Chapter 49: The Trial of God, The Era of Sodom

Following a resounding victory, the enemy forces fled even though barely half of them had suffered casualties.

"Why not press the attack? We were already close to death."

"No, if it were a deity, we could choose to fight to the death, glean more information about the divine, and drain the god of more stamina. But things have changed now!"

"Our older generation could only live for a little over twenty years, and with every death, we charged forward, believing that one day we could taste the blood of longevity and break our curse of short lifespans. But who could have foreseen this?"

Now, they were divided into two nations.

As addicts to high intelligence, once they had tasted the sensation of supreme intellect, it was impossible for them to accept the intellect-suppressing aura of that forbidden zone ever again.

Therefore, they chose another way to extend their lives: slaying the gods.

They were rational and cold.

"What we are facing now is not a deity, but mortals—mere beings of medium intelligence who have actually found a way to defeat us!"

"There is only one god who can fight us, and we could eventually defeat them, but these beings of medium intelligence are as endless as we are."

"We must return and report this terrifying news to the others!"

...

Massive armies began to retreat.

Elves, Titans, Angels, and Dragons gazed with profound dread at the corpulent elephant god riding atop a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Beneath the Cangwu Tree.

Seeing that the adversaries had departed, this elephant god, immense in stature, could no longer return to the branches above.

Drenched in blood, he sat lazily on the ground, leaning against a panting Tyrannosaurus Rex, and looked up into the sky.

"O Divine One, I went forth to suppress the enemy. From this day onward, there shall be no more Calamity of Intelligence."

The voice of the Prophet came from the heavens:

"Do you know that by distancing yourself from my power of longevity, your lifespan will wane, and as you blend with the short-lived left brain, your remaining days will not be long?"

The Thread-Butterfly Elephant smiled and said, "If I do not go, this Calamity of Intelligence will erupt anew. Rather than that, I would rather become their king, civilize their wisdom, and establish a new nation."

"They are entirely rational; I shall bring them emotion and make them truly living beings."

"We were never enemies. Only when they understand the emotion within our hearts will they realize the true meaning of living this monotonous life."

"This is a trial set for us by the Creator. I shall guide the stray children home."

"I will rescue every one of them who is lost in rationality and greed."

The Thread-Butterfly Elephant shouldered his hammer and long spear, led his Tyrannosaurus Rex, and strolled leisurely away along the grassland.

He walked outward, his formidable aura striking terror into the infected ones, who fled before him in disarray.

"Flee back to your homelands! I shall come looking for you there."

Seated leisurely upon the Tyrannosaurus Rex—flattened into the shape of a fat rat, much like someone riding a donkey out to a market fair—he left the Cangwu Tree behind in the glow of the setting sun.

Carefree and unhurried, he traversed mountains and rivers.

The gentle breeze stirred by his ears, the wild grass rustling, he seemed to hear the whisper of the destined god in the wind:

"This is my mission."

...

He stepped into the Titan Basin.

The Titans squatted one by one in the valleys, burning fallen giant trees into bonfires.

"It's you!"

Terror gripped them as they looked upon the newcomer.

A full moon hung behind him. He rode in upon his fat dragon, swaying gently, his trunk and tusks gleaming with an extraordinary sanctity in the moonlight.

"Do you fear that I have come to slay you? No, I will not kill you."

"The Titans excel in strength. Do you dare to test your might against mine?"

"If you lose, you must try becoming emotional like us!"

"You are addicted to that power and would rather die than give it up. I will not force you; I only wish to add another dimension to your strength."

"Then, you will weep, you will laugh, and you will dance beneath the trees. That is a most beautiful scenery."

The Titans were furious.

They saw nothing wrong with their absolute rationality. If this being intended to force them, the intelligence-addicts, to break their addiction, it was something they would rather die than accept.

However, since he did not intend to kill them, but merely wished to wager—and defeat would only result in gaining an extra facet of power...

A Titan stepped forward, unconvinced.

"I will take you on!"

It was Coeus, the Titan King of this generation.

"I shall test my strength against your trunk!"

They sat upon the ground, using a towering mountain as a platform to wrestle arms.

When both sides exerted their strength, the earth trembled violently, fracturing with deep fissures.

The mountain acting as their platform shattered layer by layer beneath their wrists, massive trees began to topple, and the streams on the slopes splashed wildly into the air.

Boom!

As the mountain collapsed, Titan King Coeus had already lost, his wrist forcefully pinned down.

Filled with disbelief, the Titans were nonetheless thoroughly conquered.

"We acknowledge you as a friend of the Titan race, a warrior of peerless might, possessing formidable physical strength and dauntless courage."

The elephant god invited the Phoenix Emperor, summoning the children from the tree to personally bestow upon the Titans a second, medium-intelligence brain.

"Ah, hahaha! So laughter can bring such joy!"

Weeping tears of joy, the Titans prostrated themselves before the mountain-sized elephant god. Together, they laughed, held grand celebrations, roasted dinosaurs, and feasted on meat.

For the first time, the Titans felt such profound happiness.

The civilization of these infected ones was highly developed and strictly rational; they had long since formed their own script and language.

In the days to come, they hailed this elephant god who had conquered them as Ganesha, the Mighty God of the Titan Mountains.

He was brave and fearless, and as the Mighty Elephant God, he possessed the divine might to tear the earth asunder.

...

Turning away, he stepped into the Elven Forest.

"The elders of your generation were already slain by me before they died. Do you still wish to resist?"

"Kill him!" shouted an elf.

The terrifying sounds of slaughter echoed like thunder.

"Your Elven race excels at using the primeval Tree of Life for mass creation and evolution. Do you dare to match wits with me?"

"A match it is!"

The Thread-Butterfly Elephant possessed the rational left brain of a pseudo-genius, while his emotional right brain assisted him with all manner of ingenious inspirations.

Combined with the divine artifact crafted from the evolutionary magic carpet—the Hammer of Evolution—he defeated the elves in this contest of evolutionary research.

"You have won."

Defeated in their most formidable domain, the elves surrendered entirely.

The Phoenix Emperor arrived once more.

The elves, too, began to embrace emotion.

They started wearing grass skirts and dancing joyfully.

"It seems our lives cannot consist solely of dry rationality and absolute self-interest. We ought to laugh more."

In the days to follow, they referred to this elephant god of mighty wisdom as Ganesh, the God of Knowledge.

The elven children believed that the elephant god had absorbed and digested a vast variety of rich knowledge, which was why his belly had grown round and full, carrying five cartloads of wisdom within.

Yet they also believed his weakness lay in his navel; should anyone attack his navel, all his knowledge would spill out.

...

The Angel Plains.

The elephant god engaged the angels in a contest of flight speed.

Leveraging his divine wind artifact, a pair of gigantic ears that whipped up howling gales, the elephant god seemed to tread upon a massive tempest.

By the time the angels arrived, the elephant god was already fast asleep atop a high mountain, and his mere exhales sent the ant-sized angels tumbling backward through the air.

The angels, too, were infected by this power.

"We are willing to try possessing emotional wisdom!"

"We are willing to follow you."

"You are the hope that pacifies the calamities of this land."

"Quickly, let the other races experience laughter and joy, gratitude and compassion as well."

Having attained this new wisdom, little angels and archangels flew about everywhere, grooming the mouth of the sleeping giant elephant god, combing his hair, and brushing his skin with miniature brushes.

It was much like the symbiotic relationship between a massive rhinoceros and the oxpeckers upon its back.

The little angels named him Ganesha, possessing the speed of the wind, the snores of a storm, and recorded him eternally upon the murals of the angelic sanctuary, placing him on equal footing with their first-generation Angel King.

...

He then set foot upon the Dragon Isles.

"You dragons master ferocious dragon breath. I shall match you in that!"

The elephant god won once more.

Harnessing the power of light, he expelled peerless, scorching heat and conquered the dragons.

Even the proud dragons had no choice but to admire him, choosing to try accepting this new wisdom and naming him Papigni, which in the Draconic tongue meant "the most scorching flame."

...

When this god had walked the entire length and breadth of the land, the Calamity of Intelligence finally came to an end.

Generations of children to come would receive the dual blessings of the Angel of Truth and the Phoenix Emperor, endowed with a twofold wisdom.

All living beings on the land became sound of mind, possessing both the rationality of pseudo-geniuses and the cultured emotional grace.

Yet people gradually noticed something else.

Because they had developed various personal quirks—slackness, socializing, playing, traveling, and a loss of absolute purity and coldness—the standards to which they pursued various studies declined quite significantly.

And because the left brain could only sustain a life of twenty-odd years, coupled with the overall shortening of lifespans, common beings of the Second Tier in this era could only live to be thirty or forty years old.

Yet, paradoxically, this era grew remarkably beautiful.

The name of this elephant god spread far and wide across the land: Ganesha, Ganistha, Papigni... different races called him by different names in their own tongues.

Most often, however, they called him by his supreme divine title: Gajah-Dharma.

Tribes bowed in worship before their king, recounting his legendary tales, his greatest military achievements, his benevolence, kindness, courage, and steadfastness.

The children of the earth would say:

"Gajah-Dharma is the true Creator."

"Gajah-Dharma transformed us from ugly worms into beautiful butterflies."

"Gajah-Dharma conquered the Titans with strength, the angels with his wind-ears, the elves with his evolutionary hammer, and the dragons with his spear of light."

"He is irresistible; he is our King."

Ten years passed.

The Thread-Butterfly Elephant had descended the mountain alone back then, and still he had not asked his brothers and sisters on the tree to come down and assist him.

He chose to rule the Titan race, and through the Titans, govern all other races.

Towering giant deities with rat heads, ram heads, and ox heads—grotesque in shape, yet all as massive as mountains—walked the earth.

Moreover, although he still had not integrated with divine treasures to become a true deity, he grew increasingly adept in the powers of wind, light, and evolution.

He rode his Tyrannosaurus Rex, utilizing wind and light as his glory. Wherever he went, radiant light shone as if one had entered his kingdom.

Beneath his command, a retinue of fierce warriors was reorganized.

A statue of a deity was erected: a pot-bellied elephant god wearing a golden crown embedded with gemstones that glittered like a sky full of stars.

With his pair of wind-ears, holding the Hammer of Evolution and the Spear of Light, a butterfly knot adorning his brow, he sat in invulnerable majesty atop the fat rat, while a colossal lotus blossomed beneath the rat's feet.

"This is the most noble Emperor."

Following the era of the crude, lively, and bounding Little Angel Dynasty, the age had entered the solemn and magnificent Era of Gajah-Dharma.