They said that losing your true self usually didn't happen in the moment you were forced to change, but by degrees, without you noticing.
Because as long as you could still recognize that you were being forced, you hadn't changed yet.
Whatever interesting things might come of Your Excellency the Fool's handiwork, temporal paradox or no, Fu Qian had always looked forward to finding out.
Though the situation now seemed a little too interesting. As his rank rapidly climbed, Fu Qian even thought of someone who was an old acquaintance to him alone.
Annalise, the true progenitor of the Blood Clan.
That Higher Being, whose death had been confirmed, of course wouldn't have known him. But in the Ancient Recollection, he had once witnessed her glory... and her uncertainty.
A legendary life: she had been chosen by the very object of her faith to become the next god.
Her inner turmoil had been permanently recorded in that form, so much so that she seemed to enter it now and then, conversing with herself.
Could it be that, at some point, Annalise had stopped resonating with the pure-hearted self she'd once been, lost interest, and casually treated the whole thing as an ordinary collectible? He'd used to think that was perfectly normal, but now it seemed that might not be the case.
To be honest, Fu Qian's first impression of the oracle the Moon God had delivered was not a good one.
Developments like this often involved possession, reincarnation, or someone standing up to the heavens.
What was more, according to the first law of the supernatural, which he and Professor Lisha had derived through their collaboration, and the later corollaries, the ancient Higher Beings had probably established their religions not to strengthen themselves, but simply to ensure their own safety.