Ch.389The Road to Mount Dikere (1)

Mount Dikere.

The last refuge for heretics and apostates who refused to worship the sun and moon.

Despite this description, they ultimately could not escape the eyes of the imperial government. Thinking about it, this was only natural.

It would be laughable if the imperial government didn’t monitor what were at best groups of fugitives and defeated soldiers. At a time when the sun and moon had already established themselves as the empire’s only state religion, these people were nothing more nor less than potential rebels.

While Mount Dikere was treacherous, during the imperial era when civilization itself was at a different level, such rugged terrain could simply be carved away. Given the nature of hideouts carved into mountains, it would have been possible to mine and smelt iron and other metals, forge weapons to stand against the government, and even train suicide attack units using the mountainous terrain as cover.

Of course, just because such things were possible doesn’t mean they actually did them. Anyone who had seen the empire in its prime would never have harbored the terrible word “rebellion” in their hearts.

In reality, they chose complete seclusion and continued to cultivate their small, precious lives while voluntarily offering tribute to the imperial government’s envoys who eventually found them.

Why the imperial government continued to leave them alone remains suspicious in many ways, but the theory with the most scholarly support is that Mount Dikere served as a kind of “trash can.”

It was far more convenient and simple to gather potential troublemakers in one place and crush them whenever they became dangerous, rather than dispersing them across multiple locations. In other words, Mount Dikere was essentially a concentration camp.

According to excavated historical materials, it has been verified that people reported rebels to the imperial government who then captured them. From the imperial government’s perspective, it was like a mileage farm where they could regularly accumulate achievements whenever the cooldown period ended by sending troublesome individuals there.

Therefore, the trash can hypothesis was the most widely supported theory, and both Victor and Simon supported this hypothesis as well.

The ancient empire with its long history of 300,000 years is divided into three periods of 100,000 years each. Among them, the era commonly referred to as the empire’s golden age or prime was the second period, from 100,000 to 200,000 years.

The first period, from year 1 to 100,000, was a time when the foundations of a unified state were just emerging, with rebels and anti-integrationists appearing throughout the regions. The sun and moon also writhed in extreme pain, occasionally causing the sun to go dark during the day or the moon to not rise at night.

Consequently, those who denied the divinity of the sun continued to appear, and the evil servants of darkness still squirming in the abyss continued to invade the surface and slaughter imperial citizens.

The human governmental system, which at best only managed satellite cities, was utterly powerless to control the ongoing wars and rebels springing up in all directions.

Those who had been mere village chiefs suddenly had to govern all thirteen continents, so there were inevitable limits to their efforts.

Thus, the first 100,000 years are commonly called the empire’s founding period. Thousands of crusades were dispatched to oversee the vast world and purify the nauseating evil lurking within it. Hundreds of emperors ground down their bodies and souls to maintain and develop the imperial system.

The next 100,000 years were truly worthy of being called the empire’s golden age.

The sun and moon had completely stabilized, and with tremendously advanced technology, nothing seemed impossible.

The population grew endlessly, with massive single cities and arcologies spanning thousands of kilometers in diameter springing up like bamboo shoots. Imperial citizens fully enjoyed the benefits of incredible technology, living extended lives filled with pleasure, luxury, and ecstasy from cradle to grave.

When people speak of “the empire,” they typically refer to this period—the golden age, the prime… a time beyond words, when human civilization reached its zenith, the absolute peak of human achievement that can never be reclaimed.

Then, from 200,000 to 300,000 years, came the period of decline.

Just as even the most delicious food becomes tiresome when eaten continuously, imperial citizens who had mastered almost everything could no longer be satisfied with “mundane” things and began to fulfill their twisted desires through extreme methods like cannibalism and murder.

Fortunately, they remained a tiny minority (though given the empire’s population, likely still numbering in the hundreds of billions) until the empire’s fall. The imperial government absolutely would not tolerate apostolic acts that deviated from the laws of the sun and moon, so this issue was not a fundamental cause of the empire’s downfall.

The real problem was the failure to secure new growth engines.

The Nariakiran Empire, having completely colonized the thirteen continents, sent out enormous numbers of expeditions in all directions out of a desire to expand further. However, despite exploring distances that took thousands of years even with faster-than-light travel, they found nothing but endless waves, ultimately failing to secure land beyond the thirteen continents.

As growth engines were depleted, the economy began to falter first. Like a bird that falls harder the higher it flies, the empire’s once-mighty economy began to collapse like a house of cards.

First the construction industry collapsed, then real estate, then the stock market, and so on.

Of course, due to the lack of historical materials in modern times, discussing how severely imperial citizens were impacted by this economic collapse remains speculative. However, it was certainly enough to bring various social issues within the empire to the surface.

These social issues were many, but essentially stemmed from dissatisfaction with imperial rule itself.

The sun and moon as humanity’s guardians—that much was fine. But did they truly protect “all of humanity”? There was no consideration or blessing for individual humans living within, nor did they check the imperial family’s increasingly severe chosen people ideology… In short, apart from providing light and heat, what did they actually do?

Setting aside whether the world could exist without that light and heat, the vast majority of subjects could only grow resentment toward the sun and moon, which did nothing to alleviate their real-world hardships and suffering.

This was anger that had steadily accumulated over 200,000 years—anger that the imperial government and royal family could never soothe or appease, no matter what they did.

In the end, this exploded due to the tyranny of the imperial family, who had gone mad with their chosen people ideology claiming descent from the sun and moon.

City-states began springing up everywhere, declaring their hatred for the sun, moon, imperial family, and imperial government. They were suppressed, only for the cycle to repeat.

Eventually, the Four Great Gods faith was completed, and an apostle blessed by all of them raided the imperial palace, massacring the direct imperial family. The imperial government was instantly crushed, and the “Age of Solar Eclipse” began—a terrible civil war that destroyed everything the empire had built over 50,000 years.

The nation created by gods was ultimately destroyed by the hands of gods.

The Nariakiran Empire prided itself as “a nation for humanity, by humanity, of humanity” until its fall, but in reality, it collapsed because it could not overcome the contradiction of being a nation that existed for divine ideals, was established by divine power, and was maintained by divine authority.

The brilliant civilization they cultivated will never return. Even if the thirteen were united again, the scars of the eclipse have been permanently recorded in this world, and what has once been cracked and destroyed can never be reforged.

Because of this history, because of this precedent, the Victorian Empire must truly serve humanity.

To prevent the world from being extinguished by a single entity, it must create thirteen suns to illuminate the continents, the world, the universe.

He knew he could rule the world but could not save humanity.

Living to die, wanting because of lack, losing because of having.

Victor could not solve the thirst and hunger that can never be resolved as long as humans remain human.

He could only satisfy momentary desires by consuming meaningless sacrifices.

But Victor knew that the moment efforts to save everyone end, the moment those who try to evolve humanity into better beings go extinct—that would be when humanity receives its second divine punishment.

And at least, as long as Victor lived, that time would not come.