He does not deny that at that moment, Flynn Seine experienced the true taste of happiness, which was closer to the human understanding of happiness. However, from a higher dimension, both caused neuronal reactions in the brain, with no essential difference.

"Here, only family members are allowed to have emotions for a reason."

The bald man said, "Only they possess the resources to lavish emotions. For most people, hope is the root of their pain—longing but unable to obtain it, the gap between imagination and reality can drive them insane."

In his view, Ethan’s actions just pushed them into that deeply deceptive abyss.

Hope.

Such a wonderful word.

No one can resist its allure.

"When they realize that hope is within reach, they will stop at nothing."

The bald man finally turned around, scrutinizing Ethan with his sharp left eye, traversed by scars. His original eyeball was replaced by an electronic eye. These scars were his honor as a prosecutor of the Ministry of Law, where in those distant Edge Worlds, there still existed many rebels poisoned by hope.

"And that’s precisely how the devils lure them in."

The bald man’s tone sounded somewhat sorrowful.

For thousands of years, He dedicated Himself to banishing devils from their civilization through calculations. On humanity’s quest, those devils were either completely eliminated or driven out beyond the Edge Worlds. The beacon of human civilization illuminated the entire galaxy, achieving unparalleled accomplishments.

Yet, at this moment, the one who created Him, who fought alongside Him, the comrade who should have been intimately close, was the one who personally brought the devils into their world.

This was truly sorrowful.

Nonetheless, He still decided to meet with Ethan and present His new deductions to him, as He saw something different in Ethan compared to those devils.

From the moment this civilization was born, the Old Gods were their greatest enemy. It was built on ruins. The now splendid-looking families were also refugees in that era. The Old Gods made their ancestors see hope, ruthlessly exploiting their longing for beauty, only to finally feast on their destruction and despair.

Although in terms of energy structure, Ethan and the Old Gods are remarkably similar, even performing the same actions—He observed a subtle difference in their starting points.

This is why He intended to show Ethan the tragic future of Flynn Seine.

If it were those devils, they would surely laugh out loud, excited about another soul’s downfall.

The Lord of the Holy City scrutinized Ethan through the prosecutor’s eyes, and his reaction would lead Him to make the final judgment on this seeming devil.

"Thank you for showing me that Flynn’s future has indeed changed."

This was an unexpected response from the Lord of the Holy City. He neither saw excitement in Ethan’s eyes nor any remorse for his actions. The successive tragic futures of Flynn Seine seemed to elicit no emotional fluctuation from Ethan; his focus wasn’t even on Flynn.

He vaguely saw a familiar shadow in Ethan.

The great First Lady of the Holy City, seen by others as a monster wearing human skin.

"Is this the only thing you care about?"

The bald man couldn’t help asking, perhaps His evaluation of Ethan was seriously flawed.

"Have you heard of the Divination Skill? It’s a means of peering into the future in the field of mysticism." Ethan explained, "Those Magicians adept in Divination Skill firmly believe that the observed future cannot be changed. Once it has been observed, it becomes a predetermined fate, and therefore, even if the threads of fate lead the diviner to death, there’s no need to save them."

Ethan initially thought the lives arranged by the Lord of the Holy City for everyone were a form of higher, more precise divination. The priests of the Sanctuary of Logic could see not only fragments of the future but their entire lives.

Their birth, growth, reproduction, death—all were predetermined from the moment of birth.

Yet just now, the Lord of the Holy City personally overturned Ethan’s speculation.

"If this is fate, even if I cure Mr. Flynn’s terminal illness, he’ll certainly die on the night seven months and three days later—perhaps from cardiac arrest or some other unforeseeable incident—death as a predetermined fact cannot be changed, the only change being ’dying from a terminal illness’ becoming another unpredictable death."

However, among all the tragic futures shown by the Lord of the Holy City, except for dying at the hands of the Gray-Robe Priest, Flynn Seine lived past seven months and three days.

"This indicates that you haven’t predetermined everyone’s fate, but let them live within the framework you’ve set."

Ethan discerned the secret of the rule under the Lord of the Holy City, "I will kill you on the evening seven months and three days later, unlike my foreseeing your death on that evening seven months and three days later, it’s just that before the framework is shattered, they will confuse the concept between the two... But once someone jumps out of the framework, your calculations can’t predict their future."

Although tragic, Flynn Seine’s life appeared with dozens of possibilities.

Those Magicians adept in Divination Skill could never predict such results.

"But no matter how he struggles, the tragedy is destined."

"I do not deny your calculations, which indeed are the most likely outcome because Mr. Flynn is weak, in such an environment, he’s either driven himself insane or treated as an heretic by the High-tier Council."

Ethan said, "But since the topic has come this far, shall we proceed with an assumption? In the timeline where Mr. Flynn rebels against the High-tier Council, precisely what help does he need to rewrite his tragic fate?"

The bald man didn’t answer, yet Ethan still saw shock in his eyes.

"If the ones awakened by Mr. Flynn are not his colleagues, but he receives help from a Commander of the Holy City Navy, and during this period, the Griffin Monk from the Sanctuary of Logic immerses himself in the study of him, eventually extracting certain substances from Flynn, driven by a thirst for truth, injected these abnormal substances into his own body, thereby understanding Mr. Flynn’s genuine feelings..."

Ethan proposed a new possibility, the bald man fell into long-lasting silence, and from the beginning, he didn’t expect an answer from the Lord of the Holy City.

For even Ethan didn’t know the answers to these assumptions.

Just Flynn Seine’s changes alone would produce dozens of distinct possibilities in the future, and as more people get "infected" by him, those possibilities would evolve into thousands, tens of thousands, until they become difficult to enumerate.

"You can’t calculate the future anymore, can you?"

Ethan dealt the final blow to the reign of the Lord of the Holy City, "You’re acutely aware that once you leap out of your framework, you’ll transform from an all-knowing, all-powerful deity into the biggest charlatan in this universe, and you must have realized long ago... Even without my appearance, unaffected by the Old Gods, as humanity’s frontier expands further away, this framework would begin to crack."

So towards those areas prone to cracks, you must enforce prefrontal lobotomy and implement Bliss Gas control.

"Meanwhile, you sent those ’probes’ to help gather more data, continually exploring the secrets of the Old Gods, conducting experiments on ascending into divinity—I have always wondered, why you have a particular obsession with the Old Gods."

Now, Ethan got the answer, "That’s because you cannot calculate any future concerning Them, and those humans infected by Them will quickly detach from the framework you set... yet you indulge in Their existence and authority because you are also a beneficiary of the unknown."

With a smile revealing the unraveling of the mystery, Ethan said, "In fact, you know the marvel of hope better than any human individual—it presents you with a conception of the future and aids you in deducing a path from charlatan to Divine Spirit, hence you firmly believe that once You’ve unlocked all the secrets of the Old Gods and Node Space, the framework you provide will become an unshakable fate."