Chapter 3: It started with a dead man's wish
Hearing Natas' words, Kayn quickly pulled himself together from the feeling of disbelief he is currently experiencing and perked up his ears to listen closely to what Natas was about to say. He could already guess that it is not going to be simple just from looking at the former's face alone.
"Do you know why the 'Tower' had come to Earth?" Natas asked.
This was a question that Kayn honestly didn't expect Natas would kick off with what he was about to say. He assumed that the latter would start off by telling that they had returned back to the past and slowly but surely make his way to this topic. Not like this where he immediately starts off with a blast.
While trying to remain calm and collected, Kayn shook his head and replied, "I don't, and I have not found even a single clue about that after all these times,"
To tell the truth, Kayn also wanted to know why the 'Tower' had come to Earth, but the main problem was, there was no information to be found about that anywhere inside the 'Tower', or to be more precise, the 'Tower' itself is preventing anyone from finding any clues related to that.
Even after he spent many decades searching, there was still no hope of finding any. As a matter of fact, despite being blinded by hatred, he would still occasionally ask the Gods about that before finally deciding to kill them. But every time that question was brought up to them, some of them would try their best to avoid it, while the others who were willing to speak would mysteriously get censored.
The feeling he got from looking for anything related to that matter was like searching for a needle inside a huge barn full of haystacks.
"That's to be expected since the 'Tower' strictly prohibits anyone from speaking a single thing about it, even us, Gods, aren't an exception to such rule,"
Kayn nodded in understanding. That's right, even though Natas has the title 'God', he's actually not excluded from any of the rules within the 'Tower'. To begin with, the only reason why they are called Gods is that they are more powerful than anyone else inside the 'Tower', and above all else, they were also given a certain amount of authority depending on their rank among all the Gods to manage a few small things that the 'Tower' couldn't be bothered about. It was exactly because of that reason that even the mortals dared to look down on them and disrespect them every now and then, especially him.
"The 'Tower' is a very complex… I don't know how to describe the 'Tower' itself until now, but let's just stick with calling it an 'Entity', since it's an independent living existence with a seemingly infinite world of its own inside. Anyways, the 'Tower' is a very complex entity in which no one knows how exactly it came into existence. The only thing we have found out so far is…"
"What is it?" Kayn asked.
"Whether you believe me or not, it wasn't actually the 'Tower' that chose to come to Earth, but instead it was your kind that asked the 'Tower' to come to your own home planet,"
"Ehhh! What do you mean…?" Kayn felt disbelief. Just who on Earth would ask for something as absurd as the 'Tower'?
From the very first day that the 'Tower' made its appearance on Earth, it had already taken the lives of tens of millions of people, the majority of them being the courageous soldiers sent by the ten World Leaders on Earth who fearlessly fought to protect the innocent and defenseless civilians.
In his opinion, even the most insane person that exists on Earth wouldn't wish for something billions of times more insane than himself.
"It all started from a simple wish from a dying man to turn back time. That man was full of regrets in his life while on his deathbed which led him to make such a wish. Then after some time had passed, another man turned that wish into asking for another chance to start all over again as he had made plenty of mistakes that he wanted to correct. It continued to snowball from one generation to another, branching out into numerous forms of wishes but still with a similar meaning behind them. From merely tens of people wishing for it to hundreds, hundreds to thousands, thousands to tens of thousands, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, to a million, then a billion, and a trillion, and so on and so forth, until time finally came that the number of people wishing for it reached the quota needed for the 'Tower' to make its appearance on Earth,"
"If that's the real purpose for why the 'Tower' was brought to Earth, then why did it make everyone suffer? Shouldn't it be supposed to give people another chance and not strip them away of that?" Kayn can't help but wonder.
"Even though the 'Tower' was meant to give people another chance to start again, not everyone deserves that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As such, it created plenty of so-called necessary measures to cause numerous bloodsheds on your planet just so that it could achieve one simple purpose — to select only the deserving people. You heard me right! Those destructions and calamities that everyone fought so hard with their life on the line in order to survive were mere tests to select deserving people," Natas clarified.
"Yes, numerous people had indeed died because of the 'Tower', I can't argue with that. However, even more people on Earth had wished for this opportunity to come, the majority of them had even died waiting and fighting for it. So, the 'Tower' deemed it unfair and unjust if it would just simply choose to leave because the minority wished for it,"
"That…" Anger instantly boiled down inside Kayn after hearing Natas' explanation.
"An individual from your planet did warn everyone to be careful of what they wished for. All of you should have taken that seriously at that time," Seeing Kayn's reaction, Natas quickly interrupted out of fear that the former is going to go into an outburst without caring about his surroundings. Once he does that, it wouldn't be any different from announcing to the 'Tower' their existence.
"But who on Earth could even expect that such a simple wish would bring such devastating calamity to all of us…"
"I fully understand what you are feeling right now. You think that the wish of those dead people shouldn't have mattered because they are no longer alive and even if their wish is granted they're no longer there to enjoy or benefit from it, so the only thing that should have mattered the most should have been the wish of people who are currently living and experiencing the pain and suffering brought by the 'Tower' and the consequences of their wishes. As to how I've come to know of this, it's not because I am one of the Gods, thus I hear everything happening both inside and outside of the 'Tower', that's just partly the reason why,"
Hearing Natas' words, Kayn quickly turned quiet and continued to listen.
"You might not know this, but a majority of the Gods that you have killed were actually also once someone just like you. They were an inhabitant of a certain planet across the universe where the 'Tower' had suddenly made its appearance. And just like you, they climbed all the way up to the highest floor while carrying the burning desire of clearing the 'Tower' and saving their planet. But in the end, due to different circumstances or personal decisions made along the way, they became a God just like me. Of course, I am not suggesting that you become a God as well like them since I already know that you are not someone who will wish for something like that. All I am saying is, don't blame those people who wished for the 'Tower' as we all are just the same in some way. Each one of us has our own wishes in life, it's just that in their case, they wished for another chance to start all over again,"
"I understand," Kayn sighed heavily. But his expression remained unfulfilled. He now understands a few things about the 'Tower', but he is still left wondering why Natas was doing all of this. "But you still didn't answer the question about why we returned back to the past and how exactly did we return back to the past?"
"I was about to get to that point now that I am finished explaining to you about how the 'Tower' had come to existence on Earth," Natas replied, a bit displeased since Kayn kept on interrupting him while he was telling him about the 'Tower'. He continued, "The reason why I made you return back to the past is that we Gods have chosen you to grant us our wish,"
"And that wish is?"
"Just like the reason why you chose to climb the 'Tower', we Gods also desire freedom from it!"
Natas' face suddenly turned solemn. "I decided not to tell you this a while ago because we were still inside the 'Tower'. But now that we are outside, it's now the perfect time to let you know the whole truth about us Gods,"
"We Gods have been living inside the 'Tower' for as long as we could remember. It's even worse for those that were born at the same time as the 'Tower' as we have forgotten a lot of things in our life. There are even times wherein we can't help but ask ourselves why we exist in the first place.
"I am not going to lie, at first, we felt proud to be chosen by the 'Tower', but as time continues to pass, things started to change among all of us. Some started developing strange obsessions, others became what they hated the most, and a few of us lost our way to what we wanted to become. In other words, remaining inside the 'Tower' was slowly destroying who we really are,"
"Unfortunately, no matter what we do, it is impossible for us to leave the floor where we currently reside. Though we could send incarnations to explore every floor of the 'Tower', as time goes by, we were eventually able to explore everything of what the 'Tower' had claimed to be a never-ending space. From that moment on, the speed of us changing multiplied by hundreds of times,"
Natas' face suddenly turned sorrowful as he continued, "I told you before that everything we have been doing to your own kind was nothing more than entertainment. But just to be clear, there is a deeper meaning to why we were doing all of that. We kept ourselves entertained in order for the changes happening within all of us to be delayed,"
"Turning into the worst version of ourselves was inevitable for all of us — is what we have already realized a long time ago. Luckily at the very least, we have found a method to delay it. The time that we have bought ourselves every single moment the 'Tower' visits another planet, we have used it in researching a way to stop everything,"
"That was the main and real reason why we went into so much trouble in influencing other Heroes to stop you. It was so that you won't ruin what we have researched and discovered so far. And moreover, we also don't want to add even more Gods into our ranks because they represent an unknown variable due to the fact that they believe and experience different from all of us. We know this because we have already passed that kind of stage way before we have arrived on Earth, a battle between the ancient Gods and the new Gods,"
"Eh, but you have mentioned that you have offered some people the opportunity of becoming a God," Kayn can't help interjecting.
"An opportunity to become a God is a completely different story to making them into an actual God," Natas clarified.
"A wordplay," Kayn quickly understood.
To avoid any misunderstanding, Natas further added, "Exactly! Despite that though, we have still prepared numerous so-called challenges for them, albeit it's expected that there's only going to be one ending for them, which is none other than death. Needless to say, if they can still pass all of those challenges, then we will have no other choice but to make them Gods as we have promised, though they would be restricted in all sorts of different ways to avoid any unknown variables. I know it's cruel, but what we were doing wasn't only meant to give us Gods the freedom that we want, but to also free any other planets later on from the influence brought by the 'Tower'. As such, we can't avoid making any sacrifices, especially if it's necessary to do so,"
"However, as you can see, despite our best efforts, you still destroyed everything that we have worked so hard to build, similarly to how we did the same to you. Karma, you could say, hahaha!" Natas laugh in self-mockery.
"I am sorry…" If only he knew of this from the start, then he wouldn't have been so persistent in reaching the top floor of the 'Tower' to get his revenge. But then again, it's next to impossible for him to know of this truth because once he does, the 'Tower' would naturally also come to learn of it and as such prevent the Gods from continuing their research.
No wonder the Gods were so desperate. It was because he was a threat to not only their freedom to the future as well.
"No, it's me who should thank you instead," Natas smiled.