PGVCW 84

Playing God in Various Catastrophic Worlds

Chapter 84: The Ritual of Prostration

Xia Wang'an had slaughtered mutants, eradicated Corrupters, parted mighty oceans, pulverized towering skyscrapers, and excavated ancient tombs.

Yet never once had she experienced an ordeal quite like the present moment, which struck her as inexplicably mortifying.

One could only wonder where the Yunxing inhabitants had acquired such bizarre rituals; upon witnessing her manifestation, their immediate reflex was to take turns kowtowing.

They possessed an elaborate, highly structured protocol.

First, they executed a synchronized clasp-fist bow toward Xia Wang'an, followed by dropping to their front knees and solemnly inserting electronic incense sticks into an improvised "censer". Subsequently, they placed both palms flat against the spatial void, palms facing upward, and struck the ground with a solid, resounding kowtow.

Xia Wang'an watched with twitching eyelids as this assembled multitude performed a full three-prostration and nine-kowtow ceremony before her.

Had they maintained human forms, the spectacle might have carried an aura of genuine solemnity.

The complication lay in the fact that the Yunxing people were conducting this sacrificial (strike that) worship ritual out in the open vacuum of space. Human physiology could not withstand the ambient pressure differentials of outer space; consequently, throughout this entire sequence of ceremonial motions, they remained locked in their massive beast-forms.

Serpents, bears, lions, avian entities, and a multitude of bizarre, unidentifiable creature-morphs executed the rigorous, solemn three-prostrations and nine-kowtows with absolute gravity amidst an environment drifting with drifting sheets of ritual paper money.

Having previously perused the psychological evaluations of Yunxing citizens, Xia Wang'an had initially reasoned that amalgamating animal genetics into human DNA to reinforce physical stamina was a sound proposition.

Presently, she concluded that her previous line of thinking had been thoroughly naive.

The Ancestral Inquiry

The Yunxing citizens, conversely, harbored zero skepticism regarding the dignity of their performance. They burned with raw excitement, ecstatic euphoria, and a distinct undercurrent of timid apprehension.

They were thrilled beyond measure that the ancient sacrificial protocols had actually elicited a divine response, yet terrified that the entire phenomenon might merely be a collective delusion.

Apprehensive because the Yunxing populace remained entirely uncertain whether this maiden-visaged girl truly embodied their primordial ancestor.

Fortunately, Xia Wang'an did not prolong their agonizing suspense; her emergence served to execute the subsequent phase of the operational blueprint.

A massive bear stepped forward, a pair of ursine optics gazing upward toward the ancient-costumed maiden hovering above.

"Pardon our audacity... are you a fellow citizen of Yunxing? Are you a survivor hailing from ten thousand years ago?"

Ten thousand years—this numerical benchmark had been derived by an assembly of chief specialists who excavated millennial historical archives and cross-referenced them against the textile composition of Xia Wang'an's attire.

Numerous officials had reviewed that documentation, recognizing that a specific layer of fabric within her vestments bore a striking structural affinity to the legendary plain-woven plain-silk gauze, presumably fabricated from genuine silkworm fibers.

By the historical epoch when Yunxing's ancestors evacuated their mother planet, silkworms had long since suffered total extinction.

Even though the technological fabrics worn by modern Yunxing citizens were impervious to hundreds of sword-strikes, feather-light, refreshingly breathable, thermally adaptive across winter and summer extremes, and augmented with auxiliary utilities such as localized pressure mitigation within outer space, in terms of raw cultural prestige and intrinsic rarity, authentic silkworm silk remained infinitely more precious.

It was comparable to a contemporary citizen comparing a mass-market brand-name garment worth tens of thousands against a genuine antiquity dating back millennia—they occupied entirely disparate ontological tiers.

Possessing even a minuscule fragment of genuine silk would suffice to purchase an entire minor planetary body for use as a private territorial estate.

Yet the garments adorning this abruptly manifested maiden were constructed precisely from genuine silk; on the strength of this single indicator alone, no rational observer could classify her as a modern contemporary.

Crucially, every single observer registered the delicate blossom pinned gracefully within Xia Wang'an's tresses.

Even across an intermediate spatial distance, the neurological resonance triggered by natural flora instantly began surging within the biological systems of the gathered Yunxing contingency.

Natural flora!

This represented tangible, breathing botanical life!

The Benevolent Grin

Xia Wang'an's lips curved upward into a standardized, rehearsed smile.

This precise expression had been refined through multiple iterations before a mirror. While Xia Wang'an herself remained incapable of discerning its subtle psychological impact, for reasons unknown, virtually every observer across Blue Star reacted to this specific smile with boundless adulation, proclaiming that her expression radiated pure celestial divinity.

Yet because Xia Wang'an was routinely subjected to effusive praise for virtually all mundane activities—her appetite lauded as robust and healthy during meals, her unassisted pedestrian locomotion praised as exceptionally diligent physical conditioning despite possessing flight capabilities, and her occasional leisure excursions to amusement parks celebrated by onlookers for recreational proficiency—she had grown entirely accustomed to the phenomenon.

She remained blissfully unaware that under the continuous stream of enthusiastic validation from Blue Star's populace, her psychological composure grew increasingly tranquil day by day, her gaze radiating an effortless, untroubled serenity.

Had this occurred prior to the apocalypse, such a demeanor would unquestionably be celebrated as the epitome of effortless emotional poise. Transported to Yunxing, however, when an entity suspected of being their primordial progenitor bestowed this gentle smile upon them, the gathered crowd interpreted it as an expression of profound, maternal benevolence and silent acquiescence.

Xia Wang'an slipped into her assigned role with effortless immersion. Despite her youthful physical shell, she experienced zero cognitive dissonance regarding her status as the ancestral matriarch of these Yunxing citizens, whose average lifespans spanned several centuries.

Within the internal framework of her logic, a Blue Star advanced ten millennia into the future would likely manifest an identical demographic composition.

In fact, stripping away the ritual paper money and discarding the electronic incense burners, casting her gaze across this assembly of beast-form Yunxing natives, she genuinely felt a wave of tender affection.

After all, the vast majority of them possessed plush coats of fur, rendering them intensely endearing.

Admittedly, each of these beasts spanned physical lengths exceeding twenty meters, but what significance did that hold? They lacked the martial capacity to defeat her.

Within her perception, they were functionally identical to a cluster of fluffy yellow chick-morphs emitting tender chirps while clustering around her in eager anticipation of sustenance.

Assessing the Fur

Occupied by these internal musings, Xia Wang'an extended a hand and casually patted the crown of a colossal black bear's head.

Bristly... abrasive to the touch.

As anticipated, ursine biological entities possessed zero affinity with genuine cuteness.

Retracting her hand with practiced nonchalance, she redirected her palm downward onto the cranium of a nearby snow leopard.

Though average mortals would scarcely categorize a thirty-meter snow leopard as cute, Xia Wang'an maintained her proprietary aesthetic standards.

The snow leopard's fur had evidently undergone meticulous, professional maintenance; especially across the crown of its head, the downy, cloud-soft texture felt exceptionally satisfying to the touch.

While the snow leopard itself experienced a momentary flash of bewildered disorientation, recognizing that Xia Wang'an—adorned with her glowing botanical talismanic blossom—intended to stroke its fur, it consciously maintained absolute physical docility within the vacuum of space, straining to lower its cranium to ensure the sovereign's caress proceeded smoothly and yielded maximum gratification.

Given the subject's exemplary cooperation, Xia Wang'an's smile deepened, maintaining her deeply inhabited posture of benevolent grace.

HQ back on Blue Star had drafted an exhaustive series of operational contingencies.

These contingency portfolios detailed micro-expressions, behavioral postures, and tactical counter-measures across hundreds of pages, formulated by an assembly of hundreds of multidisciplinary specialists who nonetheless declined to guarantee absolute success.

Within those projections lay potential friction points, psychological standoffs, and unpredictable stochastic anomalies.

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