In the real world, Shang opened his eyes with a neutral expression.

"Lucius Volstad," Shang said as he looked at the sky.

Shang remembered the blonde corpse that the God had kicked around in his palace.

That had been the Mage God, and the Mage God was Lucius Volstad.

Based on the appearance of the naked corpse, it really had been Lucius Volstad. The corpse had looked identical to what Gregorio had shown him, and it was also identical to the image in the Trial of Want.

Lastly, with Shang's current experience, he could tell that there were several signs of the body being real, and Shang could also tell that it had the Aura of an actual Mage.

Shang was 99% sure that the corpse had been real and that this had truly been Lucius Volstad's corpse.

But then, what about the God?

The God couldn'tjust randomly have the same name as the Mage God, right?

Lucius had definitely died.

Yet, Lucius was alive.

But the Lucius that was alive was extremely different from the Lucius that everybody knew.

At that moment, Shang remembered a couple of things.

Gregorio had told Shang that Lucius had seemed quite conflicted from time to time.

It was like he was at odds with himself.

Then, Shang thought about the God's strong reaction to Alex's question.

The God had seemed quite angry.

Too angry for such a question.

There was definitely some emotional tension to this topic.

Even more, the God had said that he hated naive and good people.

Yet, wasn't that exactly what Lucius had been?

Based on what Gregorio had told Shang, Lucius was a very kind man who didn't want to hurt people.

Lucius had even done his best to stop Abominations from appearing in Aterium, even though he didn't always succeed.

Lucius had also shown deep trust in his large group of friends.

And that was exactly what the God hated.

Then, Shang remembered another thing.

The Watcher's Record, the Archivist's book.

The God's descriptions of how Mana worked were almost identical to how the Archivist had described them.

On top of that, the God had only referenced Paths that had either existed when Lucius had been alive or had been in the Watcher's Record.

Back then, Shang had entertained the thought that the Archivist might be older than the God.

Yet, no one but Lucius had become a God in the Archivist's lifetime.

Of course, since Shang had believed that Lucius was dead, he hadn't entertained the thought that the God was actually Lucius.

It made no sense.

And yet, it was true.

Lucius was the God.

But the God was not the Lucius everybody knew.

'Wait, that sounds familiar,I Shang thought.

Shang thought of the words he had said after leaving Area 23.

"My name is Shang."

"But I am not Shang."

Shang, but not Shang.

Lucius, but not Lucius.

There were similarities, but there was still an important difference.

There was an actual corpse of Lucius.

'Although,' Shang thought as he actually looked at his true body. 'My current body also can't compare to my old one.'

'If I could create my old one, it would be like there had been two of me.'

The next moment, Shang looked at the silver wall again.

'Something monumental must have happened after Lucius became a God.'

'Obviously, since the God is Lucius, when Lucius had become a God, there had been no other God.'

'So, there should have been nothing that could have stopped Lucius from fulfilling his dream.'

'He wanted to get rid of the Abominations.'

'But instead of getting rid of them, something happened!

'Additionally, one Lucius must have died.'

'After all, the Abominations had become weak again, and all the Mana Lucius had absorbed had returned to the world. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been any Emperors except for the Archivist.'

'But then, what is the God?'

'If all the Mana of the world had returned, what is the God made of?'

'Entropy?'

'No, he would still need at least 30% Mana to retain his human mind, which means that there could only be like seven or eight Emperors max.'

'But there were eleven, including the Archivist.'

'The God is Lucius.'

'At least one Lucius is dead.'

'The living Lucius can't be fully made of Entropy.'

'The living Lucius has no or nearly no Mana in his being.'

'The living Lucius is still powerful enough to easily kill powerful Peak Mage Kings and maybe even Emperors.'

'Something must have happened that turned him into the mad God.'

'These are all the clues l have.'

Shang thought about these things for a while.

There were a couple of contradictions in these clues.

'Eh, who cares?' Shang thought with a smirk.

'So, you're Lucius Volstad, huh?' Shang thought as he looked at the sky.

'I wonder if you can still read my mind.'

'And if you can, I wonder how powerful you actually are.'

'From what Gregorio has told me, you are even weaker than Abaddon.'

'But maybe whatever has happened has changed you.'

'Maybe your power has actually increased?'

'How very interesting.'

The next moment, Shang turned around and threw a glance at Gregorio, whojust nervously looked at him.

Shang only grinned, but he didn't say anything, making Gregorio nervous.

'Oh, Gregorio. I'm not sure ifl should be happy or sad for you.'

'Lucius was your good friend, and you believed him to be dead.'

'But now, it turns out that he was actually still alive.'

'Yet, is the being that currently owns that name something you want to be friends with?'

Shang turned away from Gregorio again and chuckled.

'Whenever anyone said that the Mage God was the God of this world, I always looked down on them.'

'I thought them to be idiotic and na'ive.'

'And yet, haven't they always been right?'

'They haven't seen God.'

'l have seen God.'

'But in the end, I was the one in the wrong, and they had been the ones in the right.'

Shang chuckled a bit more.

'How amusing.'