Jonas looked at the scene before him, feeling little emotion. Since he had already recalled those tampered memories, he no longer cared about the so-called "mission." He roughly understood where the problem with himself lay: it must have been in Saarthal.
After Saarthal, he was directly in Helgen. There was a gap of over ten years between the two segments of memory, and the spatial distance spanned from north to south; there was definitely something fishy going on.
He was certain that Sir had helped him restore his memories; the aura of Sir's Oblivion Domain, the Land of Serenity, could not be faked.
So, has the enemy been defeated?
Jonas's heart was full of shame. He had previously mistaken a foe for a father and even wanted to act against Sir. It was truly wrong of him. Fortunately, it hadn't reached the true final moment, so it didn't end in grief for his loved ones and joy for his enemies.
So, where did Sir go?
The room he was in seemed to be a prayer room. The faint light from the candles failed to dispel the shadows. The air was dry but cold, with a faint scent of incense.
The cross-section of the prayer room was shaped like a hamburger. One side was a fan-shaped glass porthole with a wide field of vision; the two side walls were short and narrow. The remaining straight side was a relief wall featuring thousands of painted metal statues in various poses. Every race was represented—humans, elves, plants, beasts, abominations, and more—occupying half the space of the prayer room.
The central sculpture, also the tallest, was a deity with three heads and two arms. The left head was dark purple with a serene expression; the right head was plain white with a cold, stern expression. In the middle was a faceless skull with a blue base and red patterns, finely engraved with a large number of enchantment runes. Although they had no actual effect, they were quite sufficient on an aesthetic, theological, and metaphysical level. The statue's left hand was pale gold, clutching a spirit snake, while its right hand was lead-gray, holding a winged divine Dragon aloft.
The floor was covered with a scripture carpet featuring black characters on a red background. Jonas himself was filthy and covered in mud, looking incredibly out of place in the clean, dustless room. He walked through the candlestick path toward the mechanical doors on the narrow side walls. This door lock was a special soul stone machine that could identify biological information. Jonas did not have unlocking permissions; for the time being, he was trapped in the room.
With nothing to do, he came to the base of the magnificent Wall of Ten Thousand Gods. On the offering table lay two volumes of scripture, both written in the language of the Empire.
One had an indigo wood-pulp paper cover with white decorative script. It was about as thick as Jonas's palm and was titled "The True Sutra of the Prajna Paramita of the Bodhisattva of Praise for the Past and Future Life." The imperial language is phonetic; Jonas could read it, but he clearly didn't understand what "Bodhisattva Prajna Paramita" meant.
The other was a volume with an earthy yellow parchment cover and red block letters. This thing was incredibly thick, an inch taller than Jonas's fist; it wouldn't be a problem to use it as a hammerhead. Its title was "A Detailed Examination of the Godhead's Dream, the False Gods of the Mortal Realm, and Metaphysics (Internal Edition)."
There were no tables or chairs in the room, only some red silk cushions used for kneeling. Jonas pulled a cushion over and plopped down on it, then briefly flipped through the prefaces, prologues, and parts of the main text of the two books, quickly getting the gist of them.
The preface of the "Sutra" was written by Jonas's adoptive mother, Lady Serana. It roughly stated that the Universe was about to be destroyed, and living beings who believed in the Bodhisattva would have the chance to go to the Pure Land to continue their lives. The entire text was filled with the so-called "Bodhisattva loves the people of the world," which made Jonas feel somewhat uncomfortable.
As for the "detailed examination," it was actually written by the Mad God, Sheogorath. In the preface, he solemnly declared that all the words he wrote were true. What Jonas found strange was that the Mad God's book used block letters; it was too jarring. As for its content, it was indeed eye-opening. The book pointed out at the very beginning that above Anu and Padomay, there was an even more fundamental god, and the emergence of the Aurbis plane was a "dream" of this Higher God.
Jonas became more and more enthralled as he read. "detailed examination" consisted of three parts—Beginning, Body, and End—with thirty-one chapters and four hundred and eight detailed clauses. The first ten chapters carefully deduced the ultimate theory of "Man is the World" and the role that mental power plays in the evolution of the world. This part gave Jonas great inspiration. He felt these words pouring into his Soul, the Thu'um of Bend Will clamoring; Miraak's words were still fresh in his memory: the essence of the world lies within this shout, using one's own CHIM to replace the thoughts of others; even a Daedric Prince cannot escape.
The middle twenty chapters of "detailed examination" criticized all the Aedra and Daedra of the current world, considering them false gods unworthy of belief.
In essence, the faiths of the world of the elder scrolls are all ancestor worship, because all living things are the result of the continuous degradation of the et'Ada. Therefore, the relationship between gods and mortals is very close, possessing the nature of bloodline and clan connections.
Conversely, as long as there is faith, an ancestor is equivalent to a god. This is also where the influence of mental power on the world mentioned in the earlier part comes in. The "wake" of an individual's influence on the world, supported by faith, can transform into a collective will, a mass of Souls. This is how the Eight Divines came to be; their own existence has already vanished into the second layer, and what manifests in the world are merely the memories of the past held by modern humans and elves.
The Aedra are not worth believing in because their existence is void.
The Daedra are not worth believing in because their existence is a suppression of the potential of living beings—actually, Daedra worship was already a niche thing, and it didn't need pages of refutation to prove its theological injustice.
Most importantly, "detailed examination" proposed that the Universe is about to be destroyed, and the dream of the Godhead will not continue to exist. At this time, abandoning faith in the Divines and Daedric Princes is a requirement of the era; all intelligent creatures living on the Leviathan should only believe in the Bodhisattva.
In space outside the porthole behind him, the planet Nirn slowly moved away, revealing the sun it had been obscuring. The scorching light, filtered by the enchantment patterns on the glass, turned into the soft light of dusk, evenly bathing the prayer room. The statues on the Wall of Ten Thousand Gods took on a sense of ancient age in the interplay of light and shadow.
Jonas put down "detailed examination," having unknowingly read for six or seven hours. Although his body could still take it, he was mentally exhausted.
After having cursorily flipped through the "Sutra" earlier, Jonas knew he was on the space fortress Leviathan. It was now the year 5E 686. The Fourth Era had ended in the year 202. By that count, he had undergone a Transmigration over six hundred years into the future.
The governing body of the Leviathan was the Cult of the Three World Gods. The first generation Pope was Serana. During the days when the numidium ravaged Nirn, she flew UFOs and spaceships everywhere to save people, bringing humans of all races, humanoids, Orcs, beastfolk, and all elves except for the High Elves to the space fortress to start a new life, and established forward bases on the two moons to obtain resources necessary for development.
Today's Leviathan has evolved from a small UFO into a massive man-made celestial body on the scale of an asteroid. Nineteen hundred million people reside and work within it, living through the cycle of life and death, with a complete biosphere and advanced magitech.
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