There were many rumors about
Due to his lucky inheritance of a previous deity's legacy and his meteoric rise to become a deity of great power, he was fanatically worshipped by all mortals.
Although there were plenty of jealous detractors who slandered all of this behind his back, it was obvious that if such luck had fallen upon their heads, they would have grasped at it eagerly.
Since he had been mortal before his ascension and had risen directly to great power, Cyric was inevitably influenced by the nature and force of his divine office.
His personality contained numerous aspects of madness, paranoia, and selfishness.
Of course, regardless of anything else, when faced with the emergence of a new deity of slaughter—an event that threatened the very foundations of his power—the old Cyric would certainly have reacted.
But now, He had sunk into complete insanity.
The Pontiff gazed at the divine statue wrapped in a layer of dark crimson power, its features rendered blurred and indistinct, and the worry on his face deepened.
After a long while, he seemed to make a decision. "Malik!"
"Pontiff!"
Soon, Malik walked in, his face bearing the shrewdness characteristic of a merchant—perhaps from his former days in commerce. But now, he was Cyric's favored one, a shadow thief.
"Our Lord has been momentarily bewildered. I believe it is the influence of the Book of Cyric..."
The Pontiff's voice was dry and hoarse, and before speaking, he had sealed the entire temple.
Upon hearing this, Malik immediately dropped to his knees, cold sweat cascading from his forehead, nearly believing the Pontiff intended to silence him.
After all, blasphemy against a deity was an extremely serious crime!
However, Malik was very fortunate today. The Pontiff had no intention of killing him, and instead continued speaking as though to himself.
"Our Lord may have also read the Book of Cyric, which is why He pays no heed to our prayers. And He frequently issues vague oracles..."
Malik secretly nodded. In truth, he had long harbored such suspicions.
The so-called Book of Cyric was actually an artifact created by Cyric himself, possessing power sufficient to bewilder even a deity!
Any creature that read the Book of Cyric, whether mortal or divine, would believe the contents of this Book of Lies—confirming Cyric as the one true god of the world!
The previous god of thieves had fallen to this very stratagem, his divine office and power largely stolen by Cyric, meeting a wretched end as he perished.
However, the power shrouding the Book of Lies was so formidable that even Cyric himself had read its contents and descended into madness ever since!
This was the Pontiff's conjecture, and it had to be said—it was quite compelling, if not for the absence of one critical prerequisite understanding.
Of course, in the present, the Pontiff believed he had seized upon the truth and grasped the key to the contradiction.
"Malik, can I trust you?"
"Of course! I would sacrifice my life, and everything I have, for our Lord!" Malik's face bore an expression of fanatical devotion. In his faith toward Cyric, he was absolutely a zealot of the highest order.
"Good! I have a task for you!"
With trembling hands, the Pontiff handed an ancient and peculiar tome to Malik.
"This is the Book of Truth, obtained by our church at tremendous cost from the Temple of Knowledge!"
The Pontiff's eyes locked onto Malik, his hands gripping the other's arms tightly.
"Malik! As our Lord's favored one, you have the greatest probability of seeing our Lord's true form!"
"Therefore, we need you to present this book to our Lord and ensure that He reads it!"
Cyric had sunk into a state of madness, paying little heed even to the Pontiff's counsel, yet showing some favor toward other believers.
For instance, Malik—previously nothing more than a minor merchant—had been repeatedly elevated in rank and was now a powerful shadow thief.
Of course, he had also become a zealot of Cyric because of this.
The Pontiff believed that, given the favor Malik currently enjoyed, there was a strong chance of getting Cyric to read the Book of Truth.
"The future of the church rests in your hands!"
The Pontiff patted Malik's shoulder encouragingly. "Once our Lord recovers His sanity, these false gods who usurped power will have no fate but to plummet into the Styx, wailing and screaming for eternity!"
"Rest assured, Pontiff! Even if it costs me my life, I will complete this mission!"
Malik pledged. In that moment, a sense of mission enveloped his entire being, filling him with power...
...
The scene shifted to the Tree Fortress.
At this moment, beneath the Primordial Force Lightning, Chesterbert's resistance had reached its limit. His divine fire had dimmed, seemingly on the verge of extinction at any moment, but a golden mass was gradually solidifying. Numerous law inscriptions were merging into one, faintly gestating something that had reached the critical threshold of bursting forth.
"The six elements of a True Deity: divinity, divine fire, divine power, divine office, divine rank, and divine kingdom—Chesterbert already possessed three of them. All that remained were divine office, divine rank, and divine kingdom..."
Leilin watched the proceedings unblinkingly, the Chip's light flickering continuously as it recorded every scrap of invaluable field data.
In truth, if Chesterbert could obtain a divine office today, he would already qualify as a True Deity.
The establishment of a divine kingdom was an endeavor that consumed enormous divine power. Without a demiplane that could be modified, a new god would need at least several hundred years to build a divine kingdom from nothing.
Therefore, in secular understanding, the ignition of divine fire was generally regarded as the mark of a demigod, while obtaining a divine office and raising one's divine rank constituted becoming a True Deity!
Only a True Deity possessed the qualifications to establish a divine kingdom, which could then shelter the souls of believers and construct an impregnable fortress.
"Our Lord Chesterbert... may you attain the dominion of the world and raise your throne high among the heavens..."
The prayers grew faint and distant, becoming ever more feeble.
Chesterbert roared again and again. His divine fire surged dramatically in an instant, and the divine office that had been coalescing into a cluster was about to manifest.
"Using the power of faith to accelerate the comprehension of law... the laws of the world of gods..."
Leilin sighed as he watched from the side.
A path of law achieved through such expedient means would inevitably be constrained by other conditions.
"Moreover... the path of law can only be claimed by one alone. Other deities who have mastered the domain of slaughter are Chesterbert's mortal enemies at this very moment..."
"ROAR!!!"
Upon seeing that Chesterbert might succeed, Mala acted first.
A vast domain of slaughter unfurled. In the comprehension of slaughter, even such a bestyal deity, by virtue of temporal accumulation, clearly surpassed Chesterbert.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
The World Lightning that had been about to dissipate reconsolidated, this time carrying a blood-red radiance, rippling with the power of the law of slaughter.
"This is the Thunder of the Law of Slaughter! And it is Mala's attack!"
Seeing this, Leilin sighed. Unless he and the other false deities intervened, Chesterbert was doomed.
As a mere false deity, he was utterly incapable of opposing the might of a True Deity, even one who was only a lesser power.
And Mala clearly had no intention of waiting for Chesterbert to condense the Slaughter divine office before seizing it. Clearly, this was because there were too many covetous deities lurking nearby.
Even Leilin had already detected several powerful divine consciousnesses fixated on this location, including some whose auras he knew all too well.
Faced with these presences that included beings of great power, all the other false deities had clamped down on their emanations, hiding themselves tightly. Not one dared to show themselves!
Beneath the blood-colored lightning, despair surfaced on Chesterbert's face, and the radiance of his divine fire dimmed further.
"Chesterbert!"
"Chesterbert!"
"Chesterbert! Be with us for eternity! Remain with us!"
The vengeful spirits on the ground grew denser still, reaching out with blood-red arms to grip Chesterbert's body firmly.
Those crimson and frenzied wraiths, carrying a hatred potent enough to fell a demigod, seemed to form a vortex that gradually engulfed Chesterbert.
"Oh... no..."
The frenzied, desperate cries ultimately failed to salvage Chesterbert's fate.
He was dragged away from the position of his divine fire by the multitude of spirits, growing ever further from his divine office. Then, an even more terrifying bolt of blood-red lightning descended, striking directly into the golden sphere!
BOOM!!!
Amid the annihilating thunder, the golden sphere gestating the divine office was obliterated outright, followed by Chesterbert's divine fire.
The dark-golden flames flickered defiantly several times before finally guttering out.
Crash! With its concealment stripped away, Chesterbert's true form was laid bare beneath the lightning, shattered to pieces along with the countless vengeful spirits.
"Chesterbert! Remain with us!"
"Remain with us..."
Even as the lightning destroyed him, not a trace of pain showed on the faces of those spirits. Instead, they were filled with elation.
The lightning dissolved Chesterbert's divine body, exposing his divine soul—pale and frail.
"Remain with us..."
Amid the chorus of the spirits, Chesterbert's divine soul was seized by countless blood-red arms and dragged together with them, plunging into the Styx.
"Ahhh... no..."
Chesterbert's final wail was enough to make even deities tremble.
Within the Styx, he would merge with the other wraiths, sinking to the most defiled depths, enduring the agony of ten thousand souls gnawing upon him until the end of the world...
Whoosh...
The fierce wind blew past. The dark clouds from before had vanished, leaving only the dumbfounded Shilif and the other zealots behind.
"Our Lord... Lord Chesterbert..."
Shilif murmured, then broke into tears. The other believers were rudderless, and some, crushed by the collapse of their hopes, took their own lives on the spot.
As for the survivors, their fate was little better. Once it was confirmed that the false deity had fallen, a host of holy warriors and Heim guards surged forward and eliminated these zealots.