Chapter 1039 — The Power of Symbols and Rituals?

The impact of that god-slaying feat the humans had accomplished at the Battle of Winterhold... might well run deeper than anyone had imagined.

Gao Yang gazed with a profound look at the fragment of the God of War resting on the platform not far away. This sample of divine remains gleamed with an iron-grey luster under the laboratory lights; it looked like nothing more than a piece of broken, twisted metal, and yet a kind of aura—one that had never dissipated, one that seemed almost alive—clung to it still.

This thing that looked like a "shard of armor" was, in essence, the "bodily structure" of the God of War himself.

The gods were beings utterly distinct from the material creatures known to human understanding. Depending on which currents of thought had prevailed during the process of their formation, they took on all manner of forms—Amorn, God of Nature, was a holy giant stag of flesh and blood; the Goddess of Magic was a lady's phantasm formed of arcane energy and mist; the God of War was a suit of armor fused from steel and unknown substances; and according to Virodai's account, the God of Holy Light took the form of an enormous crystal with an amorphous, reflective surface that altered its optical properties at any moment. These bizarre and varied images reflected the depictions the first mortals had made when they imagined these gods, and such "depictions" became the very source of the gods' power, wholly merged with their "mythic image." Even after their deaths, this power would linger in their remains for a long time—for thousands upon thousands of years, even.

The sample of Amorn's flesh and blood once sealed away in the Defiance Fortress had undergone three thousand years of slow decay, and when it was finally unearthed it still carried a lethal tendency toward mental contamination.

And yet these fragments from the God of War... were now completely "harmless." Even unprotected contact by a tester caused no injury whatsoever.

Deep in thought, Gao Xi said slowly, "Apart from the changes observed here, is there any other progress?"

"Yes," Virodai nodded. "Another research group has confirmed that after the God of War's fall, the existing divine arts of the God of War have changed. Prayers no longer receive any response, but the corresponding divine-art runes left behind can still function, and ordinary people can now manipulate and study them freely. Some of the 'forbidden acts' that once caused divine arts to spiral out of control or even backfire are no longer dangerous. We have also received word from the Augury Tribal Kingdom that similar things have happened among several scattered sects of the God of War there. This proves the change is worldwide, exactly as we first predicted."

"Yes... the divine arts unsealed, divine punishment no longer taking effect, prayers no longer answered... all of this we anticipated from the start. But that the gods' remains would cease to contaminate mortals is a phenomenon we never imagined," Gao Xi said slowly. "So is this what it truly means to break free of the gods' shackles..."

At this point he could not help thinking of the other two gods who had likewise "fallen," and as though speaking to himself he said, "Amorn, God of Nature, and Milmina, Goddess of Magic, have also 'fallen'—at least their divine seats have indeed vanished. Yet certain 'relics' they left behind still carry powerful mental contamination. What do you think is the reason behind that?"

"Perhaps the reason lies in the 'symbolic process,'" Virodai said, clearly having already considered this question before Gao Yang arrived; she stated her view at once. "The God of War was killed by mortal hands, whereas the Goddess of Magic and the God of Nature departed of their own accord—and throughout that departure, the latter two's believers kept their faith unbroken. That is likely the crux of the matter."

When she finished, Kamaier spoke up from the side: "On the battlefield at Winterhold, the soldiers who fought did not merely defeat a mad god—they also overcame the mortal instinct of awe toward the gods. Looking at it now, that was a very crucial 'factor.' Of course, most of those who fought were mages or magitech soldiers who did not themselves worship the God of War, but perhaps what mattered was not their particular faith but their identity as 'mortals.'"

"So an element of 'defying faith' is required," Gao Yang's brows knitted deeply. What Kamaier described was a direction he had vaguely grasped before but never seriously considered. "If it truly is as you say, then we may indeed be able to explain why what happened with the God of Nature and the Goddess of Magic is so utterly different from the God of War—when those two departed their divine seats, mortal thought and action played no part at all, so naturally there was no defying of faith, no process of overcoming awe."

Amber had been listening wide-eyed all this while; the parts involving specialized fields had mostly gone over her head, but this last part she grasped at once, and she was greatly startled: "Wait—are you saying we'd have to drag Amorn and Milmina out and kill them all over again? That doesn't seem right. They've already left their divine seats of their own accord, and Milmina has hidden herself somewhere no one can find..."

"Of course we won't do that," Gao Song waved a hand sharply. "The two of them have already left their divine seats; their hold over mortals has vanished. Neither natural divine arts nor magic rituals are constrained by divinity any longer—that already meets our expectations. As for certain relics, legacies, or remains of theirs carrying a bit of contamination, that's a secondary matter—at most it's equivalent to a hazardous material requiring cautious handling. We cannot move against them for such a reason."

Virodai nodded from the side, clearly agreeing with Gao Song: "Indeed. We are only working backward from changes in the contamination of divine remains to infer the connection between mortal faith and mental contamination. But this mental contamination has nothing to do with the gods' sanity; Amorn and Milmina will not become 'mad gods' because of it. On that point we need not worry."

"And on the other hand, the contamination carried by the 'divine products' of Amorn and Milmina is in fact fading as well—only far more slowly than these fragments of the God of War here," Kamaier said as he pondered. "The contamination carried by Amorn's flesh-and-blood sample has already faded by more than half compared to what I remember from a thousand years ago, and the fading has been especially pronounced of late. Milmina left no 'fragments' as such, but Nareitel once stripped a great deal of 'ash' from her, and the contamination of that ash is also weakening. On the whole, this contamination clearly dissipates on its own—it simply takes longer."

"Even without any process of 'defying faith,' as the divine seats of the God of Nature and the Goddess of Magic vanish and the religions corresponding to them gradually decline, the mental contamination they inflict on mortals will likewise fade little by little..." Gao Yang stroked his chin, his thoughts growing clearer. "So in essence, this is a process of faith's decline—and that great battle at Winterhold was the most violent, most extreme form that decline could take..."

Amber blinked and suddenly spoke up: "From what I know, Luoyan Augustus had tens of thousands of the God of War's priests executed that very day—he had clearly obtained knowledge of this from that 'Eye of God' long beforehand."

Her expression was somewhat complicated as she said this; plainly, even the mistress of intelligence who dealt with dark matters regularly could not help feeling a chill when speaking of Luoyan Augustus's bloody methods.