The Fear of Immortality, Our Future Selves

After the enthronement ceremony of divine right was complete, it was time for the baptism of God's benevolent light.

Whoosh~~

Lalala!

Li Qing's true form opened its eyes outside the Crystal Wall, gazing upon their four billion inhabitants.

These wild fungal strains, only by their own volition, could become his Vassals under his gaze.

Meanwhile, the Dragon controlled by Li Qing, after performing the ceremony for the Emperor, took the opportunity to leave the sacrificial platform. It ignored the people receiving the baptism and headed towards the World Tree that towered into the clouds.

"God!"

The Pope followed respectfully behind.

"Do not speak."

Li Qing merely glanced at him. "To come to this world is merely to walk upon the earth."

The Pope immediately fell silent.

He followed the God, devout and respectful.

He was born in a test tube and could not see the outside world. He only remembered that the place of his birth was very warm, and then he came to this world, where God bestowed upon him a mission.

And now, the great deity had descended upon this world once more, right before his eyes!

After the enthronement ended, the high-ranking officials of the church discovered that God's reincarnated form and the Pope had left. No one dared to search for them or presume to meet them, and they began to sort out the matters following the enthronement.

Those wise scholars were even more eager to research the cells within that Crystal Wall sacred bottle.

They conducted a simple examination.

They discovered that these cells could achieve immortality.

"A single immortal cell, this is nothing strange, because our single-celled organisms have long been immortal..." one scholar said.

Single-celled organisms have simple structures. By constantly repairing their genes and correcting the genetic code that causes aging, it is easy for them to achieve longevity.

"This immortal cell is different from ours. It is chaotic and rampant, devouring normal cells, with a very primitive cellular structure."

They immediately understood the principle of cancer cells.

"It's very messy. For now, let's clone its gene sequence and try to create one of these cells ourselves."

Half an hour later.

Billions of wise scholars worked in shifts, each person synthesizing and cloning a segment of the gene. Finally, they successfully cloned a cancer cell.

"It's running perfectly."

"Simple, an identical structure, with no discernible special characteristics, and no technical content whatsoever."

In reality, cancer cells were indeed nothing special.

However, after studying them for a while, they were suddenly surprised to discover.

"Wait, this cell structure... could it be that these demonic cells came from a Giant God? I and His Majesty... no, Atabia and I studied the gene map of a Giant God, and it's very similar to God!"

"It really is!"

They came over to examine this segment of genetic structure and were astonished.

In reality, the HeLa cells had already reproduced countless generations.

After more than fifty years, their structure had become chaotic. The fact that they could still recognize a segment that was very similar to humans was already remarkable.

What's more.

The human gene map they had obtained earlier was from the Zombie Lord Ning Guochang, and it was even more different from the HeLa cells.

Therefore, they only now discovered that this cell originated from humans.

Instantly, all the wise scholars began to be astonished.

"This is a chaotic immortal cell, like a lump of mud, a mad, monstrous flesh blob growing without order. It's so primitive, how could it grow on God?"

"It should be a disease of God's genetic collapse."

"The larger the body, the taller the genetic building, the more unstable it becomes, and the more prone it is to genetic collapse. The Tower of Babel project also died from genetic collapse."

"But a divine being should be able to easily resolve diseased cells. Why would He give them to us to resolve? Is this a trial?"

Emperor Minis was also puzzled. Looking at everyone, he could only say, "Let's first research methods to treat these demonic cells, how to restore normalcy to God's body and kill these demonic cells."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Everyone began to research.

Their research approach was completely different from how modern humans treated cancer.

In their eyes, all they needed to do was to research a specialized medical nanobot soldier that could kill cancer cells. It would memorize a specific gene fragment of the cancer cell and, like a white blood cell, kill enemies within the body.

This was the development direction for modern bio-scientists' nanobots, but they had already achieved it.

After a while, they had some preliminary results.

They felt this project was much simpler than the Tower of Babel plan, and even started chatting casually.

"But speaking of this thing, it's really like us!"

"Isn't it? We are wise, immortal single-celled organisms, and they are unintelligent, immortal single-celled organisms," one of the sages said.

Suddenly, one sage trembled, as if struck by a terrifying thought, and shouted, "Wait! Wait! These demon cells, could they be..."

"Could they be what?" everyone asked, speechless.

The sage exclaimed in shock, "Atabia, that mad emperor, had unfinished project manuscripts before he died, researching all sorts of forbidden fields. I remember reading a report. According to his research, he vivisected dozens of his own kind. We are not truly immortal cells."

"Life is divided into consciousness and body. Our conscious intelligence could never be born from simple single-celled life. We are merely wandering souls attached to bodies, without support."

"Our current bodies are immortal, but our consciousness has no brain to store it and is slowly, gradually decaying and dying."

The sage said to those around him, "We will all die one day."

Everyone was shocked.

They were the pinnacle of civilization, the wisest among billions, and they instantly understood his meaning.

Consciousness will die!

Suddenly, a tense pressure enveloped their hearts.

These creations of the ancient gods finally realized they were mortal! They no longer felt they had infinite life and could not live carefree on this land forever!

Then where do our mortal consciousnesses go after they die, and what happens to our immortal cell bodies?

Everyone looked at the demon cells in horror, these chaotic, madly multiplying masses of flesh:

What the Gods gave us must be our future immortal corpses!

Li Qing ascended the World Tree, winding his way through its hidden corners until he reached the end of a corridor.

There, an imperial throne had petrified, and upon it sat an emperor, now a plant statue the size of an ant. It was Atabia.

Li Qing looked down at the statue's face and said within the palace:

"He underwent his final petrification, sealing himself in a long slumber to resist the death of genetic collapse."

This method was like a terminally ill patient entering cryogenic freezing as a last resort for survival, with even the patient unsure if they would survive upon thawing.

At the same time, how could Li Qing not guard against this?

He mobilized the entire church's forces to search the World Giant Tree. He even had a group of sages act as informants, easily revealing the Tower of Babel's blueprints. Thus, they found the central core, Atabia's petrified form.

Even his final attempt to cling to life through slumber was unearthed.

Li Qing looked at him for a while.

"Enough. The Atabians' last faith, the first terrestrial kingdom that dared to resist the heavenly gods. I'll spare you. A prehistoric spirit that resisted the celestial gods might be useful for future schemes. Slumbering until the distant future, you can perhaps tell your distant descendants the epic myths of the ancient era."

Li Qing didn't look at him again. He walked out of the World Tree and looked down at the countless citizens and people in the city below.

He wandered around again, visiting the city streets.

The Pope followed silently behind him.

Li Qing squatted down to examine a newly built skeletal house.

Ultimately, it was still too primitive.

The Tower of Babel was like an alien creation from a primitive person leaping thousands of years ahead, forcibly crossing civilizational classes. Their civilization, however, had only developed for half a month, still in the primitive life stage of the Cambrian period hundreds of millions of years ago. Their structure was simple; they had no eyes, ears, noses, or mouths, no gender, like Nuwa stopped halfway through molding humans.

"I'll look forward to the future."

He turned his head and looked for a while at the dirt mountain covered in sand and insects. His consciousness directly left the Dragon and returned to the world beyond the heavens, with no intention of lingering.

"Farewell, my Lord!"

The Pope of Light said fanatically.