Horace's tone softened slightly, carrying a profound hope:
"Within a thousand-year cycle, an individual life may be brief, like morning dew. But the spark of thought will not go out. Books will be passed down, words will spread, and skills and knowledge will be engraved in the lifeblood of civilization. Successors will stand on the shoulders of those who came before them, carrying their forebears' wisdom, lessons, and dreams into the next era's contest. Through these orderly, hopeful, cyclical fluctuations, civilization will advance step by step."
Froesanks had stopped reacting. Oh, forget it. I'm your dragon. Do whatever you want.
Horace paid no attention to the Dragon Girl. He was considering the part he had deliberately concealed:
Under this system of "competition between proxies and a thousand-year rotation," would the "Outer Gods," who had always sat high above behind the scenes, one day see the very "pawns" they had supported overturn the board entirely?
Horace harbored an even more far-reaching hope.
He hoped that, through one millennium of accumulation after another, the civilization of the Lands Between would no longer merely be soil that passively received the gods' blessings or curses.
Their strength would grow with each passing day.
"If, one day, the Lands Between becomes powerful enough... why would they need to rely on, or even fear, these so-called 'Outer Gods'?"
Humanity transformed nature through practice. Could the gods, as the rules of the universe, one day be transformed through human practice as well?
This hope was the most secret and the brightest underlying hue of his Law.
In his vision, everyone could be a potential winner.
The Outer Gods would gain a "legitimate" channel through which to exert influence and spread their ideas within the rules; the beings of the Lands Between would gain precious time to grow,