Chapter 714: Beltira’s Intelligence

A long silence stretched between Beltira and Gawain.

Gawain was the first to break it.

He wasn’t sure if this woman—now half-plant—had the same patience as a plant. If she stayed silent all day, he didn’t have a whole day to spare.

“Now that I’ve finished telling you about myself, it’s your turn,” he said in a low voice.

“We?” Beltira’s voice was tinged with the rustling of roots behind her. “As you can see, we’re nothing but a pitiful band of failures now. But I’ve seen your camps rising around Solinfort, slowly reclaiming the land… so I suppose the war’s final victor has been decided.”

“You can ‘see’ what’s happening outside?” Gawain raised an eyebrow, intrigued by her current state. “That’s… interesting.”

“I can see. The view is vast—unprecedentedly so—but I can’t move, nor can I see what I look like now,” Beltira said slowly. “What… do I look like now?”

“A tree. A massive plant covering nearly half of the Solin region, and still growing slowly,” Gawain answered matter-of-factly. “If you’re really curious, I can send someone to take a picture of you from afar and bring it to you.”

“…Thank you in advance,” Beltira said, suddenly moving the roots coiling around her as if making a decision—or perhaps coming to a realization. “Outsider, I still don’t understand your true nature, but now that I’ve become like this, it no longer matters whether I choose or not. The path we took has been proven wrong. If our failure can teach you something, then ask whatever you want.”

Gawain looked at her with mild surprise, then thought for a moment. “You know about the ‘Defiance Plan,’ don’t you?”

Beltira’s expression shifted immediately. “…How do you know that?!”

But then she seemed to realize something. “Ah, of course. Outsider… you’ve been watching this world all along. You’d naturally know. You mentioned it just now…”

“Don’t get me wrong. Whether or not I’m an Outsider has nothing to do with this,” Gawain interrupted sternly, frowning. “Stop indulging in fantasies about bearing a sacred mission alone or saving the world. You’re already like this. You should at least be clear-headed—while you stubbornly carried out those shameful, extreme plans, there were still people openly pushing this world forward.”

Beltira frowned. After a moment, the rustling of vines and roots behind her gradually slowed. “Arrogance… was probably our first mistake.”

“You made plenty of mistakes, but I’m not here to argue about that,” Gawain said. “About the ‘Defiance Plan’ you carried out—who gave it to you? How much do you know? Is the original bearer still alive? And how long have you been executing it?”

Beltira closed her eyes briefly and whispered, “How long… We began shortly after the birth of the End of All Things. For nearly seven hundred years, we have been the continuators of the Defiance Plan.”

Seeing Gawain’s slightly surprised look, she continued quietly, “You know about the ceremony on the Peak of Ancestors, don’t you?”

“I do,” Gawain nodded. “You once wrote me a letter mentioning you were going to the Peak of Ancestors to participate in a ritual to communicate with the gods.”

Beltira fixed her gaze on him. “That letter was addressed to Gawain Cecil.”

Gawain smiled and tapped his temple. “I know. But that memory is here now—Beltira, whether you accept it or not, I have inherited Gawain Cecil’s memories. I know most of what he experienced, including parts about you. Maybe you still think I’m some Outsider stealing a body, but in a way, I am Gawain Cecil now—and in this life, I will live as him.”

Beltira stared at Gawain steadily. The vines and roots behind her trembled and writhed unconsciously. No one knew what she was thinking, but Gawain thought he saw a faint glimmer in her vacant eyes. Then she resumed speaking.

“…On the Peak of Ancestors, the High Druid of the Holy Spirit, the Dream Church’s Pope, and the Storm Church’s Pope held a joint ritual. They successfully transported the Dream Pope, Megor III, into the Divine Realm…”

Gawain was familiar with this part. He nodded. “After that, all members of the three great dark cults went mad… What exactly happened then?”

Beltira closed her eyes, her body trembling slightly. Even after seven hundred years, recalling those events was still a torment of fear. In a voice barely above a whisper, almost like a dream, she said:

“Megor III entered the Divine Realm. There, his soul was nearly torn apart. But compared to the truth he witnessed, the soul’s tearing was nothing: he saw the Divine Realm and the gods’ palaces, but surrounding those illusory, magnificent halls was an immense, chaotic void. Countless shattered ruins and corpses of gods floated around the Divine Realm, drifting silently in deathly stillness…

“Those ruins and corpses seemed to have floated for a very long time, and they showed clear differences among themselves. They were not destroyed all at once, but had undergone cycle after cycle of rebirth and destruction. Megor III was already nearly mad when he looked upon those ruins and corpses. But what he saw next was even more terrifying:

“He saw the gates of the Divine Realm open, and the figures of gods flashing inside… In that fleeting glimpse, the vast knowledge and truth shattered all of Megor III’s mental defenses. He almost immediately descended into madness—

“The High Druid and the Storm Pope, who had jointly performed the ritual, sensed the anomaly in time. They tried to pull Megor III back to the mortal world, but this act linked their minds together… They shared their perceptions.”

Listening to Beltira’s account, Gawain maintained a calm exterior, but inside, a storm was raging.

The ritual on the Peak of Ancestors seven centuries ago—indeed, the three church leaders witnessed the ruins left after the gods’ fall. But the reality was even stranger and more insane than he had imagined.

Countless ruins and corpses surrounded the Divine Realm—not the result of a single destruction. Gawain knew about the ancient godslayer fleet that destroyed the gods once, but if Beltira’s information was true, then the battle reports he heard from the Eternal Tablets were only one cycle in a series of countless destructions and rebirths of the gods.

If the ancient godslayer fleet destroyed the gods once, what caused the other countless destructions?

Were the gods’ repeated cycles of destruction and rebirth connected to the current magical tides? To the repeated collapses of human civilization?

The surviving gods and their Divine Realm stood at the center of the ruins, surrounded by countless remnants. Were new gods born from this “graveyard of gods”? Or did the ruins symbolize the mortal world’s magical tides and cycles of civilization on a deeper level?

A flood of speculation surged through Gawain’s mind, but these questions could not be answered by Beltira. He filed them away and focused on another matter:

If the three church leaders were mentally corrupted after sharing the divine knowledge, why did the ordinary followers also go mad?

He asked this, and Beltira sighed softly.

“Faith. It connects us all.”

Gawain’s expression stiffened sharply.

“Faith in the gods is a chain. It took us many years to understand this—praying to the same deity, following the same commandments, shaping body and mind according to doctrine, seeking to align personal ‘spiritual gifts’ with the god’s ‘divinity.’ This is the foundation of all faith and divine magic. Mortals gain blessings through these acts, but at the same time, they lock their souls onto the same chain—a bridge between gods and mortals. The stronger the faith, the stronger the chain, and the more powerful the… force it can transmit.”

Beltira’s tone grew heavier and more solemn than ever.

“That’s why, when the vast knowledge of the gods flooded the three church leaders’ minds, they—being the earliest links in the chain—instantly transmitted that knowledge downstream…

“The most peripheral, shallow believers might have been unaffected, as their faith wasn’t strong enough and their souls still distant from the gods. But all priests capable of wielding divine magic were undoubtedly part of this chain. Whether they were on the Peak of Ancestors or not, they couldn’t escape the shock of that terrible knowledge.

“The end result: everyone on the chain was affected.”

Gawain drew a sharp breath.

Faith could create an invisible bond among believers of the same creed—this was a crucial piece of intelligence he had never grasped before.

Could this bond be related to the Soulsteel Marks?

Beltira’s description was full of metaphor and mystical jargon, shaped by her knowledge and worldview. But for Gawain, it boiled down to two facts:

Seven hundred years ago, the leaders of the three dark cults glimpsed the gods’ secrets.

At that moment, all their devout followers underwent a collective sanity check.

The result was obvious: none passed.

Yet perhaps because the vast number of lower-ranking priests absorbed much of the mental shock, or because the three leaders severed their connection to the Divine Realm in time, this collective sanity failure didn’t lead to the worst outcome. The three dark cults instantly turned dark, but no mass transformation of members into monsters occurred. After a brief frenzy, they even “awoke” from madness and reformed themselves into the End of All Things, the Eversleepers, and the Children of the Storm—new cults that conducted extensive research and attempted the Defiance Plan…

But thinking carefully—did they truly “awaken” after that shock?

Gawain looked quietly at Beltira.

She stood silently among the roots and vines, her eyes free of madness. She seemed rational. Yet look at those vines, those slowly writhing roots. Think about how they penetrated layer upon layer of palaces and dungeons, and the unimaginably huge tree itself… Nothing about it was normal.

Perhaps this symbolized the true nature of the three dark cults: survivors of madness who believe they have awakened, hearts trapped inside shells of frenzy.

And when that manifests outwardly—they become dangerous madmen.

“After the Council at Ancestor’s Peak, we plunged into chaos and suffered great losses. Many members stormed into the ruins of Gondor’s wasteland, while others succumbed to self-harm, suicide, or permanent madness from which they never recovered. Those who barely held onto their sanity scattered and hid themselves—in that chaotic time, when everything was in ruins, hiding was easy.

Years passed, and the madness caused by the psychic shock gradually faded. Only then did we quietly begin to regroup and rebuild our strength…

“We knew the truth we held was too shocking, too blasphemous. Even a single word spoken aloud would invite attacks from nearly every orthodox sect—and worse, it might draw the attention of the gods behind them. So we chose to descend into darkness, seeking a way to break the cycle…”

At this, Beltira shook her head, a wry smile touching her lips. “Looking back now, with a clear mind, our original goal wasn’t so complicated. It was the long passage of time and our growing obsession that twisted everything off course. And more importantly, there was the Rebellion Plan…

“The ones who brought the Rebellion Plan were two elven druids—a pair of sisters named Filna Whiteshade and Leylna Whiteshade.”

(End of chapter)