"Exactly. Perhaps we've both misunderstood Them all along. When all the slices across the cosmos are assembled together — only then do they constitute the true Them. And that would explain why Order fell in your world while Decay fell in mine!
And there's also... the Convention you ntioned.
So you know about it too. I've been wondering why the gods would sign a Convention to restrict themselves...
Hm? That look in your eyes — you didn't know about this?
No, you're curious how I learned about it?
Heh — funny story. It was the one and only thing my Benefactor ever told . War said the Convention was the greatest restriction placed upon Him."
Cheng Shi was stunned: "War?"
"Indeed — War. So I figure: if the Convention only restricted Him, He would never have signed it. But if the Convention restricts all gods, then there'd be no reason for Them to voluntarily forge shackles for Themselves.
But if... hypothetically... the Convention's restrictions are rely a side effect, and its true purpose is to fuse the gods' powers together — to create sliced deities across the cosmos's countless tilines...
Tell
— is that possible?!"
"!!!!!"
Absolutely possible. Entirely possible!
Cheng Shi even felt that the Convention's true nature — which had baffled everyone — had just been guessed outright by Qin Xin, today, right here and now!
Why was he so sure? Because of... Truth!
Truth was undoubtedly the god who understood slicing best among all deities. And one of the Convention's purposes was to approach that omnipotent Origin. Faith Fusion was one thod pushed by Truth under precisely this frawork.
But who could guarantee a fusion would be correct from start to finish?
If it went wrong, wouldn't They face the end of the Void Era head-on?
True — real gods didn't fear the tides of eras. According to Aph Ros, They could simply start over in the next era. But who wanted to relive failure after failure — loop after loop?
As always: whether human or divine, everyone had desires. Most of the gods' desires revolved around approaching It. Since soone had championed this "cause," they couldn't possibly give up right away as Cheng Shi had — otherwise the Convention wouldn't exist, and the Tower of Logic wouldn't be so fanatically devoted.
At the very least, Truth would never give up. Truth was eternally pursuing the most fundantal truth of the cosmos — approaching that omniscient, omnipotent Origin!
So Truth's stake in the Convention was very likely exactly what Qin Xin described: divine slices distributed across different worlds!
It all fit. Everything seed to fit!
Not just the present — looking back at Cheng Dashi's actions, had that alternate self truly been trying to create a chance for "change"?
He'd returned from another tiline and plucked the strings of fate here. Perhaps so of it was a soft heart — an inability to watch a world march inevitably toward Void. But surely he'd had other motives too!
This greedy version of "himself" — wasn't he also testing a hypothesis? Wanting to see whether a tiline he'd influenced would diverge from his original world's trajectory!
So the "future" truly had been changed — because every "future" was inherently independent!
Yet the future also hadn't changed — because They were probably gazing down from the cosmos's highest vantage point. When They noticed a single tiline shifting, perhaps in Their eyes it was nothing more than one infinitesimal fluctuation among tens of thousands, billions, trillions, quadrillions of samples in Their "divine slicing experint" — not worth a second glance from the real Them...
The mont he realized this, Cheng Shi suddenly felt the despair Cheng Dashi must have carried.
When he'd discovered the world's truth, perhaps the despair had been real.
What did this make them? Just "cells" under a microscope?
No, no, no — perhaps this world didn't even qualify for the microscope stage, because the sample size was... simply too vast.
"Heh. No wonder I'm a clown. Turns out I really am a clown."
Cheng Shi laughed. His laughter was wild and unrestrained — seemingly mocking himself, seemingly mocking the gods. He laughed at a world that didn't truly Exist. He laughed at a cosmos that was indeed Void.
But mid-laugh, the laughter died.
He looked up at Qin Xin, clapped him firmly on the shoulder, and said with dead seriousness: "Let's get out of here."
Qin Xin studied Cheng Shi's eyes with curiosity: "You're... not afraid anymore?"
"Afraid?
I'm afraid. Of course I'm afraid.
From the very first day this shitty Faith Ga descended, I've been scared to death!
I'm afraid that if I die, no one will rember him. I'm afraid the gods will use dirty tricks to bother him. I'm afraid that when we et again in that certain soone's hall, he'll feel sorrow at my arrival. And I'm even more afraid he'll feel joy — because he'd never want
to et him in a place like that. His joy could only be a mask...
There's so much I'm afraid of. But...
Does being afraid help?
No!
The thing he taught
most was to never let fear hold
back. He always said: if even a junk collector can live a decent life, what does a bookish kid have to be afraid of?
As long as your conscience is clear, just move forward.
I can't live up to his words. But I know — as long as I live the way he told
to, that's enough. Who cares about gods, or slices, or Origin, or all those densely woven tilines? What do any of those things have to do with
— not even worth a single aluminum can?
I'm alive in this world not for any grand reason — just because he once lived here too."
And of course — if he could win the top score for him, then he'd have no regrets at all.
Cheng Shi added this last bit silently in his heart.
Honestly, Cheng Shi had never laid himself this bare in front of anyone. This ti was purely a matter of timing: in the crevice of Existence where nothing Existed; at the disorienting mont of seemingly glimpsing the cosmos's truth; in a place beyond his own world's boundaries; before a Torchbearer who would soon choose to forget him — he'd let himself speak freely for once, venting every ounce of fear, confusion, shock, and frustration he'd bottled up before the Faith Ga and the gods.
The sight left Qin Xin clicking his tongue in wonder.
Fascinating. Truly fascinating. A Void walker using Void to etch mories.
Was that not, in itself, the purest form of Void?
Though — the person this Fate Weaver rembered so fiercely... who were they?
Qin Xin was deeply curious, but he chose not to ask.
Everyone had secrets. He understood their importance. So rather than prying, he simply joined in with Cheng Shi's earlier laughter — a full-throated, booming laugh.
Once Cheng Shi collected himself, he felt he'd said too much. But no matter — once those words left his mouth, they'd no longer weigh on his mind. As for Qin Xin...
'Why are you laughing so hard? Laughing at ?'
Cheng Shi "snapped." He shot the man a look and growled: "Think that's funny? Funnier than your thankless fire-carrying?"
"No — definitely not. I'm the funnier one. I'm laughing at myself.
I've had it up to here with this goddamn fire!!"
Qin Xin seed to have found his own release. He spat viciously into the Existence abyss below, then slapped Cheng Shi's shoulder with one heavy palm and said, dead serious:
"Let's go. There's still fire to carry."
"..."
Cheng Shi blinked. He leaned out to watch the glob of spit plumt into the abyss, and grinned.
Turns out this guy was actually kind of adorable.
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