"why is that?"

"Why have they become like this, losing the very basis of their existence and becoming worthless dregs?"

"Even if the world is destroyed and everything collapses, the helpless creatures can only move to another place to survive."

"But these marks, and this 'disease'... I don't know why, but I always feel like I've seen them before..."

A few days later, when I was walking in the wilderness, I met the old soldier, but he was gone.

Along the way, Kloto encountered many similar things.

Elderly scholars, patients with incurable injuries, middle-aged people with short legs...people of all kinds flashed by one by one.

Of course, watching all this, the goddess of fate did not feel any pity or sympathy.

This is not because her heart is so ruthless and indifferent, but because she has long been accustomed to facing death.

As the goddess of fate, seeing life and knowing death is a very basic ability.

If Chaos's trajectory had not been disrupted long ago, even the future of the gods could not escape their prying eyes.

So for Clotho, death and suffering are normal things. After all, they are an indispensable part of the countless destinies of countless creatures.

Therefore, in the past few days, what really touched her was only what was beneath the surface.

For example, these strange "symptoms", and the familiarity that rose in Kloto's heart when he looked at these surviving creatures.

"like what?"

"It's like... my sister is suffering from the backlash of fate, but not quite like that."

I tried hard to recall until a flash of inspiration came to my mind.

Although the two seem different, at their core, that familiar feeling seems to come from that.

Subconsciously covering her mouth, Cloto was shocked by her own guess. She quickly shook her head, trying to drive out this completely unreasonable speculation.

It's fake, how could this be possible. How could a mortal bear the poison of fate? This is such an absurd fantasy.

However, the next moment, beside her, Ryan nodded slowly, confirming this wild imagination.

"You're right, it does look alike."

"After all, fate is the best weapon in the world, so His reckoning will naturally leave similar traces."

"The collapse of the body and the withdrawal of the laws are just appearances."

“And the collapsed giant settled his legacy before dying. That’s the real reason.”

"heritage……?"

"Yes."

With a complicated look in his eyes, Ryan waved.

"Come, come this way."

"Soon... you'll understand what I mean."

Since arriving at this interface fragment, Ryan has never stated his purpose, and the two have never entered any large gathering area.

But this time, he took Cloto and walked towards a remote village.

Here, there are about a hundred people gathered together.

It’s just that the center of this village, perhaps because it is too small, so small that when it was still intact and the world was still normal, the Yalu here also seems weak and desolate.

Therefore, compared with other villages, towns and even cities, the "pure land" here is on the verge of destruction. Its ability to alleviate and suppress that kind of "disease" has also been weakened, and it has even gradually shown signs of failure.

To this end, the people here worked hard to squeeze out the few remaining supplies and built a high platform in the center of the village.

They called out the name of Ra, the supreme being who once shone on the earth like the sun, hoping that everything could be changed and their lives could return to the way they were before.

What they don't know is that in today's world, the existence of 'Ra' has long disappeared... and their sacrifices are not directed at the sun at all.

……

In a corner of an unknown village, in an ordinary mud house.

It was noon—at least technically noon.

In fact, since the loss of the sun, as decades passed, the Egyptians had lost the ability to keep accurate time.

But most of the time, the truth doesn't matter.

Just like at this moment, when people gather in the center of the village and worship the great sun according to past experience, it doesn't matter whether it is really noon now, but since they believe it is, then it is noon now.

In the mud house, Andre lay powerless on the wooden bed and struggled to get up.

He should not be here now. He should be praying for a miracle at the altar in the center of the village with his compatriots.

However, after several attempts, his struggle failed.

Because he was sick, not the blood-stain disease that everyone has, but the real disease that can make people weak, feverish, and coughing.

His efforts were fruitless and lying on the wooden bed in despair, Andre knew that his life might be over.

"Cough, cough, cough... ho..."

"Disease will weaken the body...weakness will increase the probability of blood scars erupting...cough cough cough..."

"It won't be long... I'm going to die... cough cough cough..."

"Even if I manage to survive this, they won't let me go..."

"…After all…cough cough cough…everyone is going crazy…"

With whispers mixed in with his coughs and gasps, Andre knew his fellow villagers who lived in the villages like him, just as he knew himself.

Therefore, he knew clearly that when they found out that he did not participate in the sacrifice, they would definitely kill him.

No explanation is needed, and they don't need any.

Because according to their logic, after each sacrifice, they must find some reason to explain why they did not receive a response.

In the beginning, the ceremony was crude and the offerings were not sincere enough.

After trying their best, people began to find fault with the time and number of people, trying to find the root cause of the gods' indifference.

Later on, repeated failures made people increasingly anxious, and the already scarce supplies became increasingly depleted in the process.

It was not until the last few sacrifices that the villagers began to look for the reasons within the sacrificers themselves.

A pair of eagle-like sharp eyes have been watching everyone around them since then. They tried to prove once again that the reason for the failure of the ritual was not the gods, but the despicable and faithless people in the village.

If not, how come they never get a response?

"...cough cough cough..."

"...I am the first...but I will not be the last...because there is no God...no more..."

The voice became increasingly low. A few days ago, Andre was actually the same as the other villagers.

But at this moment, lying powerlessly on the wooden bed, looking back at his recent psychological changes, he gradually saw through a lot of things.

In today's world, perhaps there is no such thing as response or miracle. Deep down, everyone has long known this.

After all, even the sun itself has fallen, let alone the god Ra who controls the sun?

If he still existed, how could he allow such a disaster to happen?

However, the human species is different from other animals. If they want to survive, they must have something called "hope" to support them.

Without hope, kingdoms will collapse, families will be torn apart, and people will die in despair, leaving the land littered with corpses.

And in the face of this natural disaster that mortals cannot resist, the only ones who can support the mortals' faith are the equally irresistible gods.

Therefore, the gods must still exist, and they must have the ability to change the status quo. Anyone who dares to question this will be torn to pieces by the angry people without hesitation.

If their sacrifices were not responded to, it could only be because their faith was not sincere enough, not because the gods themselves had abandoned them.

"Ahem... I really miss it..."

As he was sick, his thoughts became more and more distracted, and hallucinations gradually began to appear before his eyes.

Although he was lying on the bed, Andre seemed to see the rushing water of the Nile River.

That was where he once lived, where he learned the fishing skills for his survival from his father and became a glorious fisherman.

He remembered that when he was ten years old, he presented his first catch to the temple as an offering to the gods.

From that day on, on that day every year, and on every festive occasion, Andre would use his catch to represent his faith and send gifts to the priests of the temple.

As his fishing skills improved, he accumulated extra wealth and traveled to major cities like Thebes.

Unfortunately, many years passed, natural disasters struck, and there was no more river in Egypt.

Even he himself might be tied to the rack while sick and unconscious by the villagers who have no place to vent their anger and become a sacrifice to the gods, just like the fish he had caught.

Is this retribution?

In the past, Andre would never have had such an idea, because how could offering sacrifices to the gods bring about bad consequences?

But at the critical juncture of his life, in his eyes, nothing is impossible in the world...

"My friend, do you need help?"

Immersed in the boundary between hallucination and pain, Andre felt as if his soul and body were about to be separated.

It is as if one third is in a human body, one third is in the kingdom of God, and one third is suffering punishment in the world of the dead.

But at this moment, not knowing whether it was still an illusion, Andre vaguely heard a voice sounding in front of him.

He tried to open his eyes and find the source of the voice.

But he saw nothing clearly, only a figure, a being shrouded in light.

who are you?

what do you want to do?

In the vague vision, Andre wanted to ask this.

But when he tried to speak, he suddenly realized that he had lost the ability to speak.

All he could do was nod and shake his head.

'Do I need help?'

'I need help, no matter who it may be, of course.'

Without hesitation, even though he didn't know where the person in front of him came from, Andre's instinct for survival still made him nod his head vigorously.

He hoped that the person in front of him could understand what he meant, and the next moment, the other party really stepped forward.

The figure from the light stretched out his hand and placed his palm on his forehead.

So standing at the door of death, Andrei once again glimpsed the door of life.

……

"Hold it and don't shake it."

"It's just a lamp, not a toy."

In a corner of the nameless village, Ryan casually stuffed a lantern into Cloto's hand, and then led him into the village.

Following behind, the goddess of fate was a little unhappy when she heard this.

Of course she knew it was a lamp, but she had never seen a lamp created like this.

Without any fluctuation of power or anything to emit light, a lantern appears out of nowhere and naturally brings brightness.

Just as water flows from high to low, the ability of this lamp to emit light seems to be an objective rule.

"It's amazing... I've never seen anything like this before, and Chaos' rules shouldn't allow this to happen."

"Is this the characteristic of a broken world? Rules can be arbitrarily defined by powerful forces. Because the roots of the world have been cut off, it can naturally be compiled at will?"

Guessing in his mind, Kloto wanted to ask directly.

But before she could ask, they both arrived in front of a mud house in the village.

The thin wall could not block the gaze of the goddess of fate. She saw the seriously ill figure lying on the bed at a glance, and heard the other's last murmurs before death.

"Well...he's going to die, today."

"So Mr. Demon King, you brought me here to save him?"

Although he had lost the ability to see through fate, Clotho still asserted.

As the saying goes, a person who is well-informed and experienced has a lot to learn, so she doesn't think her judgment would be wrong on such a matter.

But since Ryan brought her here, it was obviously not to watch the death of a human being... Speaking softly, the goddess of fate asked again:

"So what exactly is this disease?"

"It's probably some kind of debt."

Walking into the house, this time, Ryan did not try to be mysterious, but gave his conclusion straightforwardly.

“It is said that Heaven provides everything for man, but man has nothing to repay Heaven.”

"As living beings in this world, their existence itself is a debt to the world. However, under normal circumstances, this debt will never be manifested."

"Because the debt owed by slaves to their owners was not payable, the slaves themselves were the property of the slave owners."

"So the debts owed by the creatures in the world do not need to be repaid, because everything they have is subject to the rules of the world."

"If Chaos hadn't intervened and the sudden destruction hadn't come, perhaps everything would have continued like this."

“Even if it is annexed and integrated, as long as the process is slow and gentle enough, this debt will only be inherited and transferred, and then it will continue to be unresolved... But now, everything is different.”

"And in this particular case, the debt finally showed up, and the so-called symptoms were just a symptom of it showing up."

"Of course," Ryan said slowly. Under the light of the lantern behind him, he looked at the dying fisherman on the wooden bed. "The term debt doesn't sound nice, so I gave it a new name to describe the debt owed by all living beings to the world."

"Original sin, a sin that is innate and cannot be avoided... Clotho, what do you think of this name?"