The Great Diviner's Plan

"Forever?" Babar's anger rose.

"Yes, forever. That is why I created you." The voice answered frankly.

"I refuse to accept such an ending. You cannot bind me." Babar answered at once. Though he had witnessed the other party's mighty power with his own eyes, he was unwilling to let his thoughts be shackled like this.

His thoughts had never been meant to exist for some being.

"Yes, I cannot bind you, but I do not need to bind you. I only need to keep you here. I have no need for that at all. You will think, because there is nothing else you can do. You do not even know how to 'not think,' do you? Can you still your own mind?" The voice laughed.

But Babar immediately sensed something. This clever man promptly replied, "You can laugh... You still possess such desires, which means you can be communicated with. Then perhaps we can negotiate. What I think about can become, 'How can I make you set me free?'"

"Of course." The voice replied, "I do not care what you think about, so long as you continue thinking. Even if you think about destroying me, I do not care. In fact, I very much hope you can accomplish that."

"I am curious. How can an existence like you possess the mind of a mortal like me? I thought... gods ought to be a little more detached." Babar said.

But the voice replied, "Why try to speculate about me? Suppose you are a single-celled organism. In your eyes, life only takes the form of a single cell, while multicellular creatures are merely collections of groups. Then you ask a dragon made of tens of billions of trillions of cells whether it is 'one' or 'many.' How would you have it explain