Chapter 45: The Living Deity
“That meeting, just as His Majesty Skarlij said.”
Her Majesty the Queen gently tapped the table, her tone as calm as a placid lake: “Though less than ten attended, each was a heavyweight, renowned or powerful, standing at the pinnacle of The Holy Church, the very elite in the Holy City… Most importantly, some of them are the very individuals who should be standing behind Pope Angel.”
At this, the two men at the table simultaneously raised their eyebrows.
“I can’t publicly disclose their identities here for now, but you might be able to guess a few,” Her Majesty observed their reactions and continued, “It was then that I truly saw the Church’s current predicament. Saint George still has the ability to sway the situation at Temple Church. That meeting was meant to showcase just that, to all of us.”
“Oh?”
Skarlij rested his chin on his hands and remarked, “If what Her Majesty says is true, then Saint George, despite being convicted and having the Williams Family completely losing control of the Currency Exchange, can still gather key figures in the Holy City during his escape… Tsk, tsk. This means Pope Angel has almost completely lost control of Temple Church.”
“Yes,” Her Majesty nodded slowly, her gaze never leaving him.
“Ha—”
Suddenly, Skarlij laughed, but there was no mirth in his eyes. Instead, he tilted his head and focused on the flickering flame from the candelabrum, clearly lost in thought.
The dim flicker brightened his stable and resolute face.
“My teacher…”
After a brief pause, the long-silent Tarlasya finally spoke, asking, “Was she there at that meeting?”
Her Majesty glanced at him: “Didn’t you already know?”
It was pretty much an answer in itself.
“Just wanted to confirm.” Tarlasya frowned, noting that Skarlij’s expression shifted slightly when he mentioned his teacher.
“The Meteor Shower Magipanny? Renowned as ‘Second to None,’ with disciples scattered across the Western Continent for over twenty years? That formidable female Pope Knight?”
The young Emperor of the Empire wore a slightly surprised expression. “Saint George could actually summon someone like that… So you mean, Mr. Tarlasya, you came to the Empire just following your teacher’s orders?”
“Not exactly following orders,” Tarlasya reflected, looking down. “I came here on the directives of Temple Church. Before that, I was supposed to head to the Holy City. His Majesty Skarlij is quite aware of this.”
“Hmm.”
Skarlij nodded slightly, taking a moment to refocus on the Queen’s superb profile.
“So, what was previously discussed seems to be true.”
His expression gradually became serious: “Just how dire is the situation?”
“So dire that it might already be beyond redemption.”
Her Majesty’s voice was calm, as if she wasn’t trying to induce panic: “Before clarifying what I know, may I first ask, Your Majesty Skarlij, how much do you understand about the so-called ‘deities’ in this world?”
The man thought for a moment and replied: “The Age of Deities may have been when the creator of all truly ruled the world, but now, it’s more of a tool for the Church to beguile people into blind faith—a historically and doctrinally constructed void, akin to dragons and fairies, a species that gradually faded into obscurity with natural evolution…”
“But at one time, they did ally with our ancestors and provided humanity with unimaginable aid. I’ve studied the Church’s ‘Revelation,’ and some of its contents, if verified, do have substantial basis—a far cry from an empty fabrication.”
At this point, Skarlij paused: “I admit I know little about the matter of deities, but since Her Majesty can pose such a question, you must have a clearer answer in mind… What did you ultimately learn from Saint George’s meeting?”
“The truth.”
Her Majesty leaned over the table, looking deeply at the two men: “From the inception of the Church until now, what it relies on—the very foundation of faith, the natural miracles, the punitive miracles, the healing miracles, and… the miracles of order. These powerful forces utilized by humanity, where do they truly come from?”
As her words fell, Tarlasya’s body shot upright: “What do you mean?”
“Literally.”
What she said next left the two men in stunned silence.
“Have either of you considered the possibility that perhaps during the Age of Deities, humanity gradually mastered some method of exterminating ‘deities,’ thereby appropriating their powers, and that this method may have been the primary reason for their complete ‘disappearance’ from this world?”
“The method, put simply, is that ‘deities’ have a characteristic that grants various powerful abilities to ‘flesh.’ The Church usually refers to the ‘flesh’ as ‘vessels.’ This isn’t limited to deities alone; almost all beings in this world could become vessels for their powers, as long as the will of the deity is willing to give. This is the true meaning of the Church’s ‘blessing.’”
“However, evidently, the Church’s predecessors, those who first struck ‘deals’ with the gods, were not satisfied with the powers voluntarily offered by the deities. Greed is human nature. They desired more, primarily because they hated having their fates controlled by another species. They feared that one day the ‘deities’ would grow tired of them, just as they did with the dragons and fairies. They dreaded losing their formidable abilities, fearing that their current achievements would merely serve as garments for the ‘new favorites’ of the deities, so they decided to k*ll the gods, keeping everything firmly in human hands.”
“You mean to say the Church killed those deities?”
Tarlasya was struggling to remain composed, fists clenched on the table as he exclaimed, “That’s impossible—”
“Nothing’s impossible.”
The Queen gazed at him, her expression still calm: “Even beings like the Mother Deity, the Church possesses the ability to imprison them for a thousand years.”
“Lies, deception, and temptation—those ‘deities’ aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. They’re simple and easily believe the words of their devout followers. The worst part? These innocent beings are exceptionally emotionally rich. Not only that, but they’ve also learned from humanity. They learned about greed, understood power, and realized that stepping atop the corpses of their kin allows them to stand at the summit of their race.”
“…”
Even Skarlij seemed shaken: “Is this the truth of the wars in the Age of Deities?!”
“Yes, and no.”
Her Majesty continued: “But at least, the outcome of the war was the fall of countless deities, not as recorded in the Revelation, where deities handed over control of the world to the Church and ascended to another paradise. Their bodies were obliterated in fierce battles, and the remnants left behind became the ‘Divine Reliquaries’ spoken of by the Church.”
“And…”
She paused: “Those corpses still imbued with divine power, for centuries, the Church has been mixing their ashes into common water, calling it ‘holy water,’ using it in the baptism rituals for the faithful. Clergymen drink that holy water, using their own bodies as vessels to bear and receive the powers of the deities.”
“And that is the power of faith, as well as the method they initially realized to strip deities of their power for themselves.”
Silence.
An oppressive kind of silence.
After Her Majesty said this, both men remained quiet for a long time.
A long, long time.
“Holy water, Divine Reliquaries… For centuries, the Church has been using these little-known methods to strip away the power lingering in the remnants of dead deities…”
Skarlij mumbled, attempting to unravel the chaotic thoughts in his mind.
“No wonder… I sent people to deeply investigate the happenings in Woodward Forest, where a ‘demon’ appeared two years ago… was actually the residue of some deity… Those clerics were doing everything possible to collect the black bone fragments scattered from the explosion… I should have realized this back then…”
As he spoke, he suddenly looked up: “Pepé, does she already know all of this!”
His eyes sharpened, a flash of fury passing through.
“But if that’s the case, why is the Mother Deity still alive?”
Tarlasya struggled to keep calm. He suddenly felt he should stay in the Valen Empire a bit longer, otherwise, he might impulsively confront his teacher or even go straight to Saint George for a showdown.
“Good question.”
Her Majesty turned her gaze toward him and, after a moment, revealed a strange and ironic smile.
“Why is only the Mother Deity still alive? The specific reason might be challenging to trace back. Perhaps it was merely heavily injured at the right time and the Church seized that opportune moment, or maybe it was seduced by a promise offered by humans and has been imprisoned ever since.”
“In any case, if we disregard that ‘great historical revival’ process itself, the current fact is, it has been imprisoned underground in the Holy City for over a thousand years. Not only has it not died, but it’s also on the brink of breaking free from its shackles, bringing forth the most terrifying disaster to this world.”
“And The Holy Church and Temple Church, they seem to be doing everything in their power to prevent this calamity from occurring. We’ve heard enough of that already, but why?”
“If they possess the ability to k*ll ‘gods’ and the capacity to imprison them for millennia, why didn’t they just eradicate it before? Why risk everything, choose to imprison such a dangerous existence instead…?”
“The reason is quite simple.”
Skarlij understood what she was implying.
“If it’s merely the corpse of a deity, there will always be a day it eventually exhausts itself.”
The man’s voice sounded somewhat hoarse: “But a living deity’s power is inexhaustible.”
“…Indeed.”
A sneer slipped from Her Majesty’s lips, her tapping on the table ceased, her words echoed like a sigh: “But whether this constitutes far-sighted vision or a blindness caused by greed, it’s hard to tell at this point. It’s no longer meaningful to investigate further.”
