The world controlled by dice [Western Fantasy]

He was not surprised by Antinam's self-introduction, after all, he had guessed this possibility before.

Of course, the god with the world as his surname - this did surprise him.Thinking about it now, those old gods don't seem to have surnames, but only first names.

Maybe their surname is Fisher too?Or maybe, they are not enough to use this surname?

As he thought, he raised his eyes and looked around.He finally saw Antinam.

Antinam was standing not far away.

This is a semicircular, translucent, shimmering place.They are standing on this semi-circular platform.But he can't say... there's only that "ordinary" light around.

He is still wearing [Akamala's spectacle frame] at this moment, so he can see some wonderful landscapes hidden in these rays of light, as if there is a glass cover covering the semicircular platform.And the glass cover reflects countless changing scenes.

... Fisher World.he thinks.This glass cover presents the appearance of Fisher's world and various things that happened in Fisher's world.

But apart from this glass cover, this peaceful light—and the statue not far away, and the figure cast by the light of the statue—there is nothing here, and it is deserted.

Compared with other old gods' paradises, Antinam's paradise is quite quiet and empty.

He finally set his sights on Antinam.

That gigantic statue, to be precise.

It was about five meters high, and it was almost exactly the same as the statue of Antinam that he had seen in the central cathedral of the old church in Lamifa City.

Slightly curly long hair (he suddenly realized that Qindo seemed to be somewhat similar to Antinam in this point. Maybe this came from the blood of Lycardia?), delicate and indistinguishable face, calm and compassionate or cold look.

One small difference is that the statue's right eye is closed, only the left eye is open.

On this seemingly marble statue, a faint light bloomed.The light casts a shadow similar to a real person directly in front of the statue.The figure was gazing at him quietly and gently at the moment.

Another thing that caught his attention was... a woolen scarf that looked quite soft and comfortable was wrapped around the statue's neck.However, the scarf did not appear on the figure formed by the rays of light.

Antinam seemed to notice where his eyes were looking, and said, "I really like the gift you gave me, so I put it on my body.

"But if my avatar, that is, this figure, also wears this scarf, maybe you will feel embarrassed? So I didn't do it."

The figure's lips did not move, and his voice still seemed to appear directly in his soul.

As for the content of this sentence...

He couldn't help being silent for a moment, feeling that there seemed to be a subtle... narrowness in Anti-Nam's character?Although this evil taste is cleverly concealed in his gentle and gentle tone.

He did, however, feel a slight nostalgia when he saw the scarf.He thought of the time when he didn't think there was anything wrong with "mother".

It's not that he thinks there's anything wrong with Antinam's doing so, it's just that people do miss the time of "ignorance and simplicity" occasionally.

At that time, he didn't understand what he needed to do, nor did he know what kind of tragic experience was hidden in the past of this world, let alone the existence of "Shadow" and the nature of Anti-Nam.That was the moment when he was ignorant.

If he remembered correctly, his knowledge attribute was only 54 points at that time.But now, his knowledge attribute has reached 75 points.This means that his understanding of this world is quite deep, and it also means that he is gradually approaching the core and truth of the matter.

He knew the conversation that followed was going to be quite important.But the appearance of this scarf slightly eased the tension in his heart.

"...that's not embarrassing," he finally said. "I'm glad you like this gift."

Antinam kept staring at him, He nodded slightly, and asked, "What do you want me to call you?"

"Siles is fine. I think you are more used to this name." Siles said.

"... Siles Noel. Yes, that's true." Antinam's tone was slightly mixed with mixed emotions, he was silent for a moment, and then said, "Maybe I have to say first... Sorry, and, thank you."

"I can't say that this happened...it's easy to accept." Siles whispered, "But, of course, I like this world very much now."

Antinam looked at him, and there was an indescribable emotion in his always calm and unwavering eyes.In the end, He just said softly, "Thank you for your liking, Sirius. The world will be happy."

The atmosphere between them finally calmed down.Although face-to-face conversation requires a more familiar and intimate atmosphere, and they have not yet been so "familiar", it is not as difficult as he had imagined before.

Antinam made two single sofa chairs and a coffee table appear on the empty platform.Tea and snacks are also placed on the coffee table.Aside from the surreal surroundings, it now looks very much like a tea party.

"You don't have to worry, Sirius." Antinam first said thoughtfully, "The time here is frozen, as long as I want. So, Qindo will not be in a hurry. We can spend a while chatting chat."

Sirius nodded and sat down.In the beginning, neither of them spoke, and they all wondered where to start.

"...Then, let's start with me." Antinam said, "I mean...'me'."

Siles breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, he felt as if he was facing an elder who was gentle and tolerant but did not get along very often.To be honest, at this time he began to miss the habit of chattering like dice.

He then asked, "Are you Fisher World?"

"The world? No, I am civilization." Antinam shook his head lightly, and said, "This planet originally had no name, but human beings named it after their own civilization. And I, I am with Fisher civilization And born.

"In the beginning, when mankind first lit the fire of civilization, I was born in that fire."

Siles nodded thoughtfully. He thought of the various sayings of the dice about the old gods and gods, as well as the records of the gods in this world.

God is civilization.

This is a concept hidden in a lot of information.To be more precise, the civilization here refers to human civilization.

Although Siles doesn't know whether there are other civilizations in this universe, at least in Fisher's world, all the gods are related to human civilization.

Life, death, travel, art, warriors, stars, dreams, nature, commerce, sin, appetite, feast, asceticism... Every god is the birth of human's definition and concept of this world.

Gods are closely related to humans, at least humans in this world.

"...But why do people seem to be unaware of your existence?" Sirius asked, "I'm not saying..."

"Why am I the god of the past and history now, isn't it?" Antinam smiled softly, "This is a long story, Sirius. So I have prepared afternoon tea, please come and listen this story."

Celeste paused for a moment, then said, "My pleasure."

He thought of what the dice said before, it said that Antinam would be happy to come and tell him these stories.

"So when should things start... let's start when I was born." Anti-Nam said, "At the moment of my birth, the world seemed to be in the beginning of chaos, and everything was in a state of ignorance .

"For human beings, they didn't even know what a 'God' was at that time. And for me, I didn't know either... I am a 'God'. I seem to be just a creation of this world, born and raised, universal Ordinary, seemingly indistinguishable from other humans.

"So at the beginning of that most distant world, I was still very ignorant and had nothing.

"Perhaps, that can also be said to be my happiest time. When people are ignorant enough, it can indeed bring some happiness, just like the baby is still in the safe swaddle."

Siles listened in silence.The dice seemed to say something similar, he thought.However, he did not expect at that time that this statement could also be verified by Anti-Nam.

"...Things probably changed when I gradually realized the difference between myself and humans." Anti-Nam's tone gradually became lower.

Of course, His tone remained gentle.

He said: "I realized that I can do many things that human beings cannot do; when human beings need help, I can help. My power is greater than all their combined powers.

"They began to worship me. Of course, at that time they still didn't know what a 'god' was. They probably thought that I was this vast world, that I was the cruel and tender nature, that I was what they lived and were familiar with. The wilderness.

"Power. Power. At that moment, me and human beings, we went to two extremes. At that time, I would not realize the problem. I was even very happy that my power could help my beloved human beings.

"But slowly, the group of human beings that I liked and were familiar with gradually died, and their descendants, the descendants of their descendants, became new human beings. They gradually grew up, gradually understood the world, and gradually understood the rules of the world and nature.

"Slowly, they became strange to me; and to them, I was also a stranger. I wielded such terrible power, and despite my best intentions, they couldn't believe it.

"At the beginning of the world, nature, where all things are competing, how could they not be vigilant. That is for the continuation of human civilization.

"And then I realized that I was alone.

"The more I was born in this civilization, the more I grasped the power of this civilization, the more I ran counter to this civilization. Humans don't actually need me; or, even without me, human civilization will continue to develop go down.

"But I was born, born in the bright fire of civilization. I can't even hate this civilization, because I am civilization, and civilization is me. How can I hate myself?"

He stopped at this moment.Even though he showed a relatively intense emotion, in fact, his tone was still unhurried.That is probably a story that is quite far away from this time. Even the gods are not exempt, and it is difficult to remember those emotions from the past.

"...I have to explain one thing first." Antinam said suddenly, without giving Sirius a chance to speak, "Why do I—and the dice, look so human."

Siles was taken aback for a moment, and he nodded, thinking that Antinam and Dice were indeed quite humane.

Antinam said: "Because I was born in human civilization, even though I am the sublimation of the concept of many things, I belong to this civilization after all. And the dice—you can call it that, after all, it is a dice now—it is the fate of mankind.

"We're all gods to humans. Maybe you could say that. But things might be a little more complicated than you think."

He sighed softly, but he seemed to have expected it, so he didn't get too upset.

He continued: "So, after many, many years of feeling alone, I suddenly realized that I could create my companion. The very thought filled me with ecstasy.

"I took this idea so seriously that, after thinking about it for a long time, I decided to separate the two greatest parts of my power. That is, the real and the unreal."

"Lygardia and Akamala," said Siles.

"Yes." Antinam said, he tilted his head at this moment, "but...things also have some problems at this moment."

Siles froze for a moment.

"The power of reality and illusion is too strong. After I separated the two parts of power, I became too weak. But reality and illusion are too strong." Anti-Nam said, "...I Didn't like the situation."

Siles stared deeply at the god in front of him.

His strength was the source of his troubles, but it was also the reason he survived.

…So when he created his first two children, he realized that he had given them so much favor that he himself was weakened.

"But I don't want to take this power back. After all, I have already divided it." Anti-Nam said softly and calmly, "So, I decided to continue to divide their power."

A problem that had puzzled Siles and Qin for many days was finally resolved: Why are the powers of Lycardia and Akamala different from the original?

It was because their father God didn't want them to be so powerful, so he decided to continue to split them up.

That sounds pretty brutal.But things don't seem so confusing when one considers their nature as gods.only……

However, Siles had to think that the so-called "father of the old gods" and "brothers and sisters" did not mean that these gods had a warm and harmonious "family".

That's just a metaphor, and the metaphor has never had anything to do with the facts, just like the pencil written in the novel has nothing to do with the pencil in reality.

Antinam Fisher, He seemed like a gentle father and a loving mother.However, is such a god who was born at the beginning of the world and civilization, and went through the cruel natural elimination with human civilization, really so gentle and amiable?

Siles remained silent and continued to listen to Antinam's story.How Antinam's "character" is is not important to Sires.

Human beings are like this, and Anti-Nam, which was born in human civilization, is naturally like this.Sirius knew this well.

Antinam went on to say: "The first thing I disassembled was the power of 'truth'. Reality contains a lot of power. It should be said that when I made reality independent as a god, he was more powerful than me and God." Illusion must be strong.

"Therefore, He is also the god who has been split the most. Neither the world nor I need such a powerful god—at least that's what I thought at the time.

"Thus, life and death, stars and mountains were first separated. As you may know, life and death, stars and mountains, dreams and seas, these six gods were the first to be born in human history.

"...Yes, as far as the human calendar is concerned, when I split the real and the unreal, the time has come to the birth of the gods. Humans finally know the existence of 'God', but they have also forgotten my existence .

"Because I have been alone for so long in the past with the practice of splitting power with great interest. Because I have not helped human beings for a long time, after I realized the difference between me and human beings."

It was hard to say what was hidden in Antinam's tone at this moment.He seemed indifferent, and his tone was still soft and quiet, as if things had become like this, and he had already understood and known.

However, when the Birth of the Gods came, when people were celebrating that the world welcomed their gods, Anti-Nam was splitting his own and his children's power.

A complex emotion appeared in Sirius' heart.He felt very heavy in his thoughts, and he didn't even want to think about things during that time.

God's birthday.The distant first era of mankind.

But at that time, the humans in Fisher's world had already forgotten this god who was born with human civilization.

"...Because I have been splitting 'Reality', it was not known at the beginning. As for 'Unreal', its power was not that strong at that moment, because human civilization was not strong enough to explore Unreal .

"So... the dream and the sea. The god of the dream was known at that time. Regarding Akamala, you may also know his image, a little girl. That means his initial strength is weak.

"As for the ocean, I have to explain something extra.

"In the beginning people didn't get close to the ocean, people only knew the plains, mountains and rivers. But later, as humans explored, they found the ocean. The ocean was born within the purview of 'reality', and I had to recreate the ocean. split out.

"However, the god of the sea was not identified as the 'Old God' at first. Now people think that the sea is Amois, but in fact, it was later, probably in the middle and late period of the birth of the gods, that the concept of warrior was associated with Oceans have a tendency to merge wonderfully.

"Amois... He is actually similar to me. He is the symbol and cohesion of human will. Just as I was born in the fire of civilization, He was born in the blood of war.

"He is very powerful, but not at my level, so I let him be born. In the Silent Era, he also paid back-I have to say, when I said this, I came from Fisher from a civilized point of view.”

Antinam suddenly stopped at this moment.

Then He said: "Lygardia, Akamala, and Amois. Only the three of them did not betray me—they did not betray Fischer's civilization."

After saying this, he fell into a long silence.

At a certain moment, Sires almost thought that he had glimpsed bitterness and pain from Antinam's face, but that seemed to be fleeting, just like Sires' hallucination.

So he realized that for Antinam, this kind of emotion was also a calm wave brewed for a long time.

No one knows how far away the sky the wind comes from when it blows across the lake and creates small waves.This may be the mood of Antinam at the moment.

Too much time has passed.Even if he is a god, even if he is the god of the past and history, but when he reconsidered his past, he dug out some blocks that are no longer worth mentioning from the corners of those memories.

"...Sorry." Antinam sighed suddenly, "It's been a little bit of time. I think, maybe it's because Lycardia and Akamala are the closest to me, and Amoys is the closest to the Fischer civilization. Therefore, they can persist until the end.

"If I hadn't split the power, then He probably wouldn't be spying on Fisher's world. I've become weaker, and at the same time, other gods may not be as close to Fisher's civilization as I am. This is a mistake I made .”

Siles thought about it for a while, and finally asked a question through this topic: "So, why did the 'Shadow'... He notice the world of Fisher? Is it just a coincidence?"

"'Shadow', you can indeed call him that." Antinam first said softly, and then answered Sirius' question, "No. It should be said that for us, all coincidences are inevitable."

Siles couldn't help frowning, he asked: "Just because of your act of splitting up the power?"

"It's just because of my stupid behavior of splitting power, and the stupid behavior of an old god." Antinam said, "but in the final analysis, it's still because of my stupidity.

"After all, if I hadn't insisted on splitting up power—not just my own, but Lygardia's—then these old gods wouldn't have been born."

Siles was taken aback for a moment, he couldn't think of any... "foolish behavior of the old gods".

Who is Antinam referring to?

"Take your time, take your time." Antinam sighed softly, "It's a very unpleasant behavior to look through my messy memories. I've lived here for too long, and I've slept for too long.

"If I had a human brain, I must be an old man, dull and bloated. I'll have to remember it slowly.

"...Where did we just talk about? That's right, the Birth of the Gods."

He was silent for a while, as if he "remembered" for a while as he said.

Then He continued: "I have broken 'Reality' into its many parts. Life and Death, Stars and Mountains—Pesonari and Thaddeus, Ruthmi and Trisley—and then Commerce, Feast and more.

"With the development of human civilization, many new forces have joined the category of 'real' and 'illusory'.

"That was the Age of the Birth of the Gods, an era of rapid development of human civilization, whether it is productivity or production relations—to borrow the saying from your hometown, Siles—has made great progress.

"So, after splitting the 'real', I also have to split the 'illusory'. I am happy to let Akamala always maintain the image of an innocent little girl, using human age as an analogy.

"So I separated sin, violence, and asceticism from 'illusion'. In my opinion at the time, these three things were irrelevant to 'little girls'. After that, I separated art, The main reason is that this would make the power of 'Unreal' too large.

"Thus, all the thirteen old gods known to mankind appeared. That was the end of the Birth of the Gods.

"When I did all this, I felt great joy. I was born in human civilization, and I know the value humans place on 'family'. In fact, I almost felt like we were a family at that time.

"...but I was tired. I split my power, 'real' and 'illusory' power. I wasted a lot of energy.

"You must also know, Sirius, after doing something with great interest, you always feel that life becomes empty instead. After the excitement is exhausted, sorrow arises.

"So I decided to sleep for a period of time, both self-cultivation and boredom. Maybe you will be very curious, how long have I been in a deep sleep?"

Siles is indeed very curious about this issue, because he realizes that it is likely to affect many things in the Age of Faith and the Age of Empires.Even... Shadow Age?

He asked quite cooperatively, "How long?"

Antinam sighed again: "Until the shadow strikes."

Siles couldn't help being stunned, and he couldn't help saying, "That's really... quite a long deep sleep."

Antinam has been asleep for at least thousands of years!

"Yes, it's quite long." Antinam said, "Maybe I'm too tired, or maybe I'm just bored. Because human civilization doesn't need me anymore, I stupidly divided my strength for different parts.

"Human beings may need some gods more than me. Or maybe it was loneliness that controlled me at that moment. Even if I really split my power, those are still part of me. I talk to myself , what do you mean?

"When Lygardia and Akamala were just born, before I realized their power was too great, before I wanted to split them, I spent a period of time with them calm time.

"We chatted and watched the development of the world, as if we were really a harmonious and ordinary family.

"And at that time, whenever Lygardia and Akamala spoke to me, I already knew what they wanted to say one step ahead. Because they are a part of me after all, I know them so well.

"That's quite boring. Perhaps, the reason why I continue to split their power is because I want to see if they will become more interesting when the power they have is not so huge.

"...The final result disappointed me. They are still so... rigid and boring, like another side of me.

"As for the gods who are weaker than them, it's even more boring. Those gods are like... oh, I thought of a suitable metaphor, like dandruff falling from my head."

Antinam said this metaphor in a rather gentle tone.

Siles: "..."

At this moment, he felt strangely in Anti-Nam... the feeling of being speechless that only occurs when facing dice.

Sure enough, when he saw the scarf, the thought in his mind was not wrong.

He thought to himself, is this metaphor... really appropriate?

Antinam didn't seem to notice Sires' mental activity at all, or he noticed it, but pretended not to notice it.

"So I decided to take a nap." He continued, "As for how long to sleep, I didn't think about it at that time. I just want to sleep, and it doesn't matter if I sleep to the end of this world.

"I know that when I wake up, I will know everything that happened in this world. Because I am civilization."

When he said this, Antinam also showed a sigh.It's hard to say where this sigh came from, but I'm afraid, He also thinks that his sleeping is stupid.

Siles asked in a timely manner: "So, you woke up when you noticed the 'Shadow' coming?"

Antinam was quiet for a moment, and finally shook his head helplessly.

"No, I woke up when Temiafa greedily wanted to devour me." Antinam said, "I didn't wake up until then."

Siles couldn't help showing a hint of surprise, he said, "That's... the middle of the Silence Period?"

"Yes." Antinam said, "4 years of Silence. When I first woke up, I didn't even understand what happened. Timiyafa failed, so I ran away immediately. I didn't stop him , because I just want to know what happened to Fisher's world.

"……Then……"

He fell into silence, as if he didn't know how to explain his mood at that time.

A god who has been asleep for thousands of years.

When he fell asleep, the world was thriving and flourishing; when he woke up, the world was foggy and barren.

Antinam finally showed a distressed expression at this moment. He smiled wryly, and said, "I almost wonder if I have gone to another world."

The stories of the past thousands of years were poured into the brain of this god in an instant, making him feel at a loss for a moment.

He sighed, and said, "I don't understand those children... well, children, why they fight to the death; I don't understand why I didn't wake up until then.

"Over the years, I have been slowly thinking about these issues.

"The first question may be because they are split gods, so they want to have more power and become more powerful, because they know that they can In this way, it is human nature, so it is God's common sense.

"Second question...it's a stupid question. It's because of the kid Houddoka."

"Huddoka?" Siles was almost caught off guard, he asked in astonishment, "What's wrong with him?"

"He is the shadow side of the world, Sirius, you know that." Antinam explained gently, "But he hates himself. I figured this out only later.

"When I split the three powers of sin, violence, and asceticism, I had a mentality of rejection and disgust, thinking that they were incompatible with Akamala, so I split them.

"Therefore, when they became the old gods, they also inherited my emotions. You will find that violent desires and asceticism - Temiafa and Brown Carney, they hate each other and almost yearn for each other.

"As for Huddoka, he has no god to hate, so he can only hate himself. He hates his own power, because it is this power that made him split up and let him be repelled.

"So, He is far away from his believers, far away from this world... You know, the paradise of Huddoka, the Temple of Belan, will always be high above the sky."

Siles listened in a daze, and then came to a difficult conclusion: "So...he attracted the 'Shadow'."

Antinam didn't answer this question immediately, he showed a rather...complex, bitter but sighing expression.He said, "Yes. Yes, Sirius. That's it.

"Huddoka's palace is higher than this world... How should I describe it. In the eyes of 'Shadow', it is like a round bubble, but there is a part protruding from it, and the power is comparable to His powers are somewhat similar.

"...foolish me and foolish my child. We have attracted the prying eyes of the 'Shadow'."

Antinam turned his head sideways at this moment, as if staring at the glass cover covering his paradise.He stared at this kind of world, feeling guilty and apologetic.He made a mistake that led to a chain of still more terrible mistakes.

And the mistake is that He, like human beings, is defeated by his own loneliness.

For a brief moment, he did not continue speaking, and neither did Sirius.

Siles collected his thoughts.

He thought that Huddoka had attracted the "Shadow" in the first place.This also means that Huddoka may be directly replaced by "Shadow" without anyone expecting it.

Subsequently, "Shadow" further extended its tentacles in Fisher's world.

He noticed that the power of Luthmi, the god of stars and light, was very similar to his own, so he planned to borrow Luthmi's body and be reborn in this world... perhaps to obtain a sufficiently "legitimate" identity?

Before that, it was as if he had smuggled into Fisher's world and killed an aborigine here, so he assumed his identity.But this is quite dangerous, so He intends to solve his identity problem as soon as possible.

He took a fancy to Luthmi as his mother, and Thaddeus as his father.Perhaps he also wanted to use this opportunity to gain the power of these two gods.

However, his birth was prevented by Pessonari.Perhaps it was because Pessonari's authority was life, and he noticed that a terrible thing was being born.

"Curse of Life" probably annoyed "Shadow".After that, he changed his original plan of obtaining "legal status" and began to secretly provoke these old gods who were already full of conflicts.

Thus, Temiafa swallowed Erkoo, and Pessonari swallowed Trisley.The "shadow" in Huddoka's coat may have also taken the opportunity to devour Menawaka.

…From this point of view, the crazy followers of Huddoka in the House of Hales think that maybe Huddoka devoured Menawaka in turn, and this guess can be said to be correct.

Why did Menawaka go looking for Houddoka?Siles thought.

At the beginning, they thought that it might be because Menawaka wanted to devour Huddoka, so they deliberately asked their followers to contact Huddoka's believers, and then met with Huddoka, which led to The fall of Huddoka.

But it may also be because Menawaka discovered Huddoka's problem and wanted to prove his idea.

However, this action was noticed by "Shadow" and allowed him to obtain a new identity.He abandoned Huddoka's identity at that time, which made people think that Huddoka had fallen at that time.

However, Siles also noticed a rather puzzling problem: the followers of Menawaka never seemed to notice the change of their gods.

For example, the representative of Menawaka in the Silence Period, a businesswoman and nobleman Mrs. Debris.

In her letter to her lover, she did not feel that the god she believed in was anything else, and at the same time she did not appear crazy, "shadowed"