Chapter 632 — Divine Calamity

For the first time, the man-made god opened its eyes.

They were eyes beyond the power of words to describe—limpid as crystal, with countless gleams of light drawn inward and held there, as though the utmost of beauty and purity had been distilled into those enormous eyes. Yet at that moment they held no emotion at all—they simply watched, quietly, fixed on the mortal who had floated before it and boldly hurled its challenge. In that gaze there was no hostility, no friendliness—not even the faintest spark of curiosity or concern.

Beiyila felt a faint stinging in both her eyes and her mind. She had not met the god's gaze, yet merely seeing those eyes from a distance was enough to make her spirit reel under the impact. She did not look away. Instead, as though in deliberate defiance, she fixed her eyes on everything about to unfold—and no one among the black-robed priests standing on the floating isle looked away either.

High Hierarch Pingxi met the god's eyes, then stepped forward, his body slowly wreathed in a layer of phantom radiance, as though he had already merged into the holy glow surrounding the man-made god.

The ultimate act of defiance—the most absolute negation and opposition to a god—and its final step was this: to infuse the god with humanity, and thereby erase its divinity.

Humanity would be freed from the shackles forged by divinity and given the right to develop freely, and a god standing on the side of humanity would be born in this rite—becoming the first weapon of mortals against the gods.

The High Hierarch's body slowly dissolved into the light; a hazy radiance sank slowly into the man-made god's brow. Beiyila felt blood begin to seep from the corners of her eyes, but she still stared without blinking at all of it, at the rite as it reached its final step.

The Dark Hierarchs bowed their heads and chanted an ancient prayer in unison—a prayer once used to extol the supreme might of Amorn, God of Nature. But now it was laden with endless gloom and oppression, like a funeral dirge, proclaiming that one of the gods' divine thrones would come to its final end this day.

All things perish, and so do the gods—in this world where none can escape extinction, the druid priests who had fallen into darkness had long since ceased to hope for any eternal or supreme power. They had cast off their reverence for the gods, and their longing for that throne had ended with it. They did not mean to forge a god, nor to make themselves into gods—their true aim was to make a god into a human.

Beiyila's hand brushed lightly across the coarse cover of the Book of Ultimates, and she said softly, "The throne of the God of Nature will become history. Whatever corner the Great Stag Amorn fell in, whatever means the gods use to revive themselves in every cycle—from this day on, at least this throne will no longer exist…"

At last the boundless radiance in midair merged completely into the man-made god's body. A low breath broke the silence over the ritual site; Beiyila started from her reverie and lifted her head, and with joy and anticipation saw that the man-made god was slowly closing its eyes.

After a moment of calm, those eyes finally began to open again.

Within them was nothing but boundless chaos and madness.

……

A hazy, vast magical barrier encircled the borders of the former Empire, and within it the wasteland was as it had always been.

Dark, heavy clouds pressed down as though weighted with lead, while lawless winds howled in every direction. Smoke and dust whirled and veiled the sky, and bolts of energy-lightning darted between the clouds and the dust storms, producing ceaseless low rumbles and brilliant flashes.

In this "energy storm," so common on the wasteland, the Stalker that had become a tree shifted its tangled roots; the whole forest crept and crawled its way up a hill covered in black crystalline stone.

A still vaster arc of energy flashed across the sky, its blinding light all but spanning the heavens. In the low thunder that followed, countless giant mutated horrors prowling around the forest grew restless; bellowing at the sky, they scrambled swiftly through the forest to find safe corners to shelter in.

At the heart of the forest, an ancient tree swayed its branches, and on its wrinkled bark surfaced a shriveled, terrifying face. It gazed toward the distant north, toward the Kingdom of Ansul.

Another arc of energy flashed across the sky, and in the ghastly white light the leader of the Stalkers let out a low, hoarse laugh.

"Infused with humanity…

"Poor High Hierarch—do you think that when you reach the divine realm and behold the gods' knowledge, what remains in you will still be humanity?"

A rustling came from the side; another giant tree crept past on its roots, and an equally low, hoarse voice came through the air: "The gods… the gods are hardly lacking in humanity…"

"That no longer concerns us," the Stalker leader said slowly. "The shackles laid upon us have been struck off. We can finally end this endless wandering and self-exile—it is time to set our own plans in motion. Set out. We go to the old imperial capital. There is power in the Deep Blue Well that we need; there we will complete the final step of embracing the new world."

"Yes, High Hierarch."

……

The monsters surging in from the southeast of the plains had all gone mad.

It was as though some unknown force had seized the minds of every crystal-cluster monster at once, or as though the crystal-cluster commanders had all plunged into madness in the same instant. The monster army that had been so orderly and disciplined overnight became a tide of savage beasts.

Numberless monsters poured in from the plains day and night without pause, driven by instinct to hurl themselves against the defenses of Sacred Frost Perch. Seen from above, there was only a surging black tide, the earth itself trembling, dense masses of crystal blazing with frenzied, disordered light under the sky. Arcs of arcane lightning leapt from monster to monster, gathering again and again into mighty lances of focused energy that hammered like battering rams against Sacred Sunil's shields and outer walls; heart-rending howls and explosions spread through the outer city, and even into the inner city.

The knights defending the city raced along the high walls, beating back again and again the monsters that sought to climb them. Tense, terrified soldiers clustered around catapults and great ballistae, under their commanders' shouts loosing burning stone shot and bolts into the tide of enemies.

The sky was frighteningly overcast, and the howling wind carried scattered raindrops and an unseasonable chill. The heavy, dark heavens seemed to mirror the heavier hearts of the people below; in the dim daylight even the bravest and most battle-hardened companies were rapidly losing their morale, and though the knights kept calling upon their transcendent powers to inspire them, it availed little.

But whenever the soldiers' strength and morale sank to a certain point, a vast curtain of light would blaze to life along the walls, threaded with holy, ethereal echoes. The light seemed to briefly drive off the gloom of the sky, and in that fleeting, dreamlike illusion of brightness and warmth the knights and soldiers recovered their strength once more and once more charged up the walls…

The gale howled across the upper reaches of the castle. A window that had not been shut tight was suddenly flung open by the wind, and icy raindrops and cold wind rushed into the room together. A frightened maid ran to shut it, terrified that a second's delay would earn her punishment—even though the room's master was not present.