Chapter 100 - The History of Religion and the Motive Power Trigger (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

For as long as a year’s time after the outbreak of the Dark Wave, all believers lost the ability to listen to the revelations of the gods. It wasn’t limited to only those low-ranking pastors and chaplains; the bishops and even popes of the respective sects lost this ability at the same time.

Of course, even in normal circumstances, humans were unable to directly hear the voices of gods. The so-called ‘listening to the revelations of the gods’ actually referred to the almost hallucinatory, soft murmurs that pious believers were able to hear in the process of sincere prayer, carrying out sacraments, and testaments as their mental state had gotten close to the gods’ spiritual nature. These whispers would reverberate in the minds of the believers and form a permanent and ineffaceable ‘spiritual mark’, and this spiritual mark would, in turn, alter the consciousness of believers, bringing them even closer to the gods’ spiritual nature. This was the main path for clergymen in this world, to promote and become stronger.

As those obscure whispers indeed had the power of altering humankind’s consciousness and making humans stronger and purer, it was lifted out of those common auditory and visual hallucinations and were viewed as sacred phenomena by clergymen.

However, in the year that the Dark Wave occurred, all the believers of gods could not hear such ‘whispers from the gods’. They realized in terror, that regardless of how they prayed or how strictly they performed the ceremonies, their gods no longer responded. It was if all the gods had collectively disappeared.

As they’d lost divine grace, in that year, all the clergymen were unable to obtain promotions. Amongst the shallow believers and laymen, not a single new person who could grasp theurgy emerged. The babies born that year were even proven afterward to not possess any natural gift for theurgy.

If the situation continued to worsen following that kind of trend, the future of the believers on this continent would have been difficult to tell. However, like the last thread of hope in despair, people discovered that the mastered theurgies had not completely lost effect. Although the might was slightly weaker than before, at least, the priests who had officially become clergymen before the Dark Wave could still use theurgies. And these priests who were still able to use theurgies did their best to maintain the various teetering churches in those days. Yet despite so, a considerable number of small churches were unable to continue on. They disappeared in the Wasteland when people began to escape from the Gondor Empire.

Gawain remembered that the leaders of the various big churches conducted secret talks and attempts at divine communication more than once. People gave up on their former prejudices and hostilities. Just like laymen who advanced shoulder-to-shoulder amidst the Dark Wave, clergymen no longer had any qualms about their respective beliefs and historical hatreds. In turn, they gathered together and attempted to find a solution to the problem. Subsequently, the few large-scale sects representing the God of Holy Light, the God of War, and the three goddesses of fertility finally found some progress. After several emergency meetings, the leaders of the sects proceeded with an attempt to communicate with the gods at the summit of ‘Ancestral Peak’ at the eastern border of the tribal country of Augari. That attempt was a private meeting; even Gawain Cecil was unaware of the specific happenings. He only knew that the leaders of the sects announced after leaving the summit that the gods had sent a new message: a sign for mortals to abandon their disputes and strive to survive in unity. After all, the Dark Wave was a disaster that incurred due to humankind’s various follies.

The sects signed an agreement called the ‘Sacred Alliance’ on Ancestral Peak. They renounced all disputes regarding beliefs. The sects no longer opposed one another and would do their utmost best for humanity, regarding the continuation of human civilization as their responsibility. And as if it was really such acts that had pleased the gods, in the second month after the signing of the Sacred Alliance — also the same day as the one-year anniversary of the Dark Wave’s occurrence — the gods’ graces were bestowed upon humankind once more.

The believers could hear the voices of the gods once more.

This was what Gawain knew of the historical event that led to the current rather peaceful situation despite having so many sects on this continent.

That historical event changed many things:

It ended the conflict between various beliefs on the continent and also united the clergymen of every sect, joining hands to help human civilization resist the Dark Wave and rebuild their homeland. However, there were also some unduly obstinate sects that could not accept such reality. They chose degeneration, setting all the sects who signed the ‘Sacred Alliance’ as their enemy. They become various twisted heterodoxies and gradually evolved into a few of the most-dreaded dark organizations. The theurgies they used were also named ‘Dark Theurgies’…

Even to this day, those degenerated and warped fanatics remain one of the most terrifying shadows on this world.

As a person with normal logic and a healthy brain, Gawain naturally had a very high opinion of the ‘Sacred Alliance’. Although he was an atheist, he really admired those believers who, in the moment of crisis, put down their conflict, united as one, and worked hard for the continuity of civilization — regardless of whether those efforts were due to the gods’ orders or not.

However, he also knew that to a race like humans whose lifespan was short (compared to elves), even the Sacred Alliance was not everlasting.

Today, 700 years had passed. Though the alliance from those years were still carved on the cornerstones of every sect, just like the ‘Brotherhood Treaty’ between Typhon and Anzu that was now long gone, the later generations were also gradually forgetting the significance behind the alliance that their ancestors established at the foot of Ancestral Peak.

Presently, although the sects of the continent still maintained a peaceful picture, in reality, the disputes and discriminations in private had never lessened. Some sects with huge differences in their religious doctrine had also come to the point where they were just a step away from openly declaring war.

After all, no one could truly listen clearly to what exactly the gods were telling them. Even the pope of the Church of the Holy Light could merely hear fuzzy whispers from the gods. And the ambiguity of the gods’ messages gave humans the space to improvise…