If shock could be ranked by degree, then what the mortals were witnessing right now — this apocalyptic spectacle — was undeniably maximum.
No one could believe a true god had just self-destructed. Even Cheng Shi, who'd watched [Prosperity]'s self-annihilation firsthand, found it inconceivable that [Truth] would walk the sa road.
He even wondered whether this was a fabrication the Fun God had whipped up, because otherwise it was simply too outrageous.
For what purpose?
A god, using His own life as an experint — what kind of joke was this?
[Prosperity] had wanted universal flourishing, but before being sched into a cage, She'd never intended to die.
The gods had surrounded [Truth], yes, but they hadn't seed ready to strike. Only [Fate] had launched an attack. Was that really enough to push [Truth] into a do-or-die gamble?
Besides, wasn't His experintal thod a bit crude? Blasting a hole in the sky would reveal the universe's truth?
Of course not. As the incarnation of wisdom and inquiry, [Truth]'s experintal thodology couldn't possibly be that rough. His core philosophy certainly wasn't "brute force solves everything."
If raw power could produce miracles, the universe's truth would've long since beco casual gossip among the gods.
So "piercing the sky" was rely the opening move — [Truth] seizing the initiative.
He'd wandered the path of seeking the universe's ultimate truth for untold ages. All He'd lacked was a fresh experintal concept. And just now, inside that trial, a certain clown had delivered the perfect inspiration.
If using [Truth]'s power to reconstruct an object to a different position represented [Truth]'s restoration of [Ti], then reconstructing an entire starry sky into a different state could represent [Truth] simulating a starry sky beyond the spatiotemporal barrier.
After all, both crossed "ti."
Following that logic one level higher: if a world He couldn't reach truly existed out there, then by reconstructing the current world to be indistinguishable from the target world, the experint's host could be considered to have carried the entire universe across into another spaceti!
Even if it wasn't true traversal, the resonance between two identical worlds would give [Truth] the answer He sought.
And that was exactly what [Truth] intended to do — and was doing!
He'd been preparing for ages, having everything in place even before approaching [Deceit]. But this experint required breaking the spatiotemporal barrier, so He needed [Ti]'s power.
[Ti], however, had no ti to let Him steal His Authority. So [Truth] devised an alternative — exploiting a loophole in the Convention to find a lever for [Ti]'s power. That lever was hidden in...
Cheng Shi.
[Truth] had calculated that to win the trial, Cheng Shi would inevitably reset ti again and again, searching for opportunities. So He issued an Edict: His followers — the Erudition Presidium's Grand Scholars — were to lay formation arrays throughout the experint ground and siphon [Ti]'s power.
That was also why Cheng Shi's Ti Battlefield kept weakening — from the very first reset, [Ti]'s power had been stolen.
No one would have imagined a true god would stoop to harvesting divine power from a mortal.
Yet [Truth] had. Or rather — this was [Truth]. He would never let pride stand between Him and His goal. Otherwise, He wouldn't have played the role of [Prosperity]'s son at the Assembly of Gods Convention.
Still, the core issue was simply that [Ti] had no ti. The gods searched for Him everywhere and found nothing; their only option was to work through His followers.
And Cheng Shi was simultaneously a [Void] walker. If [Truth] believed the clown carried no sches relating to [Void] and [Existence], He'd be a fool.
So from the mont Cheng Shi was pulled into this special trial, everything was conspiracy. Every last bit was calculation.
[Truth] was still [Truth] — utterly without sentint.
He'd sched against not only Cheng Shi but His own followers. In other words, He'd never truly regarded His believers — they were rely variables with subjective initiative inside His experint.
He had told the Grand Scholars about the players' existence, yes. But He'd never intended for them to actually replace the players in this era. Because the mont the trial concluded, His experint would begin — and the entire universe would be demolished and rebuilt. What did a handful of mortals drowned in history's river matter compared to that?
And lest anyone forget — no matter how miraculous the Ritual of Truth was, it was still [Truth]'s creation. When the true god who wielded [Truth]'s Authority from His Divine Throne personally marked the universe and presided over its reconstruction, who could possibly stop this mad [Truth] experint?
Nobody — because the gods had already been deceived!
[Truth] had used a confrontation with [Void] to capture the entire universe's attention, pinning down the gods so they couldn't interfere with His experint. Then He dissolved the cosmos into raw material and rebuilt another world.
That was sufficient.
And if it wasn't? Then He'd throw in His own life!
A true god's existence could fuel this pre-planned experint all the way to its final solution.
When the universe was rebuilt and truly resonated with another world, soone would naturally sense the truths flowing through it — truths that didn't belong to this world!
That soone wouldn't be the now-fallen [Truth]. But that soone would never forget that the real "truth" was sothing [Truth] had delivered.
Put simply, [Truth] was gambling too. He was betting that behind this world existed at least one counterpart [Truth] who shared His curiosity, who also yearned to reach outward. And world reconstruction would be one thod of mutual communication.
It was like two telegraph operators in an apocalypse, each unaware the other existed, scanning frequencies. The mont they locked onto the sa channel and confird each other's existence — confird that beyond themselves, other [Truths] existed — then [Truth] would, by definition, no longer be the truth.
And that was why [Truth] had stopped valuing His own life. He knew: when [Truth] falls in pursuit, truth erges from pursuit!
So what the gods and players saw before them was not [Truth]'s actual experint ground. This space was rely a cage — a stage [Truth] had built to hold the universe's gaze. The real experint had long since begun outside this place, which ant the cosmos was, even now, being ground to dust under [Truth]'s planned experint — hurtling toward destruction.
Among the assembled gods, so had clearly arrived at the sa conclusion. [Fate], having regained His composure, also realized He'd been duped. He was about to break free of this pocket space to halt [Truth]'s experint when His twin god shook His head with a sigh:
"Too late...
If Bookworm hadn't chosen to die, we could still leave. But by choosing death, He ensured we can't destroy the experint.
If I'm not mistaken, the old relic is about to arrive.
An irresistible Final Oracle...
The Convention will probably put Bookworm's Authority on the table for everyone to pick over. Of course, He'll have left behind distribution conditions elaborate enough to buy Him all the ti He needs.
Heh — give a god who's studied rules His entire existence credit for finding a loophole in the Convention.
The last one to use a Final Oracle as a weapon was the Prosperity Mother, wasn't it? One after another... truly fascinating.
Death... is it always liberation?"
[Deceit]'s words were thought-provoking, but [Fate]'s focus lay elsewhere. He regarded His twin god with cold fury:
"You drove [Folly] away on purpose?
You saw through [Truth]'s design all along, yet you wagered the hope of disrupting the experint on [Folly]?
Since when have you been collaborating with [Folly]?
But you forget — [Folly] no longer has His Authority!"
[Deceit] smiled, gazing at the rain of [Truth]'s fading radiance falling through the Void, and replied with pregnant aning:
"He doesn't. But soone else does."
...
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