Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1003 Before the Genesis Begins?

Faced with sudden bad news, people's reactions are usually inconsistent. Sometimes, like Metien, after a very short period of calm, they are suddenly overwhelmed by great sadness; sometimes, they are too shocked to know how to deal with it, so they stand there in a daze, looking like they are in a daze; and sometimes, they instinctively question, ask repeatedly, and deny their own guesses over and over again, even if there were signs of an ominous premonition long ago.

These are all normal reactions, which are enough to show that people's attitudes towards emergencies are different at different times, places and occasions. Although we can more or less get a glimpse of their personalities from them: seemingly strong but fragile, seemingly cheerful but stubborn, seemingly casual but silent... they are all displayed one by one.

Only Lingge examined his heart and was surprised to find that he really didn't have any extra emotions. He was so calm and even cold, without doubt, impulse, or even sadness. He just wanted to get the answer. Why is it so? Even before he decided to set foot on the star sea, he had already made various inferences about the goddess's condition based on the existing information, and even considered the extreme situation that the goddess had died. It should be said that he was the most mentally prepared for this news among the crowd, right?
But he was still a believer of the goddess after all. If he had ever listened carefully to every motto of love and compassion in the scriptures under her statue, could he be indifferent to this news at this moment, without even a trace of unnecessary emotion?

Or is it that the faith that was gradually formed through the teachings of his adoptive father Mr. Yang Ke and day-to-day prayers did not leave a deep impression on the young man?
In any case, he was finally certain that he and Metien were actually different.

"Linger is right!"

Alice took a step forward, clenched her fists and shouted, "These are just your one-sided words. If you want us to believe, then show us the evidence! You said that the goddess has died, but how did she die? If you don't explain everything clearly, do you think I will believe your lies?"

Awakening the goddess is the most important main quest of this game. I have finally come here, how can I be easily convinced by just a few words from you?

She was unwilling to admit that when she heard the news, her heart actually twisted and hurt, so as to hide something, she stared at the silver-haired girl in the sky angrily, as if she would never give up until she got a clear explanation.

Themis frowned slightly. Before she could answer, Tiantis on the other side of the screen sneered, with a hint of coldness and sarcasm in his laughter: "How did she die? It's really ridiculous for you to ask this question, Miss Alice. What if I tell you that mother was killed by those mortals you always wanted to protect?"

When these words came out, not only was Alice startled, she opened her mouth but didn't know what to say, even Saint Xia Liya, who was comforting Metien, couldn't help but raise her head and look at Tiandis on the other side of the screen, and said word by word, very seriously: "This is impossible."

This statement was obviously even more difficult to convince people. Regardless of whether the news of the goddess's death was true or not, just from the conclusion, how could the goddess who created the world die at the hands of a mortal? How could such a ridiculous thing happen?

"you do not believe?"

Tiandis looked at Saint Xia Liya steadily. After a while, he looked away and looked at the others one by one, asking again: "You don't believe it either?"

No one answered, only pairs of eyes, some questioning or cold, stared at her, but the silence itself explained an attitude. I'm afraid they not only did not believe that the goddess died because of a mortal, but they were still struggling in their hearts with the fact that the goddess had already passed away.

The reason they didn't completely doubt it was that Linger and Saint Shalia's reactions were too calm, as if they knew they would hear such words from the beginning, and they might even have foreseen the scene of the conversation at this time. People with sensitive personalities might have noticed that since entering the ruins of the Heavenly Temple, both these two people and Alice have behaved very abnormally, and the signs actually appeared earlier. This journey to the starry sky seemed to be shrouded in an atmosphere of uneasiness from the beginning, but the people in the Osor Mountains at that time had not yet noticed it.

"It's an expected reaction." Tiantis retracted his gaze, sighed slightly, turned his head and said to Celestial Themis who had been silent all the time: "Since they want to see the evidence, let them see it. In my capacity as the administrator of the Temple of Heaven and the Reality King Tiantis, I apply to disclose all the confidential documents of X01-X099. Is that okay, Celestial Themis?"

"Judgment: reasonable." The silver-haired girl asked expressionlessly, "Do you want to request that irrelevant persons be excused?"

The irrelevant people she was referring to should be people other than the girl’s royal power.

"It's okay, just let them stay and listen." Tiantis said softly: "Since this matter is related to mortals, there must be mortals as witnesses. If I just talk to myself, I'm sure they won't believe it, right?"

The Countess and the others could not help but feel nervous when they heard this. They had never expected that they would become the representatives of all mortal races on Mirror Star. It sounded like a great honor to witness the oldest secrets from the origin of the universe. However, in the current situation, it was hard to say whether this was an honor or a pressure.

"Order approved. Now begin to decrypt the confidential document codenamed X01. The file codename is: Genesis."

Themis in the heavens stretched out her right hand, and the huge steel gauntlet still emitted several laser beams as before, which shuttled through the void and quickly formed another hexagonal screen. Everyone on the ground raised their heads and looked at the new screen. They had some guesses about the document that was about to be unsealed. Since it was codenamed Genesis, it must be the myth mentioned in the prologue of the "Canon", that the goddess created the world in seven days, right?

Does the so-called truth need to be traced back to such a distant time?

Metien raised her head from Saint Shallia's arms. The tears on her face had not yet dried, and her eyes were a little red and swollen, which interfered with the girl's vision. But she still stared at the screen stubbornly, because she wanted to use what she had witnessed with her own eyes to refute the one-sided statements of the two people. In any case, the goddess could not die, let alone die in the hands of mortals.

At this moment, the screen was completely dark, but that darkness was not in a visual sense, but more like a concept close to nothingness, because nothing existed, so it seemed deep and empty. This scene reminded the brother and sister, who were believers of the goddess, of a sentence in the prologue of the Canon, and they read it out softly, just like they prayed under the statue of the Goddess in the Tianxin Church every seven days.

"In the beginning, the world was a void. In the ocean of nothingness, even the concepts of chaos and order did not exist. The meanings of time and space were confused. The past was the present, and eternity was a moment. Until countless years had passed, a vast and sacred will opened its eyes in the center of the ocean." That is the goddess.

As the brother and sister's prayers fell softly, a beam of light lit up from the depths of nothingness. Everyone was attracted by "Him" and couldn't help but stare at the light, even Themis and Tiantis, who had viewed this file many times. The former pursed his lips slightly, while the latter's eyes flashed with a gloomy look and deep-hidden guilt.

That beam of light does not have a specific image, but is closer to an abstract concept. He is the only life that has given birth to consciousness in the ancient nothingness, so all concepts based on the subjective consciousness of life are also initially defined by Him. When Metien looked at the beam of light, she felt an unprecedented warmth and brightness, as if she had returned to her mother's arms, the amniotic fluid where all things were first conceived, that is the concept of light; when Linger looked at the beam of light, he felt a deep calmness and distant gaze, like facing a strict but generous father, that is the concept of time; for Countess Nevill, that beam of light is a power older than the night, embracing everything in His fraternal heart; for the traveler fairy, that beam of light is a footprint longer than the wind and the road, measuring the boundless universe...

In a broad sense, all material and non-material phenomena that the mortal races on Mirror Star can feel, from senses, intuition, wisdom and spirituality, to light, darkness, time and space, are due to this beam of light. What they have is not their own feelings, but the feelings of the universe when the goddess was born. Because all mortals are descendants of the goddess, they also inherit this objective perception based on subjective consciousness. It is a kind of inheritance that has nothing to do with blood and culture, but it is more closely related.

However, for the young Wang Quan, the emotions were not as complicated as those of other people. What they felt from the light was just a sense of familiarity and security. It was warmer than light, more majestic than darkness, gently embracing, and selflessly giving, as if it was close at hand and within reach.

"This feeling is..."

Xino gently placed her hand on her chest, feeling the frequency of her heart beating under her flesh and blood, and was surprised and speechless. She looked around and found that she was not the only one who felt this way, but the young knight was sure that among all the young queens present, she was the only one who felt the most deeply, because she had lived in a family environment that was far more complicated than others since she was a child, with a grandfather who took on family responsibilities but was unable to fulfill them, a father who tried to escape but eventually took the initiative to go to the battlefield for his daughter, and her mother who yearned for freedom but loved her family more deeply, and whispered to Xino before her death, "Don't hate him."

In that brief but unforgettable memory, different people entered her world for the same reason and eventually left her. After experiencing so many complicated past events, such as family, blood, expectations and responsibilities, the young girl knight faced the throbbing of her heart and finally could tell herself clearly that this feeling was called——

Affectionate.

Just like a child's admiration for his relatives, Xino was reminded of his distant childhood by the beam of light, Olvera was able to trace back the scene when she was a child admiring the blooming violets with her parents in the garden, and Ieta's thoughts gradually drifted back to the Avignon village full of warmth and laughter; Rosa seemed to hear the admonitions of her mother and sister again, and Leticia snuggled up to her grandmother, unable to forget the scene when she was resurrected from the dead again and again and opened her eyes to see her worried face; Gloria, who theoretically had no relatives, lowered her head and gently lowered the brim of her hat, and her lips opened and closed, silently telling something.

Even Alice said nothing. She just stared at the light on the screen quietly, thinking about something absent-mindedly, which was completely different from her usual noisy personality.

Until this moment, these young queens who had lost their memories finally understood what the mother that Saint Shalia always mentioned meant. The goddess who created them undoubtedly loved her daughters deeply, otherwise, when they saw the beam of light, wouldn't all the memories they recalled in their minds be beautiful memories?
"Begin interpreting the document now. Please do not do anything unnecessary except asking questions." The cold voice of Celestial Themis brought the girls back to their senses, making them realize that now was not the time to indulge in memories of the past, but that there were more important things to witness.

"Genesis Archives, Phase Zero: In an era that is no longer verifiable, the goddess was born from nothingness. Her appearance brought about a conceptual change in this universe, which gradually took shape. The original nothingness split into two states: order and chaos. And in the gap between order and chaos, along with the goddess, her divine domain, the Holy Temple of Heaven, was born."

The image on the screen began to change, with a clear division between light and dark, but it was still in a state of ignorance. At this time, the universe, space, time, order, and chaos existed, but there was only one consciousness that could observe these concepts, and that was the goddess. At the same time, the image in the center of the screen gradually formed an empty area, which could not be invaded by any concept, as if it was isolated from the entire universe.

That is what Themis in heaven mentioned, the Holy Temple of Heaven.

but.

"It's different from the current Heavenly Cathedral?"

Everyone was surprised, but they also felt that this was a very reasonable thing. At the beginning of the universe, at the beginning of the creation of concepts, everything was still in the dark, and even the goddess did not know what kind of world she would create, so she probably relied on instinct to shape this divine domain, and the first thing she saw after her birth was nothingness.

Was the Heavenly Temple a void from the beginning? How did it evolve into what it is today?

With such doubts, everyone continued to watch and saw that the beam of light symbolizing the goddess was wandering uncertainly in her own divine domain, as if looking for something. This search must have taken a long time, because the picture on the screen was sped up by Themis in the heavens. If you want to watch the whole process, even if you add up the lifespans of all the lives on the mirror star, it would not be enough.

Only a goddess who was just born and not yet sensitive to the passage of time could endure such a boring and long search. Or, at that time, she didn't even know what boredom was like. Thinking of this, everyone suddenly felt that the goddess was too lonely. Could this be her original intention in creating the world and mortals?
Suddenly, the beam of light in the picture stopped moving, but that was not because he had given up the search, but because he had finally found it. Even though they were separated by the screen and countless distant time and space, everyone could still feel how happy and excited the goddess was at that time.

Thus the emotion of joy was born, which was later engraved into the souls of mortals, allowing them to feel the same emotions as the Goddess.

The voice of Themis from the heaven came at the right time, explaining to everyone what was happening on the screen: "As the pioneer of the universe and the creator of the concept of all things, in theory, the goddess has control over the entire universe. However, during the long process of pioneering, the goddess had already discovered that there was actually a singularity in this universe that she could not control, and it seemed to have appeared with her birth. She was very interested in this singularity that was out of her control, and spent tens of millions of years searching for it. Finally, she finally fixed the unstable singularity in her own divine domain, and she called it-"

"The Bridge to Heaven."

Give me some meow