Chapter 1868: The Truth of Gods

A sudden bang—the sound of the table being knocked over—was Lin An suddenly standing up.

Lin An's gaze swiftly swept the surroundings, not even missing the moonlight outside the window.

After a few seconds, he then slowly sat down with an unpleasant expression.

No one, nothing was looking at him.

The handwriting came from half a year ago, the paper was ordinary paper. This sentence was indeed written by Chu An before the Alien Species war.

Just this ordinary sentence, however, gave him the feeling of returning to the time when he first met Chu An.

"This guy...!"

Taking a deep breath, Lin An couldn't help but curse quietly; the mood of reminiscing about Chu An instantly vanished.

If nothing unexpected happens, Chu An, as if foreseeing the future, anticipated his anticipation.

As expected.

After Lin An turned the twenty-first page with a complex expression, the text thereafter was all written in red ink.

"Lin An, you don't need to look for me; I'm not monitoring you."

"Don't be surprised; if I'm not mistaken, you should have dealt with the Alien Species but not completely eliminated the escapees. Otherwise, you wouldn't have time to peruse the notes I left, nor would you deliberately check faith information."

"Mm, if you're reading the notes, that means I cannot communicate with you and am still asleep. So you should not yet have reached the Fifth Stage..."

"So, your current time point should be half a year later? Your first upcoming mission requires either the Three Systems working together, or the power of the Faith System."

"As if in a face-to-face conversation, Lin An somewhat helplessly 'gazed at' the words left by Chu An."

"Clearly that guy lay in bed unable to move, yet at this moment he seemed to be chatting with him, even anticipating his reactions."

"Really..."

"A persistent guy."

"However, after coming to his senses, Lin An also realized it wasn't strange for Chu An to guess his current situation; leaving something ahead of time also fit that guy's style."

"If I don't resolve the Alien Species, I must already be dead, so naturally I couldn't see the notes."

"If I had enough time back then to eliminate the escapees, condensing faith would have been much easier, and naturally there would be no need to peruse the records."

"However..."

"His eyes flickered, and a smile appeared at the corner of Lin An's mouth."

"Chu An miscalculated one thing: he had survived the first mission, but it was 77 who gave him a new assignment."

"This guy isn't able to calculate everything."

"Without further thought, Lin An instead wanted to see what method Chu An had left for him."

"Lin An, to make a long story short, if nothing unexpected happens, you should now be troubled by the contamination of humanity. The chaos spread by the escapees over the years has taken root in human society like a virus."

"If you want to obtain pure faith, you must carry out a great purge. Especially now, the escapees threatened by you should increase their pollution efforts, doing everything possible to stop you from condensing faith."

"In that case, are you worried that the purge won't be completely clean?"

"Killing won't work, not killing also won't work,"

"So, you want to do your utmost to find a method that doesn't require personally killing too many people yet can still condense faith. You don't have time to reshape human civilization."

"Seeing this, Lin An secretly praised it; compared to Xiong Hanzi's cluelessness about what he's doing, Chu An understands him."

"So.."

"What will the method be?"

"There indeed is a method, but before that, you must first understand three premises."

"Firstly, looking over human history, the development of human civilization is essentially a history of slaying gods."

"From ancient humanity onward, people have moved from absolute faith and worship of gods toward slaying gods, the free road of rebellion."

"Taking Eastern thought as an example: 【The Way is Formless】 is replacing the concrete god!"

"The Confucian idea of 【self-restraint and observance of rites, the three bonds and five constants, ruler-subject, father-son】 is replacing religious law."

"【My mind is the universe, heaven and man as one】 is replacing divine edicts, breaking the boundary between man and god!"

"And in the West, it is: the Renaissance, man as the measure of all things, free will, the absolute truth of the thing-in-itself, and some such philosophical ideas, which have broken the religious shackles."

"Throughout the long history, humanity has constantly struggled, in rebellion!"

"Note, this point is very important! Remember this, and only then can you understand what I will say next and find the truth."

"The moonlight was hazy, Lin An's brows slightly furrowed, somewhat astonished as he looked at the content Chu An suddenly wrote after shifting his train of thought."

"Human civilization is a history of slaying gods..."

"He could understand this sentence, but why is Chu An saying this now? Praising humanity? But Lin An wants to become a god... he isn't trying to oppose any god."

"His expression strange, Lin An, after thinking to no avail, could only continue following Chu An's line of thought."

"Lin An, don't think these things are useless to you."

"Reverse thinking, the means and thoughts by which humanity rebels against spirits and gods are hardly not a solution to the problem. Just as only knowing how to resist can one better perfect 'rule'."

"Here, I need you to understand three key pieces of information!"

"1. Why does humanity rebel against gods? Is it inherent that man and god should be opposed? No, that's absolutely impossible. Otherwise, every belief system would ultimately be doomed to fail!"

"Therefore the answer is only one: the gods and spirits humanity has encountered are all false gods! Humanity realized that the gods were harming themselves, an obstacle to survival! Hence in the long history, rebellion has become ever more intense!"

"Lin An, we can completely draw a conclusion!"

"That is, there has never been a true god on Earth! Therefore your understanding of gods is naturally entirely wrong! So you would think that merely imitating the actions of spirits and gods would inevitably incur people's hatred!"

"Mistake, it will only produce mistake."

"My understanding of... the concept of god, is entirely wrong?"

"My cognition and thinking have also been secretly twisted?"

"Like a sudden blow to the head."

"Lin An's pupils dilated, and suddenly he seemed to understand what Chu An was actually expressing."

Chu An discovered the essence of the contradiction between humans and gods, and he wanted to reshape cognition.

Between humans and gods there is absolutely no opposition; the mistake is not with humans, but with gods!

As expected, as Lin An's gaze moved downward solemnly, a passage that Chu An had deliberately marked in red occupied an entire page.

"Lin An, do you still remember? Actually, even during that conversation with the ghost infant, you had realized that long ago Earth had seen many suspected Awakened Ones disguising themselves as gods, and at one point even believed that Earth had experienced a reincarnation apocalypse."

"In fact, it is true that fugitives exist. They masquerade as deities and absorb faith."

"They do not treat humans as subjects; everything they do, everything they shape, and every idea they spread arises from the exploitation of faith."

"Humans will naturally resist."

"In my later research, Earth is highly likely to be an environment similar to an experimental field. Our civilization and many thoughts are overly twisted and fragmented, just as many different-level systems mixed together, ultimately shaping humanity's extremely contradictory cognition."

"We believe in gods, yet we rebel against gods. We slaughter and fight, yet at times we unite. Human nature can be utterly evil, yet sometimes it shines brightly, with countless people willingly sacrificing themselves."

"We follow biological instincts and animal desires, yet we can also transcend instincts, disregarding life and death for those we love."

"We love and create, yet our bones are filled with destruction. Life instinct, death instinct—we are like products of chaos, following reason yet violating logic."

"Therefore, I believe the means by which false gods control humans must differ greatly from the true path of faith."

"In summary, as stated above."

"We cannot reference any divine images that have appeared on Earth."

"You and I cannot imagine what true gods look like or how they established their belief systems. Without surprise, in this apocalypse, few beings will be able to walk the path of faith."

"Combining humanity's uniqueness, therefore our only solution is to reason backward from humanity itself."

"We are not seeking what kind of god 'suits' humanity, but what kind of god humanity can accept! In other words, what divine image do people yearn for in their hearts?"

"Let us create a true god of humanity! A god belonging to humanity itself!"

"There are three answers."

"I will call it...."

"Divine stature!"

"Capital divine stature!"

"And..."

Stiffly raising his head.

Lin An stared fixedly at the last sentence, circled in red, among the three major divine statures that Chu An had written heavily.

"Having special thoughts, targeting **divine stature."

Lin An:!?!?

After a long silence, Lin An's eyelids twitched.

To be honest, he truly found it hard to understand how Chu An linked gods with that word. The feeling was like using a man-made oar to steer a spaceship, gliding through space.

This is really, too damn weird.

Although he could grasp Chu An's line of thought, for a moment Lin An could only steel himself and continue reading.

For some reason, he always felt as if Chu An stood before him, smiling at him.

"Does it feel strange?"

"Lin An, this is not strange, nor does it conflict."

"Gods, faith, religion—these are no different from technological civilization; they are merely means to survive this apocalypse."

"Using faith power is essentially no different from gathering steel to make tanks and cannons."

"Here, you need to understand a second matter."

"That is, why are these gods wrong?"

"Because it is unfair, because it is exploitative. When these fugitives or other false gods gather faith, they make humans feel the pain of oppression. Humanity's survival has not improved because of the appearance of gods."

"Just as in ancient times, people prayed to gods for favorable weather, yet the gods' oppression and indifference made life ever harder, naturally giving rise to resistance."

"Likewise, why do those false gods do this? Don't they know it will provoke resistance? Are they foolish and arrogant?"

"No, it's because they do not regard themselves as gods of humanity."

"They are well aware that once humanity becomes strong, it will discover they are not gods at all, and they dare not give humans too much power."

"False gods do not seek longevity. Compared to truly becoming gods, they would rather choose deception, using death and fear to gather faith."

"This is exactly the same as the big capitalist class in human society."

"Whoosh"

He slowly turned to the next page.

Lin An wearily rubbed his forehead. As he read and thought, each point Chu An raised indeed gave him some insight.

But seeing now, he still felt something was off. Or rather, does it really have an immediate effect on his current situation?

The reason is simple.

These false gods are wrong because they are not humanity's own gods; humanity might have issues.

But as for Lin An, how is he not also suffering from these?

"Keep reading; Chu An shouldn't be speaking without basis."

He suppressed the doubts in his heart.

Lin An directly looked at the next page.

"The commonality between capital and false gods."

"Lin An, why, before the apocalypse, did most people remain poor, toiling just to survive?"

"Calculating with modern industrial productivity, global resources have long been surplus; factories operating just two years could produce enough supplies for humanity for a century."

"A person's lifetime needs only a few hundred kilograms of steel, a few thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity, and a negligible amount of food. We clearly have the ability to liberate everyone from labor, so why haven't we?"

"The reason is simple: after capital consumes all resources, its food is no longer cheap resources but humanity itself."

It is the time of the lower-class humans; it is humans selling their dignity, producing emotional value.

Just like explicitly priced *women, workers who are paid per piece.

Capital dare not let the majority of humans live better. They nominally package their practices as correct thought, concealing the truth,

Such as social Darwinism, materialism, class solidification, ethnic confrontation.

This is the same as the false god; once exploitation stops, once threats stop being created, what need do humans have to believe in gods, to provide Term: Faith Power?

Wealth (power), cannot be circulated!

Contradiction, thus arises.

And in order to maintain exploitation, the false god can only continually make himself more terrifying, mysterious! He wants people to fear him, to revere him, to worship him constantly, not daring to doubt what his true form actually is!

The fugitives dare not condense a true god!

Therefore, the true god is absolutely not as weak as they are! Nor is it this image!

So! Lin An!

Don't be misled by the 'god' in perception!

God is certainly not a lofty, cold-hearted, powerful individual on a divine throne! Rather, it is the product of belief condensed from individuals guiding the masses! God is not a term for a living being, but the spiritual unity of a group of people!

You need not plunder others' power; you only need everyone to join you in condensing a strong belief entity, to fight for humanity!

The stronger humanity is, the stronger you become!

Let power flow!

Do you still remember the pyramid you brought back? Transform the sun! Become the sun! Let your power envelop the globe, so that people can gain power under the blazing sun!

You don't need to strengthen them, you don't need to do anything; as long as those who share your ideas can obtain weapons!

Give them guns! Let all humanity cleanse each other under the blazing sun, let them kill sin with their own hands!

When belief is highly unified, the born existence is both the human true god named Lin An!

Even if one day you die, as long as a single human remains, Lin An will live forever!

Crack!

On the table in front of Lin An, the previously dark screen suddenly lit up.

On the screen, a constantly flashing document suddenly lit up silently.

Fire Seed Project

A single spark can start a prairie fire.