Myths Reawakened

The ancient god’s whispers echoed in Wayne’s ears, a grand melody that humans could neither comprehend nor resist. It was so chaotic that it embodied everything in existence. The wise saw wisdom, the compassionate saw compassion. Each person could hear what they craved in the melody, yet its infinite complexity and profoundness aroused an instinctual repulsion.

This is wonderful. I’m gradually understanding everything!

That’s enough. I said, enough!

Stop talking!

In the melody, Wayne heard mockery. Faced with the infinite grandeur of the universe, their fleeting life seemed insignificant and powerless. A profound sadness rose from the depths of his heart, and he was saddened by the unspeakable terror.

No, I’m different!

He instinctively merged with the Book of Greed and turned into a three-meter-tall pale faceless being, the vertical line in his chest opening into a massive eye to stare directly at the ancient god beyond the abyss.

He was different. He was not insignificant!

Beyond the endless starry sky, the ancient god’s bloated and grotesque form stilled slightly, slowly leaning forward as if to get a clearer look. Writhing tentacles crawled until filling the entire black sky, accompanied by indescribable ancient noises. Then the god faded and departed.

The twisted light converged back into the sea god statue. The roaring wind and waves gradually subsided, and the turbulent sea calmed. Under the warm sunlight, everything returned to how it was before the storm, as if nothing had happened.

The evil god gazed at the distant sky with lingering terror, touching their chest to feel their wildly beating heart. For the first time, they felt an aversion to the Chosen Land. This world was too dangerous. Simply touching an ownerless faith summoned an ancient god. By comparison, hell was practically peaceful—nothing more than daily fighting and bloodshed.

Having narrowly escaped erasure, they couldn’t help but howl at the sky. The ancient texts were right. Ancient gods didn’t care. Even after getting their faith stolen, the god remained indifferent.

Following the moment of ecstasy, the evil god became troubled. The ancient god had never once looked at them properly, as if they were a mortal or an ant, too insignificant to matter. Though perhaps that wasn’t entirely accurate. The ancient god had shown some differential treatment: when They whispered to everyone, They had bypassed the evil god, as if saying that this naughty one didn’t deserve candy!

The evil god felt both conflicted and relieved. They wanted the ancient god to treat them equally, yet feared that their body couldn’t handle it. They wanted the ancient god to look at them, yet feared that the god might grant that wish.

Nothing seemed right, and even what should be right didn’t feel right. It was terribly frustrating.

The ancient god’s arrival proved that the Sea God truly existed. Perhaps the two weren’t one and the same, and the ancient god didn’t care about faith; the islanders had merely created a faith spontaneously and triggered a summoning ritual by accident. No matter the truth, the ancient god’s descent had marked the faith in the Sea God.

This place was no longer safe! The evil god made their retreat.

The ancient god had casually returned the Sea God Order’s faith to the statue. Having lost the faith’s blessing, the evil god’s power was severely diminished. They didn’t dare to anger the ancient god a second time, so instead, they prepared to find another place to continue their con.

They no longer had the courage to seek another ownerless faith to steal it. They would develop their own religion through honest work like those righteous gods. They had had no choice before, but this time, they wanted to be a good god.

Pale Moon, Twilight Sun, Nature’s Sovereign—these former symbols of terror had managed to whitewash themselves. There was no reason they couldn’t do the same. How hard could being a good god be?

Just then, a powerful, ominous presence approached from behind. The evil god turned around while gripping its crystal blade to see a large eyeball with limbs staring at them menacingly. The figure was about three meters tall with pale and wrinkled skin all over, the very definition of sinister.

The evil god paused, quickly figuring out the cause. Wayne had failed to resist the ancient god’s whispers and mutated into a monster.

“Poor child. Do you think you could get away with looking directly at an ancient god? You deserve it.” The evil god laughed at his misery. They weren’t the unluckiest one here; Wayne had fared much worse.

Swoosh!

Pale tentacles swept toward the evil god, splitting, expanding, and extending midway to form a twisted web of tentacles. The evil god swung their crystal blade, and after a flurry of red flashes, the tentacle web fell apart.

Wayne retracted his severed tentacles. Grey fluid and flesh writhed, regenerating into two arms, which extended into blades as he charged toward the evil god.

His mind was somewhat muddled. Having directly faced the ancient god’s form, he, merged with the Book of Greed, suddenly felt like he was too normal, incompatible with this twisted world. He should be matching its freak.

For instance, he didn’t have enough tentacles!

Look at the ancient god. Nothing about the god resembled a human. That was the most perfect form, the divine body most aligned with the laws of the universe. In another setting, it would be the innate dao constitution or the immortal golden constitution, unrivaled among peers at the same level. It would be directly connected to the great dao and grant a buff for cultivation.

There were many ways to describe it, but it all boiled down to one thing: humans were limited. To become an eternal and powerful existence, one couldn’t remain human. Thus, Wayne and the Book of Greed merged and came to an agreement, beginning their sinister transformation.

His bladed arms crossed and swung downward, generating fierce wind imbued with intensely concentrated wind elements. The strike was so powerful and the wind blades so fierce that the evil god dared not face them directly. They spread their dragon wings and leaped away.

Mid-air, the evil god spun while violently lashing out with their long dragon tail. A curved hook emerged from the tip, tearing a massive gash across Wayne’s back with a rippling sound.

The gash ran from his nape to his lower back, almost piercing through his entire torso. Strangely, there was no bleeding. Four tentacles burst from the wound, surging upward and tightly wrapping around the evil god’s limbs.

Told you not to look straight at the ancient god. Look what you’ve become!

The evil god had lost the buff of faith and, on top of that, decided on a whim to become a good god, which weakened their power by a great degree. They couldn’t break free from the tentacles easily. The world spun as the tentacles swung them around, slamming them down a dozen times.

The dragon tail swung in an arc and stabbed at the large eyeball on Wayne’s chest with its hook. He caught the tail with both hands, his chest eye blazing with fury. Letting out a deep, muffled roar, he pulled with all his strength and tore the tail off.

The evil god screamed, flapping their wings to take flight with Wayne in tow. They judged that the ancient god had wiped Wayne’s mind clean, leaving only an unconscious shell. This was a meaningless battle where the expected outcome was victory, and defeat would be beyond humiliating.

Buzz!

The deep resonation of a blade rang out as a golden sword struck, its radiance shining into the evil god’s eyes and making them feel a deadly threat.

The knight had rejoined the fight!

Her armor body dissolved into glowing particles before she teleported to the evil god. Her knightly sword radiated so brightly that one couldn’t look at it directly.

Except for the evil god, the ancient god had rewarded everyone equally. For Wayne, the ancient god showed him what perfection was and pointed out the true essence of life, helping him avoid potential pitfalls. For Veronica and Vera... well, they didn’t catch their candies, missing a great opportunity to stop being human in favor of evolution.

The knight was naturally no exception. Since her flesh had long since rotted away, she received a permanent shackle; her remaining consciousness was imprisoned within the knightly armor, which could be considered a curse of immortality.

The ancient god had sincerely blessed everyone, but again, whether they could handle it wasn’t Their concern.

Benefiting from the curse, the knight’s mind cleared considerably. Driven by her obsession with dragonslaying, her target remained the evil god who had been transformed with dragon blood.

The sword swing was tremendously powerful. The evil god hastily raised the crystal blade to parry it, but the overwhelming power shattered the crystal blade with a clank and hit the evil god’s head heavily. The momentum carried the blade further down, breaking a curved horn and sending both the evil god and Wayne plummeting.

Boom!!

The evil god crashed to the ground, tilting their head back to cough up a spray of blood. The ground cracked in a spider web shape as a ring of smoke and dust rose and spread. Seeing the knight wielding her sword with both hands to make a downward thrust, the evil god manipulated blood magic with glinting eyes, transforming the blood into a thorny spear that struck the knight’s armor squarely in the chest, sending her flying away.

The knight’s sword fell, but before it could hit the ground, a pale hand caught it.

Thump, thump!

Wayne’s heart raced. Radiant light transmitted from the sword to his pale arms, the elements manifesting as gauntlets, vambraces, and pauldrons. The balance within his body was instantly disrupted.

The Book of Greed halted its transformation, instead absorbing the intense sunlight, and the momentary chaos allowed Wayne to regain his rationality, his mind clearing.

That was close. He almost stopped being human!

That in itself wasn’t the worst part, but the fact that he almost categorized his manhood as a useless appendage, considering copulation the most primitive method of reproduction. The memory made him shudder. Ancient gods were too sinister, going around castrating men. He had to avoid them in the future.

The moment Wayne gripped the long sword, he won its recognition. He didn’t think much of it. Something similar had happened once, so it might as well be standard procedure at this point. He swung the sword as his tentacles struck, severing one of the dragon’s wings.

He found it perfectly normal, but the knight disagreed. Even with her incomplete thoughts and sparse memories, she was still shocked by the bizarre scene before her.

Goddess, is he really my successor?

The sight was so bizarre that the knight would have liked to reject him. Were she given a choice, she would think that Vera, who swore to become a dragon slayer, would be the best candidate.

She stilled, conflicted. Ultimately, her faith overcame everything else. If this was the goddess’s will, she would accept it.

Golden light surged as the knight dissolved into light before the armor reassembled and scaled up proportionally to fit Wayne. Warm sunlight enveloped him from all directions. He basked in it, unable to suppress a hum of contentment.

A pair of arms embraced him from behind, fingers interlacing with his to guide him to wield the long sword. A gentle voice whispered in his ear, instructing him in the sword technique for slaying dragons.

Blond hair resembling the physical manifestation of warm sun tickled his nose, making him turn around instinctively. He saw a heroic and handsome profile. From the tall nose to the elegant line of her jaw to the slender neck, with blond hair that flowed like sunlight—every detail exuded elegance and nobility. She was cool, beautiful, and powerful. Wayne felt like he was falling in love.

The last time he felt this way was when meeting Veronica, Vera, and Kristen.

See, he knew his manhood couldn’t be useless. Ancient gods were heretical!

The knight softly told him not to be distracted, guiding him to execute the dragonslaying techniques. The true sword wasn’t the one he wielded, but the omnipresent, all-reaching light...

Boom!

The golden sword aura threatening to destroy heaven and earth swept down, unstoppable. The brilliant light scorched the air, distorting the mist as if it would split space itself in two.

The evil god roared as the tremendous pressure came down. Facing a threat to their life, they unleashed waves of crimson energy and manifested hell’s pattern, which projected a vast ocean of blood. It was boundless and magnificent, yet wild and blazing like molten lava.

The golden great sword fell, and warm light poured down like mercury. Wherever it passed, the blood sea seemed to burn, splitting apart and crumbling into nothing. Amid the evil god’s roars, the blood pattern was erased and scattered by the light. Even though the evil god resisted with all they had, they couldn’t delay the blade by even a fraction of a second.

The evil god dodged sideways. The sword brushed past their face, so close that they could feel the current stinging their skin. The blade slid down to their flat chest before suddenly pausing. The knight gripped Wayne’s hands, turning the blade to cut the evil god’s neck with a golden arc.

The change came too fast and suddenly that the evil god couldn’t dodge in time. They barely managed to lean back, their remaining horn getting severed.

They wailed in agony, angrily accusing the knight of showing no knightly spirit. How could she use fusion mid-fight?

Under the knight’s guidance, Wayne returned to his normal appearance. The armor shrank with him. His pure mana, converted by the slowly opening eye of Sun, made the sword even more dazzling.

Strike after strike shattered the blood sea that the evil god used to defend themselves, then the following blows cut the evil god to pieces, severing all their draconic features, including the wings, tail, and horns.

Clang!

The evil god was kicked away. As they got up to put up another resistance, the knightly sword pressed against their neck, making them stop moving.

“Trust me. I’m a real god. I lost to you only because my consciousness hasn’t fully descended...”

“Give me a chance. I had no choice in hell before, but now I want to be a good god.”

The sword remained still.

Wayne ignored the evil god’s nonsense. A demon was even less trustworthy than his diary—at least the punctuation marks in his writing were real.

The knight whispered to him, telling him to stab the evil dragon in the heart to end its life while giving her release.

I’d like to liberate you, Sis, but the maid may be saved!

He didn’t stab the evil god in the chest. While the evil god certainly deserved death, the maid was innocent. Her life mattered.

Hearing his thoughts, the knight paused. She had been shortsighted. His kindness was worthy of the knight’s title. She gripped his hands and planted the sword into the ground, kneeling on one knee with one hand on her chest to guide sunlight into the blade.

It looked like she was swearing fealty. The evil god, having lost the power of faith and been frightened out of its wits by the ancient god, wasn’t thinking very clearly. They mistakenly believed that they had moved Wayne, and not only did they escape death, but they also converted a knight to swear allegiance.

Encouraged, they dusted their clothes and rose to their feet, waiting for the knight to swear an oath.

Boom!

Light spread across the ground, drawing an elaborate and complex pattern of the sun with the knight’s sword at the center. Intense light blazed toward the sky, enveloping both Wayne and the evil god.

Everyone’s constitution differed, and having latched onto the Goddess of Sun’s thigh, bathing in sunlight felt warm and fuzzy to Wayne. The evil god experienced the complete opposite. They screamed as wisps of crimson got stripped from their body, morphing into crimson demonic faces in the air.

Their face started out as a crocodile with horns and somewhat draconic features. Then skinned and descaled, it became what looked like a goat’s skull. Under the pain, the evil god howled and cursed, cursing Wayne’s blood and cursing the knight to one day become their plaything. Just like the infamous Death Knight, their strength was fleeting, and they would all become hell’s pawns eventually!

A ray of red light crashed into Wayne’s body. It was the evil god’s final curse to make him live a torturous life while also serving as a coordinate. Failure was temporary. It would retuuuuuuurn...

The evil god’s consciousness was erased by the sunlight. Olga, the petite maid, slowly collapsed.

In knightly armor, Wayne caught her against the backdrop of the banished evil god, the twisted pentagram of the Sea God Order, and the golden beam of light shooting toward the sky.