Lamont paused, as if immersed in memories, and slowly said, "My brother and I were born into a noble family, and as children, we took pleasure in raising ants.

When the total number of individuals in an ant colony reaches a certain limit, they can develop self-awareness, even intelligence.

They can observe their keepers, become aware of their existence, and worship their keepers' various actions—

The ant colony, after satisfying their food needs, would pile the extra fungal scraps they produced in a conspicuous place within the glass box as offerings,

and whenever the keeper came to the glass box to deliver a new batch of supplies,

they would gather around the heap of fungal scraps, stacking them into a tower to attract the keeper's attention.

When the ant colony found that the strongest soldier ants among them were taken away by the keeper, they did not feel fear or choose to devolve,

on the contrary, they would regulate internally,

actively allocating resources to larvae most likely to become strong soldier ants, 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

providing the soldier ants with the best living environment, trying every possible way to breed strong soldier ants to meet the keeper's needs."

A muffled, gloomy laugh came from beneath Lamont's Red Armor mask, "The intelligence of that ant colony was very high, but only relative to insects.

They don't know the true intentions of the keeper, nor can they perceive the keeper's full appearance—in their eyes, the keeper might just be a massive, unimaginable black shadow,

with the five gigantic pillars from the sky (namely a child's hand) being the keeper's true body.

Nevertheless, they also provide us with some unique lessons..."

Lamont's Cross Longsword lightly grazed the ground, sparking faintly, "If deities exist, then perhaps humanity can never comprehend Their thoughts;

the actions humans believe capable of attracting divine attention might just be inexplicable futile acts in Their eyes;

deities created humans, not out of some lofty intention, but perhaps merely out of simple interest."

Lamont's tone became somewhat ethereal, he slightly raised his head and calmly said, "The illusion Lisa saw was three hundred years... probably three hundred and fifty years ago, a disaster that swept the world.

At that time, natural disasters were rampant across the globe,

acid rain, hailstorms, droughts, thunderstorms, dust storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, even meteorite impacts.

Crops failed, diseases spread, countless died or were injured, and fewer than one in ten survived; the severity of the situation was so dire that even historians found it hard to reach a consensus.

And in the visions Lisa saw, the source of it all came from the Sacred Mountain—

Above the Sacred Mountain, suspended was an unimaginably massive translucent humanoid shadow, majestic and divine like the embodiment of a deity,

It's arm descended from the sky, casting starlight down from above the clouds onto the human world.

Wherever the starlight landed, a disaster would form a few days later."

Lamont paused for a moment before continuing, "In Lisa's illusion, It made no sound, nor showed any intention.

It did not feel sorrow for human suffering, or rather, It could not understand, nor bothered to understand, human suffering.

He was like children in my homeland, who sometimes use magnifying glasses to burn insects, watching them turn to ash in the scorching sunlight.

The punitive act itself had no purpose,

or rather, He committed evil just because He had enough power to do evil."

Lamont went on, "In the Church education Lisa received, the Goddess created our world and modeled humans after Her image.

Humans are the Goddess' most favored creation, but it is because of humanity's inherent original sins that natural and man-made disasters occur.

However, the illusion she saw greatly shook her worldview.

She doubted if she had seen wrongly,

doubted if that existence causing natural disasters was not the Goddess, but the projection of other deities.

Until the very last moment, she held a glimmer of hope that it was all an illusion, a test given by the Goddess."

Li Ang furrowed his brows, "What exactly did you see?"

"Ha,"

Lamont took a deep breath, "At the end of the first trial, Ken perished where you now stand due to severe injuries.

We passed through the Fog Door and saw... a machine."

Li Ang raised an eyebrow, "A machine?"

"That's right."

Lamont nodded, "There was no pure Holy Light, no fragrance, joyous gospel, or Angels.

Behind the Fog Door, there was only a machine placed inside the cave.

Since Ken had only recently died, we lacked the mind to closely observe our surroundings, and requested to use the Wishing Machine to resurrect Ken."

Li Ang glanced at the massive package on the back of the Kui Ox Mecha, "It seems the resurrection process didn't go smoothly."

Lamont slowly nodded, "That machine projected a blurred, indistinct figure.

She hovered in mid-air; just by floating there, she instilled fear and awe in us,

No matter how many difficulties and obstacles we had overcome, no matter how many monsters and beasts we had slain,

before her specter, it was hard to suppress the trembling fear in our bodies—an uncontrollable biological instinct towards a high-order being,

like how goblins would freeze in the presence of a powerful creature."

Fortunately, her projection did not concern itself with our inner turmoil,

after hearing our account,

she simply and indifferently reminded us that the result of resurrection might not be as we imagined,

but we still chose as such.

To our surprise, she did not directly resurrect Ken's body but with a wave of her hand,

she summoned a horde of monsters from within the Sacred Mountain,

from a distance, bloodily and ruthlessly dissected and sliced the monsters into countless pieces, without any divine demeanor,

then extracted Ken's brain from his still slightly warm remains,

and like playing with clay, randomly pieced these elements together haphazardly."

Even after more than fifty years have passed,

Lamont could not help but clench his fists tightly when mentioning that experience, coldly saying, "She nonchalantly threw a monster barely recognizable as human before us, informing us that this was Ken.

The wish has been fulfilled, and we should leave on our own.

Even Lisa could have done a better job at restoring limbs, at least make Ken appear more human.

She, or rather the Goddess's projection, simply held us in contempt and ignored us.

She even disregarded our slightly offensive questioning, with a wave of her hand, expelled us from the Sacred Mountain,

as if sweeping cockroaches out of a house, kicking us out."