Chapter 963: Chapter 962: Echoes

"Do you like this Eternal Cradle?"

Gawain suddenly remembered the hatchling that had just awakened from the Hatching Sack and the joyful sound it made toward him. He thought about those Inferior Citizens in the Lower City District, who were muddled and lost, becoming mere nourishment for the gods due to their addiction to Enhancers and Hallucinogens. He also thought about that confusing and frenzied arena, where dragons fought fiercely... It was a dozen cold, steel machines battling, with brains and ganglia immersed in the hallucinations of Enhancers strapped to them.

These dragons were indeed still alive—but Talronde was dead.

"How terrifying," he suddenly whispered, "Life and death hold no value."

Then he paused and asked, "Can the Eternal Cradle be broken?"

"The cost is enormous," the Dragon God quietly replied, "and the chances of success are slim—after all, this cradle itself is already the price of failure, and the laws of nature are never lenient to failures. Any race—even the powerful dragons—hardly have the chance to fail twice."

At this point, she suddenly looked up, her gaze landing on Gawain’s face: "So, do you want to help Talronde break this ’Eternal Cradle’?"

"Me?" Gawain pointed at himself and couldn’t help but laugh, "How could I have that capability?"

"You could destroy it with a single command," the Dragon God smiled faintly, "Why not imagine that you also have the ability to break the ’cradle’ on this continent?"

This seemed like a joke, yet Gawain couldn’t help but seriously consider it. After a few seconds of thinking, he still shook his head: "No, at least not now."

"Why not?" The Dragon God showed a hint of curiosity, "Don’t you find this cradle scary?"

"I’m not the savior of the Dragonkin—there has never been a savior," Gawain replied very earnestly, "And just like you said, breaking the Eternal Cradle requires a huge price—I can imagine what those costs might be, and I can imagine who would bear them. No one has the right to sacrifice others’ things for their own ’saving’ drama, so I don’t have the right to make decisions for the Dragonkin, or to choose whether they should sacrifice or merely survive.

"So, whether to rot and die in the Eternal Cradle or to rise up and seek a future for the entire race, this is the Dragonkin’s own matter; they should decide for themselves, should choose whether to pay that price themselves.

"The Cecil Clan does not intervene in other countries’ domestic affairs—that’s my rule."

Gawain finished his thoughts, and the Divine Punishment Goddess gazed at him with a peculiar expression for several seconds, before she half-smiled and said, "Hearing such words from someone recognized as a ’hero’ in the human world is really unbelievable. I thought you had already positioned yourself as the ’savior’ of the human world, but now it seems that’s not the case."

Gawain spread his hands: "I haven’t saved anyone, we are all saving ourselves."

"... You seem to have completely regarded yourself as one of the humans, as a member of this world, Wanderer from Outer Realm," the Dragon God looked at Gawain with some curiosity, "I’m suddenly very curious—do people on your home planet also face challenges similar to those in this world? For instance... when you encounter massive societal changes, when your social groups must face huge ideological shifts, when your beliefs are tested, when you are forced to abandon traditions and doctrines to confront a changing environment... how do you cope with all that?

"Ah, perhaps I should first confirm—do you also have races, societies, beliefs, and nations?"

"We certainly have concepts like society and nations," Gawain laughed, but his smile soon carried a more complex sentiment, "We also inevitably face those... ’challenges’ you mentioned. To be honest, when people from my home face transformations in tradition, reality, faith, and ideology, they also experience upheaval and unease, and the whole transition is often painful and dangerous, but it’s different from this world—those traditions are just traditions, people’s ideas and concepts are just ideas and concepts, they indeed have a huge constraining force, but... they won’t turn into any substantive ’entity’, nor produce any force that transcends reality."

Saying this, Gawain suddenly realized that such things, which seemed self-evident to people on planet Earth, might be considered bizarre in this world, even unfathomable to gods like Enya, so he had to choose his words carefully and explained: "For example—when a race that has lived in the deep mountains for generations decides to move out, treating the mountain as a deity, they only need to face the elders’ opposition in their tribe, without worrying about actual divine punishment from the mountain god."

The Dragon God listened with some astonishment, and finally understood the world rules Gawain described. The god’s face showed a slightly dazed expression, and after a few seconds, she softly said: "That’s truly beautiful."

"Actually, it’s not easy either," Gawain couldn’t help but explain a few more words, "Even if ideological trends don’t form tangible forces, and rebelling against tradition doesn’t bring immediate divine punishment, people from my place still find it incredibly difficult to change a traditional concept. The resistance created by old forces in terms of thought is sometimes no less than..."

He only spoke halfway before hesitatingly stopping.

The Dragon God sat opposite him, enveloped in innumerable black chains. The other end of the chains held the "Dragon of Chaos" floating above Talronde, like a time bomb capable of destroying the entire dragon civilization at any moment. The entire nation was locked in this deadly balance, cautiously surviving for millions of years.

"Yes, truly beautiful," he sighed, "compared to here."

Then he suddenly recalled something, his gaze resting on the Dragon God: "By the way, you mentioned there are three stories, but you only told me two—where’s the other one?"

The Dragon God looked at Gawain and suddenly showed a hint—Gawain wondered if he saw it wrong—a hint of sly smile: "The third story hasn’t happened yet."

Gawain: "?"

"It’s boring to tell all the stories, so let’s leave some suspense for the third story," this "god" spoke leisurely, "I am also curious about how the third story will develop—if there’s an opportunity in the future, I’ll tell you then."

The vague rumble and howl from outside the Church of the Three Goddesses of Fertility were growing weaker, as if a swift yet brief storm was gradually subsiding. Gawain glanced toward the distant terrace but saw only the familiar starlight and night scenery, much like before.

"Is there anything else you want to ask?" The voice of the Dragon God came from the other side, "It’s early, we can chat a bit more."

Gawain pondered a moment, organizing the few questions he thought of before coming to Talronde, then asked: "About the Inversion Tide incident in the Ancient Era, and the tower in the northwest of Talronde—can you tell me more?"

"That depends on what specific aspect you want to hear," the Dragon God nodded, "I will do my best to answer."

"As far as I know, the Inverted Tide Empire went astray because they mistakenly contacted the knowledge left by the Voyager—based on the clues we’ve found, the main issue was ’classifying knowledge as divine’. Did the Inverted Tide Empire deify the Voyager’s legacy? And was the war between the Dragonkin and the Inverted Tide Empire due to this?"

"Essentially correct," the Dragon God nodded, "The Voyager’s legacy... that was far too advanced for races still bound to the earth, especially many millennia ago, when many of the ’legacy’ still possessed strong power. That mortal civilization suddenly gained knowledge and power far beyond their understanding, and their rulers couldn’t explain the principles behind those things to the people, nor could their scholars recreate the logic behind those legacies, so deification became inevitable.

"People will blame phenomena beyond their understanding on divine intervention, and that’s a trap many mortal civilizations easily fall into.

"The war between the Dragonkin and the Inverted Tide Empire stemmed from their ’deification’ actions creating new, uncontrollable ideological products, and the war itself... wasn’t honorable for either side."

"Not honorable for either side?" Gawain instantly smelled gossip, instinctively leaning forward a bit, "What does that mean?"

The Dragon God glanced at Gawain and spoke slowly, "It’s simple, because the ones who initially nurtured the Inverted Tide Empire and guided them to the Voyager’s legacy... were the Dragonkin themselves."

Gawain: "The Dragonkin themselves?!"

"That was an unsuccessful attempt, a reckless and daring ’breakthrough plan’," the Dragon God said calmly, "It happened a long, long time ago—at that time, the ’Eternal Cradle’ hadn’t completely stabilized, Talronde hadn’t been chained for long, many Dragonkin still maintained a strong free will and anticipation for the future, and driven by such impulses, the Dragonkin began seeking ways to break through from outside."

Gawain furrowed his brow: "Nurture a mortal power independent of Talronde, let them absorb the power left by the Voyager, swiftly grow strong, then break Talronde’s... ’cradle’?"

As he said this, his expression grew peculiar because both he and the Dragon God knew what breaking the cradle meant, yet the Dragon God’s expression was even more indifferent than Gawain’s, so this peculiar topic continued.

"In hindsight, it’s not a mature plan, but they still implemented it with hope," the Dragon God said, shaking his head, "The Inverted Tide Empire was still weak back then, so weak that any adult dragon could easily guide its development, hence the Dragonkin lost caution... They believed everything could be controlled, at least for a long time, everything could be controlled by the Dragonkin.

"And what happened afterward you can easily imagine—the greatest original sin is arrogance. The Dragonkin thought that the ’in-control’ Inverted Tide Empire was unwilling from the start to become another race’s tool, and the Dragonkin’s interference and guidance instead exacerbated their spirit of rebellion and resistance, leading to a situation deteriorating much faster than expected. The Inversion Tide spun out of control, they secretly developed many technologies, secretly cultivated many religions, they cracked open the secret arsenal left by the Voyager on planet Earth, and rapidly grew powerful.

"Before Talronde could react, the ’Inversion Tide’ completed its transformation, quickly becoming an extremely exclusionary, dragon-hating, militarily powerful Empire, and most importantly, they were a ’theocratic Empire.’

"Their excessive dependence on and deification of the Voyager’s legacy directly led to the uncontrollable theocratization of the entire Inverted Tide Empire. Even though a few insightful people among them realized the dangers, they couldn’t stop this process. The Inverted Tide Empire claimed to be believers of the Voyager, seeing Talronde’s Dragonkin as betrayers, stealing the Voyager’s legacy as ’heterodoxies’, and all this... contradicted Talronde’s initial plans completely.

"Thus, the Inversion Tide War broke out."

Gawain opened his mouth, taking several seconds to organize his words: "...Was all of this approved by you?"

"You could say that."

"Why?" Gawain couldn’t help but ask, "Did you not notice the risks within it?"

The Dragon God’s voice was low, "Talronde’s Dragonkin didn’t discover it, so neither did I—and even if I did, as long as the Dragonkin’s actions of nurturing the Inverted Tide Empire itself didn’t violate Talronde’s ’traditional ideologies’, or trigger an ’overstepping’, I couldn’t prevent any of this."

Gawain thought of the "two stories" the Dragon God had just told him—at this moment, he gained a deeper understanding of the rules implied behind those two stories.

"That war destroyed the entire Inverted Tide Empire, ending a seasonal civilization before the chaotic wave arrived, and severely impacting Talronde," the Dragon God continued, "The loss from the war itself wasn’t frightening; the frightening part was the blow to confidence and belief—the entire Talronde society was severely shocked, and this shock almost immediately reflected in the Dragonkin’s ’collective ideology’..."

Gawain reacted swiftly, wide-eyed: "This formed a new ’lock’ too?!"

"In a normal civilization, such short-lived, unaccumulated group emotions wouldn’t really matter, but the goddess of the Night had united with the dragons, mutual influence between gods and humans strengthened unprecedentedly, so much so that any strong, collective emotional fluctuation would swiftly resonate widely in the ideological tide, then—those resonances became new locks.

"In the past million and more years, the dragons haven’t interfered in the world beyond Talronde, even the number of dragons leaving Talronde each year is strictly limited.

"They cannot reveal too much information about the Inversion Tide War to other civilizations, cannot casually leak the secrets of the Voyager, after other civilizations contact the Voyager’s legacy they must find ways to recover those ’dangerous items’ immediately... all these are ’reflection resonances’ produced by the Dragonkin’s group after the Inversion Tide chaos of those years, these resonances turned into mandatory ’locks’, any dragon must unconditionally abide by the constraints they bring, regardless of whether it’s been ten thousand years, a hundred thousand years, a million years... even if the Voyager’s legacy is entirely eroded by time, even if no one remembers what the ’Inverted Tide Empire’ specifically refers to, the dragons must abide forever."

Gawain listened in astonishment, suddenly unable to help but say, "But when Melita mentioned recovering certain dangerous objects or blocking certain information, she only said it was the superior’s command, was ’company policy’..."

"That way, at least it sounds better."

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