Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1412: The Truth of the "Heavenly Age

Chapter 1412: Chapter 1412: The Truth of the "Heavenly Age

In the three ancient forbidden books "stolen" by Bingdisi, the pre-war history that was deliberately obscured by the Goddess Sect is recorded. Although these mere three books only reveal a little of historical afterglow, this afterglow is sufficient to present a world entirely different from the church’s propaganda, a world not of peace among all races, but one filled with antagonism, discrimination, conflict, and even enslavement on both Earth and the Moon.

The real history is as follows:

No one knows who created this world, nor does anyone know what kind of great existence once emerged in this world. Since the first wise being who invented the written word recorded what they saw onto bark and stone fragments, the world has comprised two parts. These two parts are twin-like planets, and in the very distant ancient era, they were separately known as Red Moon and Haisenwood. These terms are recorded in ancient texts, and today no one knows their exact meaning. After comparison, we can only confirm that Red Moon is now known as "Dark Moon," and Haisenwood is the planet where the Surface People reside.

Bingdisi’s conjecture was correct: high-level ancient civilizations did indeed exist on these two planets, civilizations that disappeared before the Surface People and Dark Moon People walked upright. In the encyclopedia depicting ancient customs and practices, the authors categorize them as "First Season Civilization," while referring to all races of that era as "Second Season Civilization" (later subdivided into Surface People and Dark Moon People). In other words, even in the ancient era, the people of this world had a very profound understanding of their world—at least, their understanding back then was deeper than today. At that time, they didn’t seem to have the notion of a Goddess creating the world and building the Heaven and Earth Bridge, as the "Forbidden Books" describe the passage between Earth and the Moon as follows:

"Special Entry: Twin Star Transmission Station - Open Entry.

The First Season Civilization mastered the technology of transferring materials between planets and established two large material transmission stations at both ends of the Long Bridge Mountain Range, namely the Twin Star Transmission Station. These two transmission stations possess self-repair capability and utilize some kind of planetary energy deep underground as power, allowing them to potentially operate until the planet’s demise. The previous season’s civilization has now disappeared; no one knows whether they were destroyed by catastrophe or left the Mother Star for the Universe’s depths after mastering superior technology. Nonetheless, these miraculous buildings they left behind have accompanied the entire development history of the Second Season Civilization, enabling the people of this world to travel between Red Moon and Haisenwood through the Twin Star Transmission Station. However, the existence of the Twin Star Transmission Station also impacts the technological development of the Second Season Civilization, an influence whose pros and cons are yet to be discussed."

This encyclopedia, compiled before the First War, objectively describes the "Earth-Moon Connection Bridge," but today’s Surface People no longer discuss the impact of the Twin Star Transmission Station on civilization’s development—they only believe it’s a miracle left by the Goddess, the foundation of this world, without even the thought of researching it.

"Look, look, fighting like it’s a hot kiln," Bingdisi has obtained another pirated book copied by the Louse Spirit, female hooligan slapping the pile of non-leather non-paper giant tomes, "Chen Lai, take a look at this; it’s more high-energy than your Otherworld edition Liao Zhai."

Curious, I peered over to take a glance, and instantly agreed with Bingdisi: it was a World War History book...

"Humans and Mountain Barbarians are old enemies, Elves and Dwarves are allies, but have had long-term friction, Demon Beasts and Elves are old enemies, Half-Beasts and Dwarves are old enemies, Night Nightmare Demon Clan has enmity with all races worldwide—luckily later extinguished by the Eighteen Clans Alliance Army, additionally Half-Beasts and Demon Beasts are blood relatives, but despise each other, Humans and Elves have had three wars, but also formed four alliances, so ultimately they are allies..." We all huddled our heads around the World War History book, Bingdisi reading a segment from the catalog, ridiculing it. "This catalog groups by warring races, then sorted chronologically. The front of the catalog lists the warring factions in a particular period. Seriously, this catalog is messy, isn’t it just random combinations of all races worldwide? It’s called the ’Heavenly Age’?"

Even I found it overwhelming, merely skimming through the catalog and glancing at the subsequent content, what I saw was a high-energy era where bricks flew across the air and brains splattered from dozens of species from across the world. Since this world has two planets, each planet is larger than Earth, and each planet’s land area is effectively one and a half to two times Earth’s land area, the natives have ample three-dimensional space to wield bricks against each other. Moreover, there are eighteen independent evolved species (actually more, as the preface mentions: minor skirmishes and non-important races are not included in this book), each with the same ecological demands but different ideologies, meaning everyone has ample reason to fight each other...

You could try drawing eighteen small dots on a piece of paper, then randomly connecting all of them, and the final network would essentially be the so-called Heavenly Age in the church’s eyes, the chaotic war era in actual history, where every line on this network simultaneously serves as an alliance and declaration of war, depending on the era in question.

People familiar with Earth’s history often marvel at humanity’s penchant for trouble, marveling at human history as a history of warfare. Yet, this book’s catalog and opening table alone can overturn the impression of human war history; humans at most had two world wars, and what about this world’s people? Well, excluding Dark Moon wars, they technically had only one world war—ever since recorded history began.

There’s no alternative; here lies a world map four times larger than Earth Online’s upon launch, with tens of times more intelligent species and dozens of times more derived factions compared to Earth (it’s not excessive for a species to establish three or four nations, is it?), what chaos would such a world have formed? Even the Salvation Army had its chaos in those days, but they had merely one planet...

It’s fortunate this world is vast enough, and the locals didn’t refine Uranium 235, otherwise, perhaps the First Dark Moon War wouldn’t have commenced: everything capable of upright walking across Red Moon and Haisenwood would have been wiped out before then.

"This is the Warring States Era that persists from recorded history," Lin Xue glanced at the pre-war history sealed by the church, snorted through her nose, "every race’s nation is aligning and contending, forming short-term alliances only to immediately go to war; it’s unrestricted global warfare."

Bingdisi seemed far more composed than us: "Well, it’s indeed busy fighting, but I have witnessed similar things, multi-species mixed civilizations either ultimately seek grand fusion like your ancestors once did or continuously battle to the world’s end. The divergence caused by species differences isn’t easily resolved; establishing a United Nations here is more difficult than on Earth."

I nodded in agreement, searching through the densely packed timelines in the World War History, desperately seeking even relatively peaceful periods, finally managing to find some: "Well, it’s not entirely a global firestorm, see, specific times and local regions still had peace. It’s just globally, there have always been wars on Red Moon and Haisenwood, yet at the same time, some countries could maintain stability for over decades."

"Of course, without this, they couldn’t have developed civilizations," Bingdisi rolled her eyes at me, "This world progresses discontinuously with regional wars and regional peace, although there’s no moment of global ceasefire, there’s always somewhere that stays stable for a while—multiculturalism thrives in such an environment, otherwise, even with civilization, only wartime technology would remain. Oh, except for your Xyrin folks who have all-civilian peace but only wartime technology monster race."

I chuckled dryly to remind this female hooligan: "Nowadays, you must say ’we,’ not ’you all’—you’re also a Xyrin Apostle."

Bingdisi was momentarily startled, then laughed heartily: "Oh darn, I almost forgot; now I must call you Majesty, huh."

I pondered this, daring not to nod: this female hooligan was perhaps the first Xyrin Apostle in history to dare to challenge the Emperor.

"Wood, look, isn’t this tower just the transmission station we used today?" Lin Xue flipped through that "encyclopedia," suddenly finding something intriguing, eagerly pointing it out to me. I saw on the book page she’d turned to, drawn with precise strokes, a blueprint of a tall tower; its interior structure was intricate, with a base beneath the tower imprinted with demon runes: exactly the Transmission Device’s small station.

I still remember hearing from the Iron Knight trio about the origins of these small transmission stations. It is an artifact left behind before the third Dark Moon War, built by the Surface People. After the three wars, the method of construction was lost. At that time, based on the regularity of technological disruption, I guessed that this transmission device might trace back to before the first war. Now this guess is confirmed: its structural diagram appears in an encyclopedia from before the first war!

"This transmission tower was made by imitating the principle of the Twin Star Transmission Station, and its energy was also collected from deep underground mines in the Long Bridge Mountain Range," Bingdisi swiftly read through the textual explanation before and after the structural diagram, "Oh, it’s a product of multiple race collaborations during a brief period of peace. To understand the technology of the First Season Civilization, scholars from Humans, Elves, and Demon Beasts first attempted with the Twin Star Transmission Station. This short-range transmission tower usable only on the planet was the result. Take a look at the last paragraph of this entry."

Following Sister Bing’s finger, I saw at the end of the page, where the encyclopedia compiler quoted a passage: The moment the first transmission tower illuminated proved the power of unity; no single race could unlock the mystery of the Twin Star Transmission Station, yet now, three races have together created such a miraculous replica. In the foreseeable future, transmission towers will quickly spread to every corner of Haisenwood and Red Moon, the two planets will become a village with neighbors in hearing distance. We will ultimately understand the meaning of peace. May these transmission towers act as lighthouses, shining on the direction of peaceful advancement for our world — Demon Beast Scholar, Lili.

The mentioned Demon Beast Scholar Lili was probably one of the people researching the Twin Star Transmission Station. Perhaps, she was even a celebrity in that ancient era, but now the transmission towers built painstakingly by her and her Alien Race companions are nearly all abandoned. "Demon Beast Scholar Lili" is even unknown, and due to the Dark Moon War’s influence, the "Demon Beast" race has turned into a taboo name akin to a demon among the Surface People.

We looked at each other speechless and eventually laughed quietly.

The peace hoped for by the demon beast scholar who left only her name has not arrived. Humans, Elves, and Demon Beasts likely declared war again shortly after the transmission technology matured. According to the account in the adjacent World War History digest, the reason for the declaration of war was surprisingly ironic: conflicts over the allocation of benefits from transmission technology eventually led the three races to disintegrate again, and until the end of the pre-war history, the Demon Beasts and the other two races had not restored peace. They persistently cold warred and hot warred until the Dark Moon War erupted...

"I can’t quite understand," I murmured, stroking my chin while looking at the structural diagram in the encyclopedia, "The Church might have their reasons for sealing history, but why did they seal the transmission station technology as well? It seems the transmission stations on Earth were about to expire, how come the Church isn’t anxious."

"This book, after all, is just a rough dictionary. The transmission stations, or rather, the transmission towers cannot be built with just this diagram," Bingdisi wasn’t surprised at all, "And didn’t you read what it said in the entry? The energy from the transmission stations was mined from underground in the Long Bridge Mountain Range. This indicates that back then people didn’t even manage to completely figure out the principle of the Twin Star Station. They only partially understood the energy component. According to Joseph’s explanation, this type of energy ores should have been fully mined by the time of the five wars. Otherwise, the Church wouldn’t have any reason to leave such important information unused, and wait around for all the world’s transmission stations to shut down: these things are strategic facilities.

I nodded fervently in agreement.

While we studied the state of the world before the Dark Moon War, Qianqian was eagerly flipping through those big volumes. This girl isn’t interested in things like war history; she’s simply looking for "stories" in them that pique her interest. She’s been like this since childhood, turning language books, history books, or even political books into storybooks. At one time, calendars with folk remedies and little tales on the back were in vogue, and when she really wanted to read stories and couldn’t get anyone to buy her books, she’d flip through calendars, ripping off each page after reading. Later, their family became the first on our street to use electronic year-long calendars because Uncle Xu simply couldn’t keep providing them...

"Oh—Ah Jun, look, Otherworld’s version of Romeo and Zhu Yingtai!" Qianqian suddenly spotted something that greatly intrigued her and immediately exclaimed loudly. I puzzled over when Romeo had met Zhu Yingtai while peeking over, realizing Qianqian was flipping through a folk stories collection from before the Dark Moon War. I had flipped through this book for a while too, but its value clearly was not as great as the prehistoric encyclopedia and the World War History from back then, so I didn’t inspect it closely.

With her eyes gleaming, Qianqian watched those folk stories which were similar but slightly different, chattering away to me: "An Elf girl and a Demon Beast farmer fell in love, after much ado spanning over ten thousand words, it didn’t work out; a Mountain Barbarian and a Human girl fell in love, after nearly twenty thousand words, it didn’t work out; a Beastman soldier and a Dwarf girl fell in love, after ten thousand words, it didn’t work out; a Human boy and three Elf boys fell in love, the two of them... um, these four got together by the second Chapter..."

I snatched the book from Qianqian’s hands and ripped out those pages, cold sweat pouring down my forehead: What nonsense were these Ancient People writing!

Bingdisi, too, was flabbergasted, watching Qianqian with wide eyes. I quickly explained to her: "This girl watches too many Korean dramas, she particularly likes stories where the couple agonizes with endless love through more than forty episodes only to not end up together. But looking at it now, the worldview of Koreans seems rather weak compared to the worldview of the Ancient People in the Otherworld."

Sister Bing looked at Qianqian with an eye of admiration: "Your interests are truly extraordinary. If you hadn’t already changed sides, I would even want to teach you the technique of triple-casting fireball..."

Immediately, I shielded Qianqian protectively behind me, cautiously watching Sister Bing: "Don’t add to the chaos, isn’t this girl’s worldview peculiar enough?"

At this moment, Lin Xue stepped forward, picking up the few pages I had thrown on the ground and took a rough look, seeming thoughtful: "Hmm, these folk tales indeed contradict the history promoted by the Church; being banned is quite natural. The stories in them might not entirely be fabricated; in those turbulent times, each race could engage in fights at any moment. Cross-cultural romances of those with foreign tendencies were destined for no happy endings."

I found her words peculiar, and after pondering for a moment I realized: Fortunately, Sandora wasn’t here, otherwise, the Queen would surely have erupted into rage.

"But anyway, the story of a rough Human man and three cute Elf boys is still a bit too extreme," Lin Xue finally crumpled those pages into a ball and tossed them into the corner’s fire pit in the tent (theoretically, we don’t need a fire pit for lighting or warmth; having such a thing is purely because Qianqian feels it adds to the atmosphere), "Now we have a pretty good understanding of what the world was like before the first war, basically a chaotic mess with races mixed fighting. So let’s discuss the key point next — why did the Church hide this segment of history?"

Without thinking, I blurted out: "To consolidate their rule... isn’t it?"

The last word turned into a rising questioning tone because I had realized it seemed this wasn’t the case.

We indeed found evidence of the Church covering up history and know what the real pre-war world looked like. But upon careful consideration... it seems this segment of history doesn’t exactly have the necessity to be concealed, at least not to this extent!

About sixty to seventy percent of the content in these so-called "forbidden books" does not impact the authority of the Goddess at all! (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, feel free to visit Qidian.com to recommend votes and monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com for reading.)