Chapter 1412: Return of the Old Days (XI)
"Carcosa... Hali Lake in the Aldebaran system... The dark sun is already high in the sky..."
A deep female voice echoed in the dark space. She looked up at the stars and felt a vague response.
She thought, maybe this ancient one is really different. The call came from nowhere, maybe it was in her heart, just like before.
The ancient one in the robe settled his thoughts and pursued the dark sound of the universe until it came to his heart. Before the fog dissipated, he took a step into the deepest part of the spiritual world and came to the top of the huge city.
Is this Carcosa?
Standing on the edge of the sky island, the ancient one looked down. The shadow of the huge city below was both magnificent and terrifying like the abyss. The countless spires in the city were just like the debris that the ancient one had seen on a planet in the Aldebaran system.
Some strange patterns were revealed in the surging mist, with a Gothic beauty, but not exactly the same. Gu Yi did not feel darkness, sadness and contradiction from it, nor did he feel the Gothic core of mysticism, but only a kind of peace and tranquility.
When the mist gradually thickened, Gu Yi looked back with a feeling and saw the black sun guarded by countless mists. He was quietly hanging in the sky without saying a word, and those mysterious patterns and surging particles had told Gu Yi all the answers.
Gu Yi clasped his hands together and bowed, and said: "I know you won't respond, but as the Supreme Mage, I still want to thank you for your warning to the earth. Thank you, the Ancient One, humans have taken action, and the old days will not come again."
The black sun will never respond, Gu Yi knows this, maybe he is not a life at all, more like a machine in human understanding, only following certain logical actions, but Gu Yi firmly believes that he has abundant emotions, can understand order, and has love.
在古一漫长的生命当中，她见过许多这样的神明，并不是所有的魔神都混乱又疯狂，有许多规则般的存在，真正的爱着他们的造物，如父亲与母亲一般呵护他们，为他们的进步而感到欣喜。
从古一多年以来的经验来看，越能理解秩序、会创造秩序，便越古老又强大，因为要守护他们创造的秩序是要付出代价的，如果不是他们能揍翻所有入侵者，让自保完全不成问题，他们也没有余力去爱自己的造物。
“我们应该来谈谈你。”古一依旧维持双手合十的姿态，只不过擡起了头，说道：“你对我发出呼唤应该不是巧合，你希望与我做交易吗？”
黑色的太阳没有回应，依旧静静高悬在天空中，像那无穷无尽的灰当中凝聚出的唯一的黑暗，当他足够黑暗，便显出其他浅色的地方更为光明，听起来很矛盾，但观察时又格外美丽。
"What do you want?" Gu Yi asked again, and she patiently listed what she could provide: "Energy, soul, door to the real world, pain and blood, willpower, good character..."
Gu Yi is already familiar with this process. When she puts her chips on the table, she can judge what kind of existence they are based on the other party's choice.
Neutral gods prefer things related to the soul, not soul energy, but the meaning of soul existence and the true nature of cosmic life. They hope that their contractors will offer their souls after completing the contract, but they will not absorb souls, but just hope that they will accompany them, which can allow them to listen to the pulse of the universe.
Kind gods like the peace and tranquility born from some long trials, so they often provide tests for contractors, perhaps to find some fragments, or perhaps to explore some knowledge. They like the calm power generated by the contractors in their concentration, which is their tranquilizer.
Gods who tend to be chaotic and evil often demand blood, pain, and screams. They will drive their believers to destruction, or simply ask powerful lives to open the door for them to invade the real world so that they can kill as much as they want.
As long as the gods put forward conditions, Gu Yi can see through them and then decide her own way of dealing with them. Of course, she will not not destroy them just because the gods are kind enough. Everything depends on her own needs.
The black sun still did not respond, and seemed to completely reject Gu Yi's request for a deal, but Gu Yi did not lose patience. She just stood here quietly, like a statue, as if she could spend thousands of years like this.
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, and the fog became thicker. Gu Yi raised his head, squinted his eyes slightly, and stared at the huge black sun intently. There was no light, no sound, but the flow of solar particles changed slightly.
The black sun presented a different pattern to Gu Yi, and other knowledge poured into Gu Yi's mind. After gradually understanding these obscure knowledge, Gu Yi showed a slightly puzzled expression.
Emotion?
Ancient One lowered his head and took a deep breath, then raised his head and looked at the black sun with a calm and powerful gaze, and said: "You want emotions? What kind of emotions? Joyful, painful, peaceful, confused... Do you want them all? You are too greedy."
Ancient One seemed to have never heard of such a request, but she still exhaled, looked at the black sun and said: "The passionate emotions of my youth have long left me. After I achieved mental perfection, I rarely have emotional fluctuations."
"But you came at the right time, or I came at the right time. Not long ago, I did feel regret for some of my habitual behaviors. Can this satisfy your request?"
The black sun did not respond, and the solar particles continued to surge silently according to the previous rules, but Ancient One knew that this was a gesture of accepting everything, and she had another question that must be explored.
"So, what can you give me?"
The answer appeared in Ancient One's mind, still without sound or picture, just a concept, like an idea that Ancient One had a flash of inspiration, but she knew that was a response.
Knowledge and truth.
"What kind of knowledge? What kind of truth?"
Then Gu Yi got the answer again, frowning and reading the answer softly: "...all?"
Gu Yi showed a tangled look. The other party did not seem to be the kind of arrogant demon god with a burnt brain, but Gu Yi really did not know how he was going to give all the knowledge and truth.
Gu Yi decided to take a risk, just because this black sun was unlike any life she had ever seen. It just hung quietly in the sky, magnificent and terrifying, like another level of nature.
"I will tell you my story first, and then you will tell yours. I will open my heart completely and tell you my happiness, pain and confusion. I don't want much. You should answer my questions, tell me what you are, and what is in the depths of the stars..."
After Gu Yi finished speaking, without any dragging, her eyebrows slightly frowned, fell into memories, and began to tell her story with Jennifer.
"After I arrived at that universe, I began to patrol until I saw a little girl in the backyard of a house who was completely different from other monsters..."
"... Then, Jennifer began to tremble constantly, and I realized what a big mistake I had made. My empiricism was about to kill her..."
"This was an accident, but I prefer to think that it was a human error, a mistake I made. I took the little girl away as a savior, but I failed to truly fulfill the savior's duties..."
"Every Supreme Sorcerer must firmly believe that he is invulnerable. Once their doubts are shaken, they may destroy the earth. Drag into the disaster together..."
"Yes, you are right. This extremely arrogant idea is constantly taming our spirit and personality, but I don't feel pain. A sense of responsibility is the greatest meaning of existence that humans can find..."
"No, I don't think it has anything to do with whether it can be made up. I have made many irreparable mistakes, but none of them frustrate me as much as this time..."
Gu Yi stared at the changing patterns of the black sun and felt the thoughts that kept flowing out of her heart. What surprised her was that this ancient god was telling her his understanding of her in this way. He was analyzing her emotions and explaining their sources.
He was providing another kind of knowledge, a kind of knowledge that Gu Yi rarely paid attention to, which acted on the abstract aspects of intelligent creatures.
Gu Yi began to speak out the knowledge provided by the black sun so that he could better understand them in an orderly way.
"I have always been balancing my own humanity and divinity. When I was the Supreme Mage, divinity prevailed. My responsibility to all mankind forced me to become a god and make one choice after another that was beneficial to the majority of people."
"Perhaps the change came when I had a qualified successor. The responsibility on my shoulders was no longer so heavy, so my humanity gradually returned. I began to no longer be trapped in gains and losses, and no longer had to worry about which side to save. So I began to become greedy, hoping that even the smallest rescue would not go wrong."
"In the past, my tolerance for sacrifice was always high. In addition to being willing to sacrifice myself, I was not afraid to sacrifice some people in my tribe. I would not feel guilty or frustrated about this, but because divinity suppressed everything, I did my best to save what I could save, so I could have a clear conscience."
"But when humanity prevails, I will hope that there will be no more sacrifices. , not sacrificing Jennifer, nor sacrificing all mankind, and if I fail to do so, I will feel the sadness that I rarely felt when sacrificing my own kind... The pursuit of perfection comes from the compassion in human nature, and also from the greed in human nature. "
After the voice of the Ancient One fell, she was silent for a long time, and then clasped her hands together again, her robes floating slightly, and she said: "I have always regarded human emotions as mysterious things, and sometimes I even feel that demons are easier to understand than humans."
"But I would say, yes, Your Majesty, this is indeed a wonderful knowledge, another way to observe the world. If this is your reward to me, I can accept it without any additional knowledge. I think it is enough. "
But soon, the Ancient One felt that other knowledge turned into pages of books and floated into her heart. The Ancient One observed carefully and found that it recorded the secrets of the stars.
"Azathoth, Nameless Mist, Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu..."
Ancient One read out the names on each page of the book, and was shocked by the hugeness and terror of this mysterious pantheon hidden deep in the stars.
She looked down at the gradually taking shape of the notebook cover, which had a black sun and Arabic words written in cursive - "Book of the Dead".
And she finally saw a very clear message, or a warning - "Do not circulate" on the huge black sun.