Chapter 11: Cause and Effect (Part One)
“……”
I curled up in my chair, repeatedly reading the last few paragraphs of the page in front of me. The more I read, the more my mind went blank. Eventually, I couldn’t take in the words any longer. With a loud “thud,” I closed the booklet, rubbing my temples and shutting my eyes, desperately trying to digest and ponder over all this.
Divine essence… sacrifice… Angel’s Egg… wait a minute…
The Angel’s Egg — does that refer to some power that can turn heretics into monsters?
Just like Teresa from the Royal City, like that jester…
Hmm, it’s quite possible…
But what exactly is that thing?
… No clue.
It certainly can’t be that chunk of meat. If it were, those disqualified individuals would have turned into monsters long ago. They wouldn’t be so easily killed by me…
And what about the Goddess’s promise, and the strangulation of the Abyss… the Abyss is the Mother Deity’s power… I guessed this back in the Land of Dragons… but why?
Why would the Mother Deity do this?
Is it because she, like the Goddess of Sin, has also succumbed to madness?
The wrath of the deities…
But what on earth could make them angry enough to go completely mad?
I have no idea…
There’s just too little information to go on…
But that woman wants the Goddess of Sin to regain her power, to restore the order disrupted by the Church in this world; I can’t be wrong about that.
So, she’s heading to Woodward Forest to awaken that divine body…
“Whew—”
I took a deep breath.
My head’s a complete mess…
But at least I understand a bit more now.
The names on the list that were crossed out — Ailna from the very beginning, had the goal of sending them to their deaths…
Once she realized the Gate of Truth had completely vanished, and almost everyone left were true villains… once she understood that, she began to go all in.
That war in Silgaya was the final gamble for the Gate of Truth, for that woman.
This was probably written several years ago, at least before 1181. That’s when the dancer made this decision, calling together the scattered remnants of the Gate of Truth. Starting in January 1181, the so-called “sacrifice” of the goddess’s divine essence officially began. The specific methods are still unclear, but in these years, she surely took all sorts of precautions to evade the Church’s notice and prepared a lot in secret.
Since then, heretics have been active in the Western Continent, secretly conducting a series of behind-the-scenes operations… The dancer was already gearing up for the impending war…
The reason she is so bold, thinking she sees hope and daring to bet everything, aside from the factors she simply couldn’t avoid, was also because of that Goddess’s “divine essence” which made promises to her… She firmly believed in that promise…
Divine essence…
I remember that woman mentioned it when she was in the Land of Dragons too.
She said the Church refers to this as the “Fire Seed”…
It should be something akin to a deity’s spirit, or spiritual body, or perhaps the brain, thoughts — that kind of existence… In many fantasy novels, it might be termed “divine soul” or “divine form”… From my understanding, that’s what it likely is.
And the corpse that awakened in the Land of Dragons is the deity’s physical body… these two can be separated… Without the divine essence, the body is just a mindless shell, as that woman told me.
So…
That divine essence, actually wants to use the Gate of Truth and Ailna’s hands to revive its physical body, right? Then somehow merge the essence with the body, only then can it truly regain its godly power.
However…
“It tricked me…”
I remembered how that woman, in her despair in the Land of Dragons, once said some truly disheartening words to me.
“The establishment of the Gate of Truth, so many people persevering through generations, in the end, was just a tragically comedic white daydream that can never be reached, a thoroughly convincing scam that we believed in…”
“A thousand years of rage, a thousand years of pain, I underestimated just what it had to bear…”
“Even a deity can fall into complete madness under endless torment and suffering…”
As the fragmented memories of those words echoed in my ears, I held the booklet to my chest, the curled-up young woman’s starry eyes flickering in the glow of the fire.
After a moment, she took a deep breath.
… So that’s how it is.
So, that’s what that woman meant…
“… Heh.”
A hollow, low laugh spread through the empty cellar.
Now, I’m clear on everything…
It’s that divine essence.
It’s the Goddess’s divine essence that deceived the cold-blooded dancer.
It’s that essence that promised her if she helped me revive, regain my godly power, I would cleanse the Abyss, eradicate the chaotic power spread by the Mother Deity throughout this world, and restore order to the world… perhaps it even promised the dancer that I would grant humanity a peaceful and stable land… something along those lines.
Maybe, that thing has been deceiving the higher-ups of the Gate of Truth with similar words all along.
In any case, its promise made the dancer believe wholeheartedly.
Perhaps that woman never thought there’d come a day when a deity would trick a human…
Too bad…
From the current results, it looks like the Goddess of Sin has long plunged into madness. She doesn’t want to restore the world’s order, but rather intends to destroy everything… Perhaps after destroying everything, she would establish a new order, but that is certainly not the outcome the dancer desires.
She was played by the deity.
So that’s how it is…
If that’s the case, then everything seems way more complex than I initially thought…
The Eastern Continent…
Judging from what the woman wrote at the beginning, the situation on the Eastern Continent has likely been eroded by the Abyss far beyond my imagination…
She mentioned the Red River… I remember Carlos once telling me that his hometown seems to be over there… Right, Carlos!
That guy also came to the Eastern Continent!
But if the truth of the matter is like this, then what would he…
Be doing here?
I began to ruminate on what Carlos had said to me before he left. However, I struggled to recall it, only remembering he rambled on without getting to the point before changing the subject… But I know, his teacher, Sword Saint Old Man has always been here, doing something… He must be here to find his teacher… So what is Sword Saint Old Man doing here?
… Divine essence!
They are looking for that divine essence!
No doubt about it!
And this mission must have been granted by the Church… No, it must be Angel who assigned it. He’s been searching for this, and as long as they find it, the Gate of Truth can be utterly obliterated; they all know this!
But…
They’ve kept it from me…
Carlos, even you kept it from me…
Even you… didn’t tell me…
With a loud “thud,” I threw the booklet onto the table.
Why…
Could it be…
Do you all know I’m the product of an experiment…
What do you all really think of me?
What do you want me to do…
Is the internal struggle within the Church also related to this… Ha, what am I thinking? Of course, it’s related, considering Nero’s attitude towards me back then…
That old guy must know I’m an experiment, right?
He must vehemently oppose Angel’s way but has no better method to stop it, so he’s willing to do whatever it takes to eliminate me in the Royal City, even if it means innocent lives are at stake, even if he becomes a sinner, he wants me dead there…
After that, Angel and Carlos showed up.
The reason behind that battle wasn’t as simple as I thought at the time…
That was Angel using my hands to eliminate perhaps the Church’s most stubborn foes… In hindsight, the progression of the experiment afterwards likely went much more smoothly… I cleared the obstacles for him… And then, only Cardinal St. George was left. Oh, the war in the southern region of Silgaya, the complete annihilation of Nero’s Third Knights Order, and the currency exchange people seemed to have been given the blame, and during the Alectine City incident, a few were executed… I remember this very clearly…
I should have sensed something was off back then…
“Ha…”
I trembled, exhaling a breath.
Feeling a bit cold, I curled up even tighter.
Just how foolish have I been…
After a long time, my emotions finally began to settle.
Teresa…
I thought of Teresa again.
I recalled she had mentioned in the book that she met a deity…
Teresa must have known the truth. She couldn’t accept such truth and thus chose to join the Gate of Truth…
A deity…
Did she meet the divine body? Or was it the Fire Seed, or something else… What on earth could make her make such an extreme choice…
I must find out…
Only by understanding everything can I avoid being used as a tool again, played around without knowing…
I picked up the booklet again.
Ailna’s notes began from before 1181; at that time, she probably hadn’t met Teresa yet. I might be able to find more information about Teresa in here…
Flip…
The booklet opened to the next page I had previously read.
[January 1181, the sacrifice officially began.
On this day, I met the jester, and we talked for a long time.
The jester is the person I dislike the most; he is completely devoid of humanity. In the past, my father valued him, yet I had never spoken to him; I hated him, hated those eyes of his. But now, I had no choice but to sit together with him because our goals aligned for the time being. He needed my power, and I had to rely on his means.
I had no one else to turn to.
I revealed all my plans without reservation. I knew I couldn’t fool this man; he had the Angel’s Egg inside him and understood that not a single one of those people would survive. But this maniac was also deeply interested in this matter; he is a true villain who enjoys seeing d*ath and wants to stomp around the Western Continent, watching more people d*e slowly in pain.
The jester hates the Church.
From my father, I learned about his past.
He desires the d*ath of all the faithful, which aligns perfectly with me.
The jester agreed to keep this matter secret and promised to bring me more followers. In the current Gate of Truth, his influence already far exceeds mine. He agreed to trick those villains into coming over, offering up stronger flesh and bl**d for the altar; naturally, I was pleased to see that happen.
The only thing the jester requested was that the future war in Silgaya be under his control. I agreed, or rather, it suited me; I’m not cut out for orchestrating wars.
The jester can do it better than I can.
And there would be even more common people dying as a result.
But I had no choice.
February 3, 1181
Things turned out to be worse than I thought.
Not a single one of the first batch of sacrificial participants managed to survive the ritual; they all died, their flesh and bl**d turned into nourishment, which at least helped the Goddess recover quite a bit of strength, and perhaps that’s the only comforting thing about it.
I need more followers in the revival stage; the Goddess’s divine essence also needs to draw from more flesh and bl**d nourished by the Infernal Fire. But after this incident, some people have started to question me.
The jester killed those people.
That night, we lost many followers, and I still haven’t seen the shadows of the villains the jester promised would come.
He must find me people.
He must.
May 1181
This month, the town’s watchers had a long talk with me.
Mayor Robert noticed what I was doing; he seemed a bit serious, as if he had thought about it for a long time before finally choosing to negotiate with me. After hearing my explanation, he returned without saying a word. I felt uneasy, worrying that he might have a resistant mindset and disrupt the whole plan.
But the outcome was alright; the next day, he started having people follow me around to assist.
I had a few more collaborators.
However, they imposed conditions on me, firmly prohibiting the sacrifice of the townsfolk. Of course, that was no problem; I never intended to sacrifice them. How could flesh that hadn’t been tempered by Infernal Fire be used for sacrifice?
July 1181
The Goddess awakened once again. The jester fulfilled his promise, and more followers participated in the second sacrifice, but the outcome was still unsatisfactory.
The reassuring part was that the divine essence absorbed enough bl**d to fall into a slumber again. When she awakens next year, she will bestow the power of the bl**d sacrifice upon more followers.
Things always move forward; the first person to endure will show up eventually.
March 1182
I discovered the jester was secretly arranging actions in the Western Continent without me knowing — a series of actions related to the Lone Fruit Grass.
He wants to stir the pot in the Western Continent before the war starts; it seems he has dispatched people to Silgaya, the Valen Empire, and Ethanbel. I felt furious at his recklessness, but the jester was very resolute about it; he advised me not to interfere, telling me never to attempt to meddle with his actions because he wouldn’t make mistakes.
He said my father handled things that way in the past.
I almost came to blows with him.
But after calming down, I thought seriously about it and realized that if his actions succeed, it would have incredibly beneficial effects for us; the Western Continent would spiral into chaos, and the Church’s high-ups would be in a panic. At that point, when we act, the pressure would be much less.
This is a gamble.
So, I figured I’d let him do his thing.
All of this is to promote our plan, to add weight to the future war, even if just a little, it would increase our chances of winning.
On this issue, perhaps the jester’s mind is clearer than mine.
Just that… it will lead to more deaths…
But I can’t care about that anymore.
September 6, 1182
This year, still no one survived.
This is nothing like I had anticipated. I feel very frustrated, and at the same time, there were even more voices of doubt around me. Even the jester found it hard to suppress them.
That night, we conducted a massive purge, and the flames of war spread from the town all the way to the desert. The next day, I noticed that the mayor’s gaze towards me had changed.
October 18, 1182
Incredible!
That famous saint, Teresa Anthony, who was almost made a saint by the Church, actually came to find me!
