Inside one of the grand halls of the Church of Brightwater, Cardinal Rubio sat upon an elevated dais carved from white jade, a symbol of the purity and authority the Church claimed to uphold.
Beams of light filtered through tall stained-glass windows, casting vibrant patterns across the floor and making the entire hall feel almost sacred. Yet despite the warmth in the atmosphere, the knight kneeling before the Cardinal felt only cold sweat running down his back.
The knight was the one who visited Avalon as the Church's envoy. He kept his head bowed, and his shoulders trembled slightly as he repeated the same report for the third time.
"Hmm… So, they refused to comply with our demand?" Cardinal Rubio's voice was soft, but the weight behind each word made the knight shrink further.
"Yes, Your Holiness," the knight replied with his head bowed, unable to meet the Cardinal's eyes. "They refused outright. We were not even allowed to conduct a search ourselves. Her Ladyship… the ruler who received us… she threatened us if we didn't leave immediately."
Rubio's brows lowered slightly. "Threatened?"
"Yes, Your Holiness. She told us we had one hour to leave the island or… we would 'not have the opportunity to leave intact.'"
The Cardinal's expression remained unreadable, though something faintly flickered behind his eyes. The knight wasn't sure whether it was anger, contemplation, or something far worse. But he pushed on, because he knew he had to finish the report.
"I apologize, your holiness for failing to demand the fugitive directly," the knight said in a strained voice. "I believed the island possessed a powerful background, and an overwhelming one at that. Their development level… and the technology they possess… it surpasses anything I have ever seen in other kingdoms. Even the capital of our kingdom cannot compare. I judged that pressing the issue by outright demanding would only lead to unnecessary problems. I am prepared to accept any punishment for this failure."
Silence followed his words. A deep, suffocating silence lasted for some moments that made the knights shift uncomfortably in his place.
Finally, Cardinal Rubio leaned back slightly, his fingers drumming against the armrest of his seat. His eyes, normally half-lidded in placid serenity, were narrowed now, not in anger, but one of calculating.
"They have a Sage-rank expert, yes?" Rubio asked without looking directly at the knight.
The knight swallowed, then nodded once. "Yes, Your Holiness. I witnessed it myself. The woman who confronted us radiated power at that level. And… I believe she wasn't the only one."
Rubio exhaled quietly, rubbing his chin. "They would not act with such audacity if their strength ended at a single Sage. No… Avalon would never risk provoking the Church without a far stronger backing."
The knight hesitated. "Your Holiness… do you mean they possess hidden experts?"
"That or allies which they haven't made public." Rubio's voice dropped into a contemplative murmur. "This changes things."
The knight bowed deeply again. "I understand the severity of my failure. I am ready to accept…"
"You have done a good job."
The knight froze mid-sentence, with his eyes widening.
Rubio continued calmly, "You avoided unnecessary death and brought back valuable intelligence. Punishing you would only be foolish."
Relief washed over the knight's expression so abruptly that he nearly slumped forward. He steadied himself just in time as the pope extended his hand, summoning a quill and parchment through a small holy crest that glowed briefly.
"I will write to the Pope," Rubio said, dipping the quill into a vial of red ink. "This matter involves more than a fugitive. Deliver this letter to his sanctum immediately after I seal it."
"Yes, Your Holiness. I will deliver it without delay."
The knight bowed deeply as the Cardinal wrote quickly yet meticulously, finishing the letter with a flourish before sealing it with gold wax. A holy symbol pressed into it which glowed faintly before becoming dull, signifying it was sealed with a magical seal and could only be opened by the Pope himself.
Within minutes, the knight was sent on his way. Rubio remained seated, his expression now far heavier than earlier. After the knight left the hall, the Cardinal muttered quietly to himself.
"This Avalon… whoever controls it… they are stirring something under everyone's nose."
For the first time in decades, Cardinal Rubio felt genuine uncertainty with this variable in the ongoing war with the demons.
And far above the mortal world, that uncertainty was mirrored elsewhere.
…
Far from Thyrandel, though intrinsically bound to it by threads of fate and metaphysical law, there existed a realm that mortals could only dream about. It wasn't a single landmass, nor a plane governed by natural principles. It was a sprawling network of ethereal continents, floating temples, rivers of divine energy, and clear skies that shifted colors based on the wills of the beings inhabiting it.
This was the divine realm. A place where the major gods of Thyrandel who ascended resided. Those who had once walked the mortal world freely, until the world consciousness itself sealed them away.
Here, power was absolute, but freedom was not.
The realm was divided into domains, often called pantheons by the minor gods who served under the stronger ones. Each pantheon represented an aspect of existence: light, war, storms, wisdom, harvest, shadows, beasts, oceans, and countless others. Every major god ruled one such domain, surrounded by their lesser divine followers.
Once upon a time, the gods walked on the world freely where they could gather resources, build influence, and gather worshippers. They had been able to take what they wanted by hand. But the world's will, its conscious essence, had expelled them after an ancient catastrophe, sealing them in their own realm.
At first, it was a crisis for the gods. Cut off from the mortal realm, they lost access to the resources needed to advance. Their Divine Cores stagnated and their growth halted.
But the gods were never known for backing down. After a few years after their expulsion from the world the gods discovered the loophole to bypass their restrictions. That is, if they could no longer harvest resources directly… they would do it through mortals.
They began blessing humans they used to exploit while they roamed free in the world, choosing champions from the faithful, and granting divine powers in exchange for offerings of rare materials and resources. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, at least on the surface.
But, they never let the information about how to become a demigod let alone a god to leak out as there was already scarcity of resources after the consciousness of the world lowered the chances of them appearing in the world. So, they guarded the pathway to godhood with an iron fist.
One might question why even give the resources as offering to the god and why not use it themselves, but there were several drawbacks in that. First they couldn't even use these resources as they are too powerful for a mortal body to handle and secondly suppose somehow they got to utilize the resource, once they ascend to godhood all the gods of the realm would come after that person for their impudent act.
The mortals could reach Demigod at most, but never beyond that threshold without the gods' explicit approval, and such approval was almost never granted.
Even so, the system worked. All the major gods and their pantheon were enjoying the offerings by their believers, until the demons invaded Thyrandel.
A foreign pantheon, the invaders who came from an alien world, had their own gods, their own champions, and ambitions that clashed with those of Thyrandel's divine pantheons.
The demons' first invasion shook the world thousands of years ago, a war that nearly rebalanced the entire hierarchy among gods and mortals alike.
And the savior of that era wasn't a native of that world. It was Steve, then known by another name.
Summoned by human Major Gods, Steve was chosen for one reason only: his soul was strong enough to withstand multiple divine gifts without collapsing. The gods could have given the gifts to a native of Thyrandel but their souls were not strong enough to endure more than one gift.
So, the gods provided him with resources to reach the demigod realm and trained him thus shaping him into the perfect weapon and gave him the mission to drive out the invaders who are better known as demons.
At first, Steve believed those gods wanted to save their world, so he helped in driving out the demons, but after years of fighting the demons and finally driving them out, he inadvertently came to learn about the real reason why those gods wanted him to do so.
The gods had never wanted peace or freedom for the mortals of Thyrandel. They only cared about their offerings and the continuation of their own divine authority. The war had been a threat to the world and its people, but that wasn't their main concern but the hit to their supply chains.
After learning the truth and seeing the corruption of kingdoms that served them, Steve left the continent entirely. And when the demons returned during the current era, he did not lift a finger. The gods had used him once, and he refused to be used again.
The gods now relied on their champions to push back the invasion. But their champions were weaker, and without a figure like Steve, their progress slowed.
Meanwhile, the dragons and elves did not participate in the war, not because they lacked power, but because their gods never reached out to them or blessed them either, some among them even believed their gods had abandoned them.
But there was a huge secret that nobody among mortals and even most minor gods knew. Long ago, the human gods and beast gods had envied the potential of dragonkind and elves. And fearing that their respective pantheons would grow too powerful adding to the shortage of resources, they conspired together and sealed the dragon gods and elf gods away before they could fully flourish. Then, true to divine treachery, the human gods turned against the beast gods and sealed them as well.
This was why the demi-human continent had fallen so easily to the demons. And why even now, the human gods remained silent. They feared unsealing the very enemies they had betrayed.
And so, mortal civilizations suffered due to that.
In the present moment, inside the Pantheon of Light, a towering structure made of radiant crystalline pillars, each glowing with divine luminance, a meeting was underway which would shape the future of Thyrandel.
***
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