Time, space, all living things, and even all order and logic seem to vanish into this nothingness.
Norton, the Pale God was once supreme and held ultimate divine power, the cruel and ruthless demon who regarded all things as straw dogs, now resembled a helpless child, blankly and ignorantly observing the nothingness around him that he could not understand.
What exactly is this place?
Norton panicked; he had never felt so flustered before.
In the past, whether it was Kuba or Jonah, whether they were banned or achieved the highest level, they were at least able to understand what they were facing.
But now this nothingness has completely severed space and time, and the world seems to have been annihilated by it. What level of intensity is this?
Even when Norton was first resurrected, there wasn't such a grand spectacle!
Even Norton himself couldn't see through space and time, couldn't see through the void before him, and couldn't know where he was. This scene, the only one in ten thousand years that was beyond his control, truly gave him a sense of crisis that he had almost forgotten.
What terrified him even more was that the power he had gained after ascending to godhood—the ability to manipulate all things, particles, and even everything—had completely vanished into the void. No matter or particle could be controlled by him; he now seemed to have nothing left but this divine body and that immortal soul.
Even so, Norton's unique soul still gave him genuine confidence.
Norton's pale body, which had been sitting in the void, slowly rose, his golden eyes now fixed on the still illusory pale figure that had emerged from the void before him.
"Who are you?"
As Norton spoke with a puzzled expression, the slowly condensing pale figure finally materialized completely. A pale monster with a body extremely similar to Norton's and a face extremely familiar floated silently in front of Norton.
The familiar face startled Norton, who had just been yelling.
" Kuba?"
Hearing Norton's shouts, the pale figure hovering high in the air did not move. Instead, it opened its arms and closed its eyes, seemingly savoring the beauty of reality, with even a hint of comfort on its face.
"Ah... Sixteen thousand years of joy and sorrow, sixteen thousand years of reality, the ebb and flow of life, the ever-changing world, the prosperity of life truly fascinates me, the new changes truly delight me. Norton, you are truly God's treasure, a change of reality."
Such an experience spanning millennia is worth savoring repeatedly and reminiscing about.
Compared to the eternal and unchanging Gore year, it is truly novel, beautiful, desirable, and unattainable...
The god floating high in the sky, almost identical to Kuba, looked completely at ease. Time and space seemed to flow around him. Norton looked closely and found that these fragments of time and space were all his past, from Norton birth to his cautiousness, his escapes, and his step-by-step resistance against the Church and against the gods, all the way to the present day.
This god, born from nothingness and resembling the resurrection of Kuba, seemed to be appreciating, or even experiencing, Norton's life, for the expression on his face was content, as if he were doing the most enjoyable thing in life.
Only when he uttered the last sentence, "It is something that can be hoped for but not obtained," did his previously carefree face reveal an untouchable sorrow, even a hint of despair.
Seeing His perverted, lecherous appearance, seeing His lecherous spying on Norton's life, Norton was enraged.
"Hmph, playing tricks!"
I am the Pale God, the only God in Garden of Eden! My soul is unique and immortal, my power is boundless and can overturn heaven and earth.
And you, a mere parasite that fell from the body of God!
How dare you so brazenly spy on the gods?
Norton cursed loudly, but his body remained perfectly still on the ground.
He was constantly sensing the power of his past, wanting to find the ability to use and control everything.
Unfortunately, no matter how he tried to sense it, he could not reach the divine power it once possessed.
He was like a mage Magic Power had been banned, completely powerless to resist. Even the life Pressure that used to destroy the world with a single thought had vanished. Norton was like a blind man in terms of perception, having no sense of his surroundings except for his two eyes that could still see.
He even quietly reached out his palm, clenched it tightly, and tried to crush the god in front of him who resembled Kuba, but still nothing happened.
All his former abilities seemed to have vanished, leaving only this divine body.
Norton felt his weakness and his face looked extremely pale.
Oh no, he might have really messed up this time.
Neither Kuba nor Jonah had ever been able to render him so weak.
The divine power he stole was easily imprisoned or even abolished before this true god.
However, as an outsider, he always possesses a final safeguard, which is the source of his confidence in devouring God and the fundamental reason why he still dares to be so defiant.
Besides, Norton is the Pale God has wreaked havoc on Garden of Eden for millennia! Even if he is truly no match, Norton will stand tall and fear no power!
At worst, they'll just ban it.
It seemed that Norton's insults had finally caught the attention of ' Kuba,' or perhaps it had already thoroughly enjoyed the millennia of turmoil, for its pale body floating in the air finally turned its gaze to Norton.
It must be said that this product is fundamentally different from Norton's.
Leaving aside their different appearances and heights, their eyes were not gilded or scarlet, but rather seemed to lack eyeballs altogether. Their eye sockets seemed to contain a dazzling galaxy, with countless stars and nebulae converging within, shining brightly and constantly rotating.
Considering the current state of affairs, it seems as if the real world, where the Garden of Eden is located, has been taken into its view, which is incredibly mystical.
Those eyes made Norton's heart skip a beat, and he unconsciously took a step back.
He even had a certain suspicion in his heart, feeling that they might have already broken free from the limitations of this reality and Heaven, and arrived outside of reality and Heaven!
Perhaps it is precisely because of this that Norton's immense power, which he attributed to the real universe, has vanished.
What kind of monster is this?
It seemed they sensed Norton's hidden apprehension and doubt, or perhaps they saw Norton take a step back.
The pale deity suspended in the void finally responded.
Without uttering a word, the meaning had already entered Norton's mind.
"You may call me: Kuba / Jonah / God! I am composed of the body of Jonah and the soul of Kuba /the soul of Jonah, the body of Kuba, and reality and Heaven, and am also the parasite on the body of the so-called true God, the thief of divine power, and the master of everything."
It's similar to your breakthrough from the Third Stage to the Fourth Stage, where reality and Heaven merge, and God encompasses all spacetime and matter—a new life emerging from the cocoon.
From the moment I awoke, I instantly experienced the entire Gore Year and Gore newly born space-time, enjoying its joys, sorrows, and even the changes in the world. This is the ultimate purpose of my awakening, and also the start of the next cycle.
Norton, no matter how many cycles of reincarnation you go through, you have never learned to be content. In the end, everything leads to a completely new rebirth.
But this is also the source of my joy, and the foundation of God's procreation.
This is the end of boredom, and also the beginning of infinite eternity!
A profound meaning flowed through Norton's mind, and with each fluctuation of meaning, images appeared before Norton like flowers in a mirror or the moon's reflection in water.
These are Norton from different times and places, with different starting points. Some are Norton who are refugees who starve to death and then become Vampire. Some have risen to the rank of priest, living a life of revelry, but unfortunately contract a sexually transmitted disease, their bodies ulcerate, and they die, only to be resurrected as Vampire. Others hold fast to their true nature, rising all the way to bishops, and eventually die of old age, becoming Vampire.
Even worse, some climbed all the way up to the papacy, only to covet the sacred corpse in the back mountain because of their own memories, ultimately committing a grave mistake and becoming Vampire...
In short, all of Norton's countless scenes ultimately lead to the same ending: death, and then, due to the uniqueness of their souls, they become Vampire.
This seems to be its predetermined path; regardless of the manner of death, it will ultimately lead to the Vampire's final fate.
Frame after frame flashed before Norton's eyes, depicting the arduous paths each Norton took to become a god. Some Norton were despicable and shameless, like him. Some Norton remained true to themselves, achieving supreme status. Others Norton from the path, indulging in hobbies such as music, chess, calligraphy, and painting.
But regardless of their intentions or achievements, under the weight of time, they cannot avoid, in the face of endless loneliness and emptiness, before their barren spirits are utterly destroyed by boredom, embarking on this unified final path, choosing reincarnation after gaining complete understanding of everything...
"Whoosh!" Norton suddenly broke free from the frames of the image, his face extremely pale.
"Fake! You made this up! I, Norton, am not so noble as to choose some damn rebirth! This is all a lie you fabricated, hahaha, you're just scared because you can't do anything to me, because I am the truly eternal and immortal god, I am the God who can never fail!"
You damned liar, you're nothing but a liar! I will cast you into the deepest hell!
Norton was furious, but his anger stemmed not from a desire to be angry, but from a growing fear.
I'm afraid of my current state of losing my divine power, afraid that those scenes were real, afraid that my final result will also be that damn loss of personality and reincarnation, and even more afraid that I will fight to the end, only to find that it was all for nothing!
Norton leaped high into the air, his wings unfurling with a roar. With the immense power of his divine body, he transformed into a streak of white light and instantly rushed toward the figure floating in mid-air. He roared and stretched out his hands, attempting to brutally tear it to shreds.
However, his supreme divine body, the supreme divine body that could easily destroy the universe, reality, and even Heaven, suddenly lost all power and control when it flew before God. His whole body was grabbed by the neck by God, and he was lifted into the air like a chick.
His once-proud divine body now resembled a whole white pickled chicken, at the mercy of others.
God gripped Norton's neck with his left hand, raising his divine body to eye level. His familiar, exquisite, and perfect face was filled with both smile and melancholy.
"Hahaha, I still prefer you now, Norton, to your current despicable and desperate state. Because only someone like you, even before the cycle of reincarnation begins, can still bring me some amusement."
I know you are not satisfied with this outcome, and I know you find it hard to accept this disappointment. Therefore, I have decided to still give you the right to know everything and the final choice.
Don't feel grief or anger, and certainly don't despair. Having lived this long, you've already tasted endless loneliness and the desolation of being alone. If you were to live even longer, you would likely exhaust your energy and spirit, becoming a listless, lifeless corpse...
Those who are born with desires cannot last long. But those who have no desires lack thought; this dilemma is the most helpless end for us gods, and also the reason for the beginning of all this.
Norton, do you understand what God is?
"Put me down first!" Norton wanted nothing more than to smash the face of the god in front of him, who looked just like Kuba.
But just as he did not listen to God's words, God did not listen to his words either.
" God is the all-encompassing being. Time and space, from their very birth, encompass all of time and space from birth to death. Therefore, God is predetermined, unchanging, and finite."
When the universe reaches heat death, everything returns to the most primordial particles, and everything returns to utter tranquility. This is the final form of God, and also the end for all living beings like us.
The soul intertwines with reality, Heaven merges with reality, and the soul becomes one with flesh and blood. This is like the birth of life, and also the essence that constitutes life.
Thus God matured, wandered outward, devoured His own material possessions, and pursued endless eternity.
Norton, you are the outsider who has been swallowed by Him. You are also the only one in His predetermined timeline who can give birth to a completely new timeline.
Every single moment of your existence creates a new spacetime and expands the entirety of God. In this way, God can expand infinitely, pursuing eternity without the end of time.
Therefore, even though you attain the highest state, He has not excluded you; your very existence is the foundation of His growth.
Thus, God and you complement each other, just as you said. God cannot destroy matter that He cannot create, so you are eternally immortal, yet you are trapped within eternal life.
Therefore, there is nothing wrong with your thinking, and I can never destroy you.
Norton, his face contorted with humiliation as his neck was gripped, sneered, "So you're jealous of me? So you stole Norton memories, hoping to use them to try out a new life and add a little fun to your lowly god life?"
Norton wasn't stupid. Hearing these words and the envy they conveyed, he immediately understood the root of the problem.
Simply put, God is a spacetime that encompasses all time and space from the Big Bang to the end of the universe. Therefore, He is fixed and unchanging from the moment of His birth; one could even say that He was mature from His birth.
In this process, we need to skip the definition of time, because time is also included in the definition for God. He includes every second of time and space, milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, and all the time and space that constitute spacetime. But because of this, there is a limitation on the length of time, because time is fixed for him, fixed to the sum of the Big Bang to the heat death of the universe, one Gore year.
Therefore, this maturity limited God's expansion, so He expanded outward to include non-self products, namely Norton.
By including Norton, a product of himself, time gains meaning. At any point in time when Norton exists, God gains an entire spacetime shaped by that point in time. Therefore, Norton's existence allows God to expand infinitely.
Even if Norton had achieved the highest level of power and become a particle that constitutes the universe, God would have merely expelled him, rather than pushed him out of His own space.
Upon hearing Norton's question, God laughed heartily and released Norton from his grasp, "Hahaha, Norton, you don't need to hate me. This cycle of reincarnation is your own active choice each time, and besides, it benefits each of us."
We are individuals with desires. The longevity of survival and the supreme power of omniscience and omnipotence have already raised our threshold for excitement to an unreachable level. Therefore, endless loneliness and emptiness become our greatest problem.
Therefore, each time memories are washed away and we are reborn, it is not a death of self-loss for us immortal beings, but an absolute reward.
Just as you said, I am indeed jealous of you, because only you can experience rebirth, only you can experience all the thrills little by little. Even your soul, which was drawn here, carries your own memories, so in this cycle of reincarnation, you are still you. How could anyone not be jealous?
Compared to you, I can only observe your every reincarnation, finding a few new pleasures in the process.
Just as I was resurrected, looking back on this Gore period, only the sixteen thousand years you lived in were somewhat interesting. Everything else remained unchanged and utterly uninteresting, just as I had seen it a thousand times before.
Now, it's time for you to make a choice again.
Norton, even though you remember nothing, you still have three choices this time.
First: Be with me, and live forever in this endless nothingness, until you can no longer bear the loneliness and choose to be reborn.
Second: Let go of all attachments and enter the next cycle of reincarnation.
Third: I will help you break free from God, and you will return to your original world. In this way, your soul can dissipate again, and you will enter into true death.
Hurry up and choose, Norton. This dull universe is starting to bore me...
While the wonders of God were still swirling in his mind, Norton stood there obediently, like a model schoolboy.
It wasn't that he wanted to stay where he was; rather, he was forced to stay where he was.
Every particle in his body, carrying every fragment of his barren soul, was pressing down on him, making it impossible for him to move in the slightest.
All those powerful allies He once had have now become obstacles, imprisoning His barren soul within them, just like Abraham and Elizabeth nailed to a glass case and a stake, at the mercy of others.
Unexpectedly, in just two short chapters, the situation has already reversed, and Norton has become a lamb to be slaughtered at will!
At this moment, Norton truly realized that his so-called evolution was actually stealing the authority of the gods!
In reality, he was nothing but a piece of trash in this Garden of Eden!
After all, he could never actually use someone's arm to beat them up.
Norton stood silently in place, frantically searching for a way to break the deadlock.
He originally thought that even if he couldn't devour God, he would still be invincible. But now it seems that others know everything about him, while he himself knows nothing about him. Now, even if he wanted to use tricks, it would be difficult to do so.
Now, Norton is essentially trying to survive within someone else's framework.
How ridiculous!
In the past, when Norton dealt with Kuba and Jonah, he used his unique abilities to pull them under his own framework, thereby lowering their Existence Level. But today, the situation is completely reversed; Norton, because he has absorbed too much of God's organization, has been confined by God's framework.
Who would have thought that Norton, who spends his days hunting geese, would have his eyes pecked by one!
Damn it, path dependence is definitely not a good idea!
Looking into Norton's darting eyes, it seemed as if God had already seen through all his thoughts.
"All your schemes are useless. Whether I devour you or you devour me, your barren soul cannot bear the sum total of this reality, Heaven, and all of time and space, just as a drop of ink cannot pollute the ocean. All the particles that constitute time and space, souls, and underlying logic have nothing to do with you. You are merely a barren soul, therefore, your schemes are useless."
Just as your twisted thoughts and flesh, in the end, aren't they still essentially God's creation?
You cannot seek transcendence by devouring gods, just as a fish in water cannot try to leave the sea by swallowing seawater. Because the space-time in which you exist only has your existence, and you can never reach the space-time in which you do not exist, you can never devour God, and you can never seek transcendence.
Norton, it's all beyond repair. Reality has collapsed. All of God's particles, matter, soul, time, and space have come together to form me, and thus we are now in absolute emptiness.
Even if I truly had the ability to send you back and restore everything in reality and Heaven to its original state, given your current mental condition and your extremely barren spiritual world, how long could you endure this endless loneliness?
Desire forms the foundation of human nature, but it is also because of this that human nature is difficult to sustain...
The magnificent God said no more, simply floating silently in the high sky, eyes closed. Frame after frame of Norton's past began to flow around him, as if savoring this rare pleasure. Even the restraints on Norton were released, allowing Norton to roam freely in this nothingness, to think and vent.
The void knows no time, Norton's spirit, which had been worn down to almost nothing by the passage of millennia, immediately broke free from the emotions of resentment, struggle, and resistance, and began to seriously ponder the words spoken by God.
To be honest, Norton's current state is exactly as God predicted.
The excessive omniscience and omnipotence, coupled with an excessively long lifespan, have long since diminished his desires, and consequently weakened his humanity.
Otherwise, Abraham wouldn't have felt Norton's humanity rapidly disappearing over the years.
Why does he stubbornly climb to the highest point? Isn't it because he's lived too long and it's too boring, so he wants to find something to do and seek true transcendence, in order to try to enter a completely new universe and seek unknown joy?
Such a request seems no different from the goal of reincarnation, the only difference being that one retains memories while the other loses them.
Now, the climb has reached its end, transcendence is unattainable, and he cannot choose to return to his original world, allowing his unique soul to truly wither away...
The void is immeasurable by years; no one knows how much time has passed.
Norton, who had been sitting blankly on the ground, finally sighed and raised his head.
"So, why were you born? And what role do you play in this universe? I don't believe God would easily create a deity like you who embodies everything."
The God who sat high in the sky finally reopened his eyes, which were filled with the dazzling Milky Way, and his gaze swept over Norton.
"Don't you understand, Norton? You were drawn here by a mature God, and a mature God is in a state of extinction. Therefore, before I was born, in this entire universe, besides the true God who has no desires or thoughts, only you could control all matter and soul..."
You felt lonely, so life was born. You conceived of galaxies, so Garden of Eden was transformed, and the starry sky appeared. You wanted to become Vampire, so you became Vampire. You believed there were gods in this world, so gods were born. You wanted to devour God to transcend, so God descended. In this Garden of Eden, there is only you, the only truly free and unfettered mind and soul.
Everything else is merely a product of your thoughts... only it wasn't conceived by your current ideas. Even what I call humanity is nothing more than the accumulation of your memories. (In short, the universe itself is fixed, but Norton's arrival created a completely new spacetime with Norton. This new spacetime created by Norton's arrival is naturally defined by Norton. Therefore, all the gods, Garden of Eden, and even the development of the story and the passage of time are new chapters born in Norton's spacetime.)
"Ha... so that's how awesome I am." Norton chuckled, feeling rather wistful.
"Alright, then I only have one last question: where did the Shenyin that governs the origin of life go?"
"The world is shaped and constructed by your thoughts; haven't all life over the past ten thousand years been under your control?"
Norton was taken aback, then burst into laughter. "Hahahaha... So that's how it is! So that's how it is! This Garden of Eden, how pathetic and laughable..."
Two lines of golden tears slid down Norton's cheeks. The god, suspended in the void, slowly cracked open on the surface of his body. From the cracked skin, a dazzling light shone outward, as if the internal energy was about to explode.
Divine intent shrouded the void, slowly dissipating as light burst forth.
"You will fall into primordial slumber until the next ten thousand years..."
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Death strips away the divine body, yet the divine spirit never perishes.
The corpse of the deity hung high on the wooden stake, its divine consciousness revived in Heaven.
The flesh and blood stripped away become the shackles of reality, while the soul stripped away becomes the gateway to Heaven.
A pure white divine corpse floated silently in the vacuum. The god was nowhere to be seen, leaving only a few ribs, which were made into a pure white cross and bone nails, and the divine corpse was nailed to the cross.
As the universe revolves, a vast, flat piece of land gradually emerges, its origins unknown.
The divine corpse that had been floating in the vacuum fell onto this empty land and into the sea.
The divine body was soaked in seawater, and a few indistinct golden bloodstains drifted with the seawater to various continents.
As life evolved and sea levels gradually decreased, a humanoid creature that used tools began to tinker and hammer across the land, seemingly out of nowhere...