Page 347

"What should I call you? Morax, Rock Lord Tianxing, Mr. Mo, or your real name Zhongli?" Unexpectedly, before Zhongli could speak, Fanes spoke first: "Or are you now going to break your own contractual rules and sever the contract you signed with me?"

“The contract is not inviolable, it’s just that the price is too high. I can do it now.” Zhongli slowly shook his head, but he quickly continued, “But what I want to say has nothing to do with the contract. I just want to tell you what happened back then.”

He paid no attention to Fanes's face, but looked at all the audience members below the stage and said: "Just as I once asked to retire as a mortal, today I also want to stand here as a mortal and tell the story of how I was once a human being."

"In the distant ancient times, all ordinary people lived under the guidance of angels, who would teach them how the world worked and what direction the world should take."

"But the humans that Fanes brought were not the only humans. Before those humans, there were still some Teyvat original humans, just like the creations born from the world itself, though they were not many."

"I am one of them. Although I can vaguely recall that I seemed to have seen images of the creation of the world, it may just be a fantasy of reincarnation."

"But that's not important. What's important is that in that angelic era, I didn't really like this kind of order because it stifled human creativity and placed the future of humanity on a vague and unrealistic management system."

"But once the angels are punished, or the kingdom is attacked, the people will be displaced, the entire kingdom will collapse in an instant, disaster will strike, and cannibalism will become the norm in human society."

After Zhongli finished speaking, he looked at Fanes, but Fanes did not respond. Zhongli sighed sadly.

Hearing his sigh, Fanes raised his eyelids slightly, a rare occurrence: "The sacred age should be reserved for sacred humankind. If humankind begins to defy the power of the heavens, then it is only right to punish them."

“There aren’t that many things in this world that are taken for granted,” Zhong Li retorted. “How the world’s will should operate should be determined by the living beings in the world, not by the rulers. I didn’t like that era, and it was indeed very sad.”

"So in that era, I chose to become a wandering sorcerer, a magician. I witnessed war, the horrors of great calamities, and the suffering of humanity. Thus, I observed for three months and attained enlightenment, becoming what later generations called the 'Transcendent One.'"

“So in that era, I found you and made a pact with you. I wanted to see just how far you, this human transcendent, could go.” Fanes looked at Zhongli and slowly said, “But I didn’t expect you to grow to such a powerful level later on.”

“My strength has nothing to do with you. It is the strength of humanity itself. Even without that agreement, I don’t think you could completely erase me.”

Fanes did not object, seemingly tacitly agreeing with this statement.

“I established the Mountain Radiance Fortress, made the first covenant, and within the covenant, I comprehended the power of the laws. When I became a god through the covenant, Fanes found me again and signed the first covenant with me.”

"This is a truly divine contract that I, as the God of Contracts, signed with the ruler of this world, so it is also known as the original contract."

"The principle of the contract is very simple. I can live in this world under the name of the God of Contracts, and he must not affect my survival in any way. At the same time, I must obtain the title of Demon God bestowed upon me, Morax."

"So the name Morax was not my wish, but was forcibly added to me. However, without this name, I would not be able to protect the humans under my command with a name recognized by the Seven Order in the Demon God War and various battles that have lasted for thousands of years."

"I can finally reveal what this contract is today."

"I need to keep the secret of becoming a god hidden. I cannot interfere too much in guiding humanity. Within the Order of the Seven, I cannot attempt to influence all of humanity in Teyvat. And my ultimate title to the outside world must be the God of the Rock."

Fanes raised his head and looked at Zhongli, saying, "But what I didn't expect was that you left a loophole in this contract, which is also your biggest trump card, isn't it?"

“That’s not a gap, that’s a manifestation of the law of contract, that’s part of the entire human way of Teyvat.”

Whispers began to ripple through the audience in the courtroom; clearly, most people were unaware of what this gap and this part of humanity truly meant.

But clearly, whether it was Yunxiu, Phanes, or the Nibelungen that had arrived later, as well as the other gods, they all understood the meaning of this sentence.

"What exactly is part of Teyvat's humanity, Your Majesty?" Lady Rosalind quietly nudged the Winter Queen sitting beside her. "Is it related to the contract you once signed with the Emperor?"

"You are indeed intelligent, and it is relevant." The Empress chuckled, then quietly said, "There is a saying among the Seven Gods that goes like this: fulfilling divine duties and accepting faith are ways to gather divine power, and the more divine power a god has, the stronger he/she becomes."

“But I remember you said, Your Majesty, that if a person is powerful enough, it doesn’t seem to be absolute. Faith is just an amplifier.” Rosalind said with some doubt, “Just like Yunxiu and the Emperor, their strength doesn’t seem to have much to do with their divine positions.”

“You’re wrong. Yunxiu’s situation is completely different from Morax’s. Morax has been fulfilling his divine duties all along and has accumulated an enormous amount of divine power.”

"Isn't the God of Contracts a divine office? Isn't a transaction also a kind of contract? If the God of Contracts and a transaction are a kind of contract, then isn't Mora, who is also Morax's flesh and blood as the medium of the transaction, also a manifestation of divine power?"

"You mean..."

Rosalyn's face showed a hint of fear.

"Yes, all the Mora on the entire continent are formed from the divine power and flesh of Morax?"

"Yes, otherwise why would I have signed that contract with him that would end everything? Because only he had the ability to truly defeat Fanes, even without Yunxiu."

The Empress smiled and said, "As the son of God, Yunxiu has indeed accomplished what even his father could not do, that's true, but that doesn't mean his father didn't do anything."

"If Yunxiu is the embodiment of humanity, and can be called the spokesperson for humanity, then the path of humanity itself was established by Morax."

"This final judgment is essentially a battle between the Way of Heaven and the Way of Man. I don't deny that Yunxiu is indeed incredibly powerful and has brought all of this to fruition. But who laid the foundation for all of this?"

Rosalyn looked at the young man on the stage, who was speaking eloquently. He was wearing a bright yellow robe and looked like an ordinary neighbor.

But when he uttered those words, they were so credible and so profound.

"So this is the real Rock King Emperor."

"No, we should call him the Lord of Humanity."

As Zhong Li's words progressed, the conversation with Fanes reached its final stage.

"Morax. You've been preparing for all these years. Aren't you really afraid that Liyue will be harmed?"

"Therefore, I have relinquished my divine duties in Liyue. In the end, I will face you directly as a mortal."

Zhongli smiled and walked down the steps, taking Hu Tao to sit in the audience seats of Liyue.

"But I think I don't need to do these things anymore, because the people of Liyue have made a greater choice."

Fanes fell silent. She looked at the people of Liyue below the stage, who were gazing at their emperor with eager eyes. Their god was sitting in the audience.

There were no cheers, nor many sighs, only the acceptance and care shown as if to an elderly father.

They also offered him snacks and desserts from their own family, which brought a genuine smile to the deity's face.

“Liyue is not his kingdom, Liyue is his home, and he is not the god of the people of Liyue, he is the father of the people of Liyue.” Yunxiu stood up and stood next to Fanes, looking at her face to face: “I think by now you should already know what the outcome of the trial will be, so I can now give you a final choice.”

"Just face your own judgment and choose a future that you don't know, don't understand, and can't be sure of."

"Or choose a different option."

"Is it a fight, or a humiliating death?"

Fanes sighed, revealing for the first time a human-like, somewhat dejected expression.

"No, I want you to stand here and really reflect on what you've done over the years. Whether it's been good or bad for the world, whether it was right or wrong."

"The moment you can truly understand, the moment you can truly speak out, the judgment will come."

"But the outcomes of the trials will not necessarily be the same."

Yunxiu looked at the audience below the stage, the judge on the stage, and Fanes in front of her.

He sighed inwardly for a long time, and then uttered the last words he had been thinking about for a long time.

"If you could relive the story from the beginning and see the ending again, what choices would you make?"

Regarding the ending and sequel (the following is mainly an epilogue, written as thoughts come to mind).

Actually, this book on tabletop role-playing games is basically finished now. The rest is just the sequel and some wrap-up parts. You can read whichever part you want, and I will also make it a free side story.

As before, let's briefly discuss the things that followed.

1. Because I am a content creator, this book is written in a more "traditional" style. Many people have complained that some parts are particularly complicated and difficult to understand. This is also my fault; I did not write the later parts very well.

2. It was said at the time that the book had reached about 200 million words, and now it seems that it has reached about 200 million words. There should be about 20 more chapters of side stories, which will describe Yunxiu's life afterward, his wife, his children, and how other people will live on the Teyvat continent. Well, the trial of Fanes is just the end of one phase, but the story of Genshin Impact does not end here.

3. Actually, this book has some major problems. The pacing was slow at the beginning, and the later progress wasn't well-coordinated. This is one of the less suitable aspects of my first online novel, and I think it's the biggest problem. I'm also very grateful to all the readers who have subscribed until now. Although there aren't many, I'm thankful for each and every one of them.

4. At the time, I thought that even if only one person read it, I would still finish writing it. But now, no matter how difficult it was, I still finished writing it, so I guess that's an achievement.

5. Well, although in the end it can basically be said that the foreshadowing was resolved, coupled with the key plot point at the end, the story progressed step by step.

Well, actually, at this point, I started thinking about what the final chapter should look like, but I realized that what I've written so far might be the limit of my thinking. It's not a matter of ability, but rather because Genshin Impact itself is a product with an overwhelming amount of content, and I was a bit too ambitious and tried to include everything I could. But now, it seems that this is also a problem for me, and something I need to be mindful of.

6. What mistake did I make here? I made the same mistake as the development team: I assumed that the player, or rather, the reader, had the same amount of information as me. But this is inappropriate, both linguistically and in terms of the book itself. It's impossible for the reader to have the same amount of information as me. Even I sometimes had to refer back to earlier foreshadowing, right? So it's even less likely for the reader to do that. Since the reader couldn't do these things, I found it increasingly difficult to write, and it became increasingly difficult for the reader to read. This was my biggest problem.

7. Of course, writing this far seems to have turned into a reflection on myself, but I think reflection is necessary because, no matter what, someone paid money to buy this book, right? And I've been interacting with people in the comments, so I feel I should at least give my fans and readers an explanation.

8. Then, due to personal reasons, I inserted some scenes involving the collapse of iron, which I think was inappropriate. Well, actually, I just really like Firefly. Later on, Ryuei didn't play a significant role. Towards the end of the book, because there were so many characters, the writing became a bit scattered. I think I wanted to write too much, but the content was limited. Trying to cram all this into a 200 million-word framework inevitably resulted in a scattered and disorganized writing style.

9. But no matter what, I still managed to finish writing it, even though it didn't make much money. In fact, considering the income I earn from making videos, it's far less than what I invested. But I still felt it was necessary to write a book.

10. Then, after I finished writing the tabletop role-playing game, I thought about whether I should try writing a web novel, a real web novel. So recently I wrote my latest large-scale cultivation manual. This book is more about web culture, or rather, it is a new work I wrote after thinking about the problems that tabletop role-playing games have always had. At least for now, I think I am quite satisfied with the beginning of this book, although there are not many characters.

The story it tells is quite interesting, so I recommend that you check out my new book.

Finally, I would like to thank all the friends who have supported me all this time. No matter what, your continued support has been my motivation to keep writing. Although there may not be many subscribers and almost no comments in the final stage, I still feel happy to see that people are subscribing every day.

After all, I haven't written anything that even one person reads; there are still quite a few, so I'm very grateful to everyone.

As I mentioned before with the second book, I wanted to write original works. Since it's fan fiction, well, actually, apart from Genshin Impact, there's nothing I particularly like. Well, Honkai Impact 3rd wouldn't be much different from Genshin Impact if I were to write about it, just like Honkai Impact 3rd and Terminator Zero.

Regarding my understanding of fan fiction and novels, I still prefer to create an original storyline.

In my new book, I want to talk about large models and AI, and discuss some of the topics related to large models, AI, and the recently popular UBI.

I believe we are living in an era of rapid change, so I wanted to write about what this era will look like in the future, based on my understanding, which led to this new grand model cultivation manual.

Although I don't know if the future will really go in the direction I wrote in this book, I think it at least represents a guess and an idea.

This is also my answer to this era.

Thank you all again.