They all call me an Outer God.

Chapter 365 The Tomb Buried by Yellow Sand
Awakening the mentor may be no simpler than deducing a meme, and awakening and taking him away from under the noses of so many investigators and containment objects in Cranbea is even more difficult than climbing to the heavens.

So, my dear Lord, don't you really want to consider lending me your strength?
Together we can awaken the Black Pharaoh, or kill him and seize his power and authority; then we can do anything with ease.

Is that your true form?

This was the first time that Lia had heard their true names.

[It's just an avatar of the true body. In the end, all we can do is try our best to awaken as many avatars as possible to increase our combat power. The true body is busy sleeping and has no time to care about what's happening here.]

[They're busy sleeping again. What makes them so fond of sleeping?]

Who in this world doesn't enjoy a comfortable, undisturbed sleep?

Hephis Gott refused to answer the question, instead continuing the previous topic with a seductive tone.

【If you wish, we can seize the authority of the Black Pharaoh, and you will still not have to pay any price. As a follower, it is only right to pay these prices for the supreme faith.】

Do you have a grudge against your original self?

No, I just think it's interesting to do this. Imagine if my original body suddenly woke up one day and found that I had nothing left, wouldn't that be a very interesting thing?
As a deity, you shouldn't waste your talents. If I were you, I would directly steal the authority of the Radiant Sun, steal his followers, and let him experience what it's like to never wake up again.

Lia disagreed.

If this were so easy, you wouldn't just have a clone now.

So what are your intentions?

【…】

Ria was silent for a moment, then decided to ignore him and send him away. These clones never came for anything good.

With great power comes great responsibility. Ria didn't believe Hephaestus would be so kind. It was evident from his previous attempt to plant an idiotic meme in him that divinity was extremely important, and now that divinity had developed self-awareness, it was beyond the control of the masses.

If it is merely an unconscious divine entity, Ria guessed that it would absorb numerous powers, and then be devoured by someone, helping that person ascend to godhood on the spot.

But now that Ria's consciousness and divinity are one, he cannot let those people's fantasies come true. Just interpreting the Lord of Trade is troublesome enough. The calls of those believers enter Swarth's mind from time to time, making his already not-so-bright mind even worse.

If all the old powers were stolen, Ria didn't know what her divine status would be like, but she would most likely die, and Swarth would be twisted into an even more bizarre creature.

Listen, Heffie, this matter needs further consideration. Of course, it's not that it's impossible or that we can't do it, but we need to discuss it more deeply.

There's no such thing as definitively saying whether something can be done, or what the consequences of doing it or not will be. The key lies in the key moment and the key person involved, and the key person in that context—

Hephaestus listened patiently to Ria's ramblings for a while, only to find that there was no more word coming from the other side.

The Faceless God had long since stopped transmitting his voice; clearly, he did not want to go with them to the desert to awaken the Black Pharaoh slumbering on the yellow sand.

"...There's not enough time. If we don't hurry, all the clones will die."

Hephaestus's face was devoid of any smile, a sight he hadn't shown in a long time. He stood there for a moment: "Once He awakens, we will return to His body, which means death. To prevent this from happening, it's best to strike first."

"If we kill the Black Pharaoh in advance, we can become the real original body. No, that's not right. Very few clones will actually survive."

He stretched out his hand and examined his palm for a moment. A gust of wind blew by, bringing a wisp of yellow sand that landed on his palm.

The next second, the man clenched his fist, then opened it with his palm facing down, letting the sand grains dissipate.

Some life forms are given the name suffix "Hephaestus" from the moment they develop consciousness.

They didn't know why, but these consciousnesses understood that they were avatars of some unspeakable being, and that their purpose was to find an opportunity to awaken Him, and then be devoured by Him.

At that time, the memories of the clones will all become the memories of the original body, and their value in existence will be completely lost.

Some of these clones have pondered the meaning of their own existence.

They play all sorts of roles: teacher, student, miner, parent, cook... but their birth is meaningless, and their death only adds some memories of the outside world to their original body. This is something that the clones truly cannot understand.

Until one day, they heard the original being talking in its sleep. It was indeed sleep talking, because the original being was clearly still in a deep slumber.

The voice told them—you can all be considered as me, and when you walk on the earth, it is as if I am walking step by step on this land.

You are messengers of the gods, which in itself signifies absolute sublimity. If you feel worthless, then create value for yourselves.

Let this world live up to your name—

In Guindelarian, "Hephaesgatu" means "great chaos".

[Becoming chaotic]

The utterances of God awoke the clones as if from a dream. They seemed to finally understand the meaning of their existence. Some clones went to find the source of the plague and allowed it to contaminate them, and then they contracted the contamination disease.

Some of them wanted to become disorderly, but the plague doctor would beat them whenever he saw them, leaving these people homeless, so they decided to form their own church.

One day, an avatar named Garn sat in front of everyone, holding a pure white mask in one hand and a colored pen in the other, seemingly wanting to add some different colors to the mask.

"What kind of mask do you think would make us stand out? Pure red? Or pure gold...?"

"I think the eyes must have large areas of wrinkles."

"Wrinkles on the face are considered attractive!"

"Paint it green, like a vine!"

"I disagree. I think roses are what truly bring out the romanticism."

"How about we draw some poop?"

"Who let the dog in by turning into a clone? Throw it out!"

"..."

Although everyone is an incarnation of the same entity, they can never reach a consensus on one thing.

Finally, Garn gave each of them a mask and asked them to draw the face they wanted. After everyone finished drawing, he announced that all the works were invalid.

That person simply threw away the other people's masks and then distributed new pure white masks.

"The significance of this mask is to tell you that no matter what independent thoughts you have, you must hide them. In the end, you still have to listen to me."

Actually, I've always felt that our church is lacking something, so from now on, I am your leader. "What kind of independent thoughts they have doesn't matter; ultimately, these thoughts will all become nothing, because their existence is merely a wisp of consciousness from the original body. Who would care about the thoughts of an avatar?"

Garn's self-proclaimed leadership quickly drew opposition from the crowd, and they began to fight fiercely. Some people came specifically to watch the fight, and were then assimilated by the clones into new clones.

The clones continued to spend their days in chaos, sometimes not understanding why they were doing what they were doing, but the original said it was the right thing to do.

"Is it really right?"

“We can’t always listen to Him; we should have our own opinions.”

So, in order to uphold their own beliefs, these clones found a new faith—

They sculpted a statue known as the Faceless One and began to worship Him as their leader, learning from other believers to pray to God daily for freedom, but many did not understand what freedom truly meant.

The statue gradually developed self-awareness and seemed to become a true god. The clones were delighted and continued to offer sacrifices to Him.

That day, they received some bad news.

The god they worshipped, the faceless god, was also an avatar of the original being.

His clones seemed to be everywhere, which seemed like a cruel joke played on them by the original body. But the Hephaestus and the others collapsed on the spot. They smashed the idols, then disliked each other and began to indiscriminately slaughter the other clones while laughing wildly.

If possible, they don't want to play the game of "you are me, I am me, I am you" every day. They imagine that normal people are completely ignorant, and that people who are completely ignorant are the happiest.

Only idiots are truly happy.

The original person was right. Sometimes, if they don't vent their frustrations, these people will really go crazy, even though in everyone's eyes they are a group of lunatics who should be torn to pieces.

Later, their group grew larger and their ideology became more and more extreme.

Instead of waking up the original body, they had a new idea.

Kill and replace the original.

Replacing it seemed difficult until one day, Gahn Hephaestus discovered Ria.

……

"Since sometimes you have a sudden inspiration, why not just do it on a whim?"

"Anyway, we outnumber them, and we already have a clone that has found the Black Pharaoh's tomb—"

They were eager to see if, without the aid of divine power, their current avatars could pose a threat to the corrupt king.

The gods are invincible, and everyone seems to be suffocated by this deeply ingrained idea. But if you don't even have the thought of trying, then you are the real coward.

Even if the price is death, the clones want to kill the god. They have plenty of options, there are many of them, and they have already taken over the bodies of many powerful patients. There is no reason why they cannot succeed.

Those who truly incite chaos are never afraid to engage in any chaotic behavior.

The pharaoh's body, located in the tomb, was no longer what it used to be, even worse than a rusty machine. He was now a mummy, pitifully confined in a stone chamber filled with poisonous gas, surrounded by venomous snakes and enormous beetles.

But at this moment, a person wearing a gas mask had already reached the pharaoh's sarcophagus. He had gone to great lengths to get here, and as a patient of Meme 3, those useless insects were nothing to him.

Sherger adjusted the flashlight on his hat, then lifted the sarcophagus, only to find it completely empty to his surprise.

Suddenly, his eyes widened. As he hesitated, a horde of mummy corpses surged toward him from behind.

They were the pharaoh's burial attendants, but now they have also been affected by an unknown contamination and turned into extraordinary beings.

"Tick."

A drop of liquid landed on Sergei Hefiesgtu's mask. He reached up and wiped it off, discovering that the liquid was red.

Suddenly, Sherger looked up and saw a scene he would never forget.

The bricks above writhed like internal organs, occasionally oozing out a reddish liquid.

When those liquids come into contact with other objects, they corrode them like strong acid, but they do not harm the howling, gap-toothed mummies, scarabs, or venomous snakes.

The color of the poisonous gas here grew increasingly dark, and the surrounding walls automatically opened one hole after another, allowing water to flow directly into it. By this time, the stone chamber had been sealed off.

"It's like a giant stomach for digestion... Hahaha, hahahahaha, if it were that easy to deal with, it wouldn't be Him."

"Even when it's asleep, this monster still has such a good appetite."

Sherger dodged the weapon thrown by the mummy soldier, grabbed the spear with his backhand, and stabbed it directly into the wall next to him. As expected, he saw more red stomach acid gushing out.

The stomach acid carried a strong stench, and if it weren't for the corrosive properties of Sherger's mask, he probably would have immediately given up because of the smell.

"How cruel! They don't even spare themselves."

He suddenly turned and stared at the mummy soldiers, watching their facial features melt away bit by bit, and then they began to kill each other. Taking this opportunity, Sherger pulled out the spear from the wall again, his expression behind the mask extremely cold.

"After sleeping for so long, death is a normal phenomenon, isn't it, Your Majesty?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a loud noise suddenly came from the yellow sand outside the tomb. A sandstorm quickly raged, and a human-shaped outline several hundred meters in size gradually appeared in its center.

The sand giant roared as it stood up, swayed twice, and slowly turned its gaze to the triangular building, a crystallization of human civilization, a masterpiece of art painstakingly built by countless laborers, and the final resting place of the royal family.

But the giant did not hesitate; it roared and howled as if to vent all its discontent.

"Boom!!!"

The giant clenched his fist and smashed it angrily into the tomb, sending bricks and tiles flying, and allowing Serge to see the light from the outside.

Since the Black Pharaoh's body was no longer there, he planned to leave, but just as he was fleeing, countless tentacles suddenly burst out of the stomach-like stone chamber and surged toward him.

"Get back!"

Sherger swung his spear, severing the tentacles, and the sand giant reached out to save him.

But just as he grabbed the giant's finger and was about to escape, a sigh seemed to echo in his ears, a sound like a death knell coming from all directions, impossible to escape, even if his eardrums were destroyed on the spot.

I think... I dreamt that I came to kill myself again.

(End of this chapter)