Chapter 1 The Winner

In the living room, the battle for the TV remote had finally concluded, with Dou Dou emerging as the victor. She was now happily sprawled on the coffee table, clutching the remote and engrossed in *Finding Nemo*. The little mermaid's triumph was justified: Elizabeth barely put up a fight before her old man called her away to read *The Prince*, while Gun simply acted as the little mermaid's sidekick. That left Lily to face the two tykes alone, and even with a husky's brainpower, she felt a bit awkward. So, with a magnanimous wave, she declared that she had to get back to her writing and handed the remote to Dou Dou.

The "war" in the center of the living room came to an end, but the conversation between Hao Ren and Loli Sha by the windowsill in the corner of the living room had only just begun.

The "Elven Queen" didn't seem surprised to hear Hao Ren's words. "I knew you'd be interested in this."

"After all, I'm investigating the Dream Plane, and the religious activities on Planet Holletta ten thousand years ago will obviously help me understand how the divine power of your universe worked before the Creator Goddess fell," Hao Ren chuckled. "And more importantly, I'm quite interested in the Creator Goddess herself, especially her words and actions in the period before the Godslayer War broke out. That might reveal her state of mind at the time."

Loli Sha glanced at him. "Do you know that if the priests on our side ten thousand years ago heard you say that, they'd probably fight you to the death—it's practically blasphemy."

Hao Ren spread his hands. "Whatever. I'm a pope myself, so what's wrong with discussing gods now and then? The goddess on my side never makes such a fuss about etiquette. Speaking of which, is the Creator Goddess of the Dream Plane a deity who is very concerned about her authority?"

Loli Sha immediately shook her head. "No, gods themselves don't care what the mortal world thinks of them. They operate in the universe like the sun, moon, and stars, unaffected by any worldly honor or disgrace, just as the words and perceptions of mortals cannot affect the existence of truth itself. But while gods can be so magnanimous, we mortals cannot. Ancient… Holletta developed under the guidance of the church. The goddess's influence was instilled in the blood of every living being from the moment the Sourceblood flowed from the Origin Seed. Religion and faith have accompanied our society from beginning to end. It has become an important tool for us to maintain social stability and orderly production. Even though dogma has evolved with the times and the church has gone from closed and conservative to open and inclusive, the authority of divine right is absolutely inviolable, at least in our era."

Now, Loli Sha followed Hao Ren's habit and referred to her planet as "Holletta," but she still stumbled over the name, which was obviously quite unfamiliar to her.

Hao Ren asked out of pure curiosity, "At that time, how much influence did the leader of the Goddess Sect have in secular society? How did it compare to the magic emperors?"

"In fact, the magic emperor himself was the highest leader of the Goddess Sect within a country," Loli Sha said with a smile. "We implemented a system of dual bishops. Each country had two supreme bishops: one was the 'Supervisory Bishop' who presided over ecclesiastical power and was responsible for all matters limited to religious activities, and the other was the 'Power Bishop', who was concurrently the magic emperor of each country. We managed the secular world and also had equal say with the Supervisory Bishop within the church. And besides the national-level bishops, there was also a supreme 'Pope', who was unique and the closest to the gods. This pope could directly communicate with the goddess at any time, and the pope's thoughts were also immersed in the goddess's thoughts for a long time. He was influenced by constantly looking at the goddess's thoughts, so he never interfered in the power struggles of the secular world, but devoted himself to maintaining the connection between the goddess and the mortal world. That was the form of the church in Holletta ten thousand years ago. Of course, there are many more details that could be told, but it would take a while to explain them all."

Hao Ren had just asked about these things out of curiosity and didn't really intend to study how the church in Holletta operated ten thousand years ago. If he really wanted to get into that, he could just borrow a few notebooks from his colleagues and have everything he needed. So, after roughly understanding the structure of the Goddess Sect in ancient Holletta, he changed the subject. "How did you usually communicate with the goddess? How difficult was it to communicate? Could you directly hear her voice, or could you only sense her aura?"

"Every child created by the goddess could sense that sense of belonging from their bloodline. We knew from the beginning who created us, so we could pray without distractions, and in the process of praying, we could communicate with the gods. It wasn't difficult for us. However, ordinary prayers couldn't directly hear the goddess's voice, because she had to pay attention to the operation of the entire universe and couldn't carefully listen to the voice of every child—so in most cases, we could only sense her aura, or get a fixed answer when we asked a question."

Hao Ren understood immediately. "Oh, I get it. It's like an automatic answering machine. It's very convenient. The goddess here uses it too. Just set up the automatic responses in advance, and believers will get an answer to any life question immediately. That way, it's convenient for both sides. But the goddess here uses this thing mainly because she's too lazy to listen to complaints…"

Loli Sha automatically filtered out Hao Ren's blasphemous last sentence and was only interested in what he said before. "Oh? Other gods do that too? How does the Raven Goddess usually respond to prayers?"

Hao Ren: "The goddess you're calling is not in service, or 'Don't be a coward, just do it.' 'If you have time to find Mom, you might as well go back and beat him up.' 'If you can't beat him, I'll stand up for you,' and stuff like that… To be honest, I think the first automatic response is more polite."

Loli Sha: "…Forgive me for being blunt, but does anyone in your universe really believe in her?"

Hao Ren spread his hands. "Well, it's free, so believe a little."

Loli Sha: "…"

"Ahem, let's get back to business," Hao Ren felt that his own God's work style would definitely be a strange thing in the eyes of people with a normal worldview, so he quickly pulled Loli Sha's attention back. "So, have you ever had a direct conversation with the Creator Goddess? Who can do that? What is the direct conversation like? It would be best if you could tell me about this process in detail."

"The goddess occasionally chats with her children. This process is not limited to a certain race or individual, but is often random. This conversation is called 'revelation', which usually takes place in dreams. The dreamer will see a blurry light, and the goddess's thoughts will be directly transmitted to their spiritual world. Since the goddess has sown life on countless planets, those who can receive this revelation are extremely lucky. In our records, only a handful of lucky ones throughout history have received this revelation. They later became great priests or extremely knowledgeable pioneers," Loli Sha explained seriously. "In addition to this revelation, devout believers in the church can also directly communicate with the goddess through special rituals—of course, this has very high requirements, and basically only people of the bishop level can have this opportunity. Through the ritual agreed upon with the goddess, we can directly call the God Realm, and then the goddess will descend through a grand illusion…"

Hao Ren was immediately attracted by this key point. "Illusion? What kind of illusion?"

"It's not certain. It depends on the perception of the prayer and the specific execution of the ritual, but it's usually an unrecognizable, luminous female figure, or an amorphous light. But there have also been records of things like crystal-like towering towers, mysterious and vast palaces, boundless red seas, or unknown starry skies. The latter types of illusions basically appeared during more special ritual sacrifices. There were many participants, perhaps because the spiritual agitation of a large number of participants caused the illusions to be different. Only the people participating in the ritual can see the illusion. In their eyes, the illusion is as real as if it has replaced the real world, but people who don't participate in the ritual can't see anything even if they stand next to the altar. They will only feel a huge amount of energy and an boundless will sweeping across the sky."

"Well, what you saw should be the scene on the Primordial Star. It seems that the Creator Goddess directly transmitted the image of the Primordial Star to your ritual site through the eldest son's mind network. It's essentially a kind of ultra-long-range brainwave communication. Your minds are connected to the eldest son's brainwaves, and then connected to the control center on the Primordial Star. That's the process." As Hao Ren spoke, he nodded slightly, refining his hypothetical model of the "eldest son's mind network" in his mind.

Loli Sha also nodded in agreement, and then continued, "Our connection with the God Realm has been like this since ancient times, but in the years before that 'divine decree' came, that is, before the 'Godslayer War' you mentioned broke out, we saw some different things. Illusions appeared that had never appeared in historical records…"

"What kind of scenes?"

"The illusions we saw in the past were bright and brilliant, filled with an exhilarating and reassuring aura, but in those years… bishops frequently saw patterns filled with darkness and strange lines at large festivals. Various scenes seemed to be distorted and skewed as if they had been interfered with, and the image of the goddess never appeared again. And in all the illusions, one thing constantly appeared… It was a blood-red moon."

Hao Ren felt his breath catch in his throat. "A blood-red moon?! Are you sure it's a moon? Not the Primordial Star? As far as I know, the Primordial Star is also red…"

"No, I'm sure. Because I've seen that thing too. It's definitely not the Primordial Star. It's a red moon."