Chapter Ninety: The Nature of the Gods

What, in truth, is a god?

Even the most erudite scholars on the continent of Klean would struggle to give a precise answer. The difficulty would be like asking an elf to judge humankind, or a human to judge dwarves. Even in the Demon Realm and the Divine Kingdom, only a tiny number know the truth about the essence of the gods.

Fortunately, Jann was one of that select few.

In essence, there was little difference between a deity and a demon king. Perhaps there were indeed distinctions between light and darkness, but there was no absolute camp of good and evil. What mattered was not the being itself, but the office it held. A god’s power came from its divine office, and a demon king’s did as well. Or rather, the divine office was itself the manifestation of that power. Yet power, in itself, knew nothing of righteousness or wickedness. A blade is a blade, a sword is a sword, a spear is a spear; weapons have no consciousness with which to distinguish good from evil. Only the conduct of the one who wields them can decide whether they become a legend passed down for a hundred years, or a nightmare hidden in the dark.

At present, all the humans on the continent of Klean regarded the God of War as one of the Nine Saints, a member of the righteous camp. But they had no idea that, in the age when demons danced wildly and the gods descended upon the world, that realm had belonged to the Lord of War, Bane. And Bane was one of the demon kings of the Demon Realm, a being who delighted in stirring up war, blood, and death. Clearly, none of this had anything to do with the so-called battle between justice and evil preached by the present Temple of the God of War. War is war. Invasion is war. Self-defense is war. Massacre is war. Expulsion is war. Perhaps the two sides of a battle may raise high the banner of righteousness to declare their stance, but to war itself, all of it is meaningless.

In the end, Bane was slain by Makar, who inherited the position of God of War and then returned to the Divine Kingdom, giving rise to the later Makar, God of War among the Nine Saints.

Another example was the Goddess of Wealth, Waukeen. As a deity aligned with the good camp, she had once been the patron goddess of every merchant on the continent of Klean. But afterward, through an accident, Waukeen was imprisoned by the demon king Graz'zt and made his slave. Though she ultimately escaped Graz'zt’s grasp thanks to interference from other demon kings, by then she had been thoroughly tainted by the Demon Realm and fallen into darkness, becoming a malevolent god. In fact, many rumors in the Demon Realm now claimed that the Kulisgain Merchant Guild was the product of Waukeen “returning to her old trade” in the Demon Realm. And on the surface of the continent of Klean, the temples of the Goddess of Commerce had long since vanished without a trace.

From this, it was clear that divine offices themselves did not care for good or evil. Whatever the purpose, a divine office would only operate like a fixed procedure or a machine. Only a deity who possessed the office and retained a self-aware will could make judgment.

The most important reason Jann was certain that the God of War had not yet resurrected was that, after killing so many people, he had nevertheless received the God of War’s holy blessing.

What was called a holy blessing was, in fact, a boon granted by a deity when believers completed a task assigned by that deity, or safeguarded the deity’s honor, and so forth. Although such blessings were mostly worthless in practical terms, serving only to express the deity’s approval, to a believer, being directly noticed by a god was itself an incomparable honor.

And precisely because of this, Jann was certain that the throne of the God of War was still vacant. If some god of the good camp had already taken over this office, then he would have been utterly unable to receive its acknowledgment. But if one set aside all subjective judgment and looked only at Jann’s actions, then he had perfectly stirred up a war, laughed last as the victor, and offered the God of War countless deaths, blood, and corpses. Such conduct clearly matched the definition of the war office, and so his receiving the God of War’s holy favor was only natural.

To put it in simple terms, it was like a player accepting a quest in a game to go into a village and eliminate the enemy. Of course, you could slowly search them out, capture them one by one, and wipe them all out to complete the quest and claim the reward. Or you could directly trigger a landslide or mudslide, bury the entire village with every man, woman, and child, and that would also count as completing the task of “eliminating the enemy.” In such a case, if the GM on the system side had personal opinions, then of course he would give the former a great many rewards, while the latter would receive very little, and might even be issued a bounty instead.

But if there were no GM, and the program were left to judge on its own, then the program would only determine, “Quest complete, enemy eliminated.” As for how tortuous the process had been, or how many innocent lives had been lost, none of that would fall within the program’s calculations.

The present office of the God of War was exactly like a program running automatically without a GM. It had no capacity for self-judgment, and the office of “war” itself was highly neutral to begin with. So no matter how many people Jann killed, he would not be denied. On the contrary, the more intense the flames of war he kindled, the more recognition he would receive from the office of the God of War.

For Jann, this kind of “recognition” was basically meaningless, like someone patting him on the shoulder and saying, “I’m rooting for you.” But for the believers of the Temple of the God of War, it was entirely different. Their god had fallen for so many years and had not manifested the slightest miracle. As a result, these paladins could only rely on the most basic blessing spells to get by. And now, the God of War’s holy favor had actually appeared upon Jann. That not only meant that Jann was acknowledged by the God of War, but also that the God of War might very well have awakened!!

For a god’s faithful, nothing was more important than divine revelation and the deity itself. This was why the Temple of the God of War, though now so weak, still gritted its teeth and insisted on entering the Underdark like moths to a flame after receiving the oracle. For them, only by fulfilling the oracle and pleasing the deity would their temple have any hope of surviving, developing, and growing strong.

From this perspective, the believers of the gods were in essence no different from those cultists who slaughtered infants to please a demon king.

The people of the Duchy of Valkyrie could not understand why the Temple of the God of War would risk a complete rupture with their duchy to protect Jann, but Jann understood very clearly. He was now the “hero” watched over by the God of War, and this also signaled the prelude to the God of War’s reappearance. Even if it meant turning against the Duchy of Valkyrie, the Temple of the God of War would still have to keep him alive.

And if one thought about it more deeply, one would find something chilling: why had the holy favor of the God of War not appeared sooner or later, but only after Jann had killed a group of soldiers from the Duchy of Valkyrie? Did this mean that the evil referred to in the oracle was actually the Duchy of Valkyrie? Had they disappointed the God of War’s grace, and even tried to expel the Temple of the God of War, thereby provoking the Lord of War to bring down punishment?

If that was truly the case, then not only would the Duchy of Valkyrie be seeking trouble with the Temple of the God of War. Before that could even happen, the temple would likely already be rallying its forces to launch a holy war against the duchy!

When a god was angered, blood would spill for miles. If this truly was the will of a deity, then the good days of the Duchy of Valkyrie were over.

As for why the holy light had appeared at this moment, Archbishop Bossen and High Paladin Commander Locks were equally puzzled. Yet that was hardly surprising: although they were believers of the God of War, their understanding of the gods was still not as deep as Jann’s. What had them utterly baffled seemed perfectly plain to him.

Strictly speaking, gods and demon kings were both “immortal,” though the word deserved quotation marks. They could not be slain in the sense of being permanently erased. When a god died, its power would return to the Divine Kingdom, while its soul would be reborn upon the Prime Material Plane and grow to adulthood. Then, through the soul’s guidance and call, it would awaken and once again become a god.

And after a demon king was killed, its soul would return to the Demon Realm, transform into the lowest rank of fiend, and begin climbing step by step once more.

Both paths required a very long time. Even a god, if badly damaged at the moment of death, would need several successive lifetimes of rebirth before it could gather enough soul power to open the gate of the Divine Kingdom. The same was true for demon kings: climbing back from the lowest shambling fiend to their former position would take no fewer than several hundred years. Not to mention that the Demon Realm was fraught with peril, and there were virtually no low-ranking fiends who could survive safely for so many centuries.

But the God of War, Makar, was different. He had been dragged into the Demon Realm together with his body and soul, which meant his soul could not be reborn, and his power and divine office were both imprisoned there. This was why the Demon Realm always boasted of having slain a god, while the Divine Kingdom, though it had slain the three great legion commanders, remained silent. Because they knew very well that, though the Demon Realm had lost its three great legion commanders, given enough time, those three could still be reborn. But Makar, dragged into the Demon Realm with body and soul alike, had no chance of ever turning things around in this lifetime.

The problem was that, when Makar was dragged into the Demon Realm, his divine office had been imprisoned there along with him.

In the Divine Kingdom and the Demon Realm, the power of a divine office itself was not especially strong, since its primary function was to govern the Prime Material Plane. But after Makar was dragged into the Demon Realm, his divine office was imprisoned, and his divine power was erased. Thus the Temple of the God of War had fallen into decline, since it was impossible for them to summon the God of War’s divine power from within the Demon Realm.

But Jann was different. First, he was a fiend, and thus in the same space as the present location of the God of War’s office. Second, he had become entangled with the people of the Temple of the God of War and had, to a certain extent, become their ally. As a fiend, Jann could naturally possess the power of resonance and exchange with the Demon Realm. Add to that his alliance with the Temple of the God of War, and it could be said that he had, in some sense, activated the recognition of the God of War’s office. That was precisely why the office had descended with holy light to acknowledge him.

If the Temple of the God of War wished to receive further acknowledgment of miracles from the God of War, there were only two paths left to them: either find another fiend willing to ally with the temple, or simply begin worshipping a fiendish cult themselves. Once they could communicate with the Demon Realm, naturally they would also be able to receive the God of War’s “call.”

Jann had reasoned all of this out and had therefore guessed the truth with astonishing accuracy. As the son of a demon king, such secrets that the people of the Prime Material Plane were utterly unqualified to touch were to him nothing unusual. The saying that devils keep all the world’s secrets about the continent of Klean was not entirely without merit.

Unfortunately, Archbishop Bossen and High Paladin Commander Locks did not possess such insight. After discussing it at length, they could reach no conclusion. In the end, with no other choice, they had to seek out Jann and see what the “hero favored by the God of War” had to say.

“What comes next?”

Jann narrowed his eyes and swept a glance over Archbishop Bossen and High Paladin Commander Locks, both wearing grave expressions. Noticing his gaze, Archbishop Bossen nodded as well.

“That’s right, Mister Jann. May I ask whether you have any advice regarding our next course of action?”

Archbishop Bossen was respectful now too. Though he and High Paladin Commander Locks had long been locked in a struggle for power, as a priest he also knew that his ability to sit in this position had come entirely from the God of War’s favor. This was where the Temple of the God of War differed from other organizations: one step to heaven for those noticed by a god, and eternal ruin for those not loved by one. Your connections, your reputation, your strength—none of it meant anything here. Since Jann had now won the God of War’s regard, Bossen could only steel himself and continue to bear the burden.

“Valkyrie can be ignored. I don’t think they would dare truly go to war with the temple,” Jann said after a moment’s thought.

“But I still don’t understand: what exactly did the Temple of the God of War come to the Underdark for? Was it really only to destroy evil?”

“Well…” At this, Archbishop Bossen and High Paladin Commander Locks exchanged a glance, and then the latter sighed and spoke.

“Since you have already received the God of War’s favor, there is no need to hide it from you, Mister Jann. In truth, our trip to the Underdark was not merely to strike against evil, but also to search for a legendary lost divine relic!”

“Oh?”

At this, Jann froze, and the words of the duergar governor he had heard before suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Could what Kardek said have been true?