"This is quite complicated," Anatoly said. "What you want to ask is probably whether comics came first, or the universes that truly existed. But in reality, they influenced each other. Because all universes shared one God, when God created a brand-new universe, the living beings of other universes could also hear His will and spread His gospel in their own ways—through TV dramas, movies, comics, novels..."
"Then isn't that a one-way influence? Why call it mutual?"
"Because once a work was created, it was also equivalent to believers praying to God. God could hear those prayers and use them to alter the destiny lines of real universes. That was what people called 'popularity influencing the plot.'"
"But why would God do that?"
"Because God could run out of inspiration too. He wasn't a good screenwriter. With so many universes, he couldn't write them all himself."
"So he plagiarized his believers' ideas?"
"It couldn't exactly be called plagiarism. Theoretically, everything in the universe was created by him, and inspiration came from him too. It was just that God was too lazy to think up every detail himself, so he turned the stories of Universe A into audiovisual media and broadcast them in Universe B, listening to believers' feedback for inspiration so he could keep writing the destiny lines."
"Then those writers who came up with shitty plots..."
But Anatoly shook his head and said, "That's only a metaphor. In reality, the Intelligent Life he created weren't his puppets. They had subjective initiative. Sometimes even God couldn't interfere. Otherwise, he wouldn't have hidden from me for so long without showing himself."
"I see." Greed nodded. "But if you'd told me earlier..."
"You would've advised me to see a psychiatrist." Anatoly rolled his eyes.
Greed coughed twice. Until before he had transmigrated, he