Chapter 12 Final Dissuasion
"This is Lord Zulu of the Rock Tribe." Kun duly introduced the dwarven chief.
"Then, Lord Zulu of the Rock Tribe, do you know what that animal is?" Nine voices under the mask of cruelty responded at the same time.
"No idea! I'm not interested in fish…… On the ground, if you're a real man, you'll eat a goat or a yak. In short, animals with long horns are a real man's favorite. Fish, let's leave it to women." Zulu held back the fear from the long-necked behemoth's attack just now.
"It's a prehistoric plesiosaur, and if you don't take into account all sorts of prehistoric monsters created by a little leap in time between the Dracolony and the King of Lizard, it's the only species in the entire world that survived the age of the giant reptiles tens of thousands of years ago, and we found it dying in the shallows near the equator. Its companions are unable to adapt to the new climate changes in the world and will soon become extinct. If we had not placed it here, we would never have seen such an elegant creature on Earth."
Slowly, the False God elders narrated the plesiosaur's fate as nine voices echoed through the curved glass "room" with a feeling of regret.
"The True God will bring new prey. Perhaps you should go along with the True God's plan and let this monster perish of its own accord." The dwarven chief frowned and said what he believed was right. "After all…… What an ugly thing!"
"No, Lord Zulu, you still don't understand…… There are many creatures on this planet that, if we left them alone, they would end in total extinction." The nine false gods lowered their voices like ants passing through their bodies, numb and uncomfortable.
"Don't talk such useless nonsense. The lives of these monsters have nothing to do with us humans! I don't care if they go extinct!" Zulu said angrily.
"No, it concerns you very much, Lord Zulu…… Lord Zulu, you believe in our traitor, Kun, because you believe he can help you mortals to push down our Sky Tower, don't you?" Zulu's expression fell into awkward silence…… The dwarf Chief's overly simple mind was as incapable of taking on complex problems as his untrimmed beard.
Zulu nodded honestly to the nine elders of the false gods, and without any doubt shouted the loudest slogan on earth, "The warmth of our mortal tomorrow will come with the fall of the Sky Tower!"
"Why do you insist on this? We mean, Reverend Chief of the Dwarves, that along the way you have learned what we are capable of. You must know that with our human abilities. You should understand that defeating us is like hitting a stone with an egg with the power of a mortal! Why do you and the rest of the world continue to be so stubborn?" The nine False Gods suddenly raised their voices, ghostly voices that sounded like they were crying.
"Because you bring cold and hunger into the world, you are the servants of the digital demons!"
The pretended persuasion of the False Gods ignited a flare of anger in the bearded Zulu, who excitedly swung his hammer and shouted.
"Digital demons? If you mortals could put aside your prejudices and impulses and think carefully about the decisions made by the DI system, we can assure you that you mortals would no longer call it a digital demon. The biggest problem with mortals is that you rely too much on emotion, so you are too impulsive, and too easily blinded by the easiest hatred to incite —— at first, our ancestors of Heaven and Earth lived together on the ground, but the difference of ideas made the ancestors of heaven and earth go their separate ways. The DI system taught the ancestors of heavenly people to give way and leave the best fields to you, while our ancestors chose the areas lacking resources to concentrate on the development of science and technology, and we satisfied you without any selfish interests. We gave mankind what it needed, and even built a trading city for it, which you call the City of Intone."
"But what did your leaders of men do? They have always insisted that our gifts are demonic poison, preventing the world from communicating with heavenly beings The mortal berserkers who claim to represent the heavenly people have attacked the trading capital over and over again, until we finally abandoned it. It's not that we haven't thought about conquest, every concession and tolerance to you mortals is a decision of the DI system." Like they just couldn't stand the bearded Zulu's provocation after provocation, the atmosphere erupted at the moment when the nine voices appeared for the first time in different tones.
"By the way, there's that damned iron law, the one-sided that only heavenly people will strictly follow covenant - we never attack on their own initiative! This is also what the DI system made for you mortals to an unequal treaty that binds us, while you mortals insist on calling the DI system a devil!" A False God old man in the crowd of iron masks spoke out in indignation.
Around the "sea" surging again, the so-called plesiosaur monster was uneasily against the invisible "sea wall", and wanted to end the quarrel between humans and False Gods with sharp teeth.
"This is all your false kindness! Don't think that the digital demons can change the resolve of us mortals with a little fake kindness! Is it not that you want us mortals to be divided, unable to gather into a mighty fist, and to divide the weak with hypocrisy and lies……" The bearded Zulu's anger stirred his belligerent beard. "Put away your ridiculous tricks. Mortals need no mercy from digital demons, and no mercy feigned by their minions!"
"You are wrong, my Lord Zulu. The reason we follow the DI system is not obedience, much less compassion…… Because DI systems convince us of the need to avoid conflict with mortals —— that abandonment and separation are the only solutions to human evolution…… In the face of evolution, different humans make different choices."
Nine voices said with infinite compassion. "And we have given you the best of the earth's resources. We would rather live in our high towers and try not to disturb you mortals any longer."
Such sophistry was outrageous. The shameless False God under the iron mask had the audacity to say 'mercy' instead of 'harm'! I couldn't take it anymore……
"But you False Gods still drop frosted floss, don't you? Make life cold and hard for mortals…… Hypocritical explanation! You False Gods do all the things that destroy the world, how dare you say your mouth 'conciliation' and 'mercy'…… You have no right to do this! You have no right to stop the world from warming! If I remember correctly, you rulers should follow the advice of your lower brethren, the sustainer, see? You high False Gods, the maintainers are on our side! Are you blinded by an iron mask?"
I thought of the cold of the world, of the stars in the night sky covered by the lies of False Gods, and anger drove me on.
"Yes, brave boy."
Nine masked eyes watched me, the floating light of the sea was shining on their merciless masks.
"Kid, you are absolutely right. The sustainers are the great majority of our kind, these well-lived beings of the bottom world, with their overflowing love and mortal impulses, who care too much for the suffering of mankind, and maintain you mortals to an unalienable degree —— the sustainers are not content to leave the world unreservedly to you. Even our attempts to put solar panels on the ground will be met with mass protests from people from the bottom world…… The sustainers believe that placing solar panels on top of mountains will interfere with your worship in the mortal world, while placing solar panels on the sea will confuse your navigation, in short, any small thing that might cause you trouble will be strongly opposed by the people from the bottom world! For those who are accustomed to a comfortable life and want to pursue an 'ideal world' bottom world people, the defense of mortals is the only 'collective justice' worthy of excitement and singing for in their comfortable life!"
"All the more reason for you, as rulers of heavenly people, to heed the advice of your kindred, and stop this floss at once! As far as I know, even you who are above are merely the executor of the will of those bottom people."
I was "rude" enough to tell the truth about what I had heard. The impulse to speak was followed by an inexplicable emptiness - I know too little and I have said too much.
I looked helplessly to Kun for his affirmation, but his face was buried in the dark shadows of the scarlet sea where the plesiosaur had just finished its hunt, and a juvenile basilosaurus had fallen victim to a sea of blood.
"Innocent child, who do you think wants to rain down frosty flurries? Who do you think pays for this energy day and night? Is it our group of wise and rational executors? Of course not!" The voices under the nine masks spoke out angrily. "Is it the digital demon you all call it? Don't be naive, this time it's not favoring you humans, it's just telling us to stay out of mortal business and stay away from humans…… It's not someone else's idea, it's what all the sustainers are dying to do!"
"What! Be clear, what do you mean?" The shocked expression of the bearded Zulu was written all over his face, and I felt just as bad. Those False Gods who looked almost like us, they were so clearly friendly, and their eyes seemed so sincere, how could they be the authors of this cruel world, the sinners of the curse of a thousand years of cold!
"Yes, if we nine executors had the power to make decisions, we would never have done something so naive and futile as to try our best to change the temperature and save you mortals…… The DI system also opposes the excessively 'utopian' vision of the sustainers. Sending down frosty flurries, doing so took too much of the False Gods' efforts, and all they got was the hatred of your world!" The nine voices became a sad tide, and as the blood dissipated, the severed Basilosaurus sank into the silence of the deep.
"Because of you! The naive maintainers of nature choose to fight against the True Gods!" The unified voice split again, and a False God with a more stout frame approached us.
As he approached, the plesiosaur, which had just been hunting and feeding, dropped its food and swam smartly closer, circling him.
"Let me give you a simple example for your mortal understanding…… As you can see, the reason the ocean in the sky protects these endangered species is that we have an artificial ocean where we can accurately simulate the tides, the temperature, the salinity, and all the other conditions that are required to be exactly like the natural environment, which requires human intervention."
"Why are you telling us this?" "Said the bearded man impatiently.
"The frosting you hate is our means of intervention in the world…… The bottom heavenly people wanted to meddle in the course of the whole world, and naively they forced us to do so, and have done so for thousands of years!"
The old man with a lifeless mask faced our doubts, his emotionless tone, made his lonely figure looked colder, "maintain the temperature of a thousand years ago, let the earth not warm, and prevent global disasters!"
"Lies! False lies!" "Said Zulu savagely, biting his lip, and the flesh of the dwarven chief's face trembled unsustainably. "This cannot be true. You False Gods have been deceived by digital demons. There are only bones and suffering in the cold world. I have seen and endured!"
"The suffering was indeed a side effect of the floss of frost! But the floss of frost is trying to stop a mass extinction! That little suffering is nothing in the face of human survival……"
"No! No way! You mean that the floss of frost that made mortals suffer so much is saving us, you mean that my mother and two children died to save more, you mean that the stories our old ancestors told were all wrong, you mean……" The dwarven chieftain roared with tearful fury as all the pain was swept through his mind once again
"Yes, Lord Zulu, I am sorry for what happened to you, but I cannot lie to you." The old man who stepped out approached with a mask of cold, trying his own voice to speak as warmly as possible of comforting, but undoubtedly, he failed.
“He's lying!” Kun's voice suddenly rang out.
“Traitor!” The rest of the eight old masks accused, their voices filled with anger.
"Your False Gods' minds must be fooled by digital demons to tell such real lies, but I will not be fooled by your words!" Zulu and I were the same. Kun's voice and the shout of his heart combined into a stereotype. After hearing Kun's words, anger re-burned in the heart, "Lies, all lies! You will not try to use beautiful lies to stop us in mortal pursuit of freedom!"
The expression on Zulu's face, as he emerged from his grief, took on a renewed determination to look death in the eye. As a warrior, even though he was a bit shorter in stature, dwarf chief Zulu's courage was not at all less than others.
"Where are the digital demons? I will fight them!" But the voice just fell, Kun's brother - the False God Qian who has the blood-red pupil, if the ghost deceives close to the bearded side, dwarf chief hands hammer was still in the air, was braze with “magic” clamp. The bearded man grinned and fell to the ground in agony, while a scornful smile played wickedly at the corners of the Qian's mouth.
"Fighting? That's funny. Who are you fighting? Stupid dwarf, compared to your humble body, the DI system is a mountain for you! Where you are now is the radiator of the DI system, which we have cooled with artificial oceans. So, dwarf, will you fight the mountain?"
The bearded man’s eyes were lost in Qian’s wild grin.
"Dear executors, if you can't get anything out of me by polite means, according to procedure, I'm taking them to the King. Please allow us to leave!" When Qian talked to the Lord of False God， a contemptuous smile appeared on his face. At that moment, Qian, the False God had the same face as Kun's face, the light in his eyes made me feel endless danger.
“Wait a minute!” Suddenly, like thousands of horses and thousands of troops advancing together, the waves suddenly rolled up, "I have something to say!"
The old False God out of the line, walked up to the bearded Zulu, his step so fast that I could not see his face as he came.
The old False God slowly took off his mask, and while everyone was still focusing on his face under the mask, the old man's hand took the opportunity to take away the Dwarven chief's giant hammer. At this time, the sea beasts in the "sea" were frantically hitting the dangerous glass barrier, which made the old False God’s actions more threatening……
The moment the mask fell to the ground, the other eight figures of the Lord of False God disappeared and were transformed into the same person besides the bearded Zulu —— Instead of the anger and helplessness that should have characterized the faces made by the nine men, the blue face of the old man had a tearful despair.
The old False God dragged the dwarven chief's hammer to the edge of the “sea wall”. "This is your last chance to tell everything you know and end this! Otherwise……"
"No! According to the law of heavenly people, the executor cannot disclose core secrets to anyone but the King!" Qian shouted and stopped the old False God.
"Please, this really is your last chance for mortals!" The voice of the old False God sounded almost imploringly, "Tell us your plan so that we can prevent this tragedy……"
"But if humans don't want to……" The Zulu who took the hammer did not believe a word from the old False God.
A tear fell from the wrinkled corner of the old False God’s eye. The False Elder closed his eyes and lifted the Dwarven chief's hammer……
"If mortals insist on pushing down the Sky Tower, this is how the world will end…"
A moment of breathless attention…… The giant hammer merely touched the glass lightly, but the sound that came out was still chilling.
"Enough, executors, you have talked too much!" Qian snapped to stop.
But the old False God paid no attention, though he gasped with his hammer and his grip……
"Two humans, please cease your foolish actions. What you call 'greatness' and 'justice' will eventually destroy you mortals!" The old False God was still making one last attempt to influence us.
"No! My mother, my daughter, died in the cold made by you False Gods! It's all a lie! A lie! You can't fool me!" Zulu broke down again as he talked about his lost loved ones.
"It's you, the bearded man, can't you count?" Qian teased, but it was obvious that all the old False Gods in front of them had become one person……
"With all due respect, the time is up, executors. The DI system has just made a new harvest. The system has roughly predicted the time of the mortal attack —— when the moon is full, 13 hours from now. I have to take them to the King.”