Only God
Chapter 65 - 61 Morality

Chapter 65: Chapter 61 Morality

The colossal statue rose from the ground, and as its height increased, the progress became ever more sluggish. For the Logos people with their present civilization, this was nearly an impossible project.

King Yarlessto thus made a sweeping gesture and conscripted even more slaves and artisans, pouring his utmost effort into the construction of the statue.

In his eyes, the Prophet’s statue must be finished before his own death; he wanted to witness with his own eyes the glorious symbol of the Logos Kingdom standing tall upon the earth.

It was his tribute to God, as well as his mourning for his father.

King Yarlessto knew better than anyone in the Kingdom—God had departed.

The King did not know when God would return.

Nor did the King know if, after a long slumber, God would still remember the Logos people.

That’s why he was building his father’s likeness, the chosen one of God. Even if God forgot each Logos person, he would remember Prophet Al.

King Yarlessto devoted himself tirelessly, sending various resources to the site where the statue stood and striving to mediate the disputes among Nobles, balancing the interests of all parties within the Kingdom.

For example,

In the past, the eldest son of the Sapo King should have been executed; just as his father persecuted the priests of the Pattern Garden, King Yarlessto should persecute the offspring of the Sapo King.

However, at that time, the Sapo King still held the people’s hearts and prestige among the Logos people. Therefore, King Yarlessto pardoned him and arranged a marriage for him, promoting the female heir of the Sapo King’s eldest son to Priest and granting her a city-state.

He was not the cruel former King Sapo, who established authority on bravery and martial prowess. Quite the contrary, King Yarlessto’s authority was built upon the advancement of civilization and the widespread acceptance among the powerful Nobles.

It could be said that King Yarlessto was the first moral Monarch in the history of the Logos people—a devout worshipper of God, whose methods were gentle yet firm, who with the wisdom of a Monarch, unified the entire Kingdom. His actions would also become the benchmark for countless wise rulers in the future.

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Dertulian walked through the stone quarry where the statue was being built.

Thousands of Logos slaves toiled, moving stone and timber, their torsos bare and scantily clad. They sweated profusely, their lean bodies erupting with immense strength, while craftsmen and overseers wielded whips, driving them like cattle and sheep, swiftly striking any who dared to slacken.

Nobody knew how slaves came to be, or when they first appeared.

The Logos civilization was but a nascent one, devoid of laws, insightful discernment, and even morality, which still held countless tribal customs.

Slavery had arisen naturally with the development of civilization, and these people, who had been forced to sell their freedom, seamlessly entered into the lives of the Logos people.

The statue of Prophet Al stood like a Miracle upon the earth. The Logos slaves, relying on their exceptional physical ability, worked day and night. Craftsmen provided them with just enough food to satisfy their hunger, coercing and urging them in the name of King Yarlessto.

Wise Elders often came to inspect, and Priests accompanied them. At the behest of the former, the Priests tirelessly recounted the stories of God and the Prophet to the Logos slaves, as if the statue was not something the Logos people wanted to build, but something God himself desired to construct.

Dertulian lifted his face, looking upwards, his father’s statue rose so grand and lofty.

Boom!

A loud noise erupted behind Dertulian.

Dertulian felt something, his hands trembling as he turned his head.

A Logos slave had fallen, shattering a massive stone slab hard, his body pulverized, with what was left of his remains set into the stone as if inlayed.

Even for the Logos people, whose physical strength was sufficient to hunt mammoths alone, constructing such a magnificent statue still surpassed the limits of their civilization’s capacity.

The ceaseless labor brought unimaginable suffering to the Logos slaves.

In order to build this splendid statue, countless slaves died from exhaustion, falls, or were beaten to death. Their bodies, some discarded like rubbish, others buried within the stone itself, became a part of the statue’s very structure.

Logos people did not fail to see the death of the slaves.

But for this civilization, which had only recently entered the agricultural age, the death of the slaves was deemed worthwhile. To many, the death of a slave did not signify the departure of an unfamiliar Logos person; rather, it was merely the loss of a domesticated pan-sheep.

Morality is shaped by tribal customs and the consensus of the people. In that era, such was the morality of the Logos people.

To regard slaves as complete human beings was the true absurdity, the true immorality.

Only slaves mourned for slaves.

Dertulian watched as the slaves moved the remains out of the stone, carefully placing them aside, desperately trying to tidy the appearance of the deceased.

The heart of the Prophet’s second son felt as though it was being grasped by something.

He clearly remembered, in the era of the Sapo King and his own father, apart from the King, Logos people were equals to one another, either Hunters or Priests, and there would never be slaves.

Over hundreds of years, Logos people learned to sow seeds, to raise livestock, to make pottery, to possess written language, to have rituals...

Yet when exactly did they learn to domesticate one another?

Logos people treated each other as they treated livestock.

Logos people who had shed their fur naturally trampled on their own reason, on their own empathy, on the love bestowed upon them by God.

Dertulian watched all this with sorrow.

When exactly did it start?

Dertulian attributed all of this to—God’s departure.

Because God had departed, we began to enslave each other, and a pathetic morality emerged.

Because God had departed, the era of throwing spears and hunting large beasts would not return.

Dertulian thought...

When God returns,

He will see these Logos people who should love each other, but instead enslave each other like livestock, the bloody sacrifices reappearing upon the earth, so much sin, not an inch of land clean.

Then, the morality of the Logos people would be sin, and sin would be morality, disappointing God.

Dertulian lifted his foot and walked over to the slave who had not yet been buried.

In the distance, his father’s towering statue was so cold. Dertulian knew that no matter how much the statue resembled his father’s appearance, it would never possess the most important thing his father had—a soul that walked with God.

"We are the children of God, God has departed, and we have been abandoned."

He reached out his hand, closed the eyes of the slave, knelt down, and folded his hands in prayer for the person who had died.

"We are the children of God, and we cannot accept the days without God."

Dertulian removed the robe from his body and draped it over the slave.

The next day, among the slaves building the colossal statue, there was one more person.

No one noticed these insignificant changes; each day slaves died, and each day, new slaves were conscripted from the various city-states of the Kingdom, spending their entire lives building the Prophet’s colossal statue.

Dertulian, unkempt and filthy, was unrecognizable. Enduring the lashes of whips, the stench of sweat and blood, he worked day and night to construct the colossal statue of his father.

Dertulian became one with these slaves,

For he meant to lead a group of people, to form a team, even a city-state, a new Kingdom, to abandon the old morality and head out to sea, to return to God’s side.