Ice Vapor Goddess

Chapter 82 The Collapse of the Other
That night, Celen was so busy that she was exhausted before leaving the hospital, and she also got to know a few doctors and nurses along the way.

He had completely forgotten how he got home; he only remembered collapsing onto the bed and falling asleep.

That night, the snow fell heavily, and the steam engine hummed faintly in the darkness. The refugees carefully opened the doors of their new homes as they walked through the narrow cast-iron corridors.

Farmers with their families pondered how to allocate five beds in this cramped room. Exhausted steelworkers collapsed onto their beds without even taking off their boots, snoring loudly. Children drowsily settled in the warm room. Mothers looked at the empty room, devoid of any food, and worried about their husbands who had stayed up all night thinking of their wives still in the hospital. Faint cries could be heard from families who had lost loved ones.

A naturalist carefully hid a wooden box containing plant slabs and fossils under his bed; a fortune teller used a three-card spread to reveal omens before going to sleep; an apprentice monk sat by his bed, reminiscing about his mentor who had resolutely stayed behind; and a peddler neatly arranged all the goods on his handcart.

Green didn't know where he should sleep, so he fell into a deep sleep in the confessional; Mathilde lay on the evangelistic table, with bags of unpacked supplies beside her; Aldridge, his eyes bloodshot, poured mercury into brass bullets; Kyle moved a small stool and chatted with the now-awakened Logan until late.

Tess was still savoring the warmth of that embrace, wrapped in her blanket and deciding to go to church to pray first thing tomorrow morning; Selena was still coughing all night long, her lung tissue mixed with blood flowing through her hands; Sir William Howard was in a rage, smashing expensive oriental porcelain; for the first time, the Duke of Hastings felt that his 300-square-meter house was a bit too big, and a calm silence enveloped his heart.

Under the cover of night, everyone has their own sorrows and pains, joys and happiness.

But in any case, the sun will rise as usual the next day.
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"Has the sun really risen?" Xilun rubbed his slightly sore eyes and saw that the wind-up clock by his bed had reached nine in the morning.

The sky outside was still pitch black, and the wind and snow were pounding against the doors and windows. Inside, it was pitch black, and you couldn't see anything.

The fireplace wasn't lit, and the warmth from the radiator made him even sleepier. After repeatedly confirming that it was only Saturday, he wrapped himself back in the blankets.

—Thank goodness it wasn't a Sunday, otherwise the believers would have been waiting for him in the church for an hour now.

"The weather is getting worse and worse..." he muttered. It was only late summer and early autumn, and the days should have been long, but the sunlight was no longer able to penetrate the thick clouds, and he hadn't seen the icy blue moon for several days.

The impact of the apocalypse on people is not only the destruction of life and civilization, but also the collapse of their spirit.

Right now, everyone is still struggling to cope with the sudden disaster and dealing with the chaos of life, so they don't have time to think much. But Siron believes that soon they will begin to think and reflect, and question the connection between God and this disaster.

If this disaster is explained as "caused by God" or "the Last Judgment has come," then God's authority will not be shaken, but that would be too tragic and would not be conducive to fighting the Frost Giants.

People will believe themselves to be God's outcasts, that the frost giants are messengers sent by God to destroy the world, and that Celestia will no longer be able to unite their strength to resist external enemies.

The other explanation—that even the gods were powerless to stop the frost giants' invasion, and that the current situation was the best the gods were trying to maintain—directly undermines the gods' position.

This explanation is easy to come up with, and Xilun knows that many people think this way, and that the number will only increase over time. People will wonder—why is God treating us this way? Why doesn't God stop the disasters? Why doesn't God destroy the monsters? Are there things that even God cannot do?
Thinking of this, he sighed helplessly, feeling a bit anxious again. He sat up, put on his cotton-padded coat, and went to the living room to make some coffee.

The gurgling sound filled the warm room, and the unique aroma of coffee soothed his mind.

This anxiety reached its peak at the moment that "god" descended, because for the first time he confirmed that God truly existed and was indeed powerless.

The Other does not exist, or the Other is lacking, is something every psychoanalyst knows, but it cannot collapse in front of everyone in this manner.

Faith has its necessary functions—when people want to repent and correct their mistakes, they say God forgive me; when people encounter danger, they say God protect me; when people face an uncertain future and anxiety, they say God bless me; when people make mistakes, they say the devil tempted them.

Whenever people encounter something incomprehensible or dangerous—for example, the terrifying lightning and flames seen in primitive times, earthquakes and floods seen in ancient times, or the unknown, major setbacks, and anxieties encountered in modern times—they try to find an explanation, that is, to incorporate the terror of the unknown into their own symbolic system through an explanation.

Faith is such a universal explanation. In the Cthulhu worldview, it is a barrier of reason, explaining all indescribable, unbearable, and inexplicable horrors as "the work of God."

But now, such a pillar is on the verge of collapse.

As soon as people start to think and start to doubt, they will discover the terrifying truth: God is not omnipotent, God is also weak. Whether God dies or not is irrelevant, but if God is gone, who will symbolize the terror and the unknown for people?

Who will offer comfort and faith to people in the end times?
Siren felt like a Grand Justice. There once existed a glorious and perfect code of law that claimed to be omnipotent and that as long as people obeyed it, the world would be a better place. However, it could not speak for itself, so it hired many Grand Justices who devoted their lives to upholding and interpreting it. Siren was one of them.

But one day, when faced with external threats, this code of law was no longer perfect or glamorous. It revealed its weakness and powerlessness. Just like a fantasy, when the reality of the outside world touches a person's fantasy, the delusions and absurdities of the fantasy will be revealed.

As a judge, Siron knew the truth, but could only repeatedly act as a patcher, trying to maintain the glory and perfection of the code, like dressing a corpse in new clothes to make it look alive.

But it was already dead, the stench of its corpse permeated the air, and green grease flowed across the altar. The bishop calmly read the doctrines of the holy scriptures, and the people were oblivious to the fact that something was dead—it was a truly horrific story.

Perhaps only when the corpse can no longer hold on, when the stench of decay fills its body, when the giants burst free of their shrouds, and when the putrid flesh and blood fall upon their shoulders, will they understand—ah, God is dead.

Perhaps the real "god" is not dead, but the omniscient and omnipotent god in people's hearts, who takes responsibility for them and explains the world to them, is dead.

(End of this chapter)