Chapter 548 The Killing at the Gospel House

Since the part about the history of human activity is faulty in this merged world, then this part should be deleted entirely.

However, even if all the power of the Great Impermanence were combined, it would be impossible to completely erase all traces of human activity from the past hundreds of thousands of years of history. Leaving aside the fact that this includes their own existence, even omitting the history of humanity in the common world, without considering the history of the supernatural world, would be an extremely massive undertaking. I don't believe they could complete it all before the apocalypse.

Therefore, the Gospelin chose the simplest method—since the problem lies in human history, why not just kill off all of humanity itself?

Of course, even if we do this, the traces of humanity on Earth will not disappear, and the fact that "humans once existed on this planet" will not be changed; human history will still exist objectively. But at the very least, this contradictory process will no longer continue.

While past errors in the planet's spacetime environment won't immediately disappear, they will at least not worsen. Spacetime possesses a self-repairing mechanism, which is what we've mentioned several times before as the "historical corrective force." One day, the world order will return to a healthy state.

From the perspective of "saving the world" alone, this is an impeccably simple and perfectly feasible plan. Destroying all of humanity is a simple matter; I could do it all by myself, without even needing the four gods of the Evangelion. But is this approach truly meaningful?

Humanity should advocate environmentalism because the damage industrial activities inflict on the environment will eventually backfire. Conversely, if environmental protection requires the destruction of human life, then environmentalism becomes an evil act.

"Saving the world" is one thing. Once the world is destroyed, all life and non-life on it, including humans, will perish. But if all of humanity has a way to move to another world and continue living there without any reduction in quality of life or future prospects, then there would be no reason for anyone to risk their lives to prevent the apocalypse.

To prevent the apocalypse from happening to the world, to bring about the apocalypse for all humanity in advance... isn't that putting the cart before the horse?

Even the superhumanists who view mortals as worthless wouldn't do that. After all, mortals are a very useful resource in their eyes, at least to ensure the continuation of their race.

Soon, Number Seven answered my question.

"Although the Gospel House aims to slaughter all of humanity, there is a very small margin of error in this goal."

Having once been a high-ranking member of the Gospel House, she spoke of the Gospel House with great certainty: "No matter what, they are still a human force. If they don't leave any room for maneuver, they will have to destroy themselves. Moreover, human life is very tenacious. Even if the Gospel House causes a great cleansing of the surface of the living world, it is impossible to say whether a few kittens or kittens will be lucky enough to survive."

She seemed to tidy up her words slightly before continuing: "It is said that during the ancient Ice Age, due to the extremely harsh natural environment and disasters such as supervolcanic eruptions, the total number of humans once dropped to a few thousand. The current human population is based on these ancient humans."

"From a scientific research perspective, in order to maintain genetic diversity and reduce the harm of genetic diseases caused by inbreeding, humans may only need 500 people to re-evolve into a large-scale population."

"So, based on the information we have here, the gods and humans of the Evangelical Fellowship probably want to preserve a very small number of three to four figures of humans, and then carry out a complete cleansing of the eight billion people in the living world. At the same time, they want to destroy everything that has been accumulated since the birth of mankind, including its history, culture, language, technology, creations, etc., and restart the concept of 'human history' in the distant future."

"As long as it restarts from scratch, it will not inherit past failures and errors, and humanity can thrive again on the land of the future."

Contrary to the initial impression of its absurdity and extreme nature, the Gospel House's plan not only considered how to solve the problem of the end times, but also seriously considered what would happen after the problem was solved.

I suspect this plan is far more detailed and comprehensive than I imagined.

“But such a approach is a bit…” Xiao Wan sighed, “And… this plan is only based on theory, isn’t it? What if the apocalypse isn’t a disaster that can be quelled simply by killing eight billion humans? Or is their plan actually based on some kind of reality?”

“There really is one,” Number Seven said. “The existence of such strange phenomena is enough to prove the feasibility of their plan.”

"All the clues point to the apocalypse being a disaster originating from humanity, with the supernatural beings merely caught in the middle. Don't you find that a bit strange? In the past, the supernatural beings' actions have shown inconsistencies and haven't had any impact on the common-sense world, yet the apocalypse seems to have nothing to do with them."

I tried to suggest a direction: "Isn't it because, unlike orderly humans, strange behavior is full of unknowns and chaos, so it can be explained in any way? Just like there is no structural conflict without structure, and no paradox without logic."

“Whether the strange are chaotic things or actually follow an unknowable order, I don’t know, but whichever the answer is, their history will inevitably be without any errors or malfunctions,” Number Seven said. “Because they ultimately have no history, or more precisely, no ‘accumulation’ whatsoever. The strange things of ten thousand years ago are almost identical to the strange things of today.”

"Although there may be more bizarre events in modern times that are spread through audio-visual products, telephones, and the internet, it is not that the bizarre itself has changed, but merely that it reflects the changes in human society. There is no essential difference between the bizarre events of ancient times. Even the 'doomsday bizarre events' of the afterlife have not escaped this framework; their abnormality merely reflects the properties of the soil in which they originated."

"Most importantly, they go their own way, have no contact or interaction, no language or culture of their own, and do not act according to 'past experience,' and are generally devoid of reason. Although there are a very small number of intelligent individuals who can operate in human society, they often learn from the history and knowledge of human society; and after they die, their existence is often recorded in human history, rather than a bizarre history that has no foundation from the beginning."

"The strangeness of the past and the strangeness of the present may seem similar, but they are actually completely unrelated—don't you think this is similar to the state of the 'new human history' that Evangelical Fellowship is pursuing?"

“I see… The Gospel House’s plan was inspired by the strange creatures?” Xiaowan suddenly realized. “But what if, after the new human history has multiplied and grown, it rediscovers traces of past human life through archaeological techniques, restores our culture and technology, and reconnects with the old human history in this way?”

"Even without using advanced archaeological techniques, in the realm of mysticism, 'similarity' itself can bring power, just as imitating the behavior of gods can bring corresponding blessings. Future humans, simply because they are of the same race as present humans, may have highly spiritual individuals among them experience hallucinations and dreams related to the history of the old human race..."

Is it really possible to completely eradicate the culture and ideas of the old human history?

Number Seven admitted, "Your view is correct; this is a very difficult matter. At least when our Tai Sui Army left the Gospel House, there was also a heated debate about this issue within the Gospel House itself."

"One of the effective methods they came up with at the time was to simply use genetic engineering to alter the genome of future humans, turning them into a completely different kind of life form, and then combine that with neuroscience or soul magic to adjust the mental self-awareness of future humans... I just don't know if this idea was abandoned, or if it was taken to a deeper level..."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Wan revealed a chilling expression.

Genetic engineering and brain science... Upon catching these two keywords, I suddenly recalled the Luoshan branch base of Mingzhuo that I had once attacked.

The extraordinary individuals there primarily study genetics and brain science.

Is this just a coincidence? Or... is there some underlying connection between Meiko and Fukuin?

Huang Quan, who operates in the modern world, is Ming Zhuo's mentor... Thinking about it carefully, if I were Huang Quan, as a god-human from the afterlife, and had such a connection with Ming Zhuo, and knowing that Ming Zhuo was practically going crazy trying to enter the afterlife... how could I not try to contact Ming Zhuo?

Assuming that Meiko had contact with Yomi, at what point in time? Was it after he lost to me? Or had they had contact before? If it's the latter, he probably already had a way to enter the afterlife, so why would he attack Asahi?

Could it be that Huang Quan used the "path to the afterlife" as bait to make a demand that Ming Zhuo found difficult to agree to—such as becoming a traitor to Luo Shan? And Ming Zhuo, not wanting to be controlled by Huang Quan, tried to capture Ma Zao?

Could it be that Mingzhuo's easy submission to me can be seen as a way out he already had the Yellow Springs as a "fallback plan to solve the problem of life countdown" at that time?

As I pondered, Number Seven looked at me and said, "Then, let's return to our initial topic—"

"If we can break into the Yellow Springs Gospel Institute and seize the technical data of the teleportation array connecting the world of the living and the world of the dead—'Dushuo Mountain'—from its hands, and then hand it over to Luo Shan, it will surely allow Luo Shan to advance into the world of the dead. And that is what I want to ask of you."

"Is this to save all of humanity?" I asked.

"If I said my motives were so noble, I think it would be hard to gain your trust, but even if it's just from the perspective of letting Luoshan and the Gospel House fight each other and creating space for the Tai Sui Army to survive, I have to do this," Number Seven said.

"Didn't you ever consider that Luoshan might be another Gospel House?" I retorted. "All it takes is the slaughter of eight billion mortals to prevent the apocalypse and ensure your own survival... and on top of that, there's the noble cause of continuing the race. Do you think Luoshan is a benevolent organization that would choose a different path from Gospel House even under these circumstances?"

It goes without saying what the extraordinary individuals in Luoshan would think, and even within the political camp, there are likely many who either support or tacitly approve of the Gospel House's insane plans.

While those who advocate for social order generally possess higher moral standards and aspire to coexist with the general public, they do not truly believe that the general public is on equal footing with them.

To put it bluntly, they believe that their kindness towards ordinary people is a form of sympathy and charity—they could have been the ones in control of life and death, but they humbly chose to live in peace with ordinary people. If it weren't for their relatively high level of education and empathy, they would never have made such a choice... And what's even more unpleasant is that their thinking may be in line with reality.

However, in Luoshan, what truly matters is neither the views of the world-governing nor the views of the transcendentalists, but the thoughts of the Great Impermanence who transcend everything.

Will the Great Impermanence choose to become accomplices of the Evangelical Fellowship?

as well as……

Should I choose to follow the same path?

(End of this chapter)