Chapter 2009: Faith Schism

They exchanged a smile, Lin An and No. 77 tacitly avoided mentioning the Second Will.

It was as if nothing had happened.

It was rare to feel relaxed; Lin An noticed that although he could see the outside starry sky, he was surrounded by a thin transparent membrane.

It was obvious that the big eyeball had deliberately sent him here; otherwise he would have been sent back to Zhang Tie's side.

"How do you feel?"

"Now can you understand what the thought split in faith actually is?"

Without any small talk, No. 77 directly asked Lin An. Although Lin An could come out, it was likely he had completed his understanding in this regard, but regardless, he still wanted to confirm.

As an Overseer, his time is extremely precious. To have him willingly wait here is for Lin An to walk that path.

"Overseer, I think I should know."

Lin An's expression hardened, after a brief thought he answered seriously:

"The idea that believers cause thought split actually does not exist."

"After condensing a divine seal, although one constantly receives the believers' thought impacts and may even form multiple thought entities, these are essentially not true consciousness, let alone splitting into another self."

"It is cognition."

"Each believer is equivalent to the eyes of a deity, an incarnation of the deity observing the world. Thus the more believers, the more information received. Since believers' cognition differs greatly from that of the deity, their cognition is extremely prone to distortion, leading to errors."

"Quantitative change leads to qualitative change; as time passes, a large amount of erroneous cognition transmitted through believers to the deity itself will cause a series of negative effects such as thought split, madness, and so on."

"This situation is especially terrifying in a disaster state."

"For example, when facing an enemy beyond cognition, an incomprehensible apocalyptic disaster. Even if it is for survival, the believers' spontaneously derived cognition will contaminate the faith."

"Because their understanding is wrong, even if it were not wrong, it would still conflict with the deity's own understanding."

"When erroneous cognition accumulates enough, it will produce other false god wills. And the more fervent the believers, the false god they condense will frenziedly attack the deity itself, as if trying to replace it! Thus the faith collapses, until the deity falls!"

"What I must do is not simply regard these errors as split-off selves, but to know they are all me, and to absorb and resolve them!"

"Once regarded as another self, it will lead to eternal ruin!"

Having said it all in one breath, Lin An let out a long sigh, feeling that the faith system's reinforcement path was truly terrifying; a slight mistake could lead to death without even knowing how one died.

Just like what happened inside Ghost Skull.

The distorted environment, or rather the erroneous cognition caused by Ghost Skull, makes them mistakenly believe they have two heads.

Especially as the difficulty increases, erroneous cognition grows more and more, eventually leading them to firmly believe in Ghost Skull's theory and begin to doubt themselves.

A vicious cycle, the deeper they fall, the deeper they go.

In the end, not only will they mistakenly think they have two heads, but two selves will appear. Even the "split" self will consider the real body fake.

To survive, one must kill oneself! Either physically kill oneself, or mentally eradicate the self with "erroneous" cognition!

Thus, as long as one does not understand the true nature of the faith system, death by believer backlash is almost inevitable!

"Excellent, it seems you already know the secret of the faith system; your understanding of this is even better than I imagined."

No. 77 nodded satisfiedly.

This cognition may sound easy and not mysterious, but to master and convert it into one's own understanding, one must personally experience it, relying on one's own awareness of this point!

Just like someone who has never seen the sea, no matter how you describe the sea to them, they cannot truly understand it! Likewise, people cannot learn any lessons from history; an individual must personally experience it to be fully awakened.

Seeing that he had not misunderstood, Lin An couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.

Suddenly, No. 77's expression hardened, and he spoke in a low voice:

"Lin An, although you have realized this, there are some things I must remind you of."

"The faith system is rare, but throughout the apocalypse, those who walk this path are countless! They are all geniuses and leaders of their respective civilizations!"

"Yet they all failed; at least I have seen no one reach the end! Are they inferior to you? Or do they not realize this?"

"No! Some of them even astonish me, yet they still died! They died without even a chance to resist!"

"You must remember, merely being aware of this yourself is useless. If your faith system encounters problems, you must address them immediately. Upward contamination is extremely terrifying. Often by the time you notice an error has arisen, it's already too late! The distorted false god will is often stronger than your true self! This is based on your power, based on the nightmare generated by your cognition."

"You know it's false, it's wrong. But believers do not "know"!"

Lin An's heart jolted; seeing No. 77's grave demeanor, he also realized this matter was extremely important.

But for some reason, the face of the Second Will suddenly flashed in his mind.

(False god will... a mistaken and twisted monster... stronger than myself?)

This information is not hard to understand; the false god will is like a cancer cell—if not dealt with promptly, it will lead to a deadly cycle.

Although the Second Will is not quite like this. But frankly, Lin An always feels they share too many similarities...

Before Lin An could ponder deeply, a fleeting hard-to-detect hue flashed in No. 77's eyes, as if he too had thought of someone.

He paused slightly, his tone softened a bit:

"However, Lin An, do you know why I am optimistic about you?"

"One is your own potential, whether cognition, willpower, or the belief you uphold."

"Another is that the faith prototype you have condensed is quite interesting. Compared to other Awakened Ones who walk this path, your believers are still quite special. Not only do they have great potential, but they also impose few restrictions on you."

"For most conventional faith systems, when they encounter disasters they themselves cannot solve, believers are prone to problems."

"Better ones, their believers will stop believing in the deity, and the faith collapses. In extreme cases, those fanatics will think their believed deity cannot prevent the disaster, but rather their deity has been replaced. Thus they will, on the original foundation, "create" a new deity, thereby killing the old deity!"

"But this point is something you need not worry about."