After the divinely ordained coronation ceremony was completed, the baptism of the gods' light began.
Whoosh~~
Splash!
Li Qing's true body began to open its eyes beyond the Crystal Wall, gazing at their four billion people.
Only by willingly submitting to his gaze could these wild fungi become his subjects.
After holding the ceremony for the emperor, the giant dragon controlled by Li Qing took the opportunity to leave the sacrificial platform as well. Ignoring the people undergoing baptism, it headed toward the towering World Tree that pierced the clouds.
"God!"
The pope followed respectfully behind him.
"Don't speak."
Li Qing merely glanced at him. "I came to this world only to take a walk on the ground."
The pope immediately fell silent.
He followed behind the god with devout reverence.
He had been born in a test tube and could not see the outside world. He only remembered that his birthplace had been very warm, and then he had arrived in this world, where God had given him a mission.
And now, the great god had descended into this world once more, right before his eyes!
After the coronation ended, the higher-ups of the church discovered that the pope and the god's incarnation had left. They did not dare search for them or rashly seek an audience, and instead began organizing the matters following the coronation.
Those sages were even more impatient to study the cells in the Crystal Wall's sacred vessel.
They performed a simple examination.
They discovered that these cells could grant immortality.
"A single immortal cell isn't anything strange. Our Single Cells have already achieved immortality long ago..." one scholar said.
Single Cells had simple structures. Constantly repairing their genes and modifying the genetic codes that caused aging and death made it easy for them to live forever.
"These immortal cells are different from us. They're collapsed and chaotic, rampaging everywhere and devouring normal cells. Their cellular structure is extremely primitive."
They saw through the principle behind cancer cells at a glance.
"It's a mess. In any case, let's first clone the genetic sequence and try creating one of these cells ourselves."
Half an hour later.
Billions of sages divided up the work. Each person reconstructed and cloned one section of the genes, and they ultimately succeeded in cloning a cancer cell.
"It's functioning perfectly."
"It's simple. The structure is exactly the same. There's nothing special about it, and there isn't even much technical content."
In truth, cancer cells really were nothing special.
However, after studying them for a while, they suddenly made a startling discovery.
"Wait, this cellular structure... could these magical cells have come from the body of the Giant God? His Majesty and I... no, Atabia studied the Giant God's genetic blueprint before. It looks very similar to God's!"
"It really is!"
They gathered around to examine this section of the genetic structure, growing astonished.
In truth, HeLa Cells had already reproduced through countless generations.
After more than fifty years, their genes had long since become chaotic. The fact that the sages could still identify a section that resembled human genes was already astonishing.
What was more, the human genetic blueprint they had previously obtained belonged to the Zombie Lord, Ning Guochang, and was even more different from HeLa Cells.
That was why they had only now discovered that these cells came from humans.
The sages were instantly shocked.
"This is a chaotic immortal cell. It's like a lump of mud, a mad Muck Monster growing wildly without order. How could something so primitive have grown on God's body?"
"It should be some kind of genetic-collapse disease belonging to God."
"The larger the body, the taller the genetic building, and the more unstable it becomes. Genetic collapse becomes increasingly likely. The Tower of Babel project also died from genetic collapse."
"But God should be able to resolve diseased cells with ease. Why would he give them to us to deal with? Is this a trial?"
Emperor Minis was also puzzled. Looking at everyone, he could only say, "Let's first study a way to treat the magical cells. How can we restore normality inside God's body and kill these magical cells?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Everyone began their research.
Their approach was completely different from that of modern humans treating cancer.
In their eyes, they only needed to develop nanomedical bacterial soldiers specifically designed to kill cancer cells, have them memorize a certain genetic fragment of the cancer cells, and then hunt down and kill the enemy inside the body like white blood cells.
This was the direction modern biologists were taking with nanorobots, but they had already achieved it.
After a while, they obtained some preliminary results.
They felt that this project was much simpler than the Tower of Babel project, and they even began chatting as they worked.
"Speaking of which, this thing really resembles us!"
"Of course it does. We're intelligent immortal Single Cells, while they're unintelligent immortal Single Cells," one sage said.
Suddenly, a sage shuddered from head to toe, as though he had thought of something unimaginably terrifying. He suddenly shouted, "Wait! Wait! Could these magical cells be..."
"Be what?" Everyone looked at him speechlessly.
The sage said, utterly astonished, "Atabia—that mad emperor—left behind unfinished project manuscripts from before his death. He researched all kinds of forbidden fields. I remember reading one report. According to his research, he dissected dozens of his own kind while they were alive. We aren't truly immortal cells."
"Life is divided into consciousness and flesh. Our conscious intelligence could never have been born from simple Single Cell life-forms. We're merely wandering souls attached to bodies, without anywhere to rely on."
"The body is immortal now, but our consciousness has no brain in which to reside. It's slowly, slowly withering away toward death."
The sage said to those around him, "One day, we will die as well."
Everyone's hearts jolted.
They were all the civilization's foremost existences, Grand Sages selected from among billions. In an instant, they understood what he meant.
Consciousness would die!
Suddenly, a tense pressure lingered in everyone's hearts.
These Creator Gods of the ancient era finally realized that they could die! They no longer believed they possessed infinite life, or that they could live forever, carefree and without worry, upon this land!
Then where would our immortal cellular bodies go after our mortal consciousnesses died?
Everyone suddenly looked in terror at the magical cells—that chaotic, formless, frenzied Muck Monster multiplying without limit:
What God gave us was our future immortal corpse!
Li Qing climbed the World Tree and took several winding turns until he reached a hidden corner. He walked to the end of a corridor.
There, an imperial throne had already become part of the tree. Sitting upon it was a plant statue the size of an ant, an emperor transformed into vegetation. It was Atabia.
Li Qing looked down at the statue's entire face and said within the palace:
"He underwent his final transformation into a tree, sealing himself away and falling into a long sleep to resist death from genetic collapse."
This method was like the final attempt of a terminally ill patient to preserve his life by entering cryogenic freezing. Even the patient himself would not know whether he could survive after being thawed.
At the same time, how could Li Qing possibly fail to guard against this move?
He mobilized the entire church and searched the giant World Tree from top to bottom. He even had a group of sages act as undercover informants, and they readily confessed the Tower of Babel's design blueprints. Thus, he found the central core—the petrified tree-form of Atabia.
Even his final attempt to linger on in a desperate slumber had been unearthed.
Li Qing watched him for a while.
"Forget it. You are the final faith of the Atabians, the first earthly kingdom that dared resist the gods in the heavens. I'll leave you here. A spirit god who resisted the heavens in prehistoric times may be useful in later ages. Sleep until the distant future and remain here as a piece on the board. Perhaps then you can tell distant descendants the epic myths of the ancient era."
Li Qing did not look at him again. Instead, he walked out onto the World Tree and looked down over the countless citizens and common people in the city below.
He wandered around and looked about, eventually reaching the streets of the city.
The pope silently followed behind him the entire time.
Li Qing squatted down and examined a newly built house made from a shell and bones.
In the end, it was still too primitive.
The Tower of Babel was like an extraterrestrial creation built by primitive humans after crossing several thousand years of history, forcibly leaping across levels of civilization. Meanwhile, their down-to-earth civilization had only developed for a little over half a month. Their cellular evolution was still at the primitive life stage of the Cambrian, hundreds of millions of years ago. Their structures were simple, lacking eyes, ears, mouths, and noses. They had no sexes, as though Nuwa had only sculpted half a person.
"It's still better to look forward to the future."
He turned his head and looked for a while at that mound of earth, covered in sand, stones, and insects. His consciousness directly left the giant dragon and returned to the world beyond the heavens, without any intention of lingering.
"We respectfully see off our Lord!"
The Light Pope spoke fervently.
Before you continue