Chapter 924: The Inclinations of the Gods

It took a considerable effort for High Lord to suppress the mischievous thoughts swirling in his mind, and he was immensely grateful that he hadn’t brought along Amber this time—otherwise, that half-elf would have surely read into every flicker of expression on his face, and several exaggerated versions of “The Sacred Banter of Emperor High Lord Cecil” would have appeared in the next underground issue of the Imperial Decrees…

He shook his head and turned his gaze to the Nature God before him, who let out a soft chuckle. “Clearly, you have no intention of helping me break these shackles.”

“We’ve already discussed that,” High Lord replied calmly. “What I’m more curious about is what you just said—you mentioned, ‘There will really come such a day.’ Have you long anticipated what the Goddess of Magic intends to do?”

Amonn responded with serene composure: “I didn’t foresee the details, but I knew that other gods, like me, would try to break this cycle. And among all the gods, the one most likely to act… is the Goddess of Magic.”

“Why do you say that?” High Lord frowned. “And didn’t you say before that gods don’t normally communicate with each other, and you don’t know much about the others?”

“Because of the constraints of their domains of faith and ideological currents, gods indeed cannot communicate, and I don’t know what plans the others have…” Amonn’s tone suddenly carried a hint of amusement. “But that doesn’t stop me from deducing their ‘inclinations’ based on certain patterns…”

High Lord immediately caught the significance of that keyword. Before he could ask more, Amonn suddenly threw out a question: “Do you know how and why ‘magic’ was born?”

Veronica, standing nearby, found it odd that a Nature God would suddenly ask about this, but after a moment’s thought, she answered: “Magic originally arose from mortals imitating and summarizing the natural magical creatures and extraordinary phenomena in the world. Although many later scholars and believers attributed magic to mysterious beings like dragons or gods, true magicians mostly disagree with those claims.

“As for the purpose of magic… it was, of course, to survive in a harsh natural environment.”

“Yes, to survive in a harsh natural environment. So mortals began to draw wisdom from nature, to steal power from it, transforming what were once considered divine miracles—thunder, lightning, frost, and snow—into forces they could wield, using them to resist the brutal environment. This is the birth of magic,” Amonn said slowly. “And this is also the birth of the Goddess of Magic.”

Suddenly, High Lord’s mind cleared as he grasped what Amonn was implying.

“Magic embodies humanity’s rebelliousness, their capacity to learn, their will to survive, and their fearless spirit in the face of nature’s might,” Amonn’s voice was low and melodious. “Therefore, the Goddess of Magic possesses an extraordinary ability to learn. She perceives the laws of change more keenly than any other god. She will never submit to the forces that threaten her. She will be the first to awaken and attempt to control her own fate, just as mortal sages once tried to master dangerous lightning and fire. She desires survival more than any other deity and is willing to take bold, sometimes reckless, actions to achieve it.

“The irony is that all her struggles are themselves the result of her own ‘operating principles.’ And the irony of that irony is that Mylmina, by following these principles and acting recklessly, has succeeded—at least to some extent. If all the evidence holds, then ‘He’ has now become ‘She.’”

High Lord listened intently to the crucial information Amonn revealed. His thoughts suddenly became clear; many previously puzzling matters now had explanations. For the first time, he had a concrete, quantifiable way to speculate about the nature of other gods.

Veronica, beside him, instinctively furrowed her brow, a look of sudden realization crossing her face. “So gods are born from ideological currents… I never thought of it quite like that!”

Then she suddenly remembered something and turned her gaze to Amonn. “Is it okay for you to just tell us all this ‘knowledge’?”

“If it had been not long ago, telling you this would have ‘contaminated’ you with the ‘truth of magic,’” Amonn said lightly. “But now, this level of knowledge no longer has much effect.”

“Not long ago…” High Lord’s expression turned puzzled, a flood of guesses rising in his mind. “Why do you say that?”

“The mortal world has surged forward, and many things are changing rapidly… but for me, there is only one change worth noting,” Amonn’s voice grew more amused. “Druidic general education and the Town Apothecary’s Handbook are truly wonderful things… even seven- or eight-year-old children now know where alchemical potions come from.”

The residual “divinity” clinging to Amonn was loosening!

High Lord instantly realized what this change meant for the former Nature God and guessed the reasons behind it. He stared wide-eyed, scrutinizing the great stag several times as if to confirm the truth of Amonn’s words, then couldn’t help but ask, “You mean you’ve further shed your identity as a ‘god’?”

Three thousand years ago, during the fall of the White Star, Amonn had faked his death to escape the position of Nature God and even destroyed that divine seat. But High Lord could clearly see that his ‘escape’ was incomplete. He still bore many divine remnants—his tainted flesh, his form too terrible to behold, and knowledge and words deadly to mortals. In this regard, Nariel was the best comparison: also a “former god,” Nariel underwent death again after separating divinity from humanity, and with the extinction of all sandbox inhabitants and High Lord’s memory reconstruction, she was fully reborn and transformed, now free of all “divine limitations.”

Nariel could appear directly before any neural network user, but Amonn was still trapped deep within the Shadow Realm, bound by the lingering shackles of his divine seat.

Nariel’s “success” was clearly unrepeatable for the gods of this world, but now it seemed Amonn had found another path to complete liberation—one that began within Cecil’s new order.

To be honest, High Lord had suspected this all along. After learning that “gods are born from ideological currents,” he and his technical experts had been working backward to find a way to break the cycle. Many of the Empire’s religious reforms and new educational systems, beyond their social necessity, carried the shadow of this subversive research. He just hadn’t expected…

It to actually work, right under his nose—albeit on a god who had already left his divine seat and was steadily losing his divinity.

“In a sense, I’m one step closer to freedom,” Amonn’s voice echoed in High Lord’s mind. “I can feel the change clearly.”

“I remember last time you were still heavily bound,” Veronica suddenly said. “And by then, our druidic general education had already been promoted for some time… so when exactly did this change happen?”

Her tone was unmistakably that of a researcher.

“It’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment or a sudden shift,” Amonn answered patiently. “It’s a gradual process, and I think we may never fully understand the laws governing ideological change—we can only roughly speculate. Also, I hope you don’t get overly optimistic. The changes in me aren’t that great. A few years of education and knowledge dissemination can’t overturn the thoughts of the mortal masses, nor can they undo ideological currents that have formed over thousands of years. At best, they can affect gods superficially—and only gods like me, who have left their seats and no longer receive divine replenishment. As for gods in their normal state… I can’t say whether such rapid, widespread, and violent changes are good or bad.”

High Lord found Amonn’s words somewhat abstract and convoluted but still understandable. He detected a trace of worry in the last sentence and immediately asked, “What do you mean by that?”

“Remember when I said the Goddess of Magic embodies ‘rebellion, learning, and survival’?”

High Lord nodded. “Of course.”

“Different gods are born from different ideological currents and thus have different traits. I call these their ‘inclinations.’ The Goddess of Magic leans toward learning and adaptive survival; the Holy Light leans toward protection and salvation; the Three Fertility Gods lean toward harvest and abundance. Different gods have different inclinations, which means… when faced with sudden changes in human ideology, their adaptability and possible reactions may be completely different.

“The Goddess of Magic, confronted with your developed magitech, quickly learned and began seeking elements beneficial to her survival. But a god inclined toward conservatism and maintaining the status quo… such a god—”

Amonn paused, then continued gravely, “—might be driven mad by these sudden changes.”

The voice in High Lord’s mind faded, but a tidal wave of realization surged within him. He suddenly understood that he might have been overlooking something all along. He glanced at Veronica, who returned a similarly complex look.

They exchanged a knowing glance.

“…Ah, it seems something has already happened beyond my ‘sight,’” Amonn’s voice came softly. “What’s going on?”

“…The War God’s condition is off,” High Lord didn’t hide it. “His priests have begun dying under strange circumstances.”

“The War God…” Amonn’s tone was oddly unsurprised, as if he had foreseen this just as he had predicted the Goddess of Magic’s self-rescue. “When the critical point arrives, he is indeed one of the gods most likely to suffer.”

High Lord instinctively asked, “Is this also because of the War God’s ‘inclination’?”

“The War God is closely tied to the concept of war, born from mortals’ reverence for war and their artificial constraints on its order.

“War is the most extreme and brutal means mortals use to pursue their interests. From its inception, it has been direct slaughter and plunder. No matter how much gloss or excuse is added, war inevitably involves bloodshed and massive looting—this was the basic, universally accepted concept of war when the War God was born.

“At the same time, mortals fear and remain wary of this terrible weapon called ‘war.’ Therefore, they impose many preconditions and mutually recognized ‘rules’—such as declarations of war, ceasefires, prisoner exchanges, and agreements on spoils and honors. Although kings and lords sometimes break these agreements for gain, they at least publicly express respect for the rules, and most people believe that war has its own order.”

“They’ve woven this ‘spirit of the war pact’ into their very faith, believing the war god to be the divine witness to a series of war treaties and conventions—and they’ve held onto this belief for thousands of years.

“Because of this, the war god’s nature is to uphold the fundamental definition of war, with a strong ‘contractual inclination.’ He’s a stubborn, rigid deity who only allows war to proceed according to a fixed template—even if the form of war needs to change, that change must be grounded in long-standing traditions and a series of ritual agreements.

“Given this nature, the war god is the least capable of accepting change, and when faced with it, his reactions can be the most extreme—bordering on losing control.”

Amon finished his patient explanation, then paused for a few seconds before breaking the silence again. “So… what exactly have you done?”

“…A kind of war without bloodshed or killing, where most participants wear smiles, with no formal declarations of war or ceasefires—only a series of commercial contracts and exchanges of interests,” Gawain said, his expression complex and tone serious. “This kind of ‘war’ is spreading across the world, faster than even the Cecil Empire’s education campaigns—because profit is the greatest motivator for humanity, and the stakes in this new form of ‘war’ are enormous…”

Amon fell completely silent, the quiet stretching on for a full thirty seconds.

Finally, even Veronica couldn’t help but speak up: “So…”

“You’re basically driving Him to a dead end…” Amon broke the silence at last. “Though I’ve never communicated with the war god directly, I can tell just by speculation… the war god’s mind… how could He possibly accept this?”

Gawain wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but it felt like Amon almost blurted out, “The war god’s mind can’t handle this”—which was clearly not the most refined or dignified way to put it.

(End of chapter)