What was the Pact?
It was the supre accord Deceit had tricked the gods into signing at the dawn of the era. To protect their collective Authority and balance their collective interests, They had jointly entrusted their power to the Pact, ensuring that divine authority could never be lost.
Only now did the gods realize, in hindsight, that this was simply the trap Deceit had laid for Them at the era's beginning.
The Pact did protect divine power. When all gods were present, it truly served as a balancing chanism.
But as deities fell or departed for various reasons and the vacated Divine Thrones were collected one by one, the Pact's fatal flaw erged: once soone obtained an absolute majority of votes, every other god was left without recourse!
Of course, to the party holding the voting advantage, this wasn't a flaw at all — it was a lethal attraction.
And now, Cheng Shi was that party. An absolute majority. The Assembly of Gods Convention had all but beco his one-man forum.
Even so, the best play Cheng Shi could have envisioned was stripping Deceit's voting rights, forcing all of His future sches out into the open, subject to Cheng Shi's "approval" on whether they were executed.
But what had Justice just said? Replace Him as the Pact's new Proxy?!
Cheng Shi's mind went blank.
'Wait, wait, wait!'
'My brain can't keep up — let
sort this out.'
'You're saying that once I have enough votes, I can leave the negotiating table entirely and... beco the referee?!'
'I approve my own proposals?'
"...?"
'You can actually do that?'
Even soone as free-associating as Cheng Shi was genuinely stunned. This was a path he had never once imagined.
The Pact stood above all gods. He had never considered that the Proxy could be replaced. He had always assud Justice, as the frawork of the Pact, would exist in eternal and neutral perpetuity alongside it.
Yet here Justice was, telling him the Proxy was replaceable!
And that the replacent was... him?
Cheng Shi's expression beca spectacularly colorful. His first thought wasn't that he'd stumbled into a windfall — it was that a windfall arriving out of the blue was absolutely suspicious.
The Greed Lord was greedy, yes, but equally steady.
'Is this old geezer, seeing Fixed Destiny's montum as irresistible, trying to contaminate
through this?'
'Does becoming the Pact's Proxy count as contamination?'
'Is the Pact even a faith?'
While Cheng Shi frowned and deliberated, the tilting Flowing Light Scales humd once more:
"I know you harbor many doubts. But rest assured — I am not using this to manufacture new fear.
Nor am I, as the world assus, single-mindedly bent on approaching Origin.
I, too, am afraid. And therefore I understand Deceit's actions with perfect clarity."
"?????"
'What?!'
'Did I hear that right? Justice said He was afraid?!'
'The Order who, in pursuit of the Will Origin had bestowed, dared to step into the Sea of Desire with the intent to sweep the Universe clean — He's in the Fear Faction?!'
'You — the thick-eyebrowed, sharp-eyed one who looked so upright — you defected too?'
'Are you kidding ?'
'Two nations at war for years, unification in sight, and you tell
the enemy emperor was our mole all along?'
'This isn't how you write a spy thriller!'
'You're not Deceit, are you?'
'Fate being Deceit was one thing. But Justice is Deceit too?'
'Or is Order itself Deceit?'
Cheng Shi blinked wildly. In his utter ntal chaos, he was seriously considering the question of whether he himself might also be Deceit.
'Surely Deceit can't be the Creator — Origin — who fashioned the Universe?'
'Is the entire Universe a fabricated illusion?'
Clearly, Cheng Shi's thoughts had spiraled well beyond the rails.
Justice could guess at his shock. Within that shock, He also confird one thing: the man before Him did not know certain truths about Deceit — even though Deceit had been the one to push him to this point.
Still, He didn't elaborate further. He only explained His own words:
"Fixed Destiny will not be contaminated. And Fixed Destiny is destined to inherit everything of the Pact.
This is most likely the plan Deceit conceived at the very mont He drafted the Pact — and the truth I grasped when I was installed into the Pact's frawork halfway through the era!
Do you know how Deceit originally hoodwinked the entire Universe into signing this covenant that all gods acknowledged?"
There were too many bombshells. Cheng Shi's brain had crashed. His mouth opened and closed, his face stiff. He shook his head by instinct:
"I don't..."
"Beneath the Universe, among the gods, those who wished to approach Origin existed, and those who wished to distance themselves from Origin were no fewer. But no one had ever brought these intentions out into the open.
Until Void descended. And Deceit used that mont to issue an invitation to all gods.
He seed to have known from the start where the era was heading. To the Approach Faction, He said:
'If you wish to draw near Origin, you must comprehend His deepest intent. Origin distributed Authority among us, so we must gather Authority back together. This act — the one most "resembling Origin" — shall be our offering to Him, in exchange for His gracious gaze.'
And then, to the Fear Faction, He said:
'Fate has descended bearing Origin's Will, intending to drain all faith and forge it into a sacrifice for the Creator. To protect ourselves, the gods must unify, binding our Authority together so that faith will never run dry and we will never lose the strength to resist.'
After that, I do not know by what ans He persuaded Fate...
And so the Pact was sealed. Divine power would never again be scattered."
"..."
Hearing this, Cheng Shi slowly ca back from his initial shock. His expression shifted through several shades, his gaze imasurably complex.
Justice didn't know how Deceit had persuaded Fate. But Cheng Shi did.
Because He hadn't needed to persuade anyone. Fate was Deceit!
Still, credit where credit was due — Deceit had played the information asymtry masterfully. He truly was the aggregate of every illusion in the Universe. Exploiting the gods' terror of speaking Origin's na aloud, He had buried every undercurrent beneath the table. He hadn't even lied. He had simply reworded things slightly, brokering the Pact across two opposing factions.
The Approach Faction received a vague version of Fate's offering thod. The Fear Faction received the truthful version of Fate's offering intent.
Even after Fate's fall, He could still wield Fate's na like this, having His cake and eating it too...
Deceit truly was this era's greatest chess master!
No — Screenwriter!
He had penned a fantastically unrestrained One Man Show for this era.
But what did any of this have to do with inheriting the Proxy of the Pact?
Cheng Shi frowned slightly, about to ask — but in the next instant his eyes flew wide, pupils contracting. A flash of insight tore through his mind, and everything clicked into place.
If the world's future truly was as Wei Mu had described — Deceit was going all out to forge a new "Origin" capable of replacing Origin's gaze — then what traits must this new "Origin" possess?
At the very least, it had to mirror Origin: bestowing Divine Thrones upon gods, distributing Authority among Them, granting Them legitimacy...
'Sound familiar? Does sothing co to mind?'
Exactly — wasn't that precisely the function of the Pact within this starry sky?!
And just monts ago, the Pact had legitimized several new Divine Thrones!
"!!!"
'So this is how Origin is to be replaced?'
'A divine Contract spanning an entire era — elevating Fixed Destiny onto the Creator's "Divine Throne"?'
When he thought about it carefully, the pretext Deceit had used to dupe the gods into signing was never rely a pretext — it was a fact on the verge of coming true at the era's end.
'Gather all Authorities of the gods — offer them to "Origin." Guard all Authorities of the gods — distance from Origin.'
In this mont, approach and distance harmonized into one.
What Ti had said — at last, Cheng Shi understood.
The answers had been written inside the Pact all along.
...
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