Chapter 3: It started with a dead man's wish
Hearing Natas' words, Kayn quickly pulled himself together from the feeling of disbelief he is currently experiencing and perked up his ears to listen closely to what Natas was about to say. He could already guess that it is not going to be simple just from looking at the forr's face alone.
"Do you know why the 'Tower' had co to Earth?" Natas asked.
This was a question that Kayn honestly didn't expect Natas would kick off with what he was about to say. He assud that the latter would start off by telling that they had returned back to the past and slowly but surely make his way to this topic. Not like this where he imdiately starts off with a blast.
While trying to remain calm and collected, Kayn shook his head and replied, "I don't, and I have not found even a single clue about that after all these tis,"
To tell the truth, Kayn also wanted to know why the 'Tower' had co to Earth, but the main problem was, there was no information to be found about that anywhere inside the 'Tower', or to be more precise, the 'Tower' itself is preventing anyone from finding any clues related to that.
Even after he spent many decades searching, there was still no hope of finding any. As a matter of fact, despite being blinded by hatred, he would still occasionally ask the Gods about that before finally deciding to kill them. But every ti that question was brought up to them, so of them would try their best to avoid it, while the others who were willing to speak would mysteriously get censored.
The feeling he got from looking for anything related to that matter was like searching for a needle inside a huge barn full of haystacks.
"That's to be expected since the 'Tower' strictly prohibits anyone from speaking a single thing about it, even us, Gods, aren't an exception to such rule,"
Kayn nodded in understanding. That's right, even though Natas has the title 'God', he's actually not excluded from any of the rules within the 'Tower'. To begin with, the only reason why they are called Gods is that they are more powerful than anyone else inside the 'Tower', and above all else, they were also given a certain amount of authority depending on their rank among all the Gods to manage a few small things that the 'Tower' couldn't be bothered about. It was exactly because of that reason that even the mortals dared to look down on them and disrespect them every now and then, especially him.
"The 'Tower' is a very complex… I don't know how to describe the 'Tower' itself until now, but let's just stick with calling it an 'Entity', since it's an independent living existence with a seemingly infinite world of its own inside. Anyways, the 'Tower' is a very complex entity in which no one knows how exactly it ca into existence. The only thing we have found out so far is…"
"What is it?" Kayn asked.
"Whether you believe or not, it wasn't actually the 'Tower' that chose to co to Earth, but instead it was your kind that asked the 'Tower' to co to your own ho planet,"
"Ehhh! What do you an…?" Kayn felt disbelief. Just who on Earth would ask for sothing as absurd as the 'Tower'?
From the very first day that the 'Tower' made its appearance on Earth, it had already taken the lives of tens of millions of people, the majority of them being the courageous soldiers sent by the ten World Leaders on Earth who fearlessly fought to protect the innocent and defenseless civilians.
In his opinion, even the most insane person that exists on Earth wouldn't wish for sothing billions of tis more insane than himself.
"It all started from a simple wish from a dying man to turn back ti. That man was full of regrets in his life while on his deathbed which led him to make such a wish. Then after so ti had passed, another man turned that wish into asking for another chance to start all over again as he had made plenty of mistakes that he wanted to correct. It continued to snowball from one generation to another, branching out into nurous forms of wishes but still with a similar aning behind them. From rely tens of people wishing for it to hundreds, hundreds to thousands, thousands to tens of thousands, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, to a million, then a billion, and a trillion, and so on and so forth, until ti finally ca that the number of people wishing for it reached the quota needed for the 'Tower' to make its appearance on Earth,"
"If that's the real purpose for why the 'Tower' was brought to Earth, then why did it make everyone suffer? Shouldn't it be supposed to give people another chance and not strip them away of that?" Kayn can't help but wonder.
"Even though the 'Tower' was ant to give people another chance to start again, not everyone deserves that once-in-a-lifeti opportunity. As such, it created plenty of so-called necessary asures to cause nurous bloodsheds on your planet just so that it could achieve one simple purpose — to select only the deserving people. You heard right! Those destructions and calamities that everyone fought so hard with their life on the line in order to survive were re tests to select deserving people," Natas clarified.
"Yes, nurous people had indeed died because of the 'Tower', I can't argue with that. However, even more people on Earth had wished for this opportunity to co, the majority of them had even died waiting and fighting for it. So, the 'Tower' deed it unfair and unjust if it would just simply choose to leave because the minority wished for it,"
"That…" Anger instantly boiled down inside Kayn after hearing Natas' explanation.
"An individual from your planet did warn everyone to be careful of what they wished for. All of you should have taken that seriously at that ti," Seeing Kayn's reaction, Natas quickly interrupted out of fear that the forr is going to go into an outburst without caring about his surroundings. Once he does that, it wouldn't be any different from announcing to the 'Tower' their existence.
"But who on Earth could even expect that such a simple wish would bring such devastating calamity to all of us…"
"I fully understand what you are feeling right now. You think that the wish of those dead people shouldn't have mattered because they are no longer alive and even if their wish is granted they're no longer there to enjoy or benefit from it, so the only thing that should have mattered the most should have been the wish of people who are currently living and experiencing the pain and suffering brought by the 'Tower' and the consequences of their wishes. As to how I've co to know of this, it's not because I am one of the Gods, thus I hear everything happening both inside and outside of the 'Tower', that's just partly the reason why,"
Hearing Natas' words, Kayn quickly turned quiet and continued to listen.
"You might not know this, but a majority of the Gods that you have killed were actually also once soone just like you. They were an inhabitant of a certain planet across the universe where the 'Tower' had suddenly made its appearance. And just like you, they climbed all the way up to the highest floor while carrying the burning desire of clearing the 'Tower' and saving their planet. But in the end, due to different circumstances or personal decisions made along the way, they beca a God just like . Of course, I am not suggesting that you beco a God as well like them since I already know that you are not soone who will wish for sothing like that. All I am saying is, don't bla those people who wished for the 'Tower' as we all are just the sa in so way. Each one of us has our own wishes in life, it's just that in their case, they wished for another chance to start all over again,"
"I understand," Kayn sighed heavily. But his expression remained unfulfilled. He now understands a few things about the 'Tower', but he is still left wondering why Natas was doing all of this. "But you still didn't answer the question about why we returned back to the past and how exactly did we return back to the past?"
"I was about to get to that point now that I am finished explaining to you about how the 'Tower' had co to existence on Earth," Natas replied, a bit displeased since Kayn kept on interrupting him while he was telling him about the 'Tower'. He continued, "The reason why I made you return back to the past is that we Gods have chosen you to grant us our wish,"
"And that wish is?"
"Just like the reason why you chose to climb the 'Tower', we Gods also desire freedom from it!"
Natas' face suddenly turned solemn. "I decided not to tell you this a while ago because we were still inside the 'Tower'. But now that we are outside, it's now the perfect ti to let you know the whole truth about us Gods,"
"We Gods have been living inside the 'Tower' for as long as we could rember. It's even worse for those that were born at the sa ti as the 'Tower' as we have forgotten a lot of things in our life. There are even tis wherein we can't help but ask ourselves why we exist in the first place.
"I am not going to lie, at first, we felt proud to be chosen by the 'Tower', but as ti continues to pass, things started to change among all of us. So started developing strange obsessions, others beca what they hated the most, and a few of us lost our way to what we wanted to beco. In other words, remaining inside the 'Tower' was slowly destroying who we really are,"
"Unfortunately, no matter what we do, it is impossible for us to leave the floor where we currently reside. Though we could send incarnations to explore every floor of the 'Tower', as ti goes by, we were eventually able to explore everything of what the 'Tower' had claid to be a never-ending space. From that mont on, the speed of us changing multiplied by hundreds of tis,"
Natas' face suddenly turned sorrowful as he continued, "I told you before that everything we have been doing to your own kind was nothing more than entertainnt. But just to be clear, there is a deeper aning to why we were doing all of that. We kept ourselves entertained in order for the changes happening within all of us to be delayed,"
"Turning into the worst version of ourselves was inevitable for all of us — is what we have already realized a long ti ago. Luckily at the very least, we have found a thod to delay it. The ti that we have bought ourselves every single mont the 'Tower' visits another planet, we have used it in researching a way to stop everything,"
"That was the main and real reason why we went into so much trouble in influencing other Heroes to stop you. It was so that you won't ruin what we have researched and discovered so far. And moreover, we also don't want to add even more Gods into our ranks because they represent an unknown variable due to the fact that they believe and experience different from all of us. We know this because we have already passed that kind of stage way before we have arrived on Earth, a battle between the ancient Gods and the new Gods,"
"Eh, but you have ntioned that you have offered so people the opportunity of becoming a God," Kayn can't help interjecting.
"An opportunity to beco a God is a completely different story to making them into an actual God," Natas clarified.
"A wordplay," Kayn quickly understood.
To avoid any misunderstanding, Natas further added, "Exactly! Despite that though, we have still prepared nurous so-called challenges for them, albeit it's expected that there's only going to be one ending for them, which is none other than death. Needless to say, if they can still pass all of those challenges, then we will have no other choice but to make them Gods as we have promised, though they would be restricted in all sorts of different ways to avoid any unknown variables. I know it's cruel, but what we were doing wasn't only ant to give us Gods the freedom that we want, but to also free any other planets later on from the influence brought by the 'Tower'. As such, we can't avoid making any sacrifices, especially if it's necessary to do so,"
"However, as you can see, despite our best efforts, you still destroyed everything that we have worked so hard to build, similarly to how we did the sa to you. Karma, you could say, hahaha!" Natas laugh in self-mockery.
"I am sorry…" If only he knew of this from the start, then he wouldn't have been so persistent in reaching the top floor of the 'Tower' to get his revenge. But then again, it's next to impossible for him to know of this truth because once he does, the 'Tower' would naturally also co to learn of it and as such prevent the Gods from continuing their research.
No wonder the Gods were so desperate. It was because he was a threat to not only their freedom to the future as well.
"No, it's who should thank you instead," Natas smiled.
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