Uchiha Yoru suddenly laughed and asked the baffled Miwa Masayo, "Rika-chan, tell me... after Nagato recovers, do you think he'll start believing in me too?"
Miwa Masayo tilted her head and said, "I don't know, meow. I don't even know Nagato."
"But if you don't hurry up, meow, she might get disappointed and stop paying attention to you."
"Oh, right! Rika-chan is correct."
Seeing the golden thread of faith becoming unstable, Uchiha Yoru naturally had no time to indulge in his emotions. He quickly connected to the thread and sent the divine power of the God of the Southern Fire Spirit back through it to stabilize her faith.
As Konan knelt in the rain and repeatedly recited the prayer, her body gradually grew cold, and her heart slowly chilled along with it.
Doubt grew wildly like weeds.
[Does the Heavenly Emperor truly exist?]
[Was it really just a dream?]
[Should I continue?]
[I can't keep doing this. If I fall ill, no one will be left to care for Nagato.]
At that very moment, Konan felt a power erupt from the depths of her heart.
The power was unbelievably warm. It instantly dispelled the chill throughout her body and filled her spirit with boundless passion.
As a ninja, Konan could clearly sense that this wasn't chakra.
Yet its effects were so powerful that tears welled in her eyes.
Along with the infusion of power, a vast, distant voice entered her heart.
"I have heard your voice, but I have not seen your devotion."
"However, as a believer guided to me by fate, I am willing to grant you one more opportunity."
"Konan, are you willing to believe in me?"
How could Konan still harbor even the slightest doubt?
Without hesitation, she prostrated herself completely and said with devotion and gratitude, "I am willing to believe in you, great Heavenly Emperor!"
Thousands of kilometers away, Uchiha Yoru instantly sensed the thread of faith becoming thicker, brighter, and far more resilient.
At last, it had reached the basic requirements for granting a divine gift.
"Very good. I have now felt your devotion. You may pray for my bestowal."
Without the slightest hesitation—not even pausing to say, "Thank you, Heavenly Emperor"—Konan immediately began reciting the honorific name Uchiha Yoru had designed for himself.
Uchiha Yoru was instantly rendered speechless.
This girl's devotion truly had some serious problems.
Fortunately, he wasn't a true god. He was merely an Immortal using the divine path to establish a secret organization.
Otherwise, this girl would have suffered greatly.
Even among true Immortals, there were no shortage of petty ones.
No, the overwhelming majority of Immortals were petty—even the leader of the gods set the example.
The Jade Emperor could deprive an entire nation of rain for three years merely because his offerings had been knocked over.
Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva once took mortal form to advise a king and deliberately provoked him, only to be submerged in water for three days.
The Bodhisattva retaliated by having his mount kill the king, seize his country, and occupy his queen, only reviving the king after his corpse had soaked in water for three years.
The severity and creativity of the gods' and bodhisattvas' revenge were truly eye-opening.
Fundamentally, this was because Uchiha Yoru still regarded himself as human, whereas true gods, Immortals, and bodhisattvas were higher life-forms.
When they looked at humans, it was like humans looking at ants.
If an ant bit you, wouldn't you casually crush it?
And if the ant nest happened to be right in front of you while you held a half-finished cup of tea, wouldn't you casually pour the remaining water into the hole?
Those who are not of my kind are certain to have different hearts.
As Konan continued reciting, Uchiha Yoru amplified and responded to her prayers, causing the thread of faith to gradually widen and strengthen.
However, Konan's faith was genuinely insufficient.
With no other choice, Uchiha Yoru had to spend even more divine power to fill the gap.
Only after expending nearly one hundred times the normal amount of divine power did the thread of faith finally reach the level required to influence space.
Illusory vortices of light simultaneously appeared before Uchiha Yoru and Konan.
As the vortices rotated, the combined power of faith and divine power opened a passage through space.
Uchiha Yoru manifested a gigantic hand of light, pinched the tiny fish egg between its fingers, and pushed it through the portal.
After the fish egg landed in Konan's hand, Uchiha Yoru was about to immediately close the extremely costly bestowal vortex when he suddenly discovered that its consumption had fallen exponentially.
Konan's power of faith erupted like a flood, abruptly increasing almost tenfold.
A tenfold increase on the other end reduced Uchiha Yoru's consumption by one hundred times.
Naturally, he was no longer in a hurry to close the vortex.
Instead, he gave Konan more than a dozen instructions on how to administer the fish egg, particularly warning her not to try it herself.
"You and Nagato exist at different levels of life. This pill is an urgently needed supreme tonic for Nagato, but to you, it would be a fatal poison."
"It isn't that the pill itself is poisonous. Your level of life is simply too low to withstand such an enormous benefit."
Konan hesitated for a long while, but ultimately couldn't stop herself from asking, "Great Heavenly Emperor, can this single pill truly cure Nagato?"
Uchiha Yoru: "..."
Choked by Konan's distrust until his head ached, His Majesty the Heavenly Emperor took a full ten seconds to recover before answering.
"There is no medicine in the world capable of curing every illness."
"In the end, he was simply too greedy. He forcibly seized a power beyond his capacity without regard for reality, causing tremendous damage to himself."
"If he refuses to let go of it, then this pill can only guarantee that he regains consciousness and, at best, becomes capable of caring for himself."
"But if you expect him to run and leap as though nothing happened, that is impossible."
Finally, Uchiha Yoru added irritably, "Conduct yourself wisely."
Then he severed the connection to the vortex of faith.
Even after cutting the connection, Uchiha Yoru remained indignant, his face red with anger.
Seeing her caretaker's furious expression, Miwa Masayo hurried over and pressed a small paw against his hand to comfort him.
"Don't be angry. She's only worried about her family."
Uchiha Yoru nodded, then shook his head.
"I know she's worried about her family, but I still can't help being angry."
Throughout the nineteen years since his transmigration, he had always been cautious and restrained, rarely approaching others with proactive goodwill.
The first time had been with his own little tabby cat.
The second was with Uchiha Shisui.
The third was this time.
As a result, even across an entire world, Uchiha Yoru had once again experienced the frustration of offering warmth only to be met with coldness.
Even though the person on the other side was Konan—the best future candidate for monitoring the Akatsuki organization and Nagato—he still made a decision.
He would no longer contact her proactively.
If Konan didn't repay him tenfold or a hundredfold through faith, he would simply abandon her and regard it as a failed investment.
Considering Uchiha Yoru's current status, who in the world couldn't he invest in?
There was no need to treat Konan as someone special.
Although he had made his decision, the pent-up frustration couldn't be dispelled immediately.
He suddenly understood why so many gods and Immortals were petty.
He couldn't help complaining indignantly, "Now I understand why gods and Immortals become so petty."
"If they face believers like this every day, even the greatest patience will eventually be worn away."
"They're already on the verge of exploding, so when someone provokes them, even the most trivial matter might bring down an absurdly terrifying punishment."
Suddenly, Uchiha Yoru gained a new realization.
"The human heart is the heart of a god, and a god's heart also possesses selfish desires. The hearts of all beings form the heart of Heaven, and thus the heart of Heaven is emotionless."
The tabby cat was completely bewildered when she heard this.
"What does that mean, meow?"
Uchiha Yoru turned and looked at Miwa Masayo with a smile that wasn't quite a smile.
The little cat's face reddened, and she lowered her head.
She muttered, "I understand, meow. Even if you explain it, I won't understand. Just tell me what use it has, meow."
Seeing Miwa Masayo's unbearably adorable appearance, Uchiha Yoru couldn't resist lifting the tabby cat into his arms.
He lowered his head, buried his face in her soft, long fur, and took a deep breath.
The rich fragrance of cat was intoxicating.
Uchiha Yoru smugly inhaled again and again.
His cat was a Cat Sage.
There wasn't the slightest unpleasant odor on her body. Instead, she carried a fresh scent filled with vitality.
She was simply perfect.
His gloomy, indignant mood immediately vanished without a trace.
In this maddening world, only cats could truly save him.
He became intoxicated with inhaling the cat, but Miwa Masayo found it unbearably ticklish and couldn't stop releasing painful, laughing cries of "Meow, meow, meow!"
In the end, the tabby cat became so unbearably ticklish that she struck her caretaker seventeen or eighteen times before Uchiha Yoru finally awakened from his obsession.
Miwa Masayo jumped onto his head.
First, she carefully rubbed the forehead she had smacked red, then ordered him "fiercely," "You've already received your payment. Hurry up and explain!"
Uchiha Yoru now felt refreshed and answered cheerfully, "I merely understood something."
"As the number of matters I handle increases, I'll inevitably encounter more frustrating situations like this."
"Although I intend to disguise myself as a god, I absolutely cannot personally face the prayers of believers."
"Because I am human. I cannot achieve absolute fairness and impartiality, nor do I possess limitless patience. Eventually, I would make a catastrophic mistake."
"Then you need to find a representative, meow?"
"For the occasional emergency, there's no problem with having a divine messenger act as a representative."
"But how could I entrust daily affairs to one? That would cause a disaster."
"A god's authority belongs to the god, but faith is hidden within these seemingly insignificant matters. If someone else handles them, the faith will inevitably flow toward that person."
"Although I personally don't need the power of faith or divine power, the Divine Court system requires them to operate."
"This won't work, and that won't work. What are you going to do, meow?"
"I'm going to create a divine-power server to serve as the operational center of the Divine Court system and manage the daily circulation of all faith."
Uchiha Yoru took out the Heart Ape mask and looked at the countless threads of faith attached to it.
"The divine-power server will manage faith through an artifact of faith like this."
"That way, neither I nor the Heart Ape will have to connect directly with faith, and we won't be influenced by it."
"I won't become restless and irritable, while the heart-form won't develop an independent will it shouldn't possess."
Miwa Masayo jumped back onto his shoulder and asked curiously, "How will you make a divine-power server?"
Uchiha Yoru thought for a moment before answering, "I think I can capture another god and use its divine remains to create the server."
"Gods are naturally suited for this type of work."
"Even the remains of a dead god retain the same characteristics, so they can easily be made into the server I need."
Miwa Masayo shook her head.
"I don't think that's a good idea, meow."
Uchiha Yoru was extraordinarily surprised and quickly asked, "What part of it does Rika-chan think is bad?"
The tabby cat explained, "I remember you saying that the Divine Court's foundation contains many different things."
"One of them is that thing you extracted from the goldfish River God—the heavenly demon or something."
"Isn't that thing extremely dangerous?"
Uchiha Yoru slapped his forehead.
"Right! The otherworldly heavenly demon, the ultimate representation of chaos."
"Rika-chan is so clever. You're absolutely right. Something as important as the server must never be created from divine remains."
"Gods are products that conform to the operation of heaven and earth's laws. They are highly ordered existences, which naturally makes them vulnerable to the heavenly demon's chaotic corruption."
"If a server made from divine remains came into contact with elements of the heavenly demon, the consequences would be unimaginable."
Miwa Masayo bloomed with happiness from the praise and joyfully hopped back and forth upon Uchiha Yoru's shoulder.
However, the tabby cat had no idea what should be used to construct the divine-power server instead.
Uchiha Yoru still had to solve the problem himself.
Because the universe itself tended toward increasing entropy, chaos, as an important manifestation of entropy growth, had no true solution.
Uchiha Yoru's method of dealing with the heavenly demon was to establish a vast system and use its continuous operation to create a small, ordered environment.
In other words, he had resolved the chaos brought by the heavenly demon by locally creating an environment of decreasing entropy.
However, adding another system to one that was already operating successfully would be far too difficult.
It was no different from making modifications to a mountain of tangled, rotten code.
The best approach was to build an entirely separate system rather than touching the existing one.
If he chose a new location and built it from scratch, divine remains could indeed be used as materials.
However, the location itself would then become the first problem requiring a solution.
He would also need to devise a special failsafe system to protect its operation.
Because the new system couldn't exist within the Purple Mansion world, Uchiha Yoru wouldn't be able to personally watch over it.
Any problem that appeared might not be discovered in time.
Small errors could easily accumulate into major ones until everything became impossible to fix.
The more he thought about it, the more problems appeared.
Uchiha Yoru felt as though his head was filled with lawsuits and couldn't sort out the situation at all.
Therefore, he simply threw everything to the back of his mind and stopped thinking about it.
The crises Uchiha Yoru was considering could only occur in the distant future.
He was still in a period of rapid growth, and none of these problems had even begun to show signs of appearing.
It was fine to put them aside and wait.
Besides, as the old saying went, everything was difficult at the beginning.
The two matters of hunting gods and selecting a server location would have to wait until he discovered the trail of another god or until Rōran began its process of national destruction.
Only after such a clear opportunity appeared could he truly begin taking action.
At present, everything remained uncertain.
Even if Uchiha Yoru wanted to plan ahead, he couldn't design an operational plan based entirely on guesses without any intelligence.
He said to Miwa Masayo, "It has been a long time since we prepared a truly elaborate dish. Shall we start making Buddha Jumps Over the Wall today?"
Miwa Masayo was overjoyed upon hearing this.
She was far simpler and more carefree than Uchiha Yoru.
She immediately forgot every problem and happily became busy helping her caretaker prepare the various ingredients.
...
Konan tightly clutched the fish egg in her palm and quickly ran back into the room.
Ignoring her soaking-wet body, she followed the Heavenly Emperor's instructions and dissolved the fish egg in a bowl of clear water, transforming it into a thick soup filled with white wisps.
Remembering the Heavenly Emperor's somewhat repetitive warnings, Konan suppressed her habit of tasting something first.
She used a spoon to feed the white-wisp soup into Nagato's mouth.
An unconscious person ate and drank entirely through instinct.
Yet as humans grew, those instincts continuously faded, making swallowing extremely difficult.
Humans also possessed no instinct for chewing.
While unconscious, they could only consume liquid food and were still extremely prone to choking.
Every time Konan fed Nagato, the process was extraordinarily difficult and time-consuming.
This occasion was no exception.
It took several minutes for Nagato to swallow two spoonfuls of the white-wisp soup, and more than half spilled out.
Konan's heart ached terribly at the waste.
But then, a miracle occurred.
Nagato suddenly opened his eyes.
Immediately afterward, his mind also regained clarity.
Looking at the bedraggled Konan, he asked, "Konan, how did you end up like this?"
"Hurry and change your clothes, or you'll catch a cold."
Hearing Nagato's familiar voice, Konan's pupils shook violently.
The spoon in her hand froze in place.
Her head slowly rose as she looked toward the now-conscious Nagato.
The first thing she noticed was that Nagato's face, previously as pale as paper, had actually regained a healthy flush.
In the next second, Konan's tears began flowing uncontrollably.
Yet a smile as beautiful as an orchid blossomed across her face.
Her expression was radiant, but when she opened her mouth, she didn't know what to say.
Only after a long while did she manage, "Nagato, you're awake."
Nagato smiled in response.
"Mm. I'm awake."
"You've worked so hard caring for me all this time."
Nagato originally had countless questions and doubts filling his heart.
But after seeing Konan smiling through her tears, he couldn't say any of them.
He had always been an emotionally delicate and exceptionally sensitive boy.
After suffering betrayal, losing his closest friend, and enduring a full year of illness and pain, Nagato's heart had become filled with resentment and hatred.
However, his feelings toward Konan had never changed.
Throughout that year, every time Nagato suffered pain worse than death, Konan remained beside him, doing everything she could to help and comfort him.
He naturally understood how much she had sacrificed.
Facing this final companion, his heart held only boundless gentleness and gratitude.
Even hatred and resentment vast enough to fill the heavens would temporarily be suppressed.
He could never become angry with Konan.
He could never speak harshly to her.
He couldn't even bring himself to use a slightly stern tone.
Besides, he genuinely felt far better now.
His abdomen was warm, and currents of heat continuously flowed outward.
Wherever those currents traveled, that part of his body became warm and comfortable.
As the warmth arrived, the pain throughout his limbs and bones faded.
Nagato's spirit also became increasingly vigorous.
Naturally, he felt better and better.
He was extremely curious about the changes in his body.
He also noticed that no matter how emotional Konan became, her hands held the bowl completely steady, unwilling to loosen their grip in the slightest.
Only after Konan's emotions stabilized did Nagato ask, "Konan, what good thing did you feed me? My body feels much better now."
Konan reacted as though Nagato's words had suddenly reminded her of something.
She hurriedly raised the bowl and handed it to him.
In a panic, she urged, "Nagato, quickly! Hurry and drink this entire bowl of soup. Not a single drop can be wasted."
"If too much time passes, the medicinal power of the pill will dissipate!"
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