21st Century Necromancer

When Jounouchi Hiromi unlocked the latch of the Artificial Womb incubation tank, Miketsu no Kami, far away at the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters, felt something stir within her.

She put down her chopsticks and, looking toward Suzuhime, said, "Suzuhime, turn on the TV. I want to watch the news."

The reception room the Metropolitan Police Department had prepared for the two deities boasted excellent conditions with all manner of equipment, including a TV. Naturally, Miketsu no Kami had watched television before during dull moments.

Suzuhime found nothing odd about her deity wishing to watch the news. She simply turned on the television and tuned into a news channel before stepping aside.

The news was broadcasting live footage of Jounouchi Hiromi opening the Artificial Womb, which was exactly what Miketsu no Kami wanted to see.

As she watched Jounouchi Hiromi open the entire incubation tank and remove the fetus, still encased in the intact amniotic membrane, Miketsu no Kami's sensations grew stronger.

While others might not have felt anything, for a powerful deity like Miketsu no Kami, the birth of the fetus into this world meant the stable laws normally governing the world were changing, causing the entire world to tremble.

As Jounouchi Hiromi and Chen Yu carefully cut open the amniotic sac with a scalpel, letting the child emit its first cry, Miketsu no Kami sharply felt the rules of the world changing.

The whole world was trembling, an effect that transcended Japan and influenced the rules of the entire world.

The laws of life had changed. Humanity had once again broken natural laws, stamping the domain that belonged to the deities with the mark of mankind.

Although humanity had long been breaking natural laws and venturing into the domain of the deities with many achievements — in vitro fertilization, cloned animals… these were all accomplishments previously crafted by humankind.

But all these paled in comparison to what occurred today; their impact on the world's laws had been profoundly different, as was their significance.

According to Darwin's theory of evolution, humans evolved from primates, which of course is not in error. However, considering there are so many creatures on Earth, why was it that only the ancestors of humans evolved into an intelligent life form and developed today's human civilization?

Why didn't our close relatives, chimpanzees, and gorillas evolve into intelligent beings? Why are they still beasts to this day?

In truth, humans becoming the rulers of all creatures is both a coincidence and an inevitability under the operation of the world's laws.

It's coincidental because the evolution of humans from a common primate species to today's global overlords happened by chance. Before humans, Earth had already seen many species assert domination over the world.

Earth had chosen many 'children of the era,' granting them millions of years to occupy the top of the food chain. Yet, these species did not evolve from beasts to intelligent beings within a mere million years like humans, not to mention that humans developed such a resplendent civilization in less than ten thousand years and stepped beyond Earth.

Since the Cambrian explosion of species diversity half a billion years ago, countless creatures have climbed to the top of the food chain, reigning supreme over the world. But these beings have now either fallen to the bottom of the food chain or have been eliminated through repeated extinctions, becoming stepping stones for humans to ascend to the apex of the food chain.

This is the inevitability of the world's laws in action. Species that evolve civilizations fit for environmental adaptations are not needed by the world.

Humans being chosen is also an inevitability. Because under the operation of the world's laws, it's inevitable that a species evolves and develops civilization, generating beliefs and worship, creating new deities dependent on faith to fill the gaps within the world's laws. This is a rule that must be followed by countless worlds within the Multiverse.

So although the species that achieve civilization in every world may differ, there will ultimately be an intelligent species that attains civilization, shaping new deities through worship and belief, allowing those deities to steer the laws and compensate for the deficiencies in the operation of the world's laws.

Humanity simply happened to seize this one opportunity, ascending onto the stage of history.

The birth and propagation of life are the key rules that make every world vibrant, and naturally, there would be deities in charge of these domains.

But when humans began to achieve this through technological means, the original rules, which were governed by deities and maintained their primordial trajectories, started to be affected.

Originally, the birth of life had to rely on maternal gestation, regardless of whether it was sexual reproduction, parthenogenesis, polyembryony, or ovoviviparity, everything required a mother to gestate offspring.

But now, everything has changed.

Humans no longer need a male and a female to reproduce through mating behaviors; a mother only needs to provide an embryo, rather than gestating offspring, the fundamental rules of reproductive breeding have been broken.

Miketsu no Kami could distinctly feel that the rules of life were fundamentally changing, and if there were any deities that occupied the Divine Position of the God of Life, they were likely enduring the turmoil of Divine Duty and might even be on the verge of falling.

This is also why human civilization is becoming more prosperous while mysticism is growing ever scarcer.

In the Age of Dharma Decline, it's not just that mysticism is absent, but also because the development of human civilization is fundamentally altering the world's rules, and ancient deities are constantly being phased out.

With the progression of civilization, there should have been new gods emerging with the faith of intelligent beings, but regrettably, the humans on Earth took a completely different path from other worlds—science.

Science killed the deities.

As humans continued to trespass into the domain of the gods, deities lost their authority. Humans no longer worshiped deities, and naturally, the deities began to fade away.

The more people studied science, the more they felt deities were unworthy of faith, and without faith, deities would vanish. No new gods were born, and as divine miracles ceased to manifest, people became even less likely to worship deities and turned instead to believe in science.

In this repeating cycle, the world thus entered the Age of Dharma Decline.

The advancement of human civilization is the end of the deities' heavenly mandate, and every progression is like tolling a bell marking the end of a deity.

But this could also be an opportunity for deities.

An opportunity to advance even further, an opportunity to break free from the shackles of their original Divine Duties and rules.

Initially, Miketsu no Kami was merely a God of Food, but with the development of agriculture, the God of Food became the God of Grains, and then a deity of bountiful harvests. The growth of commerce even brought faith as a God of Commerce.

It was through such continuous adjustments and changes that Inari God Miketsu no Kami was able to grow from an ordinary minor deity into an existence only second to the Three Precious Children in the Japanese Deity system, possessing the highest faith in Japan.

And now, once again, She wanted to make a change.