Chapter 116. Divinity
Everything went wrong all at once. One moment, they were about to resurface and join the rest of the Resistance forces attacking the capital. The next, the Dragon’s Leyline suddenly let out a baleful groan, so loud that it would’ve ruptured their internal organs were it not for the atmospheric containment barrier enveloping the ship. As it was, the sound echoed out for miles, generating powerful underwater waves that blasted them backward several hundred feet. It would’ve been more, but Levi slashed out with both his hands, releasing long strands of magic that latched to the seabed below and anchored them in place.
“What’s happening?” he grunted, his muscles straining.
“I don’t know!” Terminus said. He wrenched the steering wheel and brought them back to the Dragon’s Leyline. His eyes flickered back and forth rapidly as he examined the Dragon’s Leyline. He blanched. “This… This isn’t possible.”
“What isn’t?” Levi snapped. “This is no time to be cryptic, out with it!”
Terminus turned to him, his composure for once visibly unsettled. “The divinity of the severed hand… It’s diminishing.”
Levi blinked. Then, he blanched as well.
Divinity was the abstraction of a god’s absolute authority over their domains. It wasn’t exactly a type of mana, per se, but more a quality or essence. Gods naturally generated and exuded divinity, from their presence to their weapons to their very limbs.
Even a hand severed from the god of Limits eight thousand years ago still contained enough vestigial divinity to disable one of the largest natural leylines in the world.
But if that divinity was diminishing…
Levi’s sight turned True as he attempted to determine what was causing the degradation. Had Terminus just overestimated the power remaining in the limb? It had already been eight thousand years, after all. Perhaps the hand simply finally ran out of juice.
Except…
No, that wasn’t the case. It was difficult to tell because the surrounding leyline, even when disabled, was so searingly bright. But if Levi wasn’t interpreting things wrong… Something was usurping the divinity. Overwriting it, superimposing itself over it.
But how was that possible? Mortals could not interfere with the realm of the divine. They existed on two fundamentally different axes. Even magic could only do so much to bridge the incompatible gap–
Anastasia was trembling. Levi had noticed it earlier, but he’d attributed it to worry or concern. Now that he looked more closely, though…
The High Priestess was trembling with rage. Her narrowed eyes radiated a harsh emerald light that promised purification. Her lips were curled in unrestrained contempt. In that moment, she looked nothing like the kind, joyful person Levi had come to know. Instead, she looked exactly like her role: a High Priestess of the Church, one of the six holy warriors sworn to uphold the Goddess’s principles.
And right now, one of those principles had very clearly been desecrated. Even Selene took a few wary steps back.
“So he’s gone this far?” Anastasia hissed. “He dares?”
“Who are you talking about?” Terminus asked, eyeing her with more than a little trepidation.
Comprehension dawned. Levi’s eyes widened as he recalled a fact the head priest of Durlistle had told them, all those weeks ago. One he had originally disregarded as unimportant, but now…
‘While the proportion of their population who believes in the Goddess has risen over the years, the vast majority of Yukihasa still regard their imperial emperor as God-King.’
It was a well-known fact that emotions were one of the most potent and powerful sources of magic. But it was far from the only one. Belief and faith were both also extremely powerful sources, arguably even more so than emotions, though significantly more difficult to attain.
Part of the reason why Levi was so strong, even compared to other mages in his old world, was because he held an unyielding wrought-iron faith in his magic. His belief in his magic was unwavering and unfaltering and because of it, his magic responded in kind, never letting him down.
And he was just one person. What if there was more? What if there was an entire country’s worth of faith, all directed toward a single being they worshipped as their god? The amount of magic that would be generated from that…
It would be enough to turn a man into a god.
Not a real one, of course. But… well. If it looked like a god and ruled like a god, then even if it wasn’t one, a state of false divinity could still be achieved.
Which meant…
“An admirable, but ultimately worthless attempt.”
Levi and the others whirled around to see a man floating in the sea before them. He wore flowing golden robes, and a white veil covered his face, obscuring his features. His form was translucent, the colors slightly distorted, a telltale sign of an astral projection technique.
That didn’t stop Terminus from instinctively launching several bolts of magic from his hand that surged through the water and sailed harmlessly through the man’s form.
“You,” he said, hatred burning in his voice.
“Such a discourteous greeting. Is that any way to welcome the almighty ruler of this land? Although, sea would probably be the more apt word here.”
Levi narrowed his eyes. This man… Levi had never seen him before, but his identity was unmistakable.
Before them was the Emperor of Yukihasa. The man responsible for all the death and suffering in this country.
Someone who had somehow ascended to become a false god.
“Good evening,” the Emperor said. “I have to say, out of all the contingencies I’d prepared for, not once did I ever expect the Resistance to neutralize the Heavenly Barriers by disabling the Dragon’s Leyline altogether. For that, I must commend you all…”
He trailed off as his gaze landed on Anastasia. “My, are you a High Priestess of Luminarche?” His deep voice, magically produced and amplified, sounded faintly surprised. “I didn’t realize Luminarche had recovered enough from the Third Blood War to launch an attack on Yukihasa. Did you perhaps think we were weak because we’ve been embroiled in civil war for the past ten years? Because I assure you, Yukihasa stands strong. Luminarche will regret sending you, little priestess–”
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“You can save your threats,” Anastasia snarled. “Luminarche didn’t send me – and even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. For you who dare to become divine, you who dare to disrupt the natural balance of the world, you who dare hold the hubris to supplant the Goddess… You will not live to see the next day, that I swear.”
Religion in this world was rather odd. The Church freely recognized the gods as natural personifications of abstract forces and concepts and held no issues with them. However, the Emperor of Yukihasa was clearly an entirely different matter, as he was viewed as a direct alternative to the Goddess.
Anastasia no doubt already disliked him on principle. But to know that he tried to actually attain godhood?
Or worse, that he’d succeeded?
If Selene as an archdemon was Anastasia’s natural enemy, then the Emperor was downright her anathema. His very existence was beyond blasphemous.
“Interesting hypothesis,” the Emperor said. “Though, I do wonder how you seek to actualize it. You may be a High Priestess, but even the Goddess pales in comparison to me. Do you truly believe you can best me?”
“Perhaps not by myself,” Anastasia said. “But with all of us? Yes, I do.”
“Right.” The Emperor swept his gaze across them, from Anastasia to Selene to Makoto to Terminus to Levi. “A priestess, a demon, a shinobi, a mercenary, an adventurer, and…”
His gaze landed on Yuki and he paused.
“We will stop you,” Yuki spat. She glared at the Emperor. “Today, your foul reign will finally come to an end.”
“Will it now?” the Emperor mused. “You appear to be harboring several misconceptions. Please allow me to clear them up for you. One, did you think that your ploy in the east would work? It was very obvious that the seemingly all-out assault wasn’t some desperate final attack but rather a diversionary tactic. I only sent a small portion of the imperial army to respond; the rest, I commanded to wait on standby. Two, did you think that the imperial capital wasn’t well-defended? Did you think that I neglected Endo’s defenses because of the Heavenly Barriers? I suppose I can understand how you came to that misconception. However, you should know that I don’t have a large standing army defending the capital because I don’t need one. After all, I have the Three Pillars instead.”
Yuki drew in a sharp breath, and Makoto visibly paled.
“Yes, yes. I rarely send them out in battle, but they are very much loyal to me. As a matter of fact, they should be meeting your forces right about now. I wish the Resistance the best of luck. At any rate, for the final misconception… Did you really think that you’d be able to disable the Dragon’s Leyline without me doing anything about it? Well.I suppose I must give credit where credit is due. Using the severed hand of the Limits god to disable the leyline is an ingenious usage of the divine artifact. However, you failed to take into account one thing…”
Even though he wasn’t physically present, a terrible aura suddenly radiated from the Emperor. “I am the sole god of this land. All of Yukihasa is my domain. Other gods are nothing to me. So as heaven’s decree…”
He raised his hand, and the Dragon’s Leyline let out another mighty groan. Even more divinity was drained from the severed hand.
“Let the Dragon roar once more.”
And divinity shattered.
All the divine power that’d been stored in the hand dispersed into nothingness. The severed hand became nothing more than a severed hand, and in a single instant, it disintegrated under the sudden unrelenting stream of mana that gushed over and through it. With a deafening shriek, the Dragon’s Leyline roared to life once more.
“How–?” Makoto gaped.
Shit. Levi was right. Gods, and divinity in general, operated on a different set of rules. Whenever a god intruded upon another god’s domain, they incurred significant penalties, up to and including a colossal reduction of divinity.
While the Emperor wasn’t a true god, he still attained enough divinity to qualify as one, which meant that he had a domain. The domain being the entire country of Yukihasa. Within the borders, not only did he receive a tremendous stats boost, but he also gained the ability to quash unauthorized divinity.
Terminus must’ve realized it as well, because he cursed heavily under his breath. Evidently, he hadn’t anticipated the Emperor possessing false divinity. None of them had.
“Anyhow, I must be off to dinner now. It’s not good for the health to skip meals, you know. I’ll see you when you capitulate.”
And then the form of the Emperor disappeared.
“Damn it!” Terminus snapped. He examined the Dragon’s Leyline, traces of panic leaking into his voice. “The flow of mana is starting once more. We have eighty seconds before the leyline returns to full force. At which point, the barriers will reactivate and liquefy all our forces.”
“Is there a way to disable the Dragon’s Leyline?” Yuki asked. She hesitated. “Do you have another piece of the Limits god with you–?”
“What? Do you think they just butchered the god of Limits into multiple parts or something? I only had the one hand, and it’s gone now, damn it all!”
“If it’s any consolation…” Makoto’s expression was grim. Desolate. He’d already lost hope. “There’s a good chance our forces won’t die to the barriers, because the Three Pillars already got to them first.”
“Yeah…”
Levi narrowed his eyes as he assessed the Dragon’s Leyline. Not for the first time, he glanced at the ever-present System screen at the edge of his vision:
[System Notification: You have {27} unread notifications!]
He’d received quite a lot of sponsorship offers from many gods: the Concept of Conviction, the Concept of Dominance – hell, he’d even seen the Concept of Resolve somewhere in the deluge of offers. He had actually been rather tempted to accept that one, if only to see the look on Lord Ironwood’s face, but he’d ultimately decided against it.
Partly because Levi didn’t know the whole deal with gods in this world yet, so he wanted to avoid accepting any forms of divine favor. After all, it was beyond foolish to accept a magical contract without knowing the full terms, especially with the gods.
Mostly, though, it was because… Well. There was a certain Concept he wanted that hadn’t been there. Truth be told, Levi wasn’t certain if it was even possible for that particular Concept to be offered, but he was willing to wait and see.
And so, he simply refrained from choosing a Concept. Which turned out to have more annoying consequences than expected. Levi kept on hearing dings! at random times of the day, either from a new god sending him an offer or a god modifying their already-existing offer. Worse yet, there was no way to turn off the notifications, so he was forced to just endure them.
But he digressed. The point was, perhaps now was finally the time to choose a Concept.
…
Nah.
“It’s over,” Terminus said, his voice hollow. In the background, the roar of the Dragon’s Leyline grew to deafening volumes once more as the mana little by little returned to full flow. “There’s no way for us to disable the Dragon’s Leyline now. The Resistance will fall.”
“Don’t say that!” Yuki snapped. “It’s not over yet, not until we’re dead and buried. So long as we still draw breath, then we can still hope. Besides, you promised me, Terminus, you promised me that you’d slay the Emperor, you promised!”
“Well I must apologize then, because there’s nothing we can do–!”
“Hold that thought,” Levi said. They all whirled to him. He was standing at the very edge of the ship, so close to the Dragon’s Leyline that he could reach out and touch it. “You won’t have to break your word just yet, Terminus. I have a plan.”
“Levi?” Anastasia asked cautiously. She must’ve seen the glint in his eyes. “What are you doing?”
Levi’s lips quirked. The world around him flickered before turning to shades of grey. Lines of death appeared on every living thing in sight. His companions, the atmospheric containment barrier surrounding the ship…
The massive stream of mana right next to him.
“A really bad idea.”
Anastasia’s eyes widened, no doubt sensing what he was about to do. “Wait, no–!”
With a slash of his hand, Levi cut one of the death lines running across the Dragon’s Leyline. Instantly, death rushed into one of the beating veins of the world.
For a still, breathless moment, nothing happened.
Then, the world screamed.