My Weekly Refreshing Mentor Spirit

Chapter 554 - 361: Civilization from Hell (2)

But they still won.

Up to this point, everything seemed normal, a story of how a civilization’s artificial gods banded together to repel invaders and emerge victorious in a heroic tale.

Then, things began to turn chaotic.

The artificial gods immediately erupted into a civil war. In the prolonged death and conflict, these beings who had become one with power seemed to have long forgotten their human memories, as if afflicted by a kind of nihilism.

This group of humanoid conceptual calamities began a civil war, and when the first artificial god who conquered a few human cities discovered they could strengthen their powers through humans, all the artificial gods started an internal struggle.

They seized populations, captured cities, and then internally competed and killed other artificial gods.

The entire world plunged into chaos. The wars between artificial gods became even bloodier and more brutal than when they had once repelled the apostles. They found that by destroying anything connected to the opponent’s "concept," they could weaken other artificial gods, which led to even more reckless and cruel actions.

For instance, one artificial god had the power of "explosion," but all explosive devices worldwide were destroyed by other artificial gods, and every person capable of manufacturing gunpowder or scientists related to it was killed by them.

In just a few years, the power of the Explosion God could be weakened to the extent it became as trivial as a roadside incident.

Upon this realization, more cruel wars erupted, where they no longer aimed to merely kill each other, but to erase the enemy’s concept from the root.

As a result, more and more existences connected to the concepts of artificial gods were erased. When the first among them managed to remove another’s concept, it was like opening Pandora’s Box, until either an artificial god was completely eradicated, or the entire world was destroyed.

...

Xue Dili took a deep breath, having a clear understanding by now.

The artificial gods were the predecessors of demons.

The so-called demons were originally artificial gods who protected civilization, and when facing the apostles, they were the first heroes to charge forward. They fought the apostles’ clans with their souls and bodies, modified to adapt to their power.

Countless times they died and revived, fought until even the apostles gave up on this planet...

Until they forgot their human memories, forgot their humanity, forgot their original intent, and eventually became madmen who fought only for the sake of fighting...

They completely degenerated into demons...

Is this the power of authority, and if humans wield this authority, does it lead to such an outcome?

Xue Dili did not know, but the original forms of these demons were children who fought for humanity’s future against invaders.

Until they fully became the world’s calamity, killing the humans under the rule of other artificial gods, annihilating everything connected to opponents’ concepts, weakening others’ authority, and even devouring others’ authority...

By then, they were no longer artificial gods but complete demons.

The demons that had entirely lost their humanity!

This is the origin of demons.

Therefore, demons’ craving for human fear is merely to let their "concept" persist and to uphold their concept, whereas many demons can have their concepts exist without human fear, like volcanoes, magma, hurricanes, and the deep sea...

However, many authorities need a "concept" to exist to become strong, like "machinery."

Thus, the artificial gods who tried to kill each other’s authorities eventually tasted the catastrophic consequences of their actions. After many wars, humanity was on the brink of extinction, and these artificial gods who had long since turned into demons realized the situation was dire.

So they established a basic order to maintain the remaining population, even though they still engaged in various internal political and power struggles.

After a period of peace, the war among demons broke out again, but this time it was not a war between individual demons, but a great demon war between different factions and forces.

Until humanity in the entire world became extinct, the demons continued their thoughtless battles, born as war machines. In the end, this world’s humanity was not extinguished by apostles’ invasion but destroyed by the Pandora’s Box they themselves created and opened.

These twisted demons were once warriors who fought for their world...

Is this the price of humans wielding the world’s authority?

Someone like Xue Dili, who was deeply in contact with world authority, keenly felt how powerful authority is, but does authority’s erosion of humanity truly become so exaggerated?

He, as the human most in contact with world authority, was still dealing with it, wasn’t he?

Only having lost a small portion of his emotions.

Thinking this, Xue Dili felt a bit of a crisis upon seeing this. Would losing emotions really turn him into the same existence as those demons?

His current situation was not much different from the predecessors of demons, the artificial gods, except he returns the authority concept every time he uses it, instead of holding on to it all the time.

Seeing the fate of those demons and artificial gods, Xue Dili could not help but think of himself.

A group of noble warriors who were immortal and defied death against external enemies but in endless death, slaughter, and reincarnation, forgot their starting point, their humanity, everything about themselves, and their original goals, utterly degenerating into demons.

And the last of humanity was killed by the Petrified Demon, who slaughtered the humans hiding in underground cities. Originally the domain was governed by the Death Demon, but when the Death Demon destroyed the Petrified Demon’s city, it came and killed the last humans sheltered by the Death Demon.

When humanity became extinct, the Petrified Demon suddenly realized what they had done.

Perhaps in those final moments, they regained a shred of their former humanity, or perhaps they finally realized how foolish they had been before dying.

So, after leaving behind this record, when the inner concept’s vessel disappeared, recording the story of these foolish beings, the Petrified Demon thus succumbed here to petrification and gradually died.

Seeing this, Xue Dili fell silent.

Why was Hell captured by Green Star? Perhaps this is an answer only Margaret knows, but now, at least Xue Dili understands the origin of demons.

A world invaded by apostles, even the World Consciousness could have been shattered, and after such a shattering, the decision was made to hand over its authority to humanity for a final struggle.

Thus, the undying and immortal artificial gods were born, as were the entirely twisted and terrifying demons of a later time.

Thus, demons are the conceptual embodiment of world authority.

Therefore, after capturing this world, Margaret immediately thought of consuming the authority and mass of another planet to strengthen herself.

But it is unknown if Margaret was corrupted by the demons’ concept, or if it is inherent in her nature, in the end, she became exactly like those fallen artificial gods, turning into a complete demon.

Perhaps Margaret could also be called a "World Demon"?

Thinking this, Xue Dili quietly took back this stele of the Petrified Demon into the consciousness space, also finding most of the texts, arts, designs within this city, even the traces of pictures on the petrified classroom walls...

He captured all of this on his phone, the last records of this civilization.

Spending nearly a day collecting these, until the phone notified him of insufficient memory.

Xue Dili checked, the photo records took up 59G of memory.

This 59G of memory is the last size of this civilization.