Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 737: The Book That Rattles A God

Holding the book that had snapped out of its shelf in the infinite library, Athenia ran her fingers through the covers and read what her clone had failed to read.

ʼHumanity: The Vector Of Progress And The Bane Of Gods…ʼ That title was carried alongside a brief note by her father, which she read next. ʼDo not waver, daughter. Be proud of what you are, a god, a divinity, a guiding light to the mortals that they so desperately need. However, also keep in mind not to lose sight of whoʼs truly controlling who, as humans are as loyal as they can be vindictive.ʼ

”Iʼve never read something so serious from him,” speaking out to herself, Athenia unclipped the bookʼs fickle lock and began turning through the first few empty pages. ”ʼThe Human Mind: A landfill of dead deitiesʼ, hmm? Whatʼs this about?”

Confused by the title of the first chapter in the book, Athenia flipped the page and began reading its contents. Murdok, who usually wrote with grand humor, had inked the pages with a striking lack of his usual hints. Deadpan with crude pessimism, almost hopeless in a way, but well fitted for a god that ruled over death.

Unable to reconcile that fact with the inked parchment, however, Atheniaʼs confusion grew as she had never ever heard her father talking like this. And how could she have? A father protects his children even if the burden of the world crushes him until his spine breaks.

And so she read…

For the sake of my own sanity, I shall impart this knowledge upon the reader through this book. The bane of gods, the human species–created by us, the timeless and deathless. Theyʼve proven time and time again to be the greatest vectors of our will, but that very same vigour for service holds within something much, much greater than their creators.

The ability to surpass us, the ability to become independent, the ability to foresee an apocalypse and survive it. And even if the concept of their god crumbles along with their world, the hope or sometimes the hopelessness in their souls guides them to persist beyond the impossible. As long as gods live, humans will need them, but that…is no security, for the moment a god proves unbefitting of their service, that blade of loyalty starts poking their backs.

Gods need humans, but to these mortals, youʼre nothing they cannot live without. As long as they live, theyʼll find hope, as long as they live, they will find comfort in the warmth of their own species, and for as long as they live, they will struggle until they win. You can curse them with the gloomest plagues, but someoneʼs bound to find a cure. You can strike them with lightning, and another would find a way to prevent the same from happening to them. You can starve a village, and its neighbors would find a better way to persist through the winters.

Why is that? Why do they persist when the sheer weight of existence should be too much for them to bear? Itʼs almost as if someone made them so that they will survive as long as this universe exists, and maybe even beyond that, who can truly say? A woman, she once told me–another human, mind you, she said to me.

ʼWe shall unravel the world and then we will unravel you, the gods.ʼ It took me a while to realize what it meant, and the realization is how I became the god of foresight, along with the god of death.

They know everything, maybe not now, not in the moment, but eventually they will, and even if it isnʼt the person that starts that race, someone with time will find a way to surpass us in mind, body and ability, for that is the essence of the human race, an unquenchable thirst for progress. A thirst that chases perfection, and when it gets there, it strives to be more perfect than perfect–a skill no god can ever possess, for our fates are sealed by the binds of our domain.

I, Murdok Nightlord, can never breathe true life into the dead. I can only raise the dead as undead. And much like me, the elders are limited in their abilities, but humans, they find a way, give them enough time, and they will always find a way until one day these thrones in heaven are occupied not by any deity but by the flesh of mortal men.

The thrones were never meant for us; we are simply a challenge for these mortals, for they thrive in chaos and through chaos, they will rise above all gods and every deity. But why does this concern me? Why do I feel threatened by their existence? Why do I care for these fundamental species that formed the rest of the creatures in Atlaris? The answer is quite simple.

Someone made them this way, and weʼre just part of that experiment…

”What?” Through squinted eyes, Athenia stared at the inked page, but as she tried to flip it, the book rattled in her hand and snapped shut. She tried to get it to open again, but quickly flying away, the book flew in the direction of the infinite library to set itself back in its place.

Left baffled by what happened, the goddess shook her head while still trying to digest what sheʼd read, and thatʼs when it hit her, the greatest realization that she was ever going to get.

”S…someone made the elder gods?” To be created rather than creating others shattered the illusion of superiority that any god couldʼve had. In their minds, theyʼve always existed, born from one another, and their powers passed down for the most part, but also having an individuality for themselves that sets them apart from everyone else.

But now that she knew that the heavens and everyone who lived there was just part of another greater beingʼs greater plans, the goddess felt hollow and unable to accept the fact that she was to someone else what mortals were to her. However, even then, from the way Murdok sounded threatened, this greater deity was quite possibly…a human.