Chapter 277: Thus He Became God
The white-haired man was always like this: performing deeds that could only be described as sacrificing himself to help others, yet never explaining his goals or motives to anyone. No one could understand the thoughts within his heart.
Initially, he believed in others. Starting as a trivial volunteer, he did his utmost to bring happiness to those around him. What he did was no different from any other volunteer—helping the weak, suppressing injustice, upholding morality, refusing to yield to violence, and never abusing violence himself...
But later, the man's heart gradually became twisted, and the depths of his body collapsed under an unbearable burden. The more he experienced, the more he struggled, and the more disappointed he became with the humanity he wished to protect. Gradually, he ceased to believe that a "common justice shared by people" existed in the world; instead, he blindly pursued "Justice" itself. He did not hesitate to use violence, eventually becoming a machine of justice that relied solely on violence and had completely run amok...
Later, he signed a contract with Alaya. On that occasion, in order to save a group of people during a disaster, he chose to contract with the Counter Force, committing himself to saving others until the end of his life. Yet, he was understood by no one, and remembered by no one.
After death, he became a Guardian who existed outside the timeline, unbound by the world. Unlike the Heroic Spirits widely celebrated in epics, legends, and history books, he was an agent of the Counter Force.
He was merely an anonymous, ordinary existence. The so-called Counter Force refers to a defense mechanism against crises, and a Guardian could be described as a permanent employee on duty, 24/7, 365 days a year, ensuring the continuation of Earth and humanity.
In this regard, his state was no different from when he was alive; saving the world was a path that could only be achieved through sacrifice. It was a "lesser evil" choice he was forced to make because of his own powerlessness.
Yet he never expected that such a choice would be his final choice—the only option.
He thought that after becoming a Heroic Spirit, things might change. Ironically, however, everything he did was no different from his past life; he continued to sacrifice the minority to exchange for the peace of the majority. Stopping slaughter with slaughter, he coldly eliminated every "error."
If it were the spread of a biochemical virus or a plague, he would dispose of every carrier of the pathogen. If it were a terrorist organization, he would assassinate its leaders—even if they had only stood up to resist because of the oppression of imperial invasion.
Because the Counter Force is a safety mechanism for humanity, it only intervenes to resolve crises facing the human race as a whole. Consequently, he would only ever face the most
cruel scenes in the mortal world. By the time the situation reached the point where he was summoned, it meant that no other method of rescue remained.
Every human being appearing before his eyes had only one path left: to be killed. There was no other possibility of salvation.
After death, as a part of the Counter Force, he continuously completed various missions, nipping every potential human crisis in the bud. This behavior would loop endlessly; as long as humanity lived, it would repeat.
All of this contradicted his wish to save everyone, yet he would continue to do these things against his own heart until the end of humanity. If forced to choose a duration, he would only choose "forever."
Through constant repetition, in the face of every crisis and atop every pain, he was tempered and forged, molding a heart of steel.
The man, who was not good at expressing his inner self, gradually became cold and twisted, loathing the world and loathing himself. When negative emotions filled his body, cracks began to appear within his heart of steel from the inside.
He forgot why he had first conceived such an ideal; all that remained was endless regret and a hatred for his past, naive self.
It was under these circumstances that he was summoned to his own past: Fuyuki City, the city holding the Fifth Holy Grail War.
In this war, across different parallel worlds, there were different outcomes. Several times, he personally executed the Emiya Shirou of his youth, but nothing could be changed. From the moment he signed the contract, he was destined to become a Guardian.
He would be detached from the timeline, possessing no past, present, or future, coexisting with the Counter Force and sharing a common fate with humanity as a whole.
If he could deliver a massive shock to his younger self, perhaps it would feed back into him and cause him to vanish.
But in the end, it proved to be in vain. However, it was not a journey without gain. During this war, he saw from his younger self some precious memories he had forgotten.
With complicated feelings, he watched the young Shirou walk a path different from his own. He then found peace, bidding farewell to the girl with the ruby necklace who had once saved his life, promising her that even as a Guardian, he would continue to work hard.
But even so, he ultimately could not escape the mockery of fate. He discovered that even the man who changed his destiny and headed toward a different future was ultimately chosen by the Counter Force as a vessel for a swordsmith.
There were even versions of himself from parallel worlds constantly being incorporated into the entire system of the Heroic Spirit Throne.
It could not be changed—as long as the system of the Heroic Spirit Throne existed, as long as the Counter Force existed, and as long as a Holy Grail existed.
Since it had come to this, and since there was no way to retreat, then he would go one step further. As a Guardian, he sought to change once more. While signing the contract with Alaya, he also found an opportunity to complete a dialogue with Gaia.
He also established a contract with Gaia, becoming a contractor for both types of Counter Force. Thus, his workload became even more frequent, but for him, it provided more opportunities.
He found a way to retain all his memories, turning every experience of being summoned into expertise to improve himself, constantly exploring the world. Because he existed outside the world-lines, he experienced almost the entirety of human history, from the beginning of the savage era to the conclusion of human extinction.
In Chaldea, he followed the Master to save the Foundation of Humanity, witnessing how the girl influenced the future course of the world through one crisis after another. With a human body, she fought against extraordinary monsters like Demon God Pillars, Evils of Humanity, and Evil Gods, thwarting their objectives.
Throughout journey after journey, he witnessed various Servants creating Singularities for various goals and wishes, bringing all sorts of trouble to the world. The struggles within were endless; Servants with different positions had their respective beliefs collide, and he recorded it all.
Edison, the lion-headed President of the United States, wanted to build a Great Tower out of gun barrels to cut away the American continent and protect it.
In a certain parallel world, the King of Knights who had not returned the Holy Sword held high the Holy Spear, intending to take a chosen few into a place that would not be affected by the Incineration of Humanity.
Too small...
In the Moon Cell, during the Moon Holy Grail War, people came with various wishes through the network. There was the girl who joined the resistance because she didn't want to live an unchanging life under the control of the Western European Plutocracy.
Or the perfect youth, the successor of the Western European Plutocracy, who would lead humanity in an era of scarce resources—though life would be bleak, oppressive, and boring, devoid of hope or passion, at least they could survive for as long as possible.
Then there was Twice's advocacy: to use the power of the Moon Cell to hold a war that would benefit everyone, re-activating the drive of the human race through the baptism of iron and blood to find a new future.
And Kiara Sessyoin's so-called salvation of all humanity—to enjoy ultimate bliss, even if only for a moment.
Too monotonous...
The man could accept none of these methods. Not the approach of abandoning the mediocre majority to let a few elites live, nor the approach of abandoning the few to satisfy the many.
None of them were perfect; even those who survived could not be called happy.
And now, the Emiya Shirous of various worlds returned to the source, merging with the memories of different parallel worlds.
To be honest, within these memories, not a single world was perfect. The man grew weary. He could not find a way to resolve everything within them, so he could only create it himself.
In people's words, so-called "miracles" basically refer to things that should be impossible to achieve. However, anything that can be imagined is not impossible to achieve; the laws of history tell people this.
Whether it is flying in the sky, diving into the earth, overturning clouds and seas, or Chang'e flying to the moon—these were things people imagined and painted on cave walls thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, and now almost all of them have been realized.
As long as one can imagine it, there is a possibility of realization; it's just that the probability currently seems infinitesimal, almost equal to zero.
But even if the probability is one in a billion, if it is repeated several billion times, there will eventually be a success. As a Guardian, Emiya Shirou was in action every moment, strictly demanding of himself that he must grow with every operation.
In the end, the man turned this "almost impossible" into reality.
One does not need several billion times; even a million experiences are enough to make a person numb. No matter how cruel the matter, the heart will only feel it is commonplace and remain indifferent.
But the heart of steel persisted. Under billions of temperings, billions of bouts of honing and polishing, the heart of steel underwent sublimation.
On the day Chaldea successfully resolved the Incineration of Humanity incident, the man left that place and began his journey of sublimating into a God. That process was incredibly arduous; language appears pale and powerless before these events, unable to narrate them...
Later, the man succeeded. And then God said all worlds must have light; everyone can stay away from calamity, and everyone can avoid a cruel fate.
Because there is no evil, there is no need for justice, and no need for Heroic Spirits. There is no need for war, and no need for the Counter Force. God will transcend all time, appearing in every minute and every second to maintain everything.
Humanity will live happily forever...
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