Divine Flame Crystal

Chapter 615 Undercurrent

The high-pressure rule of the Holy Order Temple caused the God of War to be extremely dissatisfied in private. He secretly cultivated a group of extreme believers, bypassed the Church, and established the "War Bone Cult", which was dedicated to absorbing the souls of warriors abandoned by mainstream doctrines, and even secretly traded with the Darkin gods in exchange for more power.

Similar power struggles are common among the gods, but they are all concealed well to avoid attracting the scrutiny of the "Holy Order Inquisitors".

According to the Holy Order system, the granting of divine grace requires the approval of the Vatican, a measure used by the God of Light to curb the free flow of divine gifts. Each year, the gods can only use their magic to bestow miracles upon a specific number of people during a specific period of time. Those exceeding this limit must apply to the temple for an "increase in the amount of Holy Light."

This quota system has caused dissatisfaction among many gods, especially those with large numbers of believers and wide spread, such as the goddess of fertility. They often have abundant power but are unable to use it, and can only watch their believers suffer without being able to help.

Therefore, some gods secretly circumvented the quota system and conveyed their power through secret religious groups, self-built altars, or possession. If these behaviors were discovered, they would be warned at the very least, and at the worst, they would be sealed on the spot by the "Holy Light Discipline Group" and exiled to the Void Realm.

According to the Holy Order, a deity's promotion to the throne must be assessed by the Holy Order Temple, which considers a number of indicators, including the total number of believers, the purity of Holy Light, and the stability of divine authority. However, in reality, many promotions involve bribery, manipulation, and backroom deals.

Some deities with power over wealth, such as the God of Gold, bribed the jury with large amounts of Holy Light tribute. Some of the judging bishops even had blood ties to the God of Gold. Ultimately, the God of Gold successfully ascended from a fifth-tier god to a sixth-tier god, gaining control of the new realm of "commercial contracts," angering the God of Law, who was originally responsible for contracts.

This "theocracy-based nepotism" continues to erode the original concept of "order" at the core of the Holy Order, making more and more gods disappointed and angry, but they dare not resist openly and can only accumulate strength in secret.

Although the Holy Order appears to be unbreakable and the Holy Light shines upon the continent, in reality, this system has developed many fatal cracks, and these cracks are constantly expanding, foreshadowing the ultimate collapse of the Empire of the God of Light.

With the spread of education and the development of magical civilization, some high-ranking magicians, nobles, and free thinkers began to question whether the Holy Light could truly guide the afterlife. They discovered that some deceased souls did not enter the so-called "Glorious Realm", but instead wandered in the underworld, or even became undead.

A soul alchemist named Silas once publicly demonstrated evidence that the soul of a "Chosen of Light" had been sold to the underworld by the Church after his death, causing a huge sensation. Although the Church swiftly executed him, his theory began to spread quietly, triggering an intellectual storm known as the "Second Enlightenment."

A large number of believers began to question the doctrine, reduce the frequency of prayers, refuse to offer tributes, and even contact pagan gods privately, hoping to find a "more real afterlife."

Rumor has it that the God of Wind, the God of the West Sea, and the God of Night are secretly planning a "divine balance alliance," attempting to bypass the Holy Order system and establish a shared faith network for all gods. They have already experimented with establishing "neutral altars" in border regions, no longer using "holy light" as a medium for divine power, but instead drawing strength directly from the emotions and will of believers.

Lacking the influence of Holy Light, these altars grew rapidly, occupying numerous wastelands, canyons, and borderlands over the decades. The Vatican dispatched the Knights of Judgment to attempt to eradicate them, but they repeatedly failed. They even discovered during battle that some Knights of Judgment had quietly defected to the Night God's side. Xingluo was slightly stunned by this. He didn't know where these images came from, but he knew that, under the magic of time, these were not illusions but real events.

Xingluo's eyes were dazed, as if he was in another world.

Now, thanks to the continued efforts of the Holy See of Light, the continent has regained stability. The number of believers now exclusively belongs to the God of Light, even exceeding that of the Great Magic Age. Because the God of Light no longer needs to share believers with other gods, the Holy See, which was once at its peak, has faced its greatest change: the alien time traveler "Xingluo." Not a certified member of the Holy Order of Light, he can cast spells beyond his level without relying on Holy Light. He has also successfully established the "Moonfall" organization, infiltrating intelligence on the Holy See of Light.

More importantly, the mysterious power behind him—the Divine Flame Crystal—seemed to belong to a different system than the known gods, and could even devour the very essence of faith and reshape divine power. This meant that Starfall represented the possibility of another system—one that could independently wield divine authority without relying on the Holy Order.

And this "possibility" is exactly what the God of Light fears the most.

The Holy Order had finally been rebuilt, towering like a tower, but its foundations were once again shaken. The doubts of believers, the rise of external forces, and the stirrings of anomalies were gradually weakening the millennia-long rule of the Holy See of Light.

And in this multi-vortex, Xingluo's existence is like a black spark, which will sooner or later completely ignite and burn this theocracy tower built with "holy light", revealing the true world of gods - the cruel truth of blood and fire, power and desire, faith and slavery.

Xingluo took a few steps forward and fell into the river of time again, seeing images of the past.

One God, one rule, all beings obey.

The rise of human magicians goes against this principle.

They do not kneel, offer sacrifices, or build temples. Some even openly declare in colleges and universities that "divine power is just another form of magic, not something exclusive to gods."

Thus, war inevitably broke out.

This war was later called:

"Twilight of the Gods".

Led by the God of Light, thirteen higher gods, including the God of Wind, the God of Water, the God of Fire, the Mother Earth, and the Lord of Darkness, launched a "divine punishment" purge against human magical civilization.

The gods descended to the world, and the projection of the kingdom of God overlapped with reality.

The human magician also retreated fearlessly.

They assembled nine magic towers, awakened the seal of the abyss, cracked the celestial coordinates, and used the afterglow of the stars to forcibly create the "fifth-dimensional interference technique", causing the entire battlefield to fall into a time and space dislocation, and pulling the high and mighty gods into the same latitude as humans. Only in this way can the gods themselves be hurt.

Their greatest achievement was constructing a spell that no one has been able to decipher to this day:

"True Name Concealing Ceremony."

This technique prevented the gods from ruling the world through their true names, rendering some of their magic ineffective. Humanity attempted to prove through this war:

"God can be killed, faith can be rejected."

But they still failed.

Although it was not a complete failure, it was a devastating rout.

Because at the end of the war, the God of Light launched the ultimate judgment in the deepest part of the throne—

"Detonation of the Godhead" - Using the Godhead itself as the anchor of the law, burning the Godhead, devouring the magical veins of the entire continent.

This is a natural disaster that does not distinguish between friend and foe.

In order to avoid being controlled by the gods, human magicians can only fight back desperately, using the "Astral Return Technique" to try to seal the bodies of the gods who have descended from the same latitude as them.

In the end, the gods were severely damaged.

——The Wind God fell, his soul scattered across the land, and became the Wind God Flame Crystal;

——The Lord of Darkness was shattered, his remaining soul sealed at the bottom of Hell, and the Dark Divine Flame Crystal fell to the earth;

——The Earth Mother Goddess disappeared, her life or death unknown, and the Earth-type Divine Flame Crystal also landed on this alien continent;

Even the God of Light himself nearly had his soul disintegrated, and could only transfer his consciousness to the "Holy Throne Projection", unable to descend in his true form.

But the price paid by human magicians was even more tragic.

Eight of the nine magic towers were reduced to ruins and completely disappeared in the war. More than 90% of the magicians above the demigod level died in the "divine shock wave". A large number of magic systems were interrupted and disappeared, the magic theory system was seriously broken, and even the innovative spirit that mankind was most proud of was sealed.

The entire human magical civilization declined from then on.

Only scattered fragments were left, which were mistakenly called "forbidden techniques" by later generations, and the real ancient magic, even the magic of teleportation was once lost.

At the end of that war, the sky was distorted and the continent collapsed.

On the second day after the final battle, the gods also paid a price, and countless divine crystals fell from the sky all over the world.

They were like meteors, emitting dazzling light when they landed, like the last trace of the origin of the fallen gods.