Chapter 11: Authority
Apollo let out another long sigh in his heart.
He bent down and personally lifted En’s corpse.
En’s body had already turned cold; his head and limbs hung limply.
Carrying him, Apollo walked step by step toward the hillside where the old priest and generations of ancestors were buried.
He buried En beside his mother.
The mountain wind howled, stirring his still brilliant golden hair.
He stood before the two graves, silent for a long ti.
En’s final words circled in his mind like a curse.
“This world—aside from the great God—everything will change!”
“He is your God! Not my… God!”
Yes, God was his God.
It was God who had chosen him when he was ignorant.
It was God who had guided him when he was lost.
It was God who had tolerated him when he made mistakes.
It was God who had granted him hope when he was helpless.
Everything he had ca from God!
And En, as well as many others like him—
They revered God because of His power and the blessings He bestowed.
But when divine grace had never descended upon themselves, when facing the helplessness of birth, aging, sickness, and death, when watching those who possessed divine power remain forever young while they themselves gradually grew old…
The seed of resentnt quietly took root.
Was this the inevitability of human nature?
Was it a chasm that faith could never cross?
Apollo did not know the answer.
……
Apollo ascended the altar once more.
The night wind brushed past his golden hair, yet it could not dispel the heavy fatigue and resolve between his brows.
Facing the statue, he knelt deeply.
“God!”
As if responding to his call, or as if this mont had long been foreseen—
The instant his voice fell!
Endless starlight, like the waters of a breached galactic river, surged down from the statue!
In an instant, it completely subrged the entire altar, along with Apollo kneeling upon it!
Apollo felt as if his soul were being dragged out of his body by this torrent of starlight.
His senses were infinitely magnified, his will swept upward by an irresistible force!
Once again… Apollo saw God!
No longer through vague perception, no longer through the connection of faith.
But truly, from the perspective of his soul—
He saw the boundless universe.
Billions of stars converged into an unceasing river of stars.
And at the very center of that river, countless stars, like the most loyal subjects, surrounded and guarded a figure whose grandeur and antiquity could not be described by words.
That was God!
The ruler of the stars!
This vision lasted only for an instant.
In the next mont, his will broke past the boundaries of the star river and plunged violently into an absolute “nothingness.”
Here was a place of eternal darkness.
There was no light, no sound, no matter—there was not even the concept of the passage of ti.
Apollo’s will drifted here. He could not feel his own existence, nor any change.
He did not know how long he had remained here.
A mont?
Or billions of years?
Loneliness nearly drowned his will.
“Apollo.”
Just as his consciousness was about to be assimilated by the eternal silence—
God’s voice sounded, pulling him back into the world.
Apollo once again felt the night wind brushing against him, felt his still-beating heart.
He was still kneeling upon the altar.
As if everything just now—the traversal through the sea of stars and the fall into eternal darkness—had all been but a fleeting illusion.
“God!” Apollo knelt on the ground and spoke respectfully.
“Apollo, what do you want.”
Just like before, God asked him the sa question.
A look of imnse confusion first appeared on Apollo’s face.
Having experienced the betrayal and death of his eldest son, his original convictions had already been shaken.
But soon, that confusion was replaced by a near-tragic determination.
He raised his head, looking at the statue that seed to contain an endless starry sky, and spoke his carefully considered—perhaps final—willful request:
“God! I hope to share the divine grace within with my children.”
He thought—if all his children possessed God’s blessing,
Would they be able to escape the fear of death?
Would they no longer be swept up by the resentnt born from unattainable desires, and avoid repeating En’s fate?
God’s gaze fell upon Apollo.
That gaze pierced through his still youthful exterior and saw sothing within him—
A kind of exhaustion. A kind of wear.
Huang Xing could see that Apollo had grown old.
Not in appearance.
But in his heart, in his soul.
For mortals, an excessively long lifespan was not necessarily a blessing.
Especially across the long years of personally witnessing all peers, companions, and even juniors depart before oneself—this was perhaps more like a form of torture.
Apollo stood on the shore of the river of ti.
Watching familiar waves disappear one after another, while he himself was fixed in place.
This loneliness was eroding him.
Even though he remained young and strong.
“Apollo.”
God’s voice remained calm.
“Desire is the root of human suffering, because desire can never be satisfied.”
“And resentnt is precisely the beginning of dissatisfaction.”
Apollo seed not to perceive the profound implication in God’s words—or perhaps he chose to ignore it.
He rely looked up at the statue, a smile appearing on his face like that of the boy he once was—pure, even carrying a hint of foolish innocence—as he said firmly:
“God! No matter what the final outco may be, Apollo can accept it.”
He did not care about the new desires that might arise in the future.
He only wanted to prolong, as much as possible, the ti he could spend with his children.
To make the cracks and resentnt born from unequal ti co a little slower—slower still.
“Apollo, you have grown up.”
There seed to be an extrely subtle sigh in God’s voice.
But also grown old.
The latter half of the sentence—
Huang Xing did not say it, because it was unnecessary.
“God! Apollo will always grow.”
He was one chosen by God, possessing divine power and a long lifespan.
But he was also the leader of a tribe, and the father of six children.
“Your power cos from Leo, one of the twelve constellations. It is a complete Authority.”
God began stating facts, his voice rational and detached.
“Once you divide it, the Authority will shatter into fragnts and scatter.”
“At that point, it will no longer be possible to reunite it.”
“The Authority you possess will cease to exist.”
God clearly inford Apollo of the consequences of dividing Authority.
Apollo did not hesitate in the slightest. He pressed his forehead tightly against the cold stone surface, his tone resolute:
“God! Thank you for once again allowing Apollo’s willfulness. I will bring my children here.”
“No need.”
Huang Xing’s voice fell.
He drifted down from the statue like an intangible breeze, stopping before Apollo.
Then, he extended a finger—seemingly illusory, yet real—and pointed it toward Apollo’s forehead.
Over these decades…
Huang Xing had not rely been observing.
He had been constantly attempting to comprehend the laws of this world. Now, he had already begun to grasp the power that originated from the starry sky.
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