The Star Grail was a key item in the No Game No Life world.
Unlike the Holy Grail pursued by numerous Servants, the Star Grail contained creation-level power and universe-level world sovereignty.
If one only looked at the Ex-Machina's strength and performance, it would be difficult to imagine that the One True God they spoke of wasn't some planetary native deity, but a genuine One True God who could achieve omnipotence within a single universe.
Even Nous the Erudition subconsciously made a misjudgment.
It wasn't that their imagination was insufficient, but because single-universe master-level existences, even in the entire Star Rail universe, could be counted on one hand.
In status, Ryuga could directly match the strongest Aeon, IX the Nihility.
Nous the Erudition, this kind of Path deity, belonged to the first tier of existence before Ryuga.
After all, His purpose was calculating the universe's answer—not necessarily achievable.
Whereas Ryuga genuinely, tangibly possessed an entire universe.
Originally, Nous the Erudition followed audience procedure for Ryuga, this person from another world.
Only now did He discover that the word "audience" was indeed correct—only the subject and object might need reversing... Not the other party having audience with Him, but Him having audience with the other party.
"Master of an external universe..."
Looking at the starlight draped over Ryuga before Him, after ten thousand years, Nous the Erudition finally resumed calculation.
If He still had a physical body now, His computational system would definitely be overheating to the point of smoking.
Naturally He wouldn't easily believe Ryuga's words. As the Aeon of Erudition, His habit was analyzing and judging for Himself.
However, the mystery manifesting on Ryuga's surface made Him almost unable to easily intervene. Without needing much time, at first glance, Nous the Erudition confirmed that the rules covering Ryuga's surface were pure external world laws completely incompatible with the entire Star Rail world.
Besides this, Ryuga actively used starlight to isolate inside from outside, making himself a black box. Nous the Erudition completely couldn't probe any information from him.
This pure information barrier was on a completely different dimensional level from the imaginary barrier that blocked countless small worlds.
Forget Him—even if all other Aeons were added together, they absolutely couldn't break through this layer of defense.
If He guessed correctly—
"This is... the barrier between universes?"
Nous the Erudition proposed such a hypothesis.
"Correct."
Ryuga nodded, acknowledging this idea.
"Bringing myself under the Star Grail universe's protective scope—this was inspiration obtained from Saber. It counts as the most basic self-defense technique."
The reason he dared to personally go to the Star Rail world alone, his confidence didn't just come from the chat group's anytime exit mechanism, but also from the Star Grail's sovereignty.
Though the Star Grail could only be used inside the No Game No Life world, only maintaining power supply externally and letting Ryuga display his ordinary strength.
However, Ryuga himself as the One True God could also be considered part of the No Game No Life world.
Therefore, the Star Grail could establish a clear barrier between Ryuga and the external world. Without power to break through world barriers, without ability to shatter the Star Grail's sovereignty, one couldn't cross this barrier to harm Ryuga inside.
Naturally, as Ryuga's possession, Fanlu also enjoyed this privilege.
So Ryuga came before Nous the Erudition without making any other preparations.
At this moment, facing Nous the Erudition's shock, Ryuga struck while the iron was hot, speaking.
"As mentioned before, heart is the weapon against nihility. To calculate the universe's answer, civilization is the key variable."
"Even if your Path itself doesn't care about civilization, before you calculate the ultimate answer, you must ensure this variable called civilization exists."
"Therefore, nihility and doomsday are your eternal obstacles... On this point, we should be on completely the same side."
Whether from Nous the Erudition's consistent performance, or from intelligence previously obtained from Herta, or from Nous the Erudition's earlier behavior, Ryuga could confirm this point.
So he changed his mind and accelerated his plan.
Hearing Ryuga's invitation, only then did Nous the Erudition conclude His extremely laggy analysis.
With His current computational power, He still couldn't parse the weight of a universe's One True God. But based on known information, He could almost confirm Ryuga spoke the truth.
Computational lag reflected as incomparable shock—the occupied processes and their elimination actually had no difference from organic life being shocked speechless.
Using Ryuga being a universe's master as the premise for consideration, Nous the Erudition focused boiling computational power on pondering Ryuga's proposal.
Even for an Aeon, this invitation from an external universe's master carried extremely high weight.
"Question: Master of an external universe, can your proposal be understood as you interfering with interstellar mythology, attempting to establish a mythological alliance, thereby creating mythology?"
After prolonged silence, Nous the Erudition posed this question to him with an incomparably cautious attitude.
Ryuga had previously described information about interstellar civilization deities and such to Herta and others. Nous the Erudition had received all of it.
If following Ryuga's theory, the universe was a spiraling upward cycle.
Tribal native gods became mythological gods through civilization fusion. Mythological gods became civilization gods through civilization competition. And so-called civilization gods were demoted to planetary native gods in the interstellar era.
Following this pattern, once planetary native gods became planetary civilization gods, the next step would very likely be strengthening connections between Aeons, creating mythology.
Only this time, creating mythology's purpose wasn't for faith but to broaden Paths.
Through mutual binding between concepts to clarify the philosophical concepts Aeons represented—just as the Hunt achieved godhood by binding Yaoshi the Abundance, this phenomenon actually already existed long ago. Only aside from Ryuga, no one else noticed this point.
If Ryuga's theory was correct, what would occur in the next historical transition period wouldn't just be struggles between Aeons, but evolution of the Aeon model.
Nous the Erudition was certain Ryuga's so-called alliance definitely didn't only include Him as one Aeon.
And once Aeons formed an alliance and fought collectively, with strengthened connections between Aeons, interstellar mythology would be born.
From the result, Ryuga's proposal was completely pushing interstellar civilization forward, transitioning ahead of time to the Aeon alliance era that could only be born in a much more distant future.
"Correct!"
Ryuga nodded, not surprised Nous the Erudition could see this point.
He had exposed this world's Aeon civilization development model in advance precisely planning to crush forward with an open conspiracy.
"Creating Aeon alliance mythology is the general trend. I believe Aeons who would refuse my invitation won't be many. If you're unwilling, there are plenty who are."
With an incomparably calm tone, Ryuga issued capitalist-style statements to the Aeon before him.
"So, what's your point?"
Facing Ryuga's supremely confident inquiry, Nous the Erudition didn't rush.
On the contrary, the blind old man at this moment could still maintain extreme caution. He pondered calmly for a moment before speaking again.
"According to logical judgment, just from the alliance conditions themselves, I shouldn't refuse this invitation."
"But before this, I must first confirm one matter..."
Saying this, His blind eyes behind dark glasses invisibly gazed into Ryuga's eyes.
"Question: What is your purpose? Before accepting your invitation, I need to confirm we truly are on the same side."
Regarding this major alliance matter, no matter how great the harm of refusal, He must first confirm the foundational logic had no problems.
Though Ryuga's current performance showed no issues, and his purpose of promoting mythology establishment also benefited interstellar civilization's prosperity, wise beings never judged others' purposes through such brief behavioral patterns.
He and Ryuga had motivation for cooperation but still lacked foundation for mutual trust.
For this long-anticipated question, Ryuga spoke casually.
"What if I said it's for the position of One True God in interstellar mythology?"
According to past experience and logical deduction, after individual deities united to form mythology, they would inevitably begin dividing hierarchy.
After all, comparing combat power across domains like Guan Yu versus Qin Qiong had always been what onlookers most enthusiastically pursued.
Previously when Aeons were mutually independent it was fine. To avoid being solo-killed offline by individual believers, discussions of Aeon combat power always stopped at appropriate points.
But once Aeons established an alliance and became allies, internal disputes and chaos naturally became unavoidable.
In a certain sense, such disputes were also part of civilization's prosperity.
And after continuous elimination and evolution, hierarchical distinctions would become increasingly obvious.
Like Zeus's One True God-ification tendency in Greek mythology, ultimately, an existence ruling all mythology would inevitably be born.
That being would stand above all Aeons, becoming the chief of the divine assembly capable of commanding including IX the Nihility—the interstellar One True God.
"Reasonable."
After pondering several seconds, Nous the Erudition nodded slightly.
With Ryuga's current identity—One True God of an external universe—his interest in the Star Rail universe's One True God position was quite normal.
From a mortal's perspective, Ryuga's behavior was completely invasion by an external universe life form.
The interstellar One True God would inevitably also control the entire Star Rail universe. Ryuga's ambition was equivalent to wanting to bring the entire universe into his possession.
However, Aeons didn't care about this.
Whether Ryuga wanted to become supreme deity or One True God, as long as he didn't affect or obstruct His own exploration of cosmic truth, Nous the Erudition wouldn't consider intervention necessary.
On the contrary, Ryuga's candor increased his credibility.
If organic life's actions weren't for their own profit, that would actually be problematic.
However, just these words alone weren't sufficient to completely dispel His doubts.
"Through language and logical judgment alone, I cannot 100% confirm your position."
Nous the Erudition informed him with equally candid attitude.
"I'm willing to accept the invitation, but still need decisive evidence."
To this, Ryuga, who had long anticipated it, smiled faintly.
"Decisive evidence and position? This couldn't be simpler."
"You should know deities cannot betray their own concepts. Even the One True God is the same. Therefore—"
Before his words fell, light and shadow containing the entire worldview's concepts flashed past.
In Ryuga's hand, a half-decayed World Tree phantom that was burning manifested.
"How about this?"
To be continued…