At this moment, the only one who could demonstrate some wisdom was Alastor: "You plan to reproduce naturally throughout the entire process for some specific reason? Is it because of ancient magic?"
Unfortunately, even his reasonable guesses were wrong.
"No, none of that. It was all a complete accident."
So Hayden could only rub his temples.
"Karen has contraceptive magic, but Angela somehow stole a buff from me, allowing me to penetrate the magic protection directly."
Even with his explanation, it still sounded awkward. The expressions on everyone else's faces seemed to say, "Are you kidding me?"
After a moment, Alastor said tactfully, "That's impossible, Hayden. Karen is a great goddess, and her body is her most controlled asset. Even the supreme god Bodhisattva could not break through the defenses Karen has placed inside her body."
While Angela's power was incredible, her output was far inferior to that of a great god or a chief god. How could her blessing allow Hayden's reproductive cells to break through Kallen's god-level magical defenses? Theoretically, this was impossible. Angela's output was at least a level lower than Kallen's!
"But the impossible did happen."
Hayden tapped the large conference table with his knuckles and exhaled: "You all know Angela's condition. Even if I asked her how she did it, she couldn't explain it."
Meanwhile, the person involved stood behind Hayden, looking innocent and helpless: "Actually, if my master had been more self-reliant and had children with someone else earlier, I wouldn't have had to do this."
Lately, everyone thought they had gotten used to Angela's incredible antics. However, now, as they look at each other and think about it carefully, they can't help but feel a chill run down their spines.
"Everyone, I know you've all been very busy these past few days, but have you thought about what we should do next?"
Hayden abruptly changed the subject at this point. The change seemed abrupt, so much so that no one understood what Hayden was trying to say.
Karen, however, had already discussed some things with Hayden after learning she was pregnant. Now, she just sat there with deadpan eyes, offering no explanation.
So Hayden continued:
“We witnessed the power of Mithra yesterday. Even if we gain New Yatu and Evergreen State this time, even if we elevate Pania to the God-level later... do you think we can catch up with Mithra by relying on normal farming and development?”
No one spoke, and Abigail shook her head directly, saying in an unquestionable tone, "No."
Impossible. This is a conclusion that many people, including God, can reach from an objective perspective.
Hayden and his group are already incredibly powerful. Their incomplete "Life Network" connects the lives of tens of millions of people. With the Tree of Life as their energy core, these millions of people are practically immortal. They experience neither hunger nor thirst, and with the Tree of Life's energy, they recover quickly from illness and injury.
Furthermore, humans connected to the Tree of Life will experience an elevation in their life level. The core citizens of New Sprout City have recently been gradually strengthened to the level of gods. Given time, roughly six months to a year, the ten million people currently surviving in Evergreen Prefecture will all have their life strength elevated to the level of gods. While they may not become exceptionally powerful gods, as this requires more time, the snowball effect will only continue to grow.
The energy of both the Tree of Life and the Network of Life is limitless. As the network is built better and better, more and more lives are connected, and the energy of the Network of Life becomes more and more abundant and powerful.
Under these circumstances, the internal astral network designed by Alastor might not have been able to keep up with the rapid development of the life network. Fortunately, Adam sent 500,000 psychic beings specializing in mind control before his death. Although having 500,000 brains floating around the entire Evergreen State was somewhat frightening, they were actually usable, obedient, and the psychic beings and the astral network worked together very well.
Then, the entire Evergreen State is now, in effect (though not in name), Karen's property. Don't underestimate this "state"; it covers nearly 200,000 square kilometers, an area comparable to that of a typical country.
Finally, Professor Albion's sacrifice strengthened Hayden and Karen's fundamentals, compensating for the instability in their foundations caused by their rapid growth. This was a spiritual and intellectual elevation. It was precisely because of this that they were able to lead eight million New Seattle citizens through the cycle of reincarnation. Because resisting the cycle of reincarnation through violence is simply too difficult.
In conclusion, all the resources Hayden and his group have accumulated, along with everything they've recently acquired and inherited, have brought them to a very powerful level. Furthermore, they are a very united small pantheon, with everyone sincerely focused on Hayden as their core, their division of labor is excellent, and they work together wholeheartedly—making them far stronger than ordinary powerful gods.
If they continue to invest time and effort, they will surely be able to create a god-level being soon.
...But even so, can we defeat Mithra Bodhisattva?
Obviously not. Mitra has far more resources than Hayden and his group, their technology is superior, and they are likely even faster at thinking. They may even be able to upgrade their farming methods faster than Hayden.
The world is at a crossroads. Everyone is struggling in the poison circle. If Hayden and his group continue to develop at their current pace and in their current state, no matter how much they accumulate or how strong they become, they will probably never be able to surpass Mitra militarily.
"Adam attempted to defeat Mithra by undergoing a ritual of name-change to become the perfect being he envisioned. However, he failed, because Mithra's power far exceeded Adam's imagination."
That's why Hayden said,
"Within the realm of common sense, we have no way to defeat Mithras."
This is not meant to demoralize anyone, nor is it because he has come to terms with things; it's simply that we must first acknowledge this undeniable fact.
So no one objected; they remained silent, waiting for Hayden's next words. They all trusted Hayden, believing that their prophet would surely come up with a good idea.
After all, faced with such a hopeless gap, Hayden must have come up with some truly remarkable solution, right?
...To be honest, this really put Hayden under a lot of pressure.
By now, it seemed everyone believed that Hayden, the prophet, could always conjure miracles from his hat in the most desperate moments. This put a lot of pressure on Hayden, because it meant that if he failed to do the impossible, he would disappoint many people… Fortunately, Hayden actually came up with a solution.
“The power of Mithra has transcended the boundaries of our common sense. Therefore, to fight against him, we must also transcend common sense. We need something illogical.”
As Hayden spoke, he pointed with his thumb to Angela behind him.
"It was through Karen's pregnancy that I realized that Outer God power like Angela has nothing to do with combat strength, intensity, or reasoning."
Angela's power isn't necessarily exceptionally strong, nor is she particularly skilled in combat. However, she possesses the ability to accomplish things that even the most powerful gods and chief deities cannot. Things that are logically impossible can inexplicably happen through Angela's hands.
For example, Hayden, now blessed by Angela, can impregnate any living being—of course, only organic beings, including the undead. After all, he couldn't impregnate an inorganic being…at least, Angela doesn't seem to intend to.
So far, Hayden has gained a lot from Angela: power, knowledge, personal growth, and some strange and crazy abilities... Even so, he is still clearly aware that he has not yet touched Angela's essence.
Sometimes, Hayden could sense a glimpse of the so-called "Outer God" through her, yet he couldn't truly understand her. She seemed so close, yet in reality, she was far too distant. To this day, although Hayden has been trying to explore the secrets of Angela and the "Outer God," he has always maintained a safe distance, never plunging headlong into the danger.
Originally, Hayden did not believe that it was something that could be understood overnight.
But things will be different from now on.
On the one hand, it was because Professor Albion had instilled in him a century's worth of fundamental skills and predictive techniques before his death.
On the other hand, it's because Hayden and his team really can't afford to delay any longer.
“If we continue to leisurely research, develop, and cultivate the land on our own, I fear that the Bodhisattva Mithra might truly unify the world. Then all will be lost. Therefore, I have decided…”
So Hayden began by saying to everyone...
"In the future, in addition to continuing our own development, we must increase our efforts to cooperate with other companies and form alliances to fight against our strongest enemy. This is the first point."
"Secondly, I will search for information and knowledge about all the ancient gods, fallen angels, and outer gods around the world as soon as possible. It is almost impossible for us to fight against Mithra by relying on combat power. However, there may be some wonderful methods outside of combat in the mysteries of the outer gods."
Hearing this, Abigail and Alastor exchanged glances, immediately understanding why Karen had seemed so unhappy all day. They both knew that Karen had never trusted any Outer Gods-related forces and didn't want to cooperate with other capitalist corporations.
However, don't say you don't want to; your current stance is that it's necessary. Because it's necessary, you have no choice but to do it.
Karen's silence suggests that she and Hayden must have had a discussion, or even an argument, yesterday. Yet, Hayden ultimately won the argument. That's rather unusual.
Everything happened in the blink of an eye, so only Pania was a little confused: "We were just talking about Karen's pregnancy, how did it suddenly turn into deciding on our future plans?"
“Silly girl,” the demoness shook her head, “of course it’s because this is far more important than Karen’s pregnancy.”
Although it was a bit harsh to hear, both Abigail and Alastor, upon hearing this and thinking rationally, would realize that compared to the future of the entire team, the world, and everyone's future path, Karen's pregnancy was truly a minor matter.
An unplanned pregnancy is indeed a bit embarrassing, but there are many ways to deal with it. You can leave it in the womb for now (for a god, this is just a minor burden), or you can remove it and place it in an artificial uterus to nurture it slowly, since that's how gods are born these days—you can even preserve it in time stasis and regenerate it after the war is over.
We are gods, pregnancy is a minor matter—most gods would probably think that way.
"No, that's not right."
However, Hayden spoke up to correct him at this moment.
“Professor Albion is gone. I was thinking about what he said to me yesterday, many of which you have heard before. He always liked to say that the lives of our elders continue in our lives, and our lives will continue in the next generation.”
Hayden's expression was both calm and thoughtful; his gaze was no longer fixed on the group, but rather on something distant.
"This next generation doesn't necessarily have to be biologically related; it could also be related in terms of knowledge and thought, since the professor isn't related to us by blood. But after experiencing so much death and destruction recently, I can't help but think that all living things are destined to die, and everyone will eventually die. If that's the case, what is the point of fighting so desperately against evil?"
Interestingly, sometimes it is only after experiencing death and destruction that people can truly understand the meaning of life.
"We build the future and pave the way forward, not just for ourselves."
So Hayden looked again at his companions, at Karen, and tried to avoid looking at her belly.
"To give others—our descendants—a better future is one of the driving forces behind our struggle today, and it is also our responsibility as living beings."
His words actually had quite a few problems. However, everyone had known Hayden for a long time and knew that he was speaking from the heart, so they could all understand.
...Even so, Panya couldn't help but complain, "Besides you and Karen, none of us have boyfriends. Uncle, are you telling us this?"
What she said did make some sense. But before Hayden could answer, Angela looked troubled and hesitated, saying, "Parthenogenesis isn't very healthy. Miss Panya, are you sure you want to do it?"
噫
This sentence successfully caused the entire conversation to pause for a moment. Pania was so startled that she quickly shook her head, so they decided to leave it at that for now.
Let's leave it at that for now, at least.
300: Hayden's Prophecy
Another day has passed, and the night is deep and quiet.
Hayden sat in his magic studio, fiddling with his tarot cards at his desk.
Professor Albion's sacrifice imparted to Hayden a century's worth of knowledge about time, fate, and predicting the future. However, Hayden never really liked predictive techniques based on mathematical calculations, and his magical abilities leaned more towards intuition than logical thinking.
Therefore, Hayden did not simply follow the professor's initiation techniques verbatim. Instead, he took the opposite approach, using logical calculations combined with his intuition and premonitions, and combining Kabbalah mathematics with Tarot card divination, in an attempt to develop his own precognitive magic. Surprisingly, he found that this method actually worked quite well.
Because the core of the Tarot system, the Major Arcana, consists of 22 cards; and simultaneously, in Kabbalah magic, the ten points of the Tree of Life are also interconnected by 22 pillar paths. There might be some mysterious connection between these two... but let's not discuss that now.
Hayden was now pondering as he laid out the tarot cards, calculating the future course of time and space. But embarrassingly, although Hayden tried many methods to predict, no matter what kind of spread he used, and although the results of other cards might change, he would always draw a certain tarot card.
The Emperor card.
Moreover, it's the reversed "Emperor".
The Emperor is the fourth card in the Major Arcana Tarot. Generally speaking, it is one of the easier cards to interpret: power, authority, rule, order... It is a symbol of masculinity and strength, possessing the attribute of fire, and having the power to dominate the material world. Moreover, the number "4" also symbolizes the four cardinal directions that bring order and stability.
However, at the same time, the Emperor also represents the paternal role and corresponding responsibilities. A reversed Emperor can also signify irresponsibility, a lack of ability as a father, abuse of authority, and stubbornness.
Considering Karen's pregnancy, Hayden kept drawing this card all day, which made him quite worried.
Fortunately, Hayden was trying to predict the future, the overall situation everyone would face afterward, so the reversed "Emperor" might not actually refer to him... but it could also be him. That's what makes things more complicated.
Divination and prophecy have always been like this. Vague and ambiguous, no one really knows (not even the bodhisattvas) what will happen in the future, or why something must be done—the battles between prophets are essentially a crazy guessing game of blind men and the elephant.
Furthermore, given the often complex and dispersed consequences of everyone's actions, predicting the future is indeed a very difficult task.
Even more tragically, Hayden now has to participate as a new player in this crazy guessing game where everyone is messing with each other... but complaining about it won't help.
He's almost a father. If he really wants to be a responsible dad, he can't just keep complaining.
On the other hand, why did Hayden spend so much time on divination and prediction today? This is undoubtedly because the New Yato event has caused far too many changes. As a prophet, and as the core of the team, he must illuminate the unknown darkness ahead, clarify the hazy future, and find the direction forward.
The New Yatu incident was not simply about the near-annihilation of the entire Evergreen State. The gods witnessed firsthand the immense power of [Skill Chips] and [Reincarnation]; moreover, they realized that Mithra might no longer intend to play the game according to the old rules.
Why has the new era of capitalist gods lasted for four hundred years without a new world war ever occurring? Why has the world, except for Africa, maintained a semblance of peace? The main reason, of course, is that the rules of the game in capitalist society lead the gods to choose to play the game through commerce, finance, and small-scale proxy wars, rather than tearing off the mask and waging a major war.
When everyone is busy doing business and making money around the world and playing financial games, no one has the time or inclination to fight a world war. Because a major war is not good for doing business.
Conversely, the reason why the new gods haven't fought a major war in the past four hundred years is simply because world wars are detrimental to international business, while the capital game of making money from money is the best way to upgrade in this era.
Now, Mithra Bodhisattva has revealed His two unparalleled new technologies to the world: [Skill Chips] and [Reincarnation]. Now, if He first uses [Skill Chips] to trigger an economic crisis, collapsing the existing financial markets and killing off the entire global monetary value system, completely overturning the table and ending the damn capital game—and then uses the absolute authority of [Reincarnation] and overwhelming military power to unify the world, wouldn't all other capital gods be rendered useless by Him?
In reality, Mithra Bodhisattva had already taken the first step. The market changes in Evergreen Prefecture were the beginning of the economic crisis. His having Fudo Myoo kill Adam and Lilith through "reincarnation" was the reliance for the second step.
The game of capital is one where everyone wants to play for it to continue. Since Mitra, the biggest player, wants to overturn the table, then everyone else has no choice but to quit.
In this situation, the most unfortunate people are always ordinary citizens.
The people who converted to Mithra became mere human skeletons for the [Skill Chips]. They themselves lost all value, their actions became meaningless; they were simply the hardware tools of the [Skill Chips]. Even in death, their lives remained under the control of the [Reincarnation] magic, subject to the torment of reincarnation.
Is it terrible? Quite terrible. But ordinary people who follow other companies aren't much better off. Since Mitra has flipped the table, other large companies will inevitably start doing similar things sooner or later.
They might not have "skill chips," but they all possess their own unique and powerful exploitation techniques. Even without software like Mitra, they can force employees to take out loans to install prosthetic hardware! Or, like the Smoke Mirror Corporation, they can force employees to become undead, ruthlessly exploiting them to increase the company's productivity... and so on.
When the rules of the game are overturned, ordinary people are always the most unfortunate. The vast majority of people in the world will be plunged into an abyss of suffering as a result.
Hayden, on the other hand, wanted to save everyone, even everyone's lives—including himself, his loved ones, and even his descendants.
This is fucking difficult.
——————————————————————————————
Two hours later, Karen walked into Hayden's studio. She had only wanted to check on the progress of Hayden's prophecy work, but found him slumped on his desk, exhausted and fast asleep.
Even though he was a celestial being, he was still so exhausted. It just goes to show that "calculating with one's fingers" is not something a human can do; it's too mentally taxing.
Karen was actually a little angry with Hayden for many reasons, including her pregnancy, Hayden's insistence on cooperating with the other capitalists to deal with Mithra, and Hayden's decision to seriously pursue the power of the Outer Gods—all of which Karen was somewhat unhappy about.
But seeing Hayden so exhausted, she felt a little soft-hearted and sighed helplessly.
After all, Karen isn't stupid. She knows perfectly well who Hayden is working so hard and under so much pressure for. If she were still angry with Hayden after all that, she'd be really ungrateful.
So she waved her hand in the air, and a blanket was automatically draped over Hayden. Then, she glanced casually at the table. On the table was a four-card tarot spread; three cards were already turned over, all reversed; one card was covered and had not yet been turned over.
Karen had spent so much time with Hayden and Professor Albion that she actually knew some classical divination techniques.
She saw the Tower, reversed, and knew it represented destruction, chaos, and crisis, but also an opportunity for change. Because even in the destruction of the environment, people can potentially survive, just like in the image of the reversed Tower in Tarot—the tower has collapsed, but the people in the picture are standing. The two standing people, a man and a woman, can be seen as rescuing, salvaging, and mending the destruction, or as escaping a catastrophe and finding a way to survive in adversity.
The elements of this card reminded Karen of the destroyed New Jersey and the lives of so many people whose lives are now being ruined.
The second card is the reversed Sun. The Sun originally symbolizes abundant power and passion, radiating positive light. So what about the reversed Sun? Does it signify darkness? Not necessarily. The reversed Sun still possesses light and power… but any power carries hidden dangers. While the Sun brings warmth and energy to the world, it can also scorch people and turn the earth into a desert.