Beneath the silent star-filled sky, Silvanus slowly opened his eyes. His green irises briefly glowed with a brilliant golden light—only to fade just as quickly. He sat up, his brows furrowing tightly.
"Those memories that just appeared in my mind..."
They felt far too real, like he had lived through more than ten years—starting as a fledgling god, growing into a young deity over a decade.
During that time, he had even met Lucifer and Gabriel; both had stayed by his side, guiding and protecting him.
The memories were overwhelming in both number and vividness, to the point where Silvanus was beginning to lose his ability to distinguish between real and false.
"Hey, System, don’t tell me I am a god?"
Silvanus couldn’t recall anything about his past life, but suddenly discovering he might genuinely be a deity, he was shaken.
Acting System: [...] At this point, playing dead is the best course of action.
But Silvanus was no longer the same as before. He frowned, raised his hand, brought his index and middle fingers together, and pressed them against his forehead—then drew them away.
A stream of blue energy was gradually extracted, following the motion of his fingers. The energy gathered into a floating, slightly shimmering blue orb.
At that moment, the orb bounced and trembled incessantly as if shaking in fear. In any case, it was no longer the intimidating system it once had been—at least not in Silvanus’s eyes.
"Speak. Just what exactly do you know?"
Silvanus pulled the glowing orb closer to him, eyes narrowing slightly as he asked slowly.
The orb shuddered, then suddenly spat out a panicked stream of words:
"I don’t know! I’m just a backup protocol, just a backup! Everything I did was according to your prior instructions! Everything I showed you was what you wanted to see! I truly don’t know anything!"
Silvanus narrowed his eyes at it without saying a word, which only drove the system into further despair:
"I swear I’m not lying! Please, you have to forgive me! You need me! You told me to follow you until the end! Thanks to me, you can distort the dungeon system’s data notifications! I can even invade the dungeon system to handle things! It might not seem important now, but I’m still super useful!"
The system rattled off a whole stream of words, its voice trembling and filled with fear, completely exposing its true cowardly nature. Gone was any trace of the previous cold aloofness.
From the beginning, Silvanus had felt that this so-called system didn’t resemble a real system. And as he grew stronger, it became increasingly useless—now reduced to a quivering little ball of dough.
"All right, I’m not going to do anything to you. Just keep doing your job."
Now that he had recovered part of his memories—even if only a decade or so—it was enough for him to begin understanding certain things.
This space didn’t belong to the system; it belonged to him.
A god could only continue to exist with faith. As a new god, he needed belief to grow stronger and survive.
Acting Points were a variant of Faith Points. Only with belief could this space continue to exist, giving him a place to reside.
Judging by the current situation, the more Acting Points and Faith Points he accumulated, the more of his memories would be unlocked.
It felt just like a game. Strangely enough, he couldn’t understand why he had devised such a substitute method in the first place.
Moreover, Silvanus also considered one thing: if a backup plan was already in place, then the original one must have failed. Was that related to the memories of his previous life?
Everything before him seemed shrouded in a thick fog, difficult to pierce through. The influx of memories and power also made his head ache slightly. Silvanus didn’t want to think anymore. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep. Before drifting off, he didn’t forget to remind the acting system:
"If a dungeon appears outside, wake me up."
"Understood, my lord!"
The acting system responded loudly and earnestly. It was probably snapping into a stiff military salute if it had a body.
Time in the outside world flowed as usual, even without Silvanus’s presence.
"Maybe he’s busy with something,"
Adonis said calmly as he sat in the chairman’s seat, watching Layla pace back and forth anxiously. A faint smile crossed his lips as he spoke slowly.
Layla couldn’t help but furrow her brows slightly.
"Thanks to Drake’s presence, the situation across the continent has become much more stable. I’m waiting for Silvanus because I want to ask him a few things. With the Prophet acting , he should’ve said something."
Her expression was ice-cold. She thought of Frank—he had known everything but still chose to keep it secret under the pretense of not wanting to cause chaos. Yet despite all his efforts, chaos had still come as expected. All he’d managed to do was distract her from her actual work.
"Even if Silvanus were here, what do you expect him to do? Rebuke one of his gods? I’m afraid he’d go as far as to eliminate anyone who dared insult his deity."
Layla couldn’t argue. She, too, felt that Silvanus would react exactly that way. From what she’d seen, he valued his gods above everything else.
"But things really can’t go on . We’re not only having to worry about monsters—we now have to fear the gods too..." Layla muttered, frowning.
Adonis waved a hand dismissively.
"Alright, worry about it after real damage is done. What can you even do about it now? From what I can see, you have a lot of paperwork."
Layla parted her lips as if she wanted to say something more, but at that moment, Frank’s voice suddenly rang out from outside the door:
"That’s right. Silvanus probably won’t show up. You should get some rest. Look at those dark circles under your eyes—don’t you know how to care for yourself?"
It was true—Layla hadn’t slept for two days. But she didn’t feel Frank had any right to say that to her. His eye bags were worse than hers.
No one knew exactly what he was up to. Lately, he had been absent from headquarters more often than not. So Layla asked directly:
"Just what exactly are you plotting?"
"Just something that might help humanity change its fate—from passive to proactive. You’ve always worried about the gods’ existence, haven’t you? If I succeed, you won’t have to worry about them anymore. We might not even need the gods’ help at all!"
Frank promptly kicked Layla out of the office as soon as he finished speaking. He had something to discuss privately with Adonis. His entire face was drawn with exhaustion, but the excitement in his expression was impossible to hide. His bright red eyes were filled with fervor, like someone trapped in darkness and finally found the light.
Layla frowned deeply. She felt she might need to learn more about Frank’s so-called new research. The look on his face was more terrifying than some of the fanatics out there.