High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1229: Chapter 291: God Must Not Be Looked Upon Directly

The Land of Void knows no up, down, left, or right, nor does it witness the changes of day and night.

Being there, it was hard to feel the passage of time.

Especially when a conversation included someone with endless questions, and the respondent had unlimited patience. As long as curiosity existed, there was no end to this process.

In the midst of the young wizard nodding like a pecking chick, the elder pulled out his pocket watch for the second time and glanced at the time.

When he looked up, the young wizard posed another question:

”Sir, what exactly is an Outer God?”

As he spoke, he slightly lifted his eyelids, seemingly eager to catch another glimpse of the illusory starry sky above, but he immediately suppressed the urge and let his eyelids droop again: ”I mean, they give people a rather unpleasant feeling... When I saw their figures outside earlier, there was always this inexplicable irritability in my heart.”

”It’s because you’re standing too low,” the elder replied bluntly: ”Just as ordinary people feel anxious, panicky, and deny themselves when they look up at the starry sky at night, feeling their brief few decades of life are meaningless in the face of the vast universe—small individuals, massive celestial bodies, expansive distances and time, all these make people feel powerless... Many people will develop a sense of ’life is meaningless’ from this, and in severe cases, it can lead to a collapse of worldview and outlook on life.”

”The more ’knowledgeable’ people are, the stronger this feeling of ’nothingness’.”

”Get an old farmer to look up at the stars, and at most he’ll just remark that the weather will be fine tomorrow; but get a highly-educated philosopher to do the same, and he might go mad... The more you know, the easier it is to go insane.”

”Wizards gaze upon the starry sky, and they also have a similar empathetic response. It’s just that because they see more, the feelings they experience are even more intense. In theological terms, this feeling is described as ’the god who cannot be looked at directly’.”

What does this have to do with Outer Gods? the young wizard pondered to himself.

The elder seemed to have heard his inner voice and smiled: ”The ’Outer Gods’ you speak of are wizards as well, only they have transcended the concept of ordinary wizards... If we were to use modern tiers to categorize, most of the ’Outer Gods’ fall between ’Legendary Wizards’ and ’Ancient Wizards’, exceeding legends but not quite ancient.”

”Every transcendent path is one carved out through brambles and thorns by those who came before.”

”The ’Registered Wizard-Big Wizard-Legendary Wizard-Ancient Wizard’ path that the school is teaching you now is the most spacious and solid among all known transcendent paths.”

”But this doesn’t mean there are no other transcendent paths beyond this one.”

”For example, many Big Wizards incapable of stepping into the realm of legends choose to create ’superior races’ to achieve an ’Ancestral position’ and surpass themselves; there are also Big Wizards who collect faith and ignite a divine fire to take the ’God-making’ path; some even forge a pact with ancient beings in the universe to become ’Proxies’, breaking through barriers with external forces.”

”Some paths are clear and some are murky, some straight and others winding, but any path that reaches the other shore is sufficient for a Seeker.”

”We cannot ask for more.”

”Following the most spacious path and becoming a Legendary Wizard, a wizard needs to gather enough information, constantly perfect the concept of ’Self’, and resonate with the universe, the closer the better. It’s a bit like our preparatory work before constructing a Forbidden Curse, choosing a large enough set and then finding patterns to converge.”

”Essentially, ’Outer Gods’ are existences that have surpassed Legendary Wizards, whose ’self-concepts’ keep expanding without the ability to perform ’convergence’. This forces them to discard their physical bodies and escape into the deeps of starry sky.”

”Perhaps some think of them as a group of failures, but I do not see it that way. Though different paths may lead to the same end, no one knows if the state of infinite self-expansion will overlap with my current state. It’s like the crux of the universe—convergence is a forbidden spell, while divergence is a world.”

”Convergence seems more controllable for an individual, yet who can say whether a Forbidden Curse is superior to a world... After all, they belong to different dimensions now, and it is difficult to have a clear standard for comparative quantification.”

”That’s also why They are more attracted to you, for within you lies a ’Forbidden Curse Seed’, a clear, complete, and correct path of ’convergence’...”

”But today, in that battle, the ’Gauze Nicholas’ that appeared behind the giant toad didn’t seem all that interested in me,” Zheng Qing was quite attuned to the malice of his enemies in battle, and compared to the overflowing malice of Satoguya, the Outer God that descended relying on the small Mountain Goat seemed to completely ignore the presence of Black Cat.

”It was Lord Satoguya and Lady Nicholas,” the elder corrected: ”When facing the starry sky, you need to maintain enough awe... As I mentioned before, after the ’Self’ concept has expanded infinitely, it might reach a state akin to my current one. And the Mountain Goat of the Forest, who has fostered thousands of progeny, is among the most powerful of the Outer Gods. She likely has seen her path clearly and naturally wouldn’t be interested in your concept of convergence.”

”In comparison, the younger and weaker Outer Gods have a stronger desire for you. Because Their degree of ’expansion’ is still very modest, they stand a great chance of stepping onto the most spacious path.”

The young wizard heaved a deep sigh.

”Living is truly exhausting,” he said with feeling: ”I never imagined I’d have a day like Tang Sanzang.”

The elder chuckled twice: ”Good luck and misfortune always nestle close together. Like the accident today, the unluckiest one was Nicolas, who was summoned only to be hit by a powerful spell out of the blue. It’s like making a random call for help and the person who arrives just steps over the threshold only to be shot in the face and splattered everywhere. But who can say Nicolas has gained nothing from it?”

”At the very least, she has confirmed the coordinates of this world, and perhaps after a long time, we will sense Her gaze being cast upon this world.”

The young wizard couldn’t help but shiver, trying hard to erase the terrifying images that sprang to mind.

The elder stretched and sighed long and deep, concluding: ”This is a world full of Order, and you are a fruit crystallized from Order, possessing the power to break it.”

”The most alluring thing in the world is the power to destroy rules. For mortals, this power represents money, authority, beauty, but for wizards, this power is knowledge.”

”A Forbidden Curse is knowledge that can overturn Order, rewrite rules, and comprise limitless content.”

”Now that you understand all this, you must straighten your mindset, adjust your state, and always be ready to face the covetousness omnipresent in the Dark Jungle.”