What is God?

  This question is probably even the most knowledgeable scholars of the Klayne continent can't give an accurate answer, its difficulty is like asking a spirit to evaluate humans, and humans to evaluate dwarves. Even in the demon world and the divine kingdom, only a small number of people know the truth about the nature of the gods.

  Fortunately, Zhan En was one of them.

  In fact, essentially, there is not much difference between gods and demon kings. Perhaps there is a distinction between light and darkness among them, but there is no absolute good or evil camp. Because what's important is not their own identity, but their divine positions. The power of the gods comes from their divine positions, and the demon king is the same. Or, their divine positions are the embodiment of their power. However, power itself does not have a distinction between good and evil, a knife is just a knife, a sword is just a sword, a gun is just a gun, weapons themselves do not have consciousness to distinguish between good and evil, only the actions of the person holding the weapon will decide whether they become legends that are passed down for centuries or nightmares hidden in darkness.

  Now, the humans on the continent of Klayne regard the War God as one of the Nine Saints, a member of the benevolent camp. However, they are completely unaware that in the early days when demons ran amok and gods descended to the world, it was the domain of Bane, the King of War. And Bane is one of the demon kings in the demonic realm, who delights in provoking wars, bloodshed, and death. All this has nothing to do with the so-called war between justice and evil that the Temple of War God preaches today. War is just war, invasion is war, self-defense is war, massacre is war, expulsion is war. Perhaps the warring parties will raise the banner of great righteousness to demonstrate their stance, but for war itself, all this is meaningless.

  In the end, Bane was killed by Maraka, who succeeded to the position of God of War and defected to the Kingdom of Gods, thus becoming the later one of the Nine Saints, the war god Maraka.

  Another example is the goddess of wealth, Valtor, who was once the guardian deity of all merchants on the Klayne continent. However, after an accident, Valtor was imprisoned by the demon king Graz't and became his slave. Although she eventually escaped from Graz't's control with the interference of other demon kings, she fell into darkness after being thoroughly corrupted in the demonic realm and became a wicked deity. In fact, there are many rumors circulating in the demonic realm that the Kulisis Guild is actually Valtor's "reincarnation" in the demonic realm. On the surface of the Klayne continent, the temple of the goddess of commerce has long since disappeared.

  It can be seen that the divine position itself is not concerned with good or evil, and no matter what the purpose is, the divine position will only operate like a predetermined program and machine. Only the gods who hold the divine position and have their own will can make judgments.

  But what made Zhan En certain that the War God had not yet revived was that after killing so many people, he still received the War God's holy light baptism.

  The so-called Holy Light Baptism is actually a blessing given by the gods to believers when they complete tasks assigned by the gods or maintain the dignity of the gods. Although this blessing itself has little value most of the time, it only shows the god's attitude of approval towards them. However, for believers, being able to receive direct attention from the gods is in itself a supreme honor.

  And it is precisely because of this that Zhan En is convinced that the position of God of War is still vacant. Because if any benevolent god took over this position, he would absolutely not be recognized. However, if there were no subjective judgments, but simply looking at Zhan En's actions, he perfectly provoked a war and ended up as the victor, offering countless deaths, blood, and corpses to the God of War. This behavior clearly fits the definition of the God of War, so it is only natural that he received the divine light of the God of War.

  To illustrate, this is like a player playing a game and receiving a quest to eliminate enemies in a village. You can either slowly search for them and then capture or kill them one by one to complete the task and get rewards. Or you can directly create a landslide that buries the entire village, men, women, old and young, and still be considered as having completed the "eliminate enemy" quest. In this case, if the GM on the system side has their own stance, they will certainly give much more reward to the former, while the latter's reward will definitely be very little, or even be wanted.

  But if there is no GM, and only let the program self-determine, then the program will only determine "task completed, enemy eliminated", as for how many twists and turns or how many innocent people died in between, it is not within the scope of the program's calculation.

  The current God of War is like a program running automatically without a GM, with no self-judgment ability. Moreover, the neutrality of the "War" god itself is very strong, so no matter how many people Jian En kills, he will not be negated. On the contrary, the more fierce the war he provokes, the more he will gain recognition from the God of War.

  For Zhan, this "recognition" is basically meaningless, just like someone patting him on the shoulder and saying "I believe in you". But for the followers of the Temple of War God, it's a whole different story. The War God has fallen for so many years, and there hasn't been any manifestation of divine signs, to the point where these holy knights can only rely on the most basic blessing spells to get by. And now, the Holy Light of the War God has actually appeared on Zhan's body! This not only means that Zhan is a person recognized by the War God, but also implies that the War God may have awakened!!

  For the followers of the gods, nothing is more important than the oracle and the god itself. This is also why the Temple of War God is now so weak, one of the reasons why they still bite their teeth to enter the dark region after receiving the oracle. For them, only by completing the oracle and pleasing the god can their temple have hope for survival and development.

  From this point of view, the followers of the gods are essentially no different from those cultists who slaughter infants to please their demon lord.

  The people of the Valkyrie Kingdom do not understand why the Temple of War God is willing to risk breaking with the Valkyrie Kingdom in order to protect Jane, but Jane is very clear that he is now a "brave warrior" who has attracted the attention of the War God, and this also represents a sign of the reappearance of the "War God". The Temple of War God will spare no effort to keep him safe, even if it means turning against the Valkyrie Kingdom. Moreover, thinking carefully, why did the holy light of the War God appear neither early nor late, but only after Jane killed a group of soldiers from the Valkyrie Kingdom? Does this mean that the evil referred to in the oracle is actually the Valkyrie Kingdom? Because they have betrayed the divine grace of the War God and even tried to expel the Temple of War God, so they will provoke the wrath of the War God and bring down punishment.

  If that's really the case, then it's not just a matter of the Valkyrie Kingdom looking for trouble with the Temple of War Gods. It's likely that before that happens, the Temple of War Gods will gather its forces to launch a holy war against the Valkyrie Kingdom!

  When a god rages, blood splatters for thousands of miles. If this is truly the will of the gods, then the good days of the Valkyrie Kingdom are over.

  As for why the Holy Light appeared at this time, Archbishop Bossen and Grand Knight Locks were also quite puzzled, but that's not surprising. Although they are followers of the God of War, their understanding of the gods is still far from that of Jain. The things that left them baffled seemed extremely simple and easy to understand in Jain's eyes.

  In a strict sense, both gods and demon kings are "immortal and indestructible", but this phrase needs to be taken with quotation marks. They cannot be killed, but they also cannot be "completely annihilated". When a god dies, his power returns to the divine realm, while his soul is reborn on the material plane, growing up into an adult. Then, guided by the soul's guidance and call, he awakens again as a god.

  And after the Demon King is killed, its soul will return to the demon world, transform into the lowest-level demon clan, and start climbing up step by step again.

  Both require a very long time, even if they are gods, and if they are severely damaged at the time of death, they need to be reborn many times in their lives to accumulate enough soul power to open the gate of the divine kingdom. The demon king is also the same, from the lowest level of timid demons crawling back to their original position, it's impossible without a few hundred years. Not to mention that the demon world is full of dangers, and there are almost no low-level demon tribes that can safely live for hundreds of years.

  However, the War God Makka was different. He was dragged into the Demon Realm with his soul intact, which meant that his soul could not be reborn, and his powers and divine position were sealed within the Demon Realm. This is why the Demon Realm boasted about killing a god, while the Divine Realm remained silent despite having killed three of the Great Marshals. Because they too knew that although the Demon Realm had lost three Great Marshals, as long as they were given enough time, these three Great Marshals could be reborn again. But Makka, who was dragged into the Demon Realm with his soul intact, would never have a chance to turn things around in this lifetime.

  The problem is that when Ma Ka was dragged into the demon world, his divine position was also sealed in the demon world.

  In the Divine Realm and Demon Realm, the power of the divine positions themselves is not strong. After all, their main function is to manage the primary material plane. After Makka was dragged into the Demon Realm, the divine position was sealed, and the divine power was erased. Therefore, the Temple of War God is in a state of disarray, after all, they are unable to summon the power of the War God from the Demon Realm.

  However, Zhan En was different. Firstly, he was a demon and in the same space as the current War God's divine position. Secondly, he had mixed with the people of the War God Temple and had become an ally to some extent. As a demon, Zhan En naturally possessed the power to resonate with the demonic realm for exchange. Furthermore, his alliance with the people of the War God Temple also activated the recognition of the War God's divine position to some extent. It was precisely because of this that the War God's divine position descended with holy light to acknowledge Zhan En.

  If the Temple of War Gods wants to obtain the recognition of the War God's miracle again, there are only two ways to go: either they find another demon tribe willing to form an alliance with the Temple of War Gods, or they simply convert to worshiping the demonic cult themselves. Once they can communicate with the Demon Realm, they will naturally be able to gain the War God's "inspiration".

  These principles, Zhan En speculated a bit, and naturally guessed eight or nine out of ten. As the son of the Demon King, these secrets that ordinary people in the main material plane were not qualified to touch were already familiar to him. The devil kept all the secrets of this world - the proverb "Klein Continent" still made some sense.

  Unfortunately, Archbishop Bosen and the Grand Knight of Rox did not have such insight. After discussing for half a day, they couldn't come to any conclusion. In the end, they had no choice but to find Janne to see what this "warrior favored by the gods" had to say.

  "What's next?"

  He narrowed his eyes, and Zhan En swept a glance at the solemn-looking Archbishop Bosen and the Saint Knight Commander Rox. And noticing his gaze, Archbishop Bosen also nodded slightly.

  "That's right, Mr. Zhan. Do you have any suggestions for our next move?"

  At this moment, Archbishop Bosen was also solemn in expression. Although he had always been at odds with the Grand Knight of Loxes over power, as a clergyman, Archbishop Bosen knew that his own position was entirely due to the blessings of the War God. This is where the Holy See differed from other organizations - those who received divine attention rose to prominence overnight, while those without divine favor would never be able to turn their fortunes around, no matter how extensive their connections, reputation or strength. So now that Zhan Yan had gained the War God's favor, he naturally had no choice but to grit his teeth and continue on.

  "The Valkyries don't need to bother with them, I think they wouldn't dare to really go to war with the Sanctuary Sect."

  Facing Archbishop Bosen's inquiry, Jian thought for a moment before speaking.

  "But I still don't understand, what does the Temple of War God want to do by coming to the Dark Territory? Is it simply just to eradicate evil?"

  "This..."

  Upon hearing this, Archbishop Bosen and Grand Knight Rox exchanged a glance, then the latter let out a sigh and spoke up.

  "Now that you've been favored by the God of War, there's no need to hide anything, Mr. Zhanen. In fact, our trip to the Dark Territory this time is not just about striking down evil, but also to find a legendary lost divine artifact!"

  "Oh?"

  Upon hearing this, Zhan En was taken aback and suddenly recalled the words of the dwarf official who had previously governed.

  Is what Cadrek said true?