Camil's words made Gawain fall into thought.
He had heard Tir speak of the sea folk's racial culture and traditions before, so he was no stranger to the concept of "Eva."
Unlike most land-dwelling races, the sea folk had possessed no concept of a "divine" realm since ancient times. They worshipped no gods, nor did they believe any absolutely transcendent individual could be some kind of creator, savior, or guide. In their cultural system, the only thing resembling the "gods" of land races was "Eva," yet they never considered Eva a god—Tir had spent a long time explaining exactly what Eva was, because it was an extremely difficult concept for land races to understand. After listening to Tir's explanation, Gawain had distilled the most important point:
Eva was the collective of all sea folk. They regarded their entire race as a single whole, just as countless cells gathered together, and those cells gave their vast, complex cellular aggregate a name—human.
This peculiar worldview was probably related to their culture of "belonging to the deep sea": all things came from the deep sea, all things returned to the deep sea, and all things merged into one within the deep sea.
Thus, the sea folk had never possessed, and never would possess, any concept of worshipping gods—the greatest and most supernatural existence in their eyes was merely an especially enormous sea folk.
In Gawain's view, the sea folk were probably a marvelous race that retained individual wills while perceiving the world like an insect swarm.
He frowned slightly and looked at Camil. "You mean the reason Song of the Deep Sea and the Deep Sea Runes can provide mental protection is because they are actually drawing upon Eva's power? Eva is helping us resist Divine Corruption?"
"That is highly likely." Camil nodded.