The knight in the big world of American TV series

Chapter 2304

Gods are immortal.

At least that's what the gods of the Pantheon themselves think.

Of course, almost all gods know where their so-called immortality comes from.

But instead of feeling ashamed, people took it for granted.

Mortals should revere the gods. Don't mortals often say that everything they have is a gift from the gods? So what's wrong with giving back to the gods with everything they have?

The gods of the Pantheon use the souls of those poor believers to make deals with demons in exchange for methods to extract soul energy, allowing them to be free from lifespan limitations and remain young and healthy forever!
As long as mortals continue to believe in them, they will live on forever!
People believe this is a right that gods should rightfully receive!

That's how gods should be!

Since the gods are immortal, they must need something to pass the time during their long lives!

enjoy!

Endless enjoyment!
He spent countless riches to gather the best things from the universe for them to enjoy!
But this kind of enjoyment will eventually become numbing.

Therefore, keeping up with the Joneses has become another major driving force for them.

Gods must have a presence!

Therefore, every god has a large retinue of attendants, who may be gods, attendants, or the most powerful warriors chosen from among mortals.

In short, we must improve our hand!
As a result, Lap's own reputation is now completely ruined!

He will surely become a laughingstock among the gods!
Even though he had just defeated a powerful enemy... the gods wouldn't think much of Lap because of that, since in their eyes, nothing could truly threaten them!

Now Lap is considering how to salvage his situation.

He was just a minor deity in a minor pantheon, and his domain was extremely barren.

He has very, very few souls that he can use for trade.

Just as he was feeling annoyed, a poor, ordinary man suddenly ran over and started eating his food!

This made Lapp God even angrier, who was already in a bad mood!

Upon hearing this, Ger finally snapped out of his reverie and saw Lap, the god of light whom they had worshipped for generations. Immediately, Ger hurriedly put down the fruit he was holding and prostrated himself before Lap.

To be honest, it's hard for Ger to describe his feelings right now.

Because Gol has always been skeptical of the gods.

If there are gods.

Why is their world so barren?

If gods are truly omnipotent?

Why do they have to endure famine and drought?
What if the gods are truly merciful?

What exactly is the cause of their suffering?

Based on his own experiences, he has always had doubts about the existence of gods. Unfortunately, he can only keep these doubts to himself, because if people find out, he will be sent up as a sacrifice by the tribe in no time.

But just when he was feeling desperate, he actually encountered his god!
Upon hearing this, Ger finally snapped out of his reverie and saw Lap, the god of light whom they had worshipped for generations. Immediately, Ger hurriedly put down the fruit he was holding and prostrated himself before Lap.

"The great God of Light."

Ger bowed low, holding the necklace around his neck in his hands in front of him to show his faith.

"Oh! Look, they're actually my followers."

Lapp muttered to himself... Normally, he would have a bunch of servants and attendants around him, but now he was all alone. This made him even angrier!
"By Rapp, I am Gel, your most faithful follower." This was, of course, a lie, but... even the most honest person wouldn't be foolish enough to tell the truth in this situation. "My master, we have lost everything. It hasn't rained in this world for a long time. Rivers have dried up, land is barren, and life is in turmoil. But we still haven't given up our faith in you, hoping that one day you will keep the promises you made."

"My master, are you celebrating this now?" Gel still naively believed that the Lap god he worshipped had finally heard their prayers and was ready to bring hope to the world!

"Hahahaha!"

"This fool really thinks he can get my favor."

"You filthy dogs, you are not worthy of my favor. I am now celebrating the death of the enemy of our gods, the host of the Black Death Sword. No one can threaten the rule of the gods anymore!"

As if he had heard a funny joke, Lap God laughed mercilessly, even throwing the melon rind he had already finished eating at Gel.

“But my master, your people are dying, you have no believers left! They are all starving to death!”

“No one will worship you anymore!” Gel still held onto a last glimmer of hope that the god Lap would have mercy on this planet and show him mercy.

"Hahaha! Other believers will come to replace you in the future, there always will be."

Lap did not explain to Gel how vast an organization the Pantheon was. Mortals were like ants, never to disappear. On the contrary, their vitality was so tenacious that even the gods were astonished. In any harsh environment, these lowly creatures could multiply and thrive!
It should be noted that the Pantheon's biggest concern has never been a shortage of mortals, but rather their fear that the mortal population will multiply too quickly!

The Pantheon still has too few gods.

They couldn't control so many mortals.

When there are too many ordinary people, they will start to have wild thoughts.

What the gods fear most is that humans begin to yearn for 'freedom'!
In the eyes of the gods, this is the greatest flaw of mortals!
"Freedom" is one of the most frequently uttered words in the history of human civilization. Free will, freedom of speech, freedom of action, market freedom, religious freedom... In different societies and at different historical stages, humanity has continuously striven for and defended freedom. However, why do humans so instinctively crave freedom? Is freedom merely a product of social system design, or is it a "fundamental need" deeply rooted in human physiology and the laws of the universe? This article attempts to re-examine this seemingly abstract but crucial concept of freedom from a first-principles perspective, considering physical, biological, psychological, and social dimensions.

Freedom from a Physics Perspective: Entropy and Spontaneity.

In thermodynamics, entropy is a physical quantity that measures the "degrees of freedom" of a system. The entropy of a closed system always increases spontaneously, tending towards a state of higher uncertainty. For example, heat naturally flows from hot objects to cold objects, and gases diffuse spontaneously; these processes demonstrate that the system is pursuing the release of free energy and the "homogenization" of its state. In other words, from the perspective of the fundamental laws of the universe, systems tend to spontaneously move towards a freer state. First principle: Without external coercion, a system always tends to increase the possibilities of its microscopic state, that is, to increase entropy. This physical law applies not only to molecular systems but also affects macroscopic biological and social behavior. Freedom at this level manifests as maximizing the possibilities of chosen paths and behaviors.

Freedom from a biological perspective: Adaptability and survival advantage.

Freedom is not a luxury, but a survival advantage. From an evolutionary perspective, organisms tend to acquire the ability to actively adapt to their environment rather than passively depend on it. For example, a bird that can migrate freely can fly to a water source during the dry season, while a captive bird will die of thirst. From a genetic perspective, freedom does not correspond to arbitrary action, but rather to "redundancy" and "flexibility." The evolution of the cerebral cortex is precisely for more complex decision-making and predictive functions to adapt to the uncontrollable natural world. The higher the degree of freedom of the nervous system, the more independently an individual can cope with environmental variables, and the greater their chance of survival.

Freedom, in an evolutionary sense, is the embodiment of flexibility. It directly enhances an individual's or group's ability to cope with complex environments and is a core element in the struggle for survival.

Freedom from a neuropsychological perspective: a product of the brain's reward mechanism.

Neurobiological research shows that voluntary choice activates the dopamine circuitry in the human brain, part of the "reward system." Humans experience positive emotional feedback during the process of choosing and controlling, while being forced to follow orders or lacking control triggers anxiety and stress responses. For example, experiments have found that even when two outcomes are the same, humans prefer the path they "determine" rather than the path they are "assigned." Autonomy is a fundamental psychological need, similar to hunger, pain, and belonging, and is a mechanism reinforced in brain evolution. The human brain naturally associates autonomy with positive experiences; therefore, freedom is not an ideology, but a biological instinct highly coupled with the perception of pleasure.

Freedom from a sociological perspective: the steady-state mechanism of complex systems.

Society, as a complex system, also relies on individual autonomy to maintain dynamic stability. Societies with complete control (such as totalitarian regimes) often suffer from information lag, slow response, and a lack of distributed innovation and feedback adjustment capabilities. Democratic mechanisms, freedom of speech, and market freedom, on the other hand, provide societies with self-correcting mechanisms. Free social structures allow local errors to prevent them from escalating into systemic collapse, just as diverse ecosystems can resist the invasion of a single disease. From a systems theory perspective, freedom is a fault-tolerant mechanism, the foundation for maintaining the stable evolution of a group over long timescales. For a system to operate stably in the long term, it needs "local uncertainty" to offset the risk of "overall loss of control." Freedom is the manifestation of the rational distribution of this uncertainty.

Freedom is not a byproduct of human civilization, but rather a universal trend in the evolution of the universe's complexity, a manifestation of the self-organization of systems unfolding their potential over time. From atomic thermal motion to neural reward systems, from evolutionary adaptation to social tolerance of error, freedom has always been a fundamental principle in the evolution of various systems. It is a biological instinct, a tool for survival, a source of cognitive pleasure, a buffer for society, and a vehicle for the evolution of the universe towards higher complexity. Truly understanding freedom is not about discussing institutions and ideologies, but about recognizing why we relentlessly pursue it at the deepest level of logic.

But the Pantheon considered this absolutely intolerable.

They must rely on the sustenance of mortals; their lifespan and their luxurious enjoyment all depend on mortals for their creation.

Therefore, they absolutely will not allow mortals to escape their control.

Therefore, there absolutely cannot be too many mortals. Because if there are too many, things will get out of control, and once that happens, it will spread like a virus, which is absolutely intolerable to the gods.

Therefore, the Pantheon treated mortals as a kind of crop to be raised; if there were too many, they had to be eliminated, and if there were too few, they had to be bred and reproduced.

This is why the world under the rule of the Pantheon experiences periodic disasters; it is a method of controlling the population.

Gol was unlucky; he was born during a period of population control.

If he had been born during a period of population growth, life would have been much easier, as the gods would have bestowed great favors upon mortals during this time.

That will be the era when mortals live in the Garden of Eden.

Therefore, Lapu God doesn't care at all about the mass death of believers that Gel is talking about, because it is cyclical and will soon grow back. Even if all the mortals on this planet die out, he can introduce new species from other worlds to replace them!
In less than a hundred years, these lowly species will have multiplied everywhere!
How could he possibly feel sorry for him under these circumstances?

“But, my master, we have suffered so much, even my wife and my daughter have died, all because of you!” Ger cried out, on the verge of collapse.

"Isn't this what you should be doing? Offering everything to your God, including your life and even your soul, you should be honored for it."

"Isn't the purpose of your existence, you lowly mortals, to suffer for your gods?"

"When you die, you die; you leave nothing behind."

Lap showed no mercy. As a supreme god, he existed eternally, and believers would always emerge as long as life existed, so he didn't care about them at all.

Gel never imagined that his encounter with the gods would end like this… It would have been better for him to die in ignorance; at least then he wouldn't have known this cruel truth! They thought that faith in the gods would bring them salvation, but the reality was that it was all wishful thinking; the gods cared nothing for them! Even after they had dedicated everything to the gods, it was still the same!
"You are not worthy to be a god, I despise you!"

With that, Ger ripped the necklace off his neck and threw it hard on the ground.

This action thoroughly enraged the god Lap. In his eyes, only gods could abandon mortals, but if a mortal dared to betray their faith, it was an unforgivable crime punishable by death. So, the god Lap leaped up and grabbed Gel by the neck. "Now, your lowly life has finally found its meaning: to sacrifice everything you have to me."

Lap's eyes held a fierce look.

Only then did Ger realize that they, as mortals, were nothing in the eyes of the so-called gods.

The god Rap, whom they had worshipped for generations, had never intended to bestow any blessings upon them, nor did he care about their lives. At this moment, Gel's reverence for the divine died completely!