Witch, Fireball and the Evil God of Steam-Chapter 721 - 98: Divinity Factor

"...Divine factor."

Zhuang Xiao couldn't care less about the splitting headache she felt when she exited the "dreamscape." The moment she opened her eyes, she spoke up, her intuition telling her that this was quite an important piece of information.

"Finally, some progress. You've worked hard, Colonel Zhuang Xiao."

Merlin held a work titled "City of Truth" in his hand. While Zhuang Xiao was in the dreamscape, he had been repeatedly reading this sheepskin book that unveiled the fate of the City of Truth. Based on the information he obtained from Zhuang Xiao and Chen Qi, it seemed the City of Truth in the dreamscape was currently in a honeymoon phase of exchanges between the Democratic Assembly and the empire.

Both sides were frequently exchanging information between the two worlds through the dreamscape.

"Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock."

The knocking came unexpectedly.

"Come in."

Sitting near the office door, Zhuang Xiao vaguely saw a familiar figure. As fellow "pioneers," she had almost no further interaction with Song Xian after returning to the shelter. Without the influence of the chip, their original identities in the shelter had no intersection, and they were not part of the same department.

Song Xian seemed to be busy with many tasks, and she had rarely seen him in the public areas of the shelter. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

After entering, he didn't have much interaction with Merlin either. Merlin wrote a few words on a piece of paper and handed it to Song Xian, who silently tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat, then stacked a pile of documents on Merlin's desk as if it were an ordinary interdepartmental handover.

After Song Xian left and the office door closed again, quiet returned. Merlin finally said, "Let him investigate the divine factor for now. You can get some proper rest... Would you like to join me for lunch?"

"This book was also from him..."

Zhuang Xiao suddenly realized something.

Merlin remained silent, which amounted to tacit approval.

"I tried meeting Lindong; she doesn't seem to remember anything about the guild and has forgotten about the shelter."

"That's not surprising; it's consistent with Song Xian's views."

"Him?"

"He thinks that although Lindong looks identical to the 'Goddess,' she feels like two different people. He even heard some interesting rumors in the empire; Ethan seems to believe the Goddess is the 'future Lindong.'"

Of course, from a scientific perspective, this touches on a time paradox. Many books in the shelter mention the famous grandfather paradox, and the mainstream view suggests that even if someone did master the ability to traverse time, they must never let their two selves meet.

Time abilities, seemingly mysterious and omnipotent as they may be, have many limitations.

The establishment of the shelter, the destruction of the City of Truth, and the starship mentioned in the sheepskin book that was sent to the "otherworld" suggest that the Democratic Assembly has already surpassed the "pioneer program" by a large margin. They truly believed that starship could cross the distance between galaxies and reach another system with a highly advanced civilization.

As Zhuang Xiao brought back the concept of the "divine factor," Merlin suddenly felt that perhaps the issue of temporal sequencing was the key to everything.

Seeing Merlin fall into silence again, Zhuang Xiao asked, "What do you think?"

"I believe Lindong is not human."

Merlin spoke his mind, then realized these words might cause misunderstanding, so he explained, "At the very least, she's different from us, not a pure-blood human."

The prolonged life in the "otherworld" was enough for them to notice this fact.

No matter how much power the guild's upper echelons obtained, or how many planes they ruled, they could never become true "gods." The more they understood about powers, the closer they got to that supreme being, the more they understood the unbridgeable gap between them. They could only ever have access to those abilities.

To use gaming terminology, after completing the main quest of finding the Goddess, each of them only gained a path to further their own path of power, putting them far above the Saint, perhaps the limit of what humans can achieve.

And further still would be the ability to determine paths and rules of existence.

The Goddess who shared her power and the Old Gods, whose true forms remain undetermined, belong to that echelon.

"You're the only one among us who has truly interacted with the Old Gods; you should understand the difference better than any of us... and Lindong, she possessed the gift we lack from the very beginning."

However, all of this was beyond their current knowledge scope.

To the residents of the shelter, they lived in a world without mysticism, without supernatural events; the only power they believed in was science. Even the concept of "superhumans" had never appeared in their lives, so even members of the shelter's committee needed protection from security personnel who were always equipped with the best gear.

But now, Merlin felt he had uncovered an anomaly in this world.

"If you venture into the Democratic Assembly, you might meet a familiar face there."

"...How do you know?"

"The book says so."

Merlin waved the sheepskin book in his hand," The Believer of the God of Truth who wrote this book had met every member of the Democratic Assembly."

And according to scientific theory, the original members of the Democratic Assembly couldn't possibly have survived to this day.