Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Conversation with “God”

Page (1/3)

?!

Mo Tan once thought he was hallucinating. Otherwise, how could the perfectly respectable Dawn Goddess suddenly have such a catastrophic change in style...?

Though something like this had been happening to him for more than twenty years, atypical dissociative personalities surely had not become this widespread yet, had they?!

Or had he not actually logged into the game at all? Had he accidentally added some sort of high-proof alcohol to his coffee earlier and was now lying unconscious on the floor?

No, this was bad. His thoughts were already beginning to run wild...

“Hey, give me some kind of reaction!”

Shouldn't a figure like the Dawn Goddess be some contradictory composite of cold, rigid, and aloof, yet compassionate toward Heaven and Earth and possessed of boundless love?

“Are you going to answer me or not? Responding to a single prayer is exhausting!”

This goddess was contradictory enough, certainly, but why did something still feel so strange? Did goddesses really go around saying things like “beat the crap out of them” and “blow them to hell”? Was she really that fashionable?

“What are you sitting there daydreaming about? I can't hear you if you don't respond properly!”

There were unconventional paths, of course. Gods of Light, Dawn Goddesses, and the like were sometimes portrayed as thoroughly corrupt deities whose churches appeared benevolent and compassionate on the surface but were full of every imaginable vice underneath. That sort of setting was fairly popular too, but this one did not seem to be like that either...

“I get the feeling you're thinking some very disrespectful thoughts.”

Oh! Come to think of it, the big sister from the class next door—the one who had led a gang of unruly kids to dominate the entire middle school—seemed rather similar to this goddess. Of course, the latter was sturdier. She had been well on her way to weighing two hundred pounds despite still being years away from adulthood...

“You! Are! You! Listening! To! Me!?”

At last, the phantom of the “Dawn Goddess” before him could not take it anymore. She radiated a gentle, pale golden light, then shot across the boundless world of light in a single bound. Swinging her arm in a wide arc, she slapped him squarely across the face!

Mo Tan felt a warm gust of wind rush toward him. He instinctively tried to lean aside, but a heavy and solemn force suddenly descended upon him. The next moment, the slap struck him solidly, sending him spinning through the air several yards away with a howl.

The slap hurt quite a bit, but it did not reduce his health. Instead, it knocked away the intermittent runaway train of thought characteristic of Mo Tan when he was in his [Absolutely Neutral] state.

“Um... Goddess...” Mo Tan awkwardly climbed to his feet. He bowed to the phantom before him, who stood with her hands on her hips and appeared to be furious. “I apologize for offending you.”

Seeing that he had finally reacted, the Dawn Goddess, Pakaxi Vena, stopped stretching her joints and asked in her still somewhat ethereal voice, “Does it feel like I'm not much of a goddess?”

“I wouldn't dare.” Having finally confirmed that he was not trapped in a waking dream, Mo Tan plastered a sycophantic smile across his face and hurriedly denied it.

This was a true goddess personally responding to him during prayer. Even if she was merely a “god” defined by the game, the consequences would still be dire if he made her unhappy and she decided to kill him outright!

Besides, this Goddess really did seem to have a rather bad temper...

To be honest, if Mo Tan had harbored even the slightest malice or disrespect during his earlier flights of fancy, then regardless of whether the Dawn Goddess herself minded, the laws of the world would have labeled him a blasphemer and subjected him to a punishment less worthwhile than deleting his character and starting over.

“Wouldn't dare?” The phantom seemed to give a soft laugh and spread her hands. “Though you are my believer in this world and I am your god, you are a being from a higher dimension than mine. Even if you truly disrespected me, what could I do about it? Even if the body praying in some church were destroyed, what effect could that possibly have on you?”

!!!

To Mo Tan, those words were no less than a bolt from a clear sky. He suspected that any player who heard them would be profoundly shaken.

It was like crossing over into an animated series, only to have one of the resident wisecracking characters approach you and complain with the ferocity of a demon:

“Are the viewers all idiots or something?! Why does a character as rich, profound, and full of substance as me only ever rank eighth in the polls?! My glasses aren't my true form, all right?! Go back and watch the whole thing another hundred times, you bastards!!”

It felt something like that...

If this was not merely a system setting, but something this “NPC” genuinely understood, then the game World Without Sin was far beyond anything normal.

It had crossed a forbidden boundary that no matter how humanlike an artificial intelligence became, it should never be able to approach...

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

Although Mo Tan was utterly unsettled, his powerful mental fortitude—he was mentally ill, after all—allowed him to calm down rapidly. He cautiously asked, “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” The Dawn Goddess's phantom shook her head. “You don't need to be nervous. I simply thought it would help our future communication if we made everything clear first. But at the very least, I hope you will continue to maintain your faith in me within this world... Heh, or perhaps I should say your trust. Otherwise, even I cannot interfere with the system's judgment of ‘blasphemy.’”

Mo Tan nodded lightly and relaxed a little. He hated trouble at the moment, but if something truly troublesome came looking for him, he was still quite capable of handling it. He was used to it, after all.

“First, I want to tell you this~” The goddess gracefully sat down in a luxurious chair that had appeared from nowhere and spoke in a relaxed tone. “I really am a god, one among many. If you insist on defining me strictly, you may consider me ‘neutral’ and ‘good.’ But in truth, gods are not as lofty as mortals imagine. We possess emotions, and we have true names as well. The Dawn Goddess is Pakaxi Vena. She is not ‘the Dawn Goddess is the Dawn Goddess.’ Understand?”

Mo Tan rubbed the cheek that had just been slapped and said with considerable agreement, “It may have been somewhat difficult to grasp before, but I understand it deeply now.”

“Don't hold a grudge~” The corners of the goddess's mouth, hidden behind the radiance, curved slightly upward. “As long as I do not intend to harm you, even if I kicked you rolling all over the ground, there would be no consequences—no injuries or anything like that.”

Of course, Mo Tan had not taken the slap to heart either. He did not suffer from any psychological illness such as toxic masculinity. Compared with such an insignificant matter, he was much more concerned with other questions...

“You seem to have something troubling you,” the goddess said, as if she could see straight through his heart. “If you've got a problem, spit it out... Ahem. Please, feel free to ask!”

Mo Tan pressed a hand to his forehead. Whatever else might be said, that earlier tension had now completely vanished.

So he asked the question that had made him most curious from the very beginning:

“Actually, I just want to know why you sought me out. Even if we exclude the believers who already belonged to this world, there must be plenty of people among your followers who are like me. I wonder whether you say those things to all of them indiscriminately, or whether you have only had this sort of exchange with me. If it is the latter... I would really like to know why.”

Perhaps another person with a similar personality would not have asked such a question. But Mo Tan possessed more than just that personality at present; he also had enough calmness to examine the matter carefully.

After all, when Heaven bestows a great responsibility upon a person, what follows is never anything good...

At that moment, he sincerely hoped he was not an exception!

“An excellent question.” The Goddess nodded in satisfaction. After a long silence, she answered, “I cannot speak for the other gods, but so far, you are the only person with whom I have had this sort of exchange. As for the reason...”

Mo Tan could feel her gaze locking directly onto him, as though she wished to see straight through him.

“I can sense that you genuinely believe in me. It is not the fervent devotion of a fanatic, but you still place yourself properly in the position of a believer, looking up at me from the perspective of a mortal,” the goddess said calmly. “Yet at the same time, I sense within you a contempt that is almost nonexistent. For some reason, I always feel that you could never bring yourself to bow before any god. It is a quality that makes me want to regard you with hostility, though it is faint enough to be almost imperceptible. Even so, I can dimly perceive that it exists...”

Mo Tan's heart jolted. Almost immediately, he thought of the Faithless talent he possessed while playing Tan Mo. But that made no sense. Perhaps it was not particularly obvious in reality, but within World Without Sin, he was currently logged in as the character Black Fan. Even though he was still the same person, there should absolutely have been no trace of an aura belonging to another personality!

Unless...

Setting aside the question of dimensions, this “god” truly possessed power approaching that of a deity.

“I was curious, so I wanted to have a little chat with you.” The goddess paid no attention to the change in Mo Tan's expression and continued, “After all, being a god is dull, boring, burdened with responsibility, and requires one to maintain a dignified pose at all times.”

“After becoming a god, then...” Mo Tan repeated quietly. But before he could say, “That means you weren't always a god,” she interrupted him.

“There are things I can say, but you cannot. So I will speak, and you will listen.” The Dawn Goddess shrugged with a hint of helplessness. “To continue what I was saying, I have already told you that the Dawn Goddess is Pakaxi Vena, not ‘the Dawn Goddess is simply the Dawn Goddess.’ Naturally, that means I was once... an ordinary mortal.”

Since she had clearly stopped him for his own good, Mo Tan obediently listened and did not dare interrupt again.

“Mortals are mortals because they do not possess enough power to make others believe in and worship them. But if they did...” The goddess sighed deeply. “Then they could become gods.”

This did not surprise Mo Tan. Modern people were already sufficiently enlightened that he himself had made similar observations more than once while watching stories about superheroes and the like.

So, following the obvious script, the mildly violent woman before him had presumably become a god after growing powerful enough to earn widespread reverence.

Mo Tan immediately thought this, just as most people would have.

But he was wrong...

“Whether it was Pakaxi Vena, or Izan尔 Kashu, Delia Xilu, Serrila McHoof, or Tisu Lightwing, every one of us was originally only a ‘mortal,’” the goddess said, her voice carrying a faint and strangely distorted sorrow. “You could even say we were outcasts among our own people—a group of young rebels who defied all conventions.”

Outcasts?! Rebels?!

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

Mo Tan widened his eyes in disbelief.

“That is correct. At least, we were outcasts within our own race.” The Dawn Goddess gave a self-mocking laugh. “Then, long, long ago, our people were banished by a powerful force. For reasons unknown, a small number of people like me were spared. Later, we became gods.”

Mo Tan desperately wanted to know just how powerful the Dawn Goddess's former race had been. After all, even the few remaining “rebellious young people” had gone on to become gods.

“Is that strange?” Pakaxi shook her head slightly. “No, it is not. Imagine a race whose average abilities in every respect are several times greater than those of dragons. It would naturally become a transcendent power. But if only a handful of members of that race remained, what would they become?”

The answer was obvious...

When a race whose strength was separated from mortals by a chasm was reduced to a tiny number of survivors—and when mortals could exhaust every ounce of effort without ever surpassing them, without even glimpsing their backs...

They would become gods.

“I wonder what sort of power that must have been...” Mo Tan rubbed his temple. “It is difficult to imagine.”

The goddess's phantom rose from her chair and walked over to Mo Tan. In a low voice, she asked, “You truly do not know? If anyone has come into contact with it, you beings from a higher dimension should be the ones most qualified to deal with it. That existence which cannot be resisted and can do anything.”

Mo Tan's body shuddered. He did not answer, but a response had already surfaced in his mind.

The system.

The existence that assigned every player a faction, bestowed talents, issued quests, and distributed equipment and experience unquestionably deserved the descriptions “irresistible” and “all-powerful”!

Could the story really be heading down that path now? Players, guided and aided by the surviving gods, would wage a final battle against the system? A terrorist attack? Blowing up the servers?

That ought to be a hit...

But just as Mo Tan was about to imagine an entire chain of stirring and heroic events, the other party once again interrupted his runaway thoughts.

“That power is the right one,” the goddess said with a sigh. “The destruction foretold in prophecy cannot be stopped. My people, who once stood at the highest place and looked down upon and observed all things, could not stop it. We so-called gods, divided by our own conflicts and contradictions, could not stop it either. But perhaps it can... guide you... guide us...”

Mo Tan was left thoroughly bewildered. He could not make sense of it at all.

“All right, I am very busy.” Pakaxi smiled. “I merely wanted to exchange a few words with someone from your dimension. We are almost out of time...”

“Wait!” Mo Tan waved his hand. He disliked trouble, but plotlines that ended right in the middle of a sentence were infuriating!

The Dawn Goddess acted as though she had not heard him and began swinging her arm.

“Of course, if you happen to run into followers of Delia, followers of Saville, followers of Izan尔, or any cultists, you should beat the crap out of them! I will reward you!”

“Wait—!!”

“Bye-bye~”

Bang!!

When Mo Tan came to his senses, he found himself sitting hard on the floor before the goddess's statue, with tangible-looking holy light swirling around him.

...

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The End

Page (3/3)