsh truth about the civilization they had built relying on miraculous power.
The illusion of prosperity supported by the spirits, like the source of the spirits’ miraculous power, was just a dream.
And now, the dream had shattered.
Chaos erupted in the God-Descended City, with countless people spreading the doomsday words spoken by the Ghost Cult followers.
On the streets, someone shouted like a walking corpse, a bankrupt workshop owner.
“God has taken back His grace, the end is here.”
“God has abandoned us, God has forsaken His favored children.”
“It’s over!”
“It’s over! Everything is over!”
The crowd grew larger and larger, but soon priests and guards came out to disperse those spreading doomsday rhetoric.
Many people didn’t believe these rumors because they were too terrifying.
But many secretly believed, otherwise why would all the ritual workshops be closed?
The nobles and officials in high positions had even received the news in advance and started preparing.
Vivien and Anli stood together on the streets, having just witnessed the chaos.
Although it had been temporarily quelled, they both understood that this was only temporary.
Anli chattered incessantly beside Vivien about her plans: “We’ve reclaimed the Sacred Lake, we can hold on for a short while.”
“We must expand the coastal fishing grounds, but this might lead to conflicts with the Abyss Kingdom.”
“The fishing grounds in the underground river area need to be expanded further, while we still have so many third-rank Seal Priests.”
“The power of Seal Spirits can also achieve part of the power of ritual arrays, we can use Seal Spirits to restart workshops, we’re still capturing monsters everywhere, we can use their power to…”
“Food… food is the most crucial.”
Vivien listened quietly, her mood extremely grave.
She stood at a high point, looking out at the vast land beyond the city.
“Yes!”
“We can still support ourselves now, but what about later?”
“What should we do in the future?”
Vivien looked absent-mindedly at the barren ground: “Look! This world has nothing.”
“We used to think we had a lot, that we had everything in this world, that we were omnipotent.”
“But in the end, we realized…”
Vivien looked at Anli: “Besides the power given by God, we have nothing.”
She couldn’t imagine what would happen after their generation passed away.
When all the Seal Priests were gone, when even third-rank monsters no longer appeared, how would the Trilobite people survive on this desperate, desolate land?
Even if they could survive, they probably couldn’t maintain their once prosperous civilization.
God hadn’t appeared for who knows how many years, so long that people had begun to forget the existence of God Yinsai.
To them, God Yinsai had become just a myth, a statue in the temple.
Just like the clouds in the sky, the wind in the air, the air around them.
It was only at this moment that they truly understood that without clouds, wind, and air, they could no longer survive.
God was the only thing they could rely on in this world that now seemed to have nothing.
Anli could no longer hold back at this point, she seemed somewhat angry.
“God abandoned us,” she said bitterly. “Just left us like this, without any sign or instruction.”
Vivien remembered what the Little Person in the Bottle had said. “Perhaps I should have believed what it said earlier,” she mused, “but we never took it seriously.”
“That might have been God’s way of giving us a sign, He had already let us prepare in advance.”
“But we never realized it.”
As she spoke, she suddenly denied what she had just said.
“No!”
“Actually, I had started to believe what they said, but I was too arrogant.”
“I thought that even without God, we could still be the masters of the earth, I thought we were already strong enough.”
After saying this, Vivien fell silent for a long time.
Her expression changed from helplessness and panic to determination.
She earnestly said to Anli: “From now on, the world has no light.”
“We are the last light of civilization.”
“We must find a way to save Yinsai.”
Anli asked her: “Sister, will we perish because of this?”
Vivien: “We won’t perish because of this, we will certainly find a way.”