"[Question], Holou... who is that?"
The young goddess, waking up drowsily from her slumber, blinked her eyes. She didn't struggle against Ryuga's palm, nor did she show any surprise or resistance.
She only wore a vacant expression as she posed a simple question.
"Holou is your name."
Ryuga answered thus.
"[Incomprehension], then who am I?"
The young goddess blinked, posing another ultimate philosophical question.
To this question, Ryuga immediately gave an answer.
"You are my pet."
At least from the divine hierarchy relationship, that's how it was.
Holou, the God of Doubt, was a deity born from questions. Her existence was far more ancient than Artosh the God of War, predating all other known Flügel species.
Back then, she didn't know what she was or why she was born, so she created the Ex-Machina to figure out her own doubts. However, the Ex-Machina couldn't fulfill her purpose.
In the end, she even doubted her own existence, and with the idea that she could confirm she was alive through death, she pierced through her own divine essence and fell into inactivity.
After an unknown amount of time passed, she was rediscovered by Ryuga.
Holou, who had let herself fall asleep, had no resistance during her slumber. Although her strength surpassed both Kainas and Okan, she was easier for Ryuga to handle than either of them. He only needed to slightly interfere with her divine essence to make her subordinate, successfully capturing the young goddess.
Even as vacant as she was, the young goddess realized something was wrong with this answer.
"[Denial], I don't know you, and I'm not a pet."
She shook her head.
"Who are you?"
Ryuga directly turned her question back on her.
"[Confusion], I don't know."
Holou shook her head.
She had fallen asleep because of this very question's answer, so how could she answer this inquiry?
"If you don't know, then I've already told you. You are my subordinate god."
Ryuga repeated this answer again and directly mobilized Holou's divine essence through the power of contract.
After feeling the connection between Ryuga and her divine essence, the young goddess suddenly widened her eyes. After checking several times, she finally dared to believe this fact.
"[Inquiry], are you really my main god?"
"Of course."
Ryuga nodded without hesitation.
Upon receiving this affirmative answer, Holou's eyes immediately lit up, and her gaze toward Ryuga became eager. Her attitude also suddenly lost its previous distance.
Like... like a young girl who had finally found her father.
Strange. With her strength, it shouldn't be difficult for her to see that this divine contract was added by Ryuga later.
Since she knew this, her attitude toward Ryuga should at most be like Okan's - more reverence for his power and status.
But her expression was completely different from that. It was exactly like a chick seeing its parents for the first time upon opening its eyes, her gaze instantly becoming dependent and urgent.
"[Confirmation complete], divine essence concept deeply bound, you are indeed my main god!"
"[Request 1], Main God, please tell me, why was I born?"
"[Request 2], Main God, please tell me, what is heart?"
"[Request 3], Main God, please tell me, what is a pet?"
"[Request 4]..."
A series of questions were spoken in one breath without pause. The young goddess stared at Ryuga with bright eyes, waiting for answers from her main god.
Seeing her like this, Ryuga finally understood why Holou didn't question this relationship.
To confirm whether she existed, she had used the method of personally piercing her own divine essence to get an answer. Since she could sleep, it meant she had been awake before, which meant she was indeed alive.
Since she was alive, where did she come from?
Ryuga's existence naturally gave her a stable answer - naturally from her own main god.
If the previous Holou couldn't confirm what was herself and what was others, then Ryuga's connection with her divine essence directly confirmed her identity and position in this world.
That is, the subordinate god, or pet, of main god Ryuga.
Holou's fundamental confusion came from the ambiguity of her positioning of self and world, and after Ryuga, this main god, appeared, this proposition received excellent buffering.
She no longer needed to study the relationship between herself and the world; she only needed to study the relationship between herself and Ryuga to solve all doubts.
Ryuga was like a relay device - all her questions about the world would be solved by Ryuga, this main god. She only needed to clarify her relationship with the main god.
In a sense, Ryuga indeed bore the ecological niche of a parent.
Understanding this, Ryuga wasn't impatient, nor did he find the young goddess talkative. He immediately began answering her questions at high speed in divine language that Holou could accept.
Although language systems themselves have limitations, as long as these limitations are taken into account, universal answers can be obtained.
"First answer: The reason for the birth of god species is often wishes. This point has no known exceptions even now."
"Second answer: Heart is the internal reflection system of external activities. This will be explained later."
"Third answer..."
Holou's questions were numerous enough to make all Flügel collapse, but Ryuga's answers could make even Holou's questioning speed unable to keep up.
For Holou, who doubted even the definition of concepts themselves, each of Ryuga's answers would bring more questions, but these questions would quickly be filled with more explanations - each one an answer the Ex-Machina couldn't provide.
Therefore, even though her questions grew more numerous, her eyes became brighter, and her attitude toward Ryuga became increasingly intimate.
The lengthy communication lasted most of the day. At first, only Azril blocked her ears and chose to sleep.
Later, even Jibril, being a Flügel, couldn't help but yawn, feeling her head stuffed with too many things, completely numb.
She couldn't understand why this god had so many endless questions, why she was so particular about those unimportant things. Were these strange concepts really important?
Compared to Holou's strange obsession, she was more impressed by Ryuga's patience.
Being able to answer such messy questions for so long - truly worthy of being Master!
It wasn't until the sun set and red clouds filled the sky that Ryuga stopped answering questions and asked Holou, who still wanted to continue questioning:
"Do you still remember the second question?"
"[Search successful], the second question is what is heart!"
Holou answered without hesitation.
"I said I'd explain later. Now it's time to explain."
Only then did Ryuga speak.
"Just now you asked over one hundred thousand questions, and I gave you over one hundred thousand answers, but you generated over one million doubts, right?"
"[Admission], yes!"
Holou nodded.
"All the doubts, thoughts, including all forms of mental fluctuations that you still want to continue questioning now because of my answers - that is your heart."
Ryuga gave a conclusive answer.
"Your way of asking questions might be wrong, the answers you think of might also be wrong, but the original driving force of seeking answers itself is the best proof of your heart's existence."
"One should abide nowhere and give rise to mind" - he was also somewhat familiar with Buddhist theory.
"[Confusion], my reactions themselves prove my existence?"
Even Holou was somewhat confused at this moment.
So if she didn't react, would she not exist?
Seeing her confusion, Ryuga corrected:
"The reaction itself is just your thoughts. What determines that you will react is your heart. Neither thinking nor non-thinking."
This time, Holou was completely caught.
After pondering with her head down for a long time, she looked up again, gazing at Ryuga expectantly.
"[Understanding failed], request to explain using a simpler method."
Faced with this request, Ryuga naturally wouldn't refuse.
However—
"Why should I help you?"
Ryuga asked thus.
"[Alert], because I am your pet. Does the main god want to deny this relationship?"
Holou immediately became nervous, looking at Ryuga like she was looking at a father who wanted to abandon her.
Clearly she was a goddess who had been abducted by Ryuga, yet she looked like she was afraid Ryuga would run away. It was hard to say who was getting the better deal.
Regardless, Ryuga was her main god, so he had to be responsible for her. This was her basic logic and the reason she was so close to Ryuga and unhesitatingly adopted all of Ryuga's explanations.
In her eyes, everything was uncertain, except for the connection between Ryuga and her divine essence, which was absolutely certain.
"Very good."
With this answer, Ryuga's domestication work was complete.
For such a curious baby, it really wasn't easy to educate her to be obedient.
However, the harvest from doing this was also great.
"Since you're a pet, then you should also fulfill a pet's duties, shouldn't you?"
"[Adoption], the main god's request is reasonable. What do you need me to do?"
Holou quickly agreed with this logic.
"Do you remember the dependents you created before - the Ex-Machina?"
Ryuga got straight to the point.
"I need you to recall them all."
"[Adoption], accepting the order."
Gods had the most basic control over their creations. For Holou, this wasn't difficult.
At Ryuga's request, a total of 13,985 Ex-Machina - including a certain scrapped analyzer unit - all appeared before Ryuga.
Unlike the death god-like Flügel legion, the Ex-Machina legion before him was more like a steel torrent.
For the Ex-Machina, Holou's existence was too ancient; their databases had no corresponding records.
But after the main god appeared, the blessing from the deity immediately let them confirm Holou's identity and offer their loyalty to their long-overdue main god.
"[Question], can you answer my questions now?"
After summoning the Ex-Machina, Holou immediately looked at Ryuga like a child wanting candy.
"No rush."
Looking at the Ex-Machina legion before him, Ryuga shook his head.
"Before deployment, some modifications are still needed, otherwise they can't meet the requirements."
The Ex-Machina's computational power was indeed good, but compared to the information volume of an entire divine realm, it was still far insufficient.
To significantly improve Ryuga, he needed to personally modify them.
"Besides adapting magical compatibility, computational power needs to be improved to at least second-generation quantum computer levels."
Thinking this, he beckoned to the petite analyzer unit that had been disconnected from the overall network due to errors.
"Come here, let me examine your body structure."
"Yes! This unit's designation is Analyzer Schwi—"
She, who had been allowed to reconnect to the Ex-Machina network, was about to give her full designation but was interrupted by Ryuga.
"Correction. Your name from now on will be Schwi. Can you open the power core in your chest?"
"Acknowledged. This unit is renamed Schwi. Power core opened."
The petite Ex-Machina accepted the order from the main god's main god.
"So it's this kind of structure... The Ex-Machina's self-evolution system actually has this structure?"
Ryuga, examining one for the first time, immediately became interested and began carefully investigating.
To be continued…