Gods: Civilization Cultivation, Infinite War

Chapter 188 People without Light
The 20th year of the Wanling calendar.

The central world of the Ten Thousand Spirits Realm, a place without light.

"Today's routine prayers have concluded. After everyone has collected their requiem potions in an orderly manner, you may return."

After the church pastor said this, everyone in the church slowly came to the place where they could receive the soul-soothing potion and began to line up.

Decades have passed since the complete fall of the God of Light.

The entire Glorious Realm had long since stopped using the original calendar and had instead uniformly switched to the Ten Thousand Spirits Calendar, with the name also being changed to the Ten Thousand Spirits Realm.

For the gods of Blue Star, three calendars are generally used at the same time.

One is naturally the Blue Star calendar based on the time of Blue Star, and the other is the calendar used within one's own clan civilization.

The last one is an alliance between blue star gods such as the Alliance of All Spirits, and the many civilizations within it will also use a common additional calendar.

The three calendars are basically used separately and there will be no confusion.

After receiving today's dose of soothing potion from the church, the young man poured the entire bottle into his mouth without any hesitation.

The taste of the soothing potion is not very good, it can even be said to be very bad.

The extremely strong herbal flavor, with a sour and complex taste, can bring a strong impact to people.

If most people have tasted this kind of flavor, they probably will never want to try it again in their life.

But for the people of the Lightless Land, the Soul-Calming Potion is one of the most important resources to maintain their survival.

After drinking a whole bottle of soothing potion, its effect was quickly seen.

The young man who was originally full of decadence suddenly had some light in his eyes, no longer as dead as before.

Including the Lightless People around him, the expressions on their faces became much more relaxed after drinking the soul-soothing potion.

The overall atmosphere was no longer as dull as before. Many people without light were even in the mood to start chatting, and there were even scattered laughter.

The actions of the God of Light have caused irreparable harm to the indigenous people of the entire Ten Thousand Spirits Realm.

This kind of injury is not the kind that can be gradually healed with the passage of time. Instead, it will become more and more serious.

The collapse of the kingdom of God caused a clear gap to appear in the souls of all the indigenous people.

The loss of the Light of Hope has caused this gap to widen further and become irreversible.

Not only the indigenous people who experienced that war, but also their descendants were affected by it.

Compared with the original indigenous people, the lack of soul is caused by acquired factors.

Today's people without light are born with defective souls.

Issues at the soul level belong to a relatively high-end field in the material world.

Any trauma to the soul is a difficult and intractable injury that is difficult to heal.

A huge gap appeared in the entire person's soul, which could not be repaired by conventional means.

This soul gap is the price of the collapse of the kingdom of God, and is also affected by the rules of heaven and earth.

Even a true god-level being would find it difficult to fill this gap completely.

It is not difficult to fill the soul gaps of a few individuals.

But even a true god would be unable to solve the problem of the missing indigenous souls in the entire world of all spirits.

Not to mention that the current people without light are born with incomplete souls, and the difficulty of repairing them has increased by who knows how many times.

Therefore, even now, the people of the Darkness are still suffering from the many pains brought about by their incomplete souls.

They cannot concentrate on thinking about any problem like normal people.

You must not let your emotions get out of control, otherwise you will experience splitting headaches.

In addition, due to the lack of hope, they have almost no interest in anything.

There are no conditions for enjoyment and no interest in enjoyment.

This also led to the fact that the People of No Light always looked extremely decadent from childhood to adulthood, because they really had no way to love anything.

Before the invention of the soothing potion, the suicide rate among the people of the Darkness remained high, reaching an extremely exaggerated level.

After the complete fall of the God of Light, the total population of the People of No Light was reduced by more than half in less than ten years.

The entire Wanling Realm originally had over one trillion people without light, but now only less than five hundred billion remain.

This is under the premise that the All Spirits Alliance provides them with sufficient survival guarantees, otherwise the number will be even lower.

If no intervention is made, the People of No Light will be completely exterminated in a few years.

There is no need for the Alliance of All Spirits to take action personally, they can render themselves harmless.

It was not until the invention of the soothing potion that the suicide rate of the people of the Darkness began to drop significantly and the fertility rate also increased significantly.

The total population has been maintained and has a certain upward trend.

The effect of the soothing potion is very simple, which is to slightly fill the void in the soul of the people without light.

But this filling effect is not permanent, it is only a temporary effect.

Because of this, the people without light need to take a bottle of soul-soothing potion every day.

This is to ensure that one's emotions will not always be in an extremely low state, thereby reducing the suicide rate of the people without light.

The boy is almost sixteen years old this year.

He has been taking soul-soothing potions since he was born.

As early as a few years ago, taking a bottle of soothing potion could maintain its effect for half a day.

At this point, a bottle of soothing potion could only keep his spirits up for about three hours.

The reason why the effect of the soothing potion was greatly reduced in just a few years was because the boy's soul had reached maturity.

Like a birthmark, the gap in the soul becomes larger and larger as the boy's soul matures.

The effect that could originally last for half a day will naturally be greatly reduced.

After this, the effect of the soothing potion will no longer show any obvious changes, but will only decrease slightly steadily as the boy's own drug resistance increases.

Judging from the boy's current condition, the soothing potion will completely lose its effect when he reaches about thirty years old.

By that time, it basically means that the boy’s life has come to an end.

This is also the norm for the people without light today.

While the soothing potion still has its effect, they can easily convince themselves to stay alive.

By the time the soothing potion completely lost its effect, their bodies were still in their prime.

But in terms of thoughts, I no longer have any desire to continue living.

After personally experiencing the existence of hope, they are faced with the situation of losing hope forever. Not many people without light can bear such a gap.

The original people without light still had obvious hatred towards the Alliance of All Spirits. In a sense, this was also the reason that supported them to continue living.

But for the current people of No Light, they have neither obvious hatred nor any extra feelings towards the Alliance of All Spirits.

Logically speaking, the Alliance of All Souls provided them with soul-soothing potions and guaranteed their survival, so the people of No Light should be full of gratitude to the Alliance of All Souls.

But the people without light are just unable to concentrate on thinking, they are not fools.

They knew that their suffering came from the God of Light.

It was the God of Light who used his believers to bear the cost of the collapse of the Kingdom of God, and it was also the God of Light who deceived countless believers of the light of hope, which led to the birth of the People without Light.

But if the Alliance of All Spirits had not appeared, the God of Light would not have taken such extreme actions.

From this perspective, the Alliance of All Spirits was also the main driving force behind the birth of the People of No Light.

The All-Spirit Alliance did not deliberately conceal this information, and even compiled it into specific books for people to read at will.

Even the people without light can understand the truth behind it as long as they are willing to understand.

But this doesn't matter at all to the people of No Light today.

The Lightless People, who had not personally experienced that period, simply did not have the energy to harbor any additional hatred towards the Alliance of All Spirits.

It’s good to be alive, and it doesn’t matter if you die. This is the common idea of ​​the vast majority of people without light.

The strong desire to survive also does not exist for the people without light, because it would also cause them to suffer great pain.

Soon, the boy returned to his home.

At this time, his wife also saw the boy coming back and walked towards him.

"This is today's requiem potion."

After taking the soothing potion handed over by the young man, his wife quickly drank it.

After a while, the soothing potion took effect and a slight smile appeared on the face of the young man's wife.

She hugged the boy gently, her face pressed against his chest.

"Welcome home."

Since the Lightless People need to take soothing potions every day, the Alliance of All Souls wants to prevent them from taking excessive amounts of soothing potions for the sake of short-term happiness.

It is specifically stipulated that only the daily amount can be collected, and it can only be collected after completing prayers in the local church.

In order to avoid congestion, local governments usually distribute soothing potions to families, and let family members take turns to receive them.

There are only two members in the boy's family.

Both the boy's parents and his wife's parents committed suicide several years ago.

This is a very normal thing for the people without light.

Rather than suicide, it is more like a natural death in another sense.

As for the boy and his wife's child, of course it had not yet been born.

After all, the boy is not even sixteen years old yet, and his wife is only in her early fifteens.

Although the two parties are married, they have not yet had their first in-depth communication.

Under normal circumstances, the people of the Darkness would not get married so early.

Due to the lack of souls, the people without light also have very low desires in this regard.

Moreover, it is difficult for the people without light to have any love experience.

After all, once emotions become too excited, one will suffer great pain.

In this case, the happiness brought by love is far less than the pain suffered in the process.

Situations like that of the young man are extremely rare among the people of the Darkness.

The boy and his wife were childhood sweethearts. Several years ago, both of their parents committed suicide.

The boy took his childhood sweetheart, who was just over ten years old at the time, to his home to take care of her.

After reaching the required age, they registered at the church and became a legal couple.

Due to the special nature of the People of No Light, according to the regulations of the Alliance of All Spirits, humans of the People of No Light can get married and have children only when they reach the age of fourteen.

Giving birth at the age of fourteen will indeed cause considerable harm to the mother.

But given the situation of the People of No Light, they usually don't wait until the damage breaks out, and they have already committed suicide long before that.

At the age of fourteen, the soul has not yet matured, and the effect of the soul-soothing potion can last for at least six hours.

Moreover, boys and girls of this age group are just ready to act, and without any supervision, the probability of accidental discharge of guns is quite high.

Not to mention that the All-Spirit Alliance even encourages them to marry and have children early, and has sufficient resources to allow them to raise children.

In a normal world, this could easily lead to a population explosion.

In order to prevent the population of the Lightless People from decreasing, the Alliance of All Spirits has also taken great pains.

But the reality is not that simple.

The desires of the people without light are too low. Even in their youth, it is difficult for them to have much interest in matters between men and women or anything else.

Most of the people without light only look for a mutually acceptable partner and get married and have children when they reach a certain age, driven by biological instinct.

This can barely prevent the population of the Dark People from declining significantly.

But it is not so easy to quickly increase the total population of the People of No Light.

"Want to try it tonight?"

The boy's wife whispered in his ear.

As childhood sweethearts, even though there are huge gaps in their souls, they have already accumulated deep feelings after more than ten years of getting along with each other.

The people without light just have very low desires, but they don’t really have no desires at all.

With the blessing of deep feelings, it is enough for them to have some in-depth communication.

This is not something difficult to understand for the people of the Dark World.

After all, long before the All Spirits Alliance arrived in this realm, it was very common for the natives here to get married and have children at the age of fourteen or fifteen.

The Alliance of All Spirits only put these things on the surface to regulate them, and did not break their original ethical concepts.

Faced with his wife's suggestion, the boy's throat rolled a little uncontrollably.

What followed was a sharp pain deep in the soul.

The boy didn't care about the stinging pain, but still shook his head firmly.

"It's too early." "I've read about this in some books in the library. Giving birth too early can cause irreversible damage to the mother's body."

The boy's wife was puzzled: "What does this have to do with anything?"

"I've heard that many people gave birth at our age and died without any physical problems."

The young man gently stroked his wife's hair. "That's because they all died prematurely. Under normal circumstances, they could have lived for at least several more decades."

"By that time, the disadvantages of having children too early will become apparent."

"But is our situation normal? Can we be called normal people?"

The young man's wife suddenly said with some sadness.

Even such normal communication must be carried out after drinking the soothing potion.

After all, if you want to communicate, you also need to concentrate to a certain extent.

This will cause them to have splitting headaches, so without the soothing potion, they are basically no different from useless people.

To avoid suffering, they can only carry out most of their daily activities in an almost instinctive state of confusion.

If it weren't for the support of the Alliance of All Spirits, it would be a big problem for them to even take care of themselves.

Hearing his wife say this, the young man was silent for a moment.

But he quickly gave his answer: "We are different from others. We have love."

"like?"

The boy's wife was a little confused.

"Yes, it is love."

The young man's tone was firm: "Just like some of our ancestors, relying on their hatred for the All-Spirit Alliance, have survived to this day and have not passed away."

"Although we don't have any hatred towards the All Souls Alliance, we have plenty of love for each other."

"It also serves as support, allowing us to live together for each other."

"Even in the future, the soothing potion will no longer have any effect on us."

"But the love between us will not be diminished."

"I don't want to be able to accompany you for only about thirty years and then end my life hastily."

"I hope that we can continue to support each other like this, without any deadline, forever."

The boy's affectionate confession made the girl's earlobes turn a little red.

Even though she felt a sharp pain deep in her soul, the girl nodded happily: "Okay, I'll do as you say."

……

A few more years passed, and the girl finally became a young woman with a big belly, which was pregnant with the fruit of her love with her husband.

The boy has grown a lot more mature after a few years of growth.

Both of them are now over 20 years old. If they don't have children, there will be almost no chance for the people of No Light to have children.

After all, as one gets older, the effect of the soul-soothing potion becomes less and less effective.

This will not only be reflected in the duration, but also in the emotional tolerance, the effect will be greatly reduced.

For young boys and girls a few years ago, after taking the soothing potion, as long as their emotions did not experience huge fluctuations.

At most it will just cause some slight stinging, not too much pain.

But now, even after taking the soothing potion, one must try to avoid excessive emotional fluctuations, otherwise one will suffer great pain.

So the two of them started preparing to conceive their own child last year.

Otherwise, if you continue to drag it out, there will be great pain during the in-depth communication, which will be unnecessary.

At the woman's current age, giving birth to children will not cause any irreversible harm to herself.

"Solaus, have you thought of a name for our child?"

The young woman gently stroked her belly, feeling the movement of the fetus inside, and spoke with a happy face.

The husband beside him nodded: "I've thought about it."

"If it's a boy, he'll be named Kemplit."

"If it's a girl, she'll be called Floris."

The young woman nodded: "They are all very nice names. Our child will definitely like them."

For the people of today who have no light, being able to give their children a normal name is considered as being cultured.

After all, it is difficult for the people without light to think. Even if they can gain the ability to think for a short period of time through the soul-soothing potion, they rarely use it to study.

Apart from some basic education arranged by the Alliance of All Spirits, the People of No Light basically have no additional knowledge.

In this case, Solaus, a man who likes to go to the library to read whenever he has time, is considered knowledgeable in the surrounding area.

Of course, this contrast is limited to the interior of the People of No Light.

Even if he was willing to endure great pain to study, Solaus found it difficult to concentrate, and his learning efficiency was far inferior to that of normal people.

A book that a normal person can finish reading and roughly understand in a few hours would take Solaus at least a week.

"You've been going to the library more and more often lately."

Solaus's wife looked at her husband with unconcealable heartache in her eyes.

Every time after taking the soothing potion, Thoraus would stay with his wife.

He would not go to the library to read until the effect of the soothing potion wore off.

Thoraus's wife had repeatedly advised him to go to the library to read when the soothing potion was taking effect, so that he could gain more knowledge.

But Thoraus insisted on staying by his wife's side until the effect of the soothing potion wore off.

Because only when the soothing potion takes effect can he feel more clearly the happiness of being with his wife.

For him, this is the most precious time and he cannot afford to waste it.

Hearing his wife say this, Solaus quickly gave his answer.

"The power of knowledge is infinite. The Soul-Calming Potion is something that many alchemy masters have researched."

"A bottle of extremely cheap basic potion can alleviate the suffering of all of us, the people of the Darkness."

"If I could possess that kind of knowledge, perhaps I could find a completely new way out for us, the people of the Darkness."

"The incompleteness of the soul is a barrier that we, the people of the Lightless, find difficult to overcome."

"This isn't just going to happen to our generation, it's going to happen to our descendants, and our descendants' descendants."

"All people without light will suffer this pain from the moment they are born."

"I won't blame anyone, but this situation must change."

"Otherwise, what is the meaning of our existence as people without light?"

"We are unable to offer faith to numerous gods, nor are we capable of engaging in all kinds of complex production activities."

"We also need the All-Spirit Alliance to prepare a soothing potion to ease our pain, and even provide us with the many guarantees we need for survival."

"This is obviously unreasonable. The All Souls Alliance is not that kind of charity organization."

"There must be a reason why the entire All-Spirit Alliance treats us, the Lightless People, so well."

"And this reason may be the value that we, the people of the Lightless, possess."

"I don't know what this value is, but I feel that it must rely on the efforts of us, the people of the Darkness, to unearth it."

"So I won't give up studying, because this may represent the hope for the future of all of us, the people without light."

"Besides, our child is about to be born. A future without any hope would be too cruel for our child."

Thoraus looked at his wife's belly with a gentle expression.

"Well, I believe you..."

A few months later, Solaus's wife finally gave birth to their love child.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Solaus's wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl.

All the names I prepared for my children happened to be used.

At this point, Thoraus officially possessed a new identity as a father.

The people of the Darkness do not need to worry about raising offspring.

No matter how many children are born, the Alliance of All Spirits will provide them with sufficient survival guarantees.

Therefore, the birth of two children did not cause any burden to the Solaus family, but only brought laughter.

Even a newborn baby is in a state of soul loss.

They rarely make noises like normal babies and are very quiet most of the time.

They also need to be fed soul-soothing potions, otherwise when they gradually develop self-awareness, they will have become accustomed to the state of missing souls.

When faced with any external stimulation, one can only react instinctively.

At that time, feeding them the soothing potion would not cause any fluctuations in their emotions.

If there had been no intervention from the Alliance of All Spirits, the indigenous people of the entire Ten Thousand Spirits Realm would have gradually become beasts without any self-awareness, even if they would not have quickly become extinct.

A few years later, Solaus' children were old enough to go to school.

Based on human standards, the basic education provided by the Alliance of All Souls for the People of No Light generally lasts until the age of fourteen.

For the current people of the Darkness, fourteen years old basically represents adulthood.

After that, they no longer have to stay in school to receive basic education and can try other fields.

However, given the current situation of the People of No Light, it is difficult for them to have the energy to conduct in-depth research in any field.

Neither Thoreau nor his wife planned to have any more children.

For the people of the Darkness, besides their instinct as living beings, they want to leave behind their own offspring.

And the Lightless People who are in love with each other like Thoraus and his wife, who want to keep the fruit of their love.

Normal people without light would not have any thoughts in this regard.

Even when they are communicating in depth, they need to be careful not to get too emotional, otherwise they will suffer great pain.

The feeling of having to constantly fight against one's own instincts is not pleasant for any living being.

In addition to the first in-depth communication, it also brought many new experiences to Solaus and his wife.

When we had in-depth communication afterwards, it was basically just for the purpose of getting pregnant.

After the pregnancy was officially confirmed, Solaus never had any in-depth communication with his wife again. After all, it was not really a happy thing.

During the actual delivery, with the help of magic, there will be no additional pain.

However, Thoraus and his wife already had a son and a daughter, so there was no need to have more children.

For Solaus, being able to share his life with his wife and watching his children grow up healthily is already a great happiness.

Whenever he thought of the happiness he had, Thoraus couldn't help but feel a sharp pain in the depths of his soul, but this still couldn't hinder his happy life.

"It would be wonderful if this kind of happiness could last forever."

In the years to come, Solaus said this countless times.

When the bodies of his children were brought home, Solaus felt as if he were suffocating.

He opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word.

He had already taken the soothing potion today, but the effect of the potion had long since ended.

Unspeakable sorrow continuously welled up in his heart, and with it came immense pain as if his soul was torn apart.

Even such pain could not suppress the sadness in his heart.

Until his stomach churned and he vomited out all the undigested food he had eaten throughout the day.

A large amount of tears and snot gushed out, and the sound of vomiting continued, as if he wanted to vomit out his soul.

When everything returned to calm, Thoraus slowly spoke: "Why?"

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Thoreaus."

The person who said this was not a person without light, but a staff member of the Alliance of All Souls.

"It was our negligence that led to the emergence of Lightless People with severe self-destructive tendencies within the school."

"He performed his own self-destruction ritual inside the school, and we didn't have time to suppress it quickly enough."

"Some children whose soul-soothing potion's effects had already worn off were affected by him, including Kemplit and Floris."

"They're only six."

"terribly sorry……"

The next day, Solaus's wife sat quietly on the sofa in the living room, without any breath on her body.

The last thing she left for Solaus was a piece of paper with three big words written on it.

"Live."

(End of this chapter)