บท 10: Ch.10
The mountains fell, the sky was torn asunder, the land was split, and the city had been destroyed. From the ravaged land, torn apart by our battle, the few remaining demigods and the surviving mortals rose to see their homes broken. I descended upon them with their former deity's severed head in my grip, and clearing the dust and smoke that viled the air with a single swipe of my hand. The mortals and demigods looked up to me, knowing the result of the battle. They knelt out of fear and awe. I could feel their allegiances had shifted, their newly birthed worship offering me power.
I allowed the remaining demi-gods to live, of which there were less than a few dozen of them remaining, accepting them as gods into my pantheon that I would guide onto the right path, my path.
The land had been destroyed beyond repair and would become a historical landmark dubbed the Tattered Plains. As for the mortals, having no further place to call home, I welcomed them into my borders as immigrants and accepted them as worshippers.
By the end of that first month, I returned to the nameless god I'd encountered. He had managed to regain his sanity, though he was not so strong-willed, standing on the edge of falling again. Still, I welcomed him as well.
The immigrants were quick to settle, and the demi-gods were allowed to join me in living on my mountain.
As I looked over the city that had only grown larger in size, I decided that I should offer a hand to the mortals more than I have, rather than leaving their development fully to them.
I fell down onto the ground, unwraveling Graith's head which I had wrapped in cloth, and placing it on the ground before me.
His severed head had been healed of all wounds and cleaned of blood, and his eyes, which were closed, opened and stared at me.
"You've finally released me." It talked as if it had lungs to breathe. "I am curious how you are capable of doing this."
"I do not understand it fully myself, but I call it blessing. I will get to the point. This world will only continue to develop, eventually reaching the point that our old world was at, perhaps going farther. We are immortal, so we will live through it all until death at the possible hands of murder. If you share your knowledge with me, then I promise, that someday, I will grant you a body and your freedom for you to enjoy the rest of your life. Perhaps along the way, you will regain your sanity."
"I find myself to be quite sane."
"Answer, or I will throw you into a ditch to leave you there for a year."
Graith smiled, as if finding my words to be amusing. "Ah... Your bargain is quite enticing, but what will I obtain in the meantime? Will I just be a head, sitting around, collecting dust, until the mortals, as you call them, eventually reach the modern age? That could be a thousand years from now, perhaps farther. Humanity's history, after all, spanned thousands of years until they managed to develop the first computer."
"What do you want?"
"What do I want? You truly are not as smart as me... Yet you were able to defeat me. I really do wonder how you obtained such power, but regardless. If you truly want what you say, then eventually a society will form. I do not expect you to understand the intricacies of a working society, but know that I do."
"Skip all the bull shit and tell me what you want."
"Money and property."
"That's it?"
"Of course. I imagine myself, living a thousand years from now, with soda, a television, a bed, with women in a luxury mansion, but for that to be obtained, money needs to be invented properly."
"You just want me to give you money and property?"
"No, no, no... That would be a callous misuse of our position. I was a businessman in the old world, I want to be free to manage my own wealth. Perhaps... Ah! Perhaps my children would be willing to carry on my legacy. Allow that, and I will agree."
"I don't care. Therefore, I agree."
The coming months would be nothing but peaceful, and my time would be spent keeping the other gods in line and guiding the mortals carefully. They put to use the knowledge I granted them, and in return and with zealousness, they sought to construct a grand temple in my name.
"Great Orion! I am King Orlander Praiseorion! We seek to use the knowledge you have given us to build a temple unlike the world has ever seen!! We ask your permission and guidance in its construction at the foot of Mount Orion."
'They named it Mount Orion? Well, I suppose it's rather fitting. A temple though... I suppose it is necessary. I should have a base of operations for my pantheon.'
"Hmm... Very well. I will have gods of my pantheon aid you in its construction. Its design must be fitting of my divinity, and every brick shall be blessed."
The kneeling king grinned happily in excitement.
Soon after, the construction of a temple would begin, though there was much conflict among the creative visionaries who had a difficult time on agreeing what was a fitting design for a temple that would represent the gods themselves. It took seven months for the temple to take shape, stretching all across the foot of my mountain, a massive building the size of a small city. It would take decades to finish and would result in a palace of white, where every brick was enchanted to never crumble or break, with towers like those of large hills, overseeing the temple with bells.
By now, the mortal population had reached tens of millions, the blood of gods and mortals intermingling as a new culture took shape. The once-rising city was now a metropolis, and the empire now had cities, villages, towns, and temples, spanning across the whole of the land.
However, with the increasing population, came sickness and infighting. Small wars broke out within the empire, resulting in fragments of land being lost to rebellions, though they only rebelled against the royal family, while remaining zealous in their faith. I forwent intervening in the affairs of mortals, believing it was not my place to dictate their every action, but as I saw the innocent fall ill, felt the lives of the deceased weigh more and more on my shoulders, like needles against my skin, I began to question my stance. As time passed, it became harder to move forward.
Eventually, I realized that I needed to better my mind, rather than focusing only on my physical strength and power, and with the toll that I was carrying with me, I decided that the best course of action would be to isolate myself.
I made my way to my old cavern home on my mountain and sealed myself inside, closing the cavern entrance with stone.
Dark. Isolated. Alone. I could still hear the outside world through the stone, so silence did not begin to haunt me until four days in, when the noise began to dull into nothingness. It was then that the cold began to fade, and my mind became focused on the isolation rather than outside disturbances.
My days would be spent awake, trapped in that dark cavern, void of color, scent, or warmth, with nothing but my thoughts. I had heard that such an environment would break the minds of most humans, but I kept rather calm.
'Perhaps I am used to the mental struggles of man by now. I have killed. Killed many. I do not remember their faces, and their deaths weigh little on me. As my body was subject to change, was my mind as well? I would not think so. The other gods are as weak-willed as any mortal, myself included. Perhaps I have just become more stoic over the years.'
Days passed, quickly becoming weeks that became months. The outside world continued on without me, my children guiding the mortals in my stead. It was that thought that made me realize just how insignificant I was, despite my power. I was but another being, being pulled by strings.
It would take nine months into my isolation for me to begin to truly grasp my mental fortitude.
My mind became more at ease as I pondered the questions to life and came to my own conclusions. My imagination began to flourish as my eyes saw nothing but black, my mind conjured vivid images like those of a dream. I could see things that were not truly there, hallucinations you could call them. I could again see color and brightness, to the point that it almost singed my eyes; a trick of the mind.
I began to remember my wife, the only woman I had ever loved, remembering her from when she was young, until the day she died of old age. I understood the cycle of life and death, a splash of white and grey, the struggles of the living, sanity and desperation. I knew my place in the world, and I understood the lives of the mortals, their problems and their reasons. I would begin to imagine such struggles, the choices they make because of their reasons.
I saw a farmer who lived his entire life, growing crops and raising livestock for the people. He did so out of responsibility. The day he fell ill, the whole of the people went a day without food. They then stole from him, raiding his farm for what they believed they were entitled to. The farmer in his rage, attacked them in defense of his farm. This was but one scenario of many that I conjured in my mind, viewing a scene as if I were standing in the middle of every scene, invisible to the actors.
Was I to punish the farmer for harming others in his rage? They were not innocent. They were the aggressors, but they merely did so out of hunger, and they believed they were entitled for a reason. I pondered this question for two days, before I came to an answer.
In order to maintain my sanity and keep myself distracted, I conjured different scenarios, one after another. From famines to murders, rape to obsession, relationships to hatred. I would not stop until fifteen years had passed, and I came to the end of my questions, where I could think of no more to answer.
I exhaled, a dry, cold breath of air past my cracked lips. For all those years, I had been sat in the same position, without moving, so when I suddenly did, every joint in my body creaked and popped as I stood up.
When I emerged from my cavern and saw the sunlight for the first time in years, my eyes felt scolded, but such pain would only last a few seconds. The world was bright and pale white, but quickly, color was restored. What laid before me were many offerings, scattered about the grass and stone, which had been wilted by the passage of time.
I saw the world in a different light. The world I once saw as savage and barren, I now saw more clearly than I ever had before.
I could feel my power had risen greatly as my worshippers rose in number, and as I made my way over to the edge of the mountain to look out at the sprawling city that had become a metropolis in my time away, I felt pride in all that I had accomplished. I had truly guided the mortals toward the right path, despite my failures, my lies, and my grievances.
My deceit over the mortals, over my own blood, weighed heavily on my shoulders, but no more. I could feel that I was on the precipice of something unknown, like an ocean that I stood at the edge of on the shore. Perhaps I was not the first, perhaps there were others who were stages ahead of me, but regardless, I would open the gates to the next realm of godhood. No. I would swing them ajar.
A storm swirled in the sky, blocking out the sun in a matter of moments. My once mortal eyes, were now glowing with a bright blue light. Every god could feel my presence, and every mortal that looked up to the heavens, uttered my name in knowing. The sky swirled a violent storm of clashing clouds, like waves collapsing into each other. Lightning crackled at its seams and yet the wind fell still. My body rose up to the ever-expansive above, as I reached out.
In that moment where power welled over and overflowed from me, the memory of my wife came to mind, but it was more than that. I could feel her presence, feel her arms wrapped around me lovingly, her breasts against my back, her lips against my temple, and I could hear her whisper in my ear.
"My darling husband... What is it that you wish to achieve?"
In that moment... I shut my eyes and the world became silent as I whispered back my answer to the spirit of my beloved.
"The realm of death. Thera'mire"
Sudden emptiness. A hole in the world, a crater in the sky that appeared in a moment's instance. It was as if an explosion tore open the sky above, with a sound befitting the opening of the realm beyond this mortal plane, rippling across the horizon. My realm had been made, born into existence; its doorway wide open for the mortals to bear witness to the other side.
The very earth beneath me, clinging constantly to the matter that encompassed it, weakened its ever-constant grip as Thera'mire clashed with its gravitational forces. My bare feet lifted off the stone underfoot as I rose up to my new realm. I was aware of the impact the world was having from its birth and existence, so with haste, as I crossed over into Thera'mire, I closed shut the gate into the afterlife.
The mortals who had drifted inches off the ground fell back into the clutches of the planet's gravity, yet their minds remained at a loss.
Thera'mire, a world without a ground to walk on, without a sense of direction or end. It was as if I was drifting in space, surrounded by the elements that had crept their way through the doorway. Crackling lines of lightning drifted around, providing the only bit of light in this realm of darkness. Thera'mire was desolate, but I would shape it into a realm befitting a true god.
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