Chapter 502: Surrender
The dagger held by the librarian, whom Wang Yu and his group had named Eniac, a construct born after the old God of Eternal Night's will had been erased—was, in truth, nothing more than the projection of the blade in Damian's hand cast into the void. The vast consciousness sealed within that blade now exerted its full, unmitigated influence upon the Lady of the Night, using the channel that linked deity to believer as its perfect conduit.
Compared to the Church of Light, the Church of Nightfall was far smaller in scale. Its members held a broad and often casual sort of faith in the Lady of the Night. Few possessed genuine awe toward the divine. Thus, influencing the Lady of the Night was far easier than the God of Light.
Not only did the dagger avoid the impossible requirement of striking a deity's true form directly, the nature of the Lady made the intrusion doubly effective—the former Night God and the current Lady of the Night were not the same being.
Though Wang Yu and the others had previously erased the will of that resurrected ancient god, the countless sealed consciousnesses within the dagger were surfacing once more. Their understanding of the God of Eternal Night, conveyed through Damian's channel of faith, struck the Lady of the Night directly. The process of deicide began, swift, inevitable, and unstoppable.
No one knew how Utopia had gathered these daggers or forged them. The sheer number of consciousnesses within, and the strength of their collective recognition of each deity, was staggering. Of course, their impact would be weakened against monolithic deities like the God of Light.
But for deities with few believers, the damage would be utterly ruinous—total denial of their existence that hollowed out the foundation of their power, leaving only an empty throne for a newly risen presence to occupy and feed upon.
And the Lady of the Night, whose nature already conflicted with that of the ancient God of Eternal Night, was even more vulnerable. Reviving something would always be easier than creating it anew. In an instant, the vast consciousnesses within the dagger restored the old god's agency. Their strength plunged the blade into the Lady of the Night's back.
The dagger buried itself deep in her tall frame. Its corrosive power spread like wildfire, ravaging her command over the power granted by her believers and the Tree of the Night. That authority, stripped from her, flowed to its new master—the resurrected God of Eternal Night of ages past, now drinking in her strength and rising once more.
The Lady of the Night's divine realm trembled uncontrollably. Divinity boiled and frothed, slipping from her authority and rushing toward its new proprietor: the ancient god rapidly blossoming with restored power.
The towering Tree of the Night shook violently. Endless starlit leaves fell like rain, scattering across the divine ground, dissolving into liquid darkness and returning to the embrace of the new God of Eternal Night.
Those leaves represented the faith of the Church of Nightfall's believers. The Church of Nightfall's holy book contained little true description of the deity; the believers' understanding applied equally well to this resurrected God of Eternal Night. As the old god stripped away the Lady's power, the god likewise usurped her faith.
The once-mighty Tree of the Night withered. Its leaves curled and fell; its great trunk dimmed and softened. A sky-piercing giant collapsed into a frail, pitiful remnant in the span of moments.
The resurrected God of Eternal Night's body became whole again. Where once there had been only darkness without features, a face emerged—
That of a girl, shorter and more delicate than the Lady of the Night. This must have been the form in which her ancient believers had envisioned her.
Small though she might have appeared, her strength now dwarfed the Lady's. The power binding the Lady of the Night was no longer the dagger's corruption—
It was the dominion of the night itself, fully seized by this girl who now held nearly all of it. Overwhelmed by the difference in strength, the Lady of the Night could not move at all.
Only a few thin threads of faith remained tethered to her—those of Charles, Edward, Noelle, and others who knew that Lady Darkness was no mere avatar but the Lady of the Night herself.
Bereft of nearly all her divine power, the Lady of the Night could no longer call upon the night's authority. Wang Yu and Avia, fighting Utopia on the other side, also felt the backlash. The fog of the night unravelled instantly, revealing Wang Yu's figure as he sprinted through the sea of enemies.
The power of the Tree of Night that had been entrusted to Avia was reclaimed as well, leaving her with only a faint remnant, far too little to support Wang Yu's battle.
Exposed and without divine concealment, Wang Yu was quickly engulfed by volleys of fire from Utopia's towers. Even with the Chariot's power fully engaged, he could barely weave through the ceaseless bombardment, avoiding death only by the thinnest of margins.
Even so, before the towers' overwhelming, indiscriminate assault, he was forced to take several hits head-on.
Were it not for his monstrous physique and the Chariot's protection, he would already be dead. As things stood, he was rapidly approaching the limits of what his body could endure.
"What is your name?"
Inside the divine realm of the night, the Lady of the Night's voice echoed softly. It was as calm as ever, devoid of fear despite her imminent erasure.
"?"
The ancient God of Eternal Night tilted her head slightly, confused. She gave no answer, as though she could not understand the question.
"It seems you have none. My name is Darkness. A dear friend gave it to me."
A barely audible sigh slipped from her. Her voice carried a faint, almost imperceptible gentleness. She offered her name to the god who was taking everything from her.
"I often pity your kind... and sometimes I marvel at my own fortune.
"I once suffered as you do. Bound by something beyond myself, my very will swayed by that power. Am I truly myself? That was the question I pondered when I had no name. Did I possess a true will, or was I merely a machine of my believers' recognition, reflecting their composite thoughts?"
Her tone remained serene. This was a sincere reflection.
"..."
The ancient god continued her silent work, stripping away, more and more quickly, what remained of the Lady's power. Then, she began erasing the remnant identity known as the Lady of the Night.
"You may not understand this, but that's exactly why I pity you. Having once known total bondage, I know well how precious freedom of will truly is. And for the sake of that freedom, relinquishing the power that came with it was an easy choice."
As she spoke, the Lady of the Night stepped forward. At that moment, the weight of the power pressing upon her vanished. The ancient god's authority was wholly divorced from her. She was no longer a deity of the night, merely an individual named Darkness.
"Forgive this small mercy."
Darkness turned and embraced the ancient god from behind, her form now untouchable, beyond the other's reach. It was the embrace of a mother comforting a child, though the child might never understand why she was pitied.
Elsewhere, in the depths of the void, Sulla frowned as he observed the scene unfold. Events were proceeding precisely as he had predicted: Wang Yu had lost all his divine power, and the ancient God of Eternal Night had replaced the Church of Nightfall's deity. Though the Utopia only had two nodes available at the moment, killing Wang Yu should have become trivial.
Yet as a scholar, he could not ignore inconsistencies with his understanding. Something felt very wrong.
"The God of Eternal Night should have manifested fully by now. With the faith of an entire church, she should—"
He trailed off. For the first time, he could not clearly articulate the flaw he sensed. He had determined the source of the problem, but not what had happened.
Just as the Lady of the Night once told Wang Yu, even if she had to relinquish all power, she would sooner die than surrender the hard-won freedom she had finally grasped. And so, in that moment, she cast aside everything she possessed, offering it calmly, almost serenely, to the ancient God of Eternal Night who had usurped her divinity.
She had nothing left. She was now utterly severed from that former deity. And with that connection gone, the old God of Eternal Night could no longer interfere with her in any way.
Standing quietly in the void, the Lady of the Night watched events unfold before her. Her expression held the same faint compassion as always, and a quiet contentment that had never once left her.
An eruption of black, root-like tendrils burst forth from the domain of the night. These tendrils, manifestations of the Night's divine power, lashed mercilessly around their "master," the ancient God of Eternal Night, binding her tight and dragging Her toward the colossal tree now rising anew from the void. This was the new Tree of the Night, woven from the power taken from the Lady of the Night and the strength offered by Her newborn believers.
"Thank you, my friend."
With her eyes half-closed, the Lady of the Night tarried no longer. She turned and began walking toward the place where Wang Yu and Avia stood.
What was happening to the old Night Goddess might have seemed paradoxical at first. Why would divine power devour its own master? To answer that question, one had to first sort out the hierarchy of things. Who, truly, was a god?
At its root, a god was a vast collective of power shaped by its believers' perception. The ancient God of Eternal Night was merely the consciousness born from that power.
In other words, deities were like operating systems. Divine power was hardware; the gods were software. Without hardware, they were nothing.
The divine power was simply performing a "system update"—replacing the outdated OS, the Lady of the Night, whose nature no longer aligned with the believers' perception, with something that fit their belief perfectly.
And what kind of system best matched the believers' idea of a god? That was the trap the Lady of the Night had laid for any who dared to seize her power. Wang Yu and Avia knew the answer—a deity without self-awareness, mechanical and impartial, responding strictly according to preset procedures. In other words, a CPU.
The Tree of the Night, reprogrammed and rebuilt by Wang Yu and Avia within the void, operated with far greater efficiency than the Lady of the Night herself ever could. That spoke volumes: a god who perfectly matched its believers' concept should not possess a will of its own.
And because the ancient God of Eternal Night had stolen her power after that system had already been rewritten, all the "programming" was still preserved. The believers' vision demanded the mechanical god, not the self-aware one. Thus, the moment the ancient deity replaced the Lady of the Night, the system simply crushed and replaced her.
As for why the Lady of the Night did not collapse despite losing all her divine power, well, that lay with Wang Yu. Not that he would know the full answer, though.
When Wang Yu first met the Lady of the Night and slew the few gnomes who worshiped her, she should have fallen. After all, she effectively had no devotees by that point. Given the world's laws, since Wang Yu himself could not worship a god, she should have dissipated like Samuel Hayden, the God of Knowledge. She should never have been able to become the object of faith for the Church of Nightfall later on.
Yet the truth was that she survived, sustained within Roland's key, which Wang Yu possessed, living on perfectly well without any worshipers. The Key was miraculous, but even it could not achieve such a thing. The only explanation was Wang Yu, an aberration who ignored the world's rules simply by existing.
In other words, the tall woman whose name was Darkness, though shaped from the memories and remnants of the original Lady of the Night, was no longer a true goddess at all. She was something else entirely, something Wang Yu had unknowingly influenced into existence, something free. She had gained true self-awareness.
The Lady of the Night had never been foolish: merely slow, perhaps, and pleasantly languid. She hardly took initiative. She followed Wang Yu and Avia's suggestions without complaint, behaved nothing like a god, and seemed perfectly content with that.
But true freedom was precious beyond belief to one who knew what it was like to have her mind shaped and twisted by divine power. Only such a being could understand how dearly she cherished this liberation.
She was grateful to Wang Yu for that freedom, and delighted to heed Avia's clever counsel. Why not? When others handled the burdens of thought and planning for her, all she needed to do was follow along and enjoy the things that interested her. What could be better? Laziness was practically a virtue.
As for her divine power, it mattered little. Compared to what she had now gained, it was trivial.
If it could help Wang Yu and Avia, she would use it. If it hindered their freedom, or her own, then she would discard it.
For the sake of that freedom, she had, for once, exerted herself to imprison the ancient God of Eternal Night in the role of a librarian. If that deity were ever to revive, the changes she had wrought to her divine power would adjust to the new god by erasing its consciousness entirely.
"You worked hard. Rest well."
Avia, standing within Wang Yu's domain in the void, patted the Lady of the Night's head, which had popped out of the miniature Tree of the Night that she had placed by her feet before the start of the fight.
The once-tall Lady of the Night had shrunk dramatically. She was now no larger than a six-year-old, and Avia could not help patting her.
"Mm."
Lady Darkness nodded, sat down at the edge of Wang Yu's domain, and looked toward the embattled figure in the distance. Neither Avia nor Darkness seemed the slightest bit concerned for him.
With a steady exhale, Wang Yu felt a familiar force respond, one that used to require divine approval. But now, driven by the power of the Chariot driving it, it was completely unrestricted.
Once, the Tree of the Night's power had been locked behind the Lady of the Night, just as hardware was locked behind an operating system. As long as she permitted it, Wang Yu could access that owned power. But when it passed to the ancient God of Eternal Night, a stranger to him, he was naturally unable to access it any longer.
But the Tree of the Night had since usurped the God of Eternal Night. It was a machine, a mindless system, a divine engine performing its duties without self or thought. A blank, ownerless computer.
Such power belonged to no one, no more than the ambient mana of the world did. In other words, it was now within the Chariot's domain. Wang Yu could control it all.
The Chariot surged, its reach exploding outward. It interfaced with the new Tree of the Night Sky, cascaded through the programming, and claimed every shred of power for Wang Yu, far more easily than when he had puppeteered the body of Wendel Myx.
Black tendrils erupted outward from him in a storm, engulfing every Utopia spire in reach. Under the Chariot's command, the divinity of the night pinned them in place.
Perhaps one could now call Wang Yu a god.
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