Chapter 353 - Pantheon (1)
Chapter 353 – Pantheon (1)
Somehow, I became a deceased person.
There was no inconvenience in being one.
Well, I don’t have to go out and do any jobs.
I don’t have to go shopping at the supermarket.
There is nothing uncomfortable in my life even though I was killed socially.
The church’s operation is managed well by Hochi.
Other small things are handled by Kim Min-hyuk.
When armed intervention was required, the challengers who were training in the Tutorial were sent to take care of it.
Then, I had nothing to do.
All I was doing was lying around the couch with Seregia and watching the humans.
The human I’m looking at right now is an ordinary student.
In a way, it was a common event. Even though the test was just around the corner, he was watching cartoons instead of studying.
I remember when he opened a comic book, he promised to study for 10 minutes.
But that student didn’t let go of the comic book even after a while.
After waiting a little longer, the student covered up as he had finished reading the comic book and pushed it to one side of the desk.
And he pulled out another comic book from the bookshelf.
It was the next volume.
I decided after watching for a while.
I’ll send a message.
[Lee Ho-jae is watching you.]
I don’t like this very much.
To let them know through a message that I am watching the believers.
It was because I remembered the gods of the Hundred Gods Temple.
The images of the gods I had in my mortal days were largely derived from the messages of the gods of the Hundred Gods Temple..
To be honest, the messages of the gods only caused irritation.
While others were struggling, they were sitting down while watching, cheering, or even complaining.
The presence of the gods I felt from the messages only annoyed me.
So I tried to avoid contacting the believers through messages as much as possible.
I thought it would be enough to only do so to prevent the church from making wrong choices or to warn them of a critical situation.
However, in the situation when I had died socially, I was only able to contact the believers in this way.
The student who received my message became fussed.
He was praying, and he was just looking around.
He also seemed to think about something by opening his religious window.
No matter how much I looked at him, it didn’t seem like he was going to study.
[I hope you will keep your promise.]
The student who received the second message pondered again.
Soon, he sat at his desk and started studying.
Well, I can’t concentrate.
How will that student accept my message?
Obviously, it just wasn’t pleasant.
No matter how much of a believer you are.
However, you study a little harder because of my message.
So the result is a better school, a better job, and help in life.
Whenever that student realizes that, it will benefit me too.
On the contrary, it may be misunderstood because of the feeling of skepticism towards me and the inconvenience of someone watching you.
Let’s see.
Certainly, I was like a beginner god.
As a god of mortals who live with different purposes.
* * *
[Did you know that the God of Adventure was a mortal?]
I didn’t know.
In the first place, we had no idea that some gods were of mortal origin and some were not of mortal origin.
[There are not as many gods that were former mortals as I thought. At least in the Hundred Gods Temple. Most of the gods of the Hundred Gods are those from the time when the God of Slowness and the God of Adventure collided. At that time, there were many beings who were gods from the beginning, like the God of Slowness.]
It was an interesting story.
Surely.
[The biggest reason why the gods were mass produced and the world became a god is the existence of the source. Do you know what the characteristics of the source are?]
There are several characteristics of the source.
Among them, there are specific characteristics suitable for the flow of this conversation.
“Even an unbeatable being can accept the power of others. Like faith.”
It usually occurs when the grand hero of a certain nation or race accepts people’s aspirations in a crisis.
This power, which is not much different from faith, is called the source when accepted by beings without godhood.
In this case, the individual who accepts the source is eaten by the absence of divinity and thus loses their reason and becomes a monster of the source.
Those monsters regain their reason over time, become rulers, and finally gods.
Or there is a source that civilized people dedicate to their world, which they have built up for a long time.
The emotions of hundreds of millions of civilized people that they feel towards their world for thousands of years are no different from faith.
It was this kind of source from which the rulers stole and pulled out using extractors on the planet.
Perhaps the system itself is the same as the God of Order, which gained godhood by gathering the faith offered by the gods.
[Isn’t it surprising that a mortal has prevented the unification of the universe led by the God of Slowness?]
It wasn’t surprising.
It was heard before that the God of Slowness attempted to unify the universe, and that the Hundred Gods Temple was created as a result of the conflict at the time.
And from that fact, I could fully understand that the God of Slowness’ plan was blocked.
The question is how the God of Adventure, who was once a mortal, was able to stop the God of Slowness.
Likewise, it could be inferred.
I have two powers presented by the God of Adventure.
I knew very well how those powers worked and what results they could produce.
Rather, I asked again about the relationship between the God of Order and the God of Adventure.
[There was no problem until the God of Order became powerful. But when the God of Order began to gain ambition, a problem arose.]
Ambition.
So I was curious about their ambition.
[The God of Order slowly expanded the authority of the system. They thickened the constraints, making it increasingly difficult to escape them.]
The system is the power of the God of Order, and the God of Order is the system.
It seemed obvious at first glance that a person with godhood would carry out their divinity and increase their influence.
[Well, that was the reason.]
However, is it a problem that the level of the God of Adventure is exceeding the level of constraints that he originally hoped for in the system?
In addition to that, there were also beings like the God of Hope who volunteered to be an apostle of the God of Order in order to abuse the position.
Again, the God of Hope was the biggest problem.
“Who is the God of Light?”
[It is better to ignore him.]
This was a consistent answer.
The God of Hope replied that it is better to simply ignore the God of Light.
Everyone who knows the God of Light gave the same answer.
After that, the God of Hope continued to answer my questions.
The information was valuable. Then, it became a bit burdensome because it was uninteresting.
I have realized one thing.
I have been very dependent on information from Kirikiri.
Most of the information I know is her information or my guesses based on that information.
I didn’t know anything about what she didn’t tell me or what she hid.
Conversely, now I was reliant on too much information from the God of Hope.
There were no other sources of information to determine the authenticity of the information.
The only information I had came from the mouth of the God of Hope.
How far away is the truth?
The God of Hope is a god who is good at twisting truth and making lies.
What is the ultimate desire of the God of Hope?
What has the God of Hope been preparing to achieve his goals?
It was a question that could not be resolved.
[What are you thinking?]
“The idea of just destroying you.”
[I am faithfully answering your demands. As long as cooperation continues, I will continue.]
The problem is where the cooperation ends.
I had the same worries every day.
Should I just destroy him?
But I made the same judgment every day.
He was a very valuable resource.
[It won’t be long now.]
The God of Hope whispered.
I already knew what it meant.
Now it’s time.
The Hundred Gods Temple informed me that they had no intention of protecting me.
In the eyes of the other gods, I would be a more delicious prey than anything else.
As the God of Hope warned, the gods of the Pantheon would come.
* * *
“Where is Yong-yong?”
“Waiting in his room.”
That’s right.
Since Yong-yong is so sensitive to privacy, it was difficult to know where he was unless he said it himself.
“Why don’t you stay too?”
Hochi is not a combat resource.
He wasn’t lacking in abilities, but apart from that, his fighting power was poor.
Rather than bring this guy into battle, I’m better off bringing Lee Jun-seok or the challengers from the Tutorial.
Of course, they were all useless.
The role they have to play is obviously big.
I was hoping for them to develop further.
But they won’t play a big role in this battle.
Regardless of how it proceeds, it is almost impossible for non-gods to influence the battle between gods.
“I’ll just be here.”
“Why?”
“You never know. There may be damage to the church, so you should be prepared in advance.”
Honestly, it was amazing.
Hochi’s change.
The change in attitude and ability was also amazing.
It was even more surprising that he had a strong sense of responsibility for his believers and his church work.
“Yes, do it.”
I don’t know how the meeting with the gods of the Pantheon will proceed.
It could be solved by dialogue, but it seemed more likely that a battle would occur.
They may want to retaliate for what happened on the 61st floor.
Due to the nature of godhood, I would not go beyond it without any price.
And when the battle occurred.
I couldn’t guarantee that there would be no harm or effect to Earth and to humans.
Still.
It will be my job to minimize that.
Through an assured victory.
[Here it is.]
The God of Hope whispered.
I could tell without whispering.
I could feel many different deities approaching my powers surrounding Earth.
Kwoo-woong-
A long sound rang.
I thought it was the sound that occurred in the process of the gods moving to Earth, and I prepared for the battle to begin immediately.
But it was a mistake.
The sound, which began ringing all over Earth, was not caused by the movement of the gods.
The space was opening up.
In the sky of Earth, in the middle of the city, in the middle of the road, in the rugged mountains, in the depths of the sea, space opened and connected with the beyond.
It was like the gate used by the rulers.
Creating a gap in space, and pouring out troops through the gap.
If there is one difference, it was the sacred place of other gods that existed beyond the opening of that space.
[It’s a classic and standard way. It is a method used when attacking the realm of another god that has not been completely sanctified.]
The God of Hope explained.
[It is to connect with one’s holy land by force.]
And the enemy’s troops began to pour out from the holy land.
Literally poured out.
Through the window of the temple, I saw a gate open over Seoul.
The open space above the building looked like a faucet hole.
Enemies were pouring down through the hole.
The problem was the troops.
They were mortal.
They weren’t even superhuman.
They even looked like they didn’t have the ability to fly.
They looked no different than a well-trained human soldier.
[And they are putting the members of the holy land in the enemy territory.]
Those mortals were falling from the gates created higher than the building.
Like water.
[Ahhhhhh!]
[Ahh! @$#@!]
Each of them shouted and fell, and they soon crashed into the road on the ground.
It became blood stained, and the people died immediately.
People on the roadside were frightened and ran away.
It was inevitable.
Seeing the scene of thousands and tens of thousands of creatures falling and dying from the sky, who could keep calm?
Tens of thousands soon became hundreds of thousands, then millions.
Even at this moment, there were endless mortals pouring down from the gate.
They were meaningless deaths.
Too much.
[It is not meaningless. What if I poured about 1 billion corpses over there? The volume itself is an interference. It’s not just there. Troops are being sent across the planet. Can you stop it with the power of humans here?]
It’s impossible.
There may be troops and Awakened from each country.
But they couldn’t handle the attacks that poured out indefinitely.
Moreover, among the troops being transmitted, there was a sparse mixture of superhumans at a level that Earth’s Awakened could not handle.
But I am different.
No matter how many there are, when and where they appear, I can instantly bring death to them all.
[The purpose of this attack is simply to eat away at your power.]
However, such behavior comes at a cost.
Unless Earth is my holy place.
While the gods of Pantheon pour out their believers and consume my power.
They are buried in their holy land and are watching the situation.
The only way to prevent this situation is to attack the holy land and defeat the gods.
[A lot came. There are over a thousand gods. It’s obvious that you won’t be able to win unless you dealt with them all in their holy lands.]
Indefinite use of divine power, and in addition to that, combat in a holy place that is thoroughly prepared for attacks is extremely disadvantageous.
[Or maybe we could keep this planet to the end.]
The God of Hope smiled a little.
[No matter how easy it is to kill a worm, it still takes energy, but what if that number exceeds a trillion units? Your power will eventually be exhausted.]
The God of Hope who whispered, declared.
[It’s a fight you can’t win.]