"Do you also have subordinate gods? Who are they?" Dany asked curiously.
"I was the first living being on the continent of Westeros to awaken self-awareness, and also the first true god to sing the Song of the Law.
Just as the River Rhoyne's Mother awakened, and every creature in the Rhoyne became her child,so too did the living beings born in Westeros willingly call me the Mother Goddess.However, I had no interest in forming factions. I only gathered a group of natural spirits—those of mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas.
As for their names…they mean nothing to you. They are the lakes themselves, a river, a forest, a tree within that forest, and even a breeze brushing the treetop on a summer evening."
Dany sighed wistfully, "Such a vibrant age. I wish I could have seen it with my own eyes."
"I once saw a natural spirit born at dawn. At the very moment sunrise broke, it ceased to exist."
"I'm starting to like that era," Dany said with a smile.
"I liked it too. Very much," the Gate God replied bitterly. "But such an era only exists at the dawn of a world's birth.
At that time, the power of creation within the First Flame was at its peak. Everything bathed in the light of fire—even a pebble on the riverbank—might give birth to a spirit."
"The fire's power of creation?" Dany's eyes widened.
"Correct. It is the ultimate meaning of your Song of Fire."The Gate God seemed to gaze upon her steadily through the blue stars.
"Your gift was not an accident," the Gate God said in a deep voice. "You are the reincarnation of a strand of the primordial fire in the world's core.
Most likely, you are the last ember in this world that still contains the power of creation."
"I'm the reincarnation of a tiny flame?" Dany did not appear shocked. Instead, she looked oddly proud.
"'Reincarnation' is merely a way to simplify the concept. It is also possible that I am mistaken, and the creative power within the Earthfire was already exhausted long ago," the Gate God added.
"You're confusing me. Am I or am I not the reincarnation of the First Flame?" Dany frowned.
"Dany, let me ask you something. A hundred years ago, someone you knew died.A hundred years later, you meet a person whose appearance, personality, and spiritual resonance are identical.Would you not think he is the same soul reborn?"
Dany nodded thoughtfully. "You mean my Song of Fire reminds you of the primordial flame from the dawn of creation?"
"Hehe, you are clever!"The Gate God laughed, his voice warm."After the world's infancy ended, for hundreds of millions of years, no flame containing creative power ever appeared again.We all believed the First Flame in the world's core had gone extinct.
But now you have appeared, and you have turned the fire's creative power into a world law.
There are only two possibilities.You are the reincarnation of the last ember of the First Flame, or you possess an extraordinary gift and unimaginable luck, one in a billion, and you comprehended fire's creative power from nothing."
Dany shook her head. "Not from nothing. I have a gift related to creation within fire.Relying on that talent, I managed to hatch dragons out of stone.
Later, while studying fire magic, I merged that talent with my research and comprehended the Song of Fire that carries creative power."
"In that case, you may be the reincarnation of a diminished First Flame, like… a coal cinder," the Gate God said.
Dany wrinkled her face in displeasure. "Why did my status suddenly drop? 'Diminished' and 'coal cinder'? That sounds awful!"
"If you were the First Flame reborn, you would not need comprehension—your gift would awaken naturally, and you'd be able to sing the original Song of Fire containing creation.
Clearly, you did not.
Bringing dragons into the world is miraculous, but R'hllor and Balerion have done similar things.
Yet to say you are unrelated to the First Flame is also wrong. You do possess the gift of creation within fire.
Thus I say you are the reincarnation of a diminished First Flame.
In fact, it is more reasonable. The Earthfire may truly be exhausted, but remnants touched by the First Flame, the 'cinder,' must still exist in some form.
Didn't the previous sun forge itself out of cinder?"
"Enough. No more about me."Dany waved her hand. Let that cinder go meet the Others!
"What are the titles of your eight subordinate true gods? Can I socialize with them?" she asked expectantly.
The Gate God's tone turned odd. "I'm afraid there is no friendship to build.Among the evil gods who attempted to seize a divine kingdom, two were my subordinates.You know them as the Drowned God and the Storm God."
"Shit!" Dany muttered under her breath.
"Gate God, how did your little brothers all become evil gods? And they betrayed their big boss?"
The Gate God sounded complicated. "Good and evil are concepts defined by humans according to their own standards.In the ancient era, they were not evil gods.
In fact, before humanity existed, there was only a distinction between true god and not-true-god.Good and evil were never labels applied to gods.
As for betrayal…I never required loyalty from them, so how could betrayal exist?"
Thinking of how the Gate God himself enjoyed savage blood sacrifices, Dany stopped dwelling on good and evil, and instead asked, "If you never required loyalty, why take them as subordinates?"
"I did not recruit them.They came to me first and insisted on being my subordinates, and I agreed. When they left, I paid it no mind."
—If I could travel back a million years, I would also insist on becoming your subordinate!
Such subordination came far too cheaply.
After muttering this complaint, Dany asked again, "What about the remaining six true gods?"
"You know of the Worldfall, yes?"Sadness suddenly colored the Gate God's voice.
"Each great cataclysm caused a batch of true gods to perish.The other six were always my subordinates, and thus they suffered the calamity in my place."
"What?"
"They expended their power in my stead and fell into eternal sleep.Only after every one of them faded into nothing would it finally be my turn.
And because of their gradual death, I eventually developed another consciousness— the Dark Soul of the Roots," the Gate God said bitterly.
Dany no longer knew what to say.
After a long silence, she suddenly thought of the collapsed Great Wall and asked anxiously, "Did the Great Wall collapse?"
"It collapsed. My final moment arrived, and the Great Wall finally fell, just as fate had arranged."
Dany frowned. She disliked the word "fate" very much.
"Why did it collapse? Your divine realm still exists, which means the formation beneath the Great Wall had been operating normally all along."
"The Night King blew the Horn of Winter," the Gate God sighed.
"The Horn of Winter." Dany was dazed for a moment, then said in surprise, "There really is a horn that can bring down the Great Wall? How could you allow such a thing to be created?"
"You witnessed the construction of the Great Wall in my song. Then tell me, who all participated in drawing the magic formation?" the Gate God asked in return.
"Brandon and the Children of the Forest." Suddenly, Dany recalled the "Last Refuge" in the far eastern lands beyond the Wall.
The Children of the Forest said the refuge had existed for millions of years, yet even they had never fully mapped its complex tunnels.
Millions of years.
Brandon the Builder was a human from eight thousand years ago.
"Could it be that the Children of the Forest secretly left a back door?" she said in disbelief.
"Have you forgotten the Horn of Winter's other name?" the Gate God reminded her.
"Joramun's Horn," Dany murmured.
The Horn of Winter's true name was in fact "Joramun's Horn."
Joramun was a chieftain king of the wildlings beyond the Wall in some generation.
After the first Long Night experienced by "the Savior" Azor Ahai and "the Builder" Brandon, the White Walkers were not completely eradicated. Less than a hundred years later, another "Lesser Long Night" broke out.
Brandon Stark, the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, married a White Walker bride and carried out massive sacrifices to the White Walkers. He himself became half White Walker and was called the "Night King" by the people of that time.
The "patched-on version of the Long Night" caused by the Night King did not endanger all of humanity. It did not even reach the North.
The Night King and his White Walker bride were active only around the Great Wall.
Then Joramun used the Horn of Winter to summon the giants beneath the earth and, together with the then King in the North, "the Liberator" Brandon, defeated Night King Brandon.
The two Brandons seemed to be uncle and nephew?
"So the Horn of Winter was made by Joramun?"
"Yes. Like 'the Builder' Brandon, he learned magical knowledge from the Children of the Forest."
"But why would he create a horn that could destroy the Great Wall? Was it to invade the North?" Dany could not understand.
At that time, barely a hundred years had passed since the Long Night. The terror of the White Walkers was still fresh in everyone's memory, and history had not yet turned into myth.
The wildlings beyond the Wall had even participated in the construction of the Great Wall.
"The Night King and the Corpse Queen ruled the entire Great Wall. Don't you find that strange?" the Gate God said.
"Hmm. The Great Wall suppresses evil and repels demons. The White Walkers cannot even pass through it." Prompted by the Gate God, Dany immediately noticed a major issue she had previously overlooked.
During the Night King's era, the Great Wall's power to suppress evil seemed to have failed.
"The Night King was a Stark who mastered the power of his ancestors. And that Black Gate which Sam of the Night's Watch took you to see was not hidden at the beginning of the Wall's forging. All members of the Night's Watch could see it and often passed through it to enter and leave the Wall.
"Night King Brandon naturally entered it as well.
"You could regain consciousness within the Black Gate, and so could he. You could enter the divine domain of the Wind of One Realm, and so could he. You could touch the Song of the Wind, and so could he. You could withstand the temptation of power, but he could not."
At this point, the Gate God's words carried an unmistakable note of admiration. "Dany, you are truly extraordinary. You are the first to voluntarily abandon the Song of the Wind."
Dany straightened her chest and raised her head, saying solemnly, "I deeply understand one principle. Power is responsibility, and the greater the power, the greater the responsibility."
"The greater the power, the greater the responsibility."
This statement profoundly shocked the Gate God. The azure star floating within Dany's sea of consciousness actually began to tremble slightly.
"Dany, I chose the right person," the deity said with sincere admiration.
Although the Dragon Queen danced wildly before her great undertaking was complete, her understanding of power suited the Gate God's taste perfectly.
"You withstood the temptation of power brought by the Song of the Wind, and thus passed my final test.
"Although you abandoned it at that time, I secretly gathered a trace of your spiritual power and merged it into the Song of the Wind.
"That is to say, from that moment on, you became the heir of the Wind of One Realm.
"However, when I had just died and my consciousness was still dormant, the Song of the Wind had not set many restrictions, nor any tests of humanity.
"After all, I originally planned to leave my divine realm to a human hero, and after a god's death, the time at which the residual consciousness awakens is far too uncertain.
"You can probably guess the result. Night King Brandon entered the Black Gate and gained control of the Song of the Wind.
"The Song of the Wind is the core of the Great Wall's evil-suppressing formation. The Night King reversed the formation, turning the Great Wall, which suppressed evil, into the center of dark power.
"He even planned to use the power of the Great Wall to summon a true Long Night."
"So the birth of Joramun's Horn was not meant to destroy the Great Wall?" Dany murmured.
(End of chapter)
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