Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 500 - 499: God’s Rules

After returning to Cecil Castle, Gawain immediately sought out Kamel, who was fiddling with a small arcane focus at the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute, and Nicholas Egg, who was researching gearboxes at the Cecil Mechanical Manufacturing Facility. The three—strictly speaking, a satellite spirit, an LED sprite, and a metal-ball alien—gathered in the cutting-edge laboratory Rebecca built, studying the crystal left behind after Fran Belon’s death.

The crystal still emitted a faint glow. Despite being untouched for several days, it continued to release a slight warmth. When held up to the ear, one could faintly hear indistinct sounds, akin to some form of resonance or whispers laden with pain.

Kamel raised the crystal into the air with The Sculpture Hand, carefully observing its form in the light, occasionally using a small arcane flame to stimulate the crystal’s surface, sensing the energy readings it projected.

Gawain watched Kamel’s work with curiosity, asking, "How’s it going? Any clues?"

"In form, it’s very similar to the crystalline excrescence found on failed early divine evils... The energy response is slightly different, perhaps due to interference from Holy Light Power..." Kamel placed the crystal on the experiment bench before him and began detecting its subtle structure with a crystal resonator. "Overall, I need to observe more carefully before reaching a conclusion—the acquisition process was too rough, and its internal magic balance has been heavily disrupted."

Gawain felt a bit awkward, "The acquisition process... might have been a bit rough."

Kamel casually asked, "How was it acquired?"

"Blasted off with a howitzer..." Gawain coughed, "Strictly speaking, this is what’s left after the blast."

Kamel’s actions paused mid-air, while the floating Nicholas Egg exclaimed, "Oh my—"

"The situation was special. It was a battle, and the enemy wouldn’t just stand there nicely waiting for someone to dig crystals off them," Gawain waved his hand and looked at the metal-ball alien. "You encountered divine evils back in the day. Do these crystals look like those on the experimental subjects back then?"

"Back then, I was mainly studied, not involved in project details much," Nicholas Egg wobbled a bit, speaking with a solemn tone, but he quickly added, "But if you don’t mind losing part of the sample... I can conduct a destructive analysis."

Gawain looked at the crystal sample fixed at the center of the crystal resonator—it was slightly smaller than a palm, with uneven edges and already cracked in some places: "How much sample would you need?"

"A tiny bit, about the size of a fingernail will do."

Gawain again turned to Kamel: "Will cutting this sample affect its stability in nature?"

"You’ve used a howitzer to blast it, and you’re asking me this?"

Gawain: "... Then go ahead and cut off a piece."

The texture of the crystal wasn’t particularly hard; the assistant in the laboratory quickly completed the cut. Immediately, the small sample piece that was cut off was sent to Nicholas Egg. Under Gawain’s curious gaze, the metal-ball alien first cautiously bumped the sample with his rounded body, after which the sample was directly absorbed onto him and quickly drawn into his body.

Not only Gawain but even Kamel exclaimed in shock, "You ate it?!"

"Just analyzing its components—though technically, yes, I ate it," Nicholas Egg’s body emitted a buzzing sound, "Back then, to understand the environment I was in, I tried most substances I could come into contact with, even attempting some crystal fragments from divine evils by accident. I can distinguish their tiny differences in composition..."

Without needing to explain, the metal-ball alien said this as if it were a matter of course, and Gawain could only marvel—indeed, the world was vast and full of wonders; this was perhaps the most hardcore ’taste’ test he’d witnessed across both of his lifetimes combined...

Just as he began to worry whether Nicholas Egg’s habit of casually picking things up to eat might upset his stomach, the metal-ball alien finally spoke up, "These things... seem indeed to be products of divine evils. At least the components are entirely consistent."

The crystal left by Fran Belon was indeed a divine evil excrescence—had that Bishop of Lu’an truly activated his inherent divine evils genetic factor?

While he had already formed hypotheses in this direction, Gawain couldn’t help feeling slightly astonished when the evidence was confirmed. However, he quickly restrained his surprise and turned to Kamel, "If a Gondor descendant uses stable genetic factors, is there a chance they could turn into uncontrollable divine evils under the right conditions?"

Though Kamel had no facial expression, his body was now radiating a yellow-orange hue, and his tone took on an added gravity, "Theoretically, it’s impossible! While indeed, we merged the divine cells of Amoen, the Giant Stag, with human cells by rewriting genetic factors, the core issue causing divine evils to lose control isn’t just about genetic factors; it’s about the precipitation and loss of control over divinity—those crystals that grow from flesh are generated after the divine power that humans cannot control precipitates out, and this portion of divinity was not adequately filtered during our initial fusion due to technical limitations, leading to contamination of the experimental subjects. Later, we improved filtration techniques, completely removing uncontrollable divine power and made stable injectables to ensure the survival of recipients. In other words, any surviving human descendants should inherently have ’clean’ genetic factors from their ancestors, and as long as there is no divine lurking within them, mere mortals cannot spontaneously produce any divine power..."

Kamel’s explanation was filled with terminology that was too complex for people of this era, but Gawain quickly understood his meaning—divine evils experienced physical collapse and grew crystals due to uncontrollable divinity within them. Any Gondor descendants that haven’t collapsed and survived definitely lack this ’divine pollution,’ and mere mortal constitution wouldn’t spontaneously generate such divine pollution—even if the giant stag Amoen’s genetic factors were injected.

So... why did Fran Belon exhibit a state of "pollution"? Who polluted him? Or rather... where did the "divinity" that polluted him come from?!

At the thought of the possibilities behind this, Gawain’s expression naturally turned serious.

"We can no longer know exactly what happened in the prayer room of the Luan Grand Cathedral when the White Knights stormed into the church district, but one thing is certain: Fran Belon received an unknown source of divine contamination during that time. The divine evils factor in his body was activated, and he himself turned into a monster, a fusion of collapsing flesh and crystal," Kamel analyzed gravely. "Considering he was a fervent believer in the Holy Light, considering what he might have done in the prayer room, there may be only one answer..."

"The Holy Light cast a glance at the southern borders..." Gawain took over Kamel’s words, "and this glance directly twisted Fran Belon into a monster."

Nicholas Egg: "...Oh my God."

Despite such a chilling hypothesis, Gawain was still full of confusion: "If it truly was the Holy Light that momentarily descended on Lu’an... why would it sit idly by while the Grand Cathedral was breached? How could the power it descended with not withstand even a small team of newly trained White Knights? Even though Wright and Amber were present at the time... their strength couldn’t possibly rival that of a god, right?"

Having studied the power of gods for thousands of years, Kamel fell into thought. After a moment, he began to speak of his conjecture: "Based on our past collation and analysis of divine laws, gods seem to be... entities with extremely strong logic and regularity."

"What do you mean?"

"While divine power far surpasses that of mortals, gods rarely directly help or harm any mortal individual. They only strictly adhere to certain rules, descending power through prayer rituals, blessings, and revelations, or delivering very vague decrees for mortals to interpret. When a mortal individual directly violates specific ritual rules, they will administer divine punishment. But on the other hand, even followers of opposing gods or Unbelievers who never live according to doctrine are not punished... This might indicate that it is extremely difficult for gods to directly interfere with our world—even as powerful as they are, they must act according to some strict set of rules..."

Listening to Kamel’s description, Gawain couldn’t help but reveal a somewhat thoughtful expression: "This sounds like some kind of automatic response logic machine..."

"To be honest, during the Meteoric Era, many scholars studying theology also had such a guess," Kamel’s color gradually returned to a calm and wise light blue as he recalled and responded to Gawain’s notion. "Some even believed that the essence of gods is a mysterious automatic system, functioning like an automatic response mechanism, managing vast Divine Power Energy and distributing energy according to the needs of mortals... much like the artificial intelligence arrays responsible for distributing Magic Power around the Deep Blue Reaction Tower."

Gawain didn’t expect that in this world, there would be a group of scholars bold enough to propose such a radical hypothesis. Although considering the sophistication of the ancient Gondor Empire’s civilization, it wasn’t unimaginable for scholars to conduct such extreme research, he was still curious about what outcome such a group of people, who dared to study the essence of gods in a world with gods, would arrive at—especially since, according to Kamel’s tone, these people didn’t seem to be part of the "defied Plan": "These scholars’ ideas are quite interesting—where did their research lead them in the end?"

"Their funding wasn’t approved the following year, so they switched to selling seafood..." Kamel sighed, "I had thought they might be selected into the defied Plan..."

Gawain: "???"

Fortunately, Kamel didn’t stay lost in reminiscence for too long; he quickly returned to the main topic: "Such radical research is unimaginable in today’s era, but the pride and fearlessness of the Gondor people during the Meteoric Era, along with their extremely advanced magic skills and abundant resources, gave scholars the opportunity to pursue such unorthodox ventures—if not for this foundation, the ’defied’ Plan could not have been established. But it is precisely because I participated in the defied Plan that I can be certain that gods are not as simple as so-called ’automatic response mechanisms’.

Gawain thought for a moment, then understood what Kamel meant: "Is it because you saw Amoen, the Giant Stag, with your own eyes?"

"That’s correct, Amoen, the Giant Stag, a tangible, flesh-and-blood god. Although it has fallen, based on the analysis of its remains, we believe it was sentient, capable of thought and autonomous action. So we are more inclined to think of gods as highly intelligent beings who strictly follow certain ’rules’ in their actions... perhaps following rules meticulously is their ’racial characteristic’."

Gawain quietly listened to Kamel’s narrative, taking a deep breath as his gaze fell on the "divine evils crystal" on the lab table.

After a long while, he broke the silence: "So, according to the ’rules’ that the Holy Light adheres to, even something like civilians storming a cathedral doesn’t count as true ’blasphemy’?"

"We can only speculate so."

It seemed that there would be no further breakthroughs.

Although Gawain was eager to understand the nature of gods, to comprehend their patterns of action and constraints, the facts remained: he lacked sufficient means to fully uncover these secrets.

The only thing certain now was that the Holy Light might have "contacted" Fran Belon and the Luan Grand Cathedral at a certain moment, yet ultimately did not focus on the affairs unfolding on this land.

"The research in this area will have to be set aside for now," Gawain exhaled, "I’ll have the Luan Grand Cathedral looked into closely for clues, paying attention to ’divine will’."