Humanity’s road back to the stars… it’s already been ten thousand years!?
Luthien, the Archbishop’s words crashed through Allen’s understanding like a 500kg bomb, leaving a massive hole in his worldview.
Those stories filled with metaphors in the Holy Scripture—are you kidding me, they’re actually non-fiction!?
Ten thousand years… what does that even mean?
To a single, insignificant human being, ten thousand years is unimaginably long, enough for civilizations to rise and fall countless times.
Yet, for all of human civilization, these ten thousand years are precisely the critical period—the tipping point for transformation.
In the history Allen knew, the cultural accumulation humanity achieved in the last ten thousand years far exceeded the sum total of the previous four and a half million years as a species.
This era packed all the qualitative leaps from primitive society to agricultural civilization, then on to the industrial and information age—it was humanity’s final sprint from walking upright to modern society.
If, starting from modern industrial civilization, humanity developed for another ten thousand years… forget interstellar travel—even Gaia, the Mother, might not recognize what humanity had become.
Genetic modification, cybernetic enhancement, mechanical flight—those would be standard.
Yet, the “modern” humans Allen saw before him were no different from the “original manufacturer version” before he crossed over!
No beast ears or snail horns, no bodies glowing with light, no cranial jack ports. They were pure, unaltered Homo sapiens, the real deal.
Allen felt his scalp prickle.
“Observer,” just how damned bored are you?! You’ve kept humanity penned on this planet for ten thousand years!?
To such an existence, ten thousand years is just the blink of an eye, and half a century is nothing.
But for humans, whose average lifespan doesn’t reach a hundred, with centenarians as rare as phoenix feathers, how many generations have lived and died in ten thousand years?
How unimaginably long is this despair imposed upon civilization? And the Church—just how terrifying and lonely must their vigil have been?
Suddenly, Allen understood the “Star Listener” a little. When that guy realized the suffocating truth, he must have gone completely mad!
To abandon his human form and transform into something unspeakable—maybe it was an extreme attempt to resist endless time and despair.
Indeed, before a span of ten thousand years, Allen’s own nine hundred ninety-nine cycles of reincarnation seemed trivial.
After all, aside from his last reincarnation, when he spent three full years as a student, the remaining 998 cycles didn’t add up to even fifty years.
Yet, even just a few decades of dying and reviving had changed him utterly and deeply.
In a sense, a weathered, battered old soul lived inside his young body.
He had survived by constantly forgetting, and then forcing himself to remember that he was a transmigrator.
No, Allen hadn’t “endured” until now—he’d “gone mad” until now.
A normal person would have broken after a few dozen cycles.
To have survived such prolonged torment, he had essentially become, in a philosophical sense, the “Ship of Theseus”—was he really still the same person he’d been at the start?
His spirit had already transformed into a monster capable of staring down the Observer, of standing up to the Star Listener.
If given the chance and resources, he could probably become another unspeakable being, just like the Star Listener.
That’s why Allen snapped out of his shock at “ten thousand years” so quickly.
While others still suffocated under the weight of this timescale, Allen furrowed his brow and bluntly began his critique:
“If humanity’s road to the stars has gone on for ten thousand years without success, there are only two possibilities: either humans are hopelessly stupid, or the method was wrong from the start!”
“Why does humanity always fall into the cycle of history? I think the answer is simple—humans don’t believe in their own strength, don’t understand unity; it’s the inherent flaw of this foolish species! The Church’s very existence is proof!”
Allen’s merciless criticism instantly turned Luthien, the Archbishop’s excitement into a kind of dread.
Allen ignored him, casting his gaze toward the largest Coffin not far away, and mused, “St. Leon—is he in there?”
“Yes, Messenger,” the Archbishop answered respectfully.
“Hold it, hold it!” Allen waved his hand at once, as if warding off a nuisance. “I’m no God’s Messenger, just an ordinary human. Don’t give me some one-of-a-kind divine halo, all right?”
He started “interpreting scripture” offhandedly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world: “Doesn’t the Holy Scripture say? ‘The Lord splits His own will, drawing in existences from beyond the material realm, and places them within our lives.’ By that logic, everyone has divinity, everyone has the potential to become divine!”
Although Allen’s mission was to play the role of Messenger, he absolutely could not let the Church really treat him as a living god.
The reason was simple: he really was human—he made mistakes, he messed up.
If a human is worshiped as a god, made into the object of personal cult and deification, once his image collapses, it triggers a terrifying crisis of faith.
A harmless, symbolic idol is the best object of worship.
He didn’t need to be deified—he just needed enough influence and authority.
Yet, his words had the opposite effect.
In his focus on the grand mission, Allen forgot a key concept from religious psychology: cognitive dissonance—when core beliefs are challenged by facts, believers feel great discomfort and will do anything to reduce it.
When someone shining with “divine” radiance, a suspected Messenger, firmly says “I’m not a god, I’m just human,” how will the faithful respond?
They’ll refuse to believe it, or reinterpret what he said!
They’ll believe it’s “the final test the god gives the faithful,” “full of profound oracle,” or “the god’s way of drawing near us in humility.”
And here, the listeners just happened to be the most devout, insightful (except Anna), and fundamentally different core members.
Hearing Allen’s belief that “everyone has divinity, everyone can become a god,” they didn’t doubt—they achieved enlightenment!
This idea wasn’t new within the Church, but when it came from a suspected (now essentially confirmed) Messenger, it became final truth!
Luthien, the Archbishop, and Victor, as senior clergy, understood on a deeper level: divinity isn’t distant—it’s inherent in universal humanity—found in love, compassion, courage, and creativity.
What they revered was always this noble quality within humanity itself—and this “Messenger” was its perfect embodiment!
The more Allen denied being the “God’s Messenger,” the more he proved he was filled with divinity (humility is a virtue!). Their faith in Allen grew even more fanatical!
The people here, in truth, had already become Allen’s most loyal Apostles.
Luthien, the Archbishop, had never intended to announce the “Messenger” to the whole Church.
The ones truly qualified to shoulder humanity’s fate and hear the oracle were already present.
Victor probably hadn’t realized that his secret alliance with Allen had actually given him the chance he’d dreamed of—to save humanity.
Allen didn’t care what they thought, and went on:
“I really respect St. Leon. I don’t know the Church’s full history, but according to hints in the Holy Scripture, in St. Leon’s era, religion should have faded away. That should have been progress—proof that humanity had enough reason to understand and transform the world. But in the end, they still failed.”
“In truth, this universe isn’t just material. Gods—be they higher-dimensional beings or whatever else—anyway, things that can influence the physical universe really do exist.”
Denying that is the opposite of reason.
“The great St. Leon chose to inherit the tradition of the ancient Church, laying the foundation for today’s Church—he made the right choice. ‘Religion is the opium of the people,’ the sigh of oppressed souls, the feeling of a pitiless world.”
“In his view, a dark age lay ahead, full of widespread suffering, and the only thing people could cling to, to keep from falling apart, was a faint hope in sleeping gods and dreams of paradise after death.”
“So he chose to cloak the salvation organization in the shell of religion. Technology would be lost, knowledge forgotten, but humanity’s need for spiritual comfort amid suffering is eternal. As long as suffering exists, this support will never vanish, and neither will the Church.”
“Yet, religion is double-edged. By embracing faith, you inevitably hit a core problem: you need the people to stay somewhat ‘ignorant,’ you must compete with secular powers for influence, and eventually, you become more conservative. Saving humanity unknowingly becomes maintaining the status quo.”
“Of course, maybe you did all this just to cover up your real plan. If such a plan exists, I’ll call it The Escape Plan.” Allen’s gaze sharpened at the Archbishop.
“Like Camille Durand’s concept—you want to build a starship behind the Observer’s back, take some of humanity, escape this planet, escape from its and the Evil God’s control. Your Excellency, how did that plan go? What was the result?”
Allen’s near-omniscient deduction left everyone present in utter silence.
Especially since he’d exposed the Church’s true nature—these seemingly blasphemous words actually proved he really understood the Church.
“Sir Allen…” Luthien, the Archbishop, reverted to this slightly distant title, his voice hoarse,
“As you say, we did have such a plan… but it took us a thousand years just to complete the blueprints… before we could gather resources to build, the Observer deleted the crucial Database, and the plan completely collapsed.”
“You see,” Allen sighed, letting his gaze sweep over the Star Map on the dome, “to stake humanity’s future on a plan with so little margin for error—that itself is arrogance.”
He said gravely, “Because of this arrogance, when the first Markbearer appeared, you chose to let it be, or rather, to keep observing. As the number of Crestbearers grew and their bloodlines spread, the world became ruled by them. Maybe you didn’t mean to preserve this medieval order—you just lost control.”
“You gazed up at the stars, but forgot the earth beneath your feet, and in the end, you lost the people—you lost everything.”
“Markbearers are often honored as ‘Crestbearers,’ but to me, Engraved Marks are parasites! They live inside people, and in the end, control their hosts. They aren’t Messengers using the Marks—they’re victims used by the Marks! I’m afraid that by the time you realized Marks were a trap set by the Evil God, it was already too late.”
“Even though you still denounce the Marks, I’ve heard that the neighboring Empire’s Church has already accepted the sanctity of Marks, granting the Markbearer order crucial legitimacy. It seems the Church is already divided, and you’re completely isolated.”
“You pretend nothing’s wrong only because the Evil God’s scheme is irreversible. Why would the Observer want to destroy humanity? It’s simple: this batch of ‘lab mice’ called humans became irreversibly ‘genetically contaminated’—they lost their experimental value. Before the game of the gods even began, humanity had already lost.”
Allen fixed his gaze on Luthien, the Archbishop: “Your Excellency, am I right?”
He didn’t notice, as he calmly dissected humanity’s situation, that his black pupils had quietly ignited with a blazing gold.
A powerful aura of sacred authority spread out from him.
Everyone present saw this impossible transformation, their hearts shaken, thoughts running wild:
Marianne felt overwhelming happiness and pride.
She had always known Allen was the God’s Messenger, and she was the first Apostle.
This unintentional display of divinity made her even more certain of her path.
Anna didn’t think much—she just thought Allen suddenly had a nice scent, and she really wanted to get close to him.
Victor was racking his memory of Church records, searching for similar descriptions.
Suddenly, he remembered! The records said that St. Leon had eyes just like this—blazing golden! This was the Saint’s most unique mark!
So Allen de Laval was the Saint of this era!
But, leaving aside the “onlookers,” the one truly swept up in ecstasy and zeal was Luthien, the Archbishop.
He was the only one who clearly understood just how unfathomable the power Allen hid within him truly was!
This so-called “Sanctum” wasn’t really a tomb.
It was where the Church’s real leaders gathered, second only to the Holy Land—the safest, most impregnable place on the planet.
At its heart stood that giant Coffin at the center of the chamber.
It was not St. Leon’s grave, but a special life-support device, a legacy from humanity’s interstellar civilization.
St. Leon had not truly died—he simply lay within, trapped in a never-ending dream. It was his ultimate sacrifice for humanity.
The ancient device would convert St. Leon’s dreams into a special wave, forming a “bubble” that wrapped the physical space—a holy Seal Field that repelled all evil forces not of this world.
Here, Engraved Marks would fail utterly, and the Evil God’s power could not reach. Should the Evil God seize full control of humanity, this would be one of the last safe havens.
The Cathedral was also under the Seal Field’s protection, but not as strong as here.
That’s why, for a thousand years, the Church and the Crestbearer nobles of the capital had coexisted—the Markbearers knew the Church had a way to deal with them.
The Archbishop had brought Allen here to see whether he was tainted by evil.
Clearly, the golden pupils Allen now revealed were nothing but sacred power—absolutely not evil.
Luthien, the Archbishop, realized—the moment foretold by the Holy Scripture had arrived.
God’s Messenger is here. It is time for humanity to set sail once more!