《Sacred Light Divinity》


 Prologue

    A sharp pain flared up through her body. Her eyes shot open as a silent scream erupted from her lips, and her body writhed and rolled, trying to erase this strange pain.


    It seemed to last forever, and yet, in an instant, it was over. With great effort, she heaved herself up, and the moment she did, the world exploded into focus.


    Light shone down from above, the soft feel of grass from beneath her feet tickled, the wind whistled, rustling her long hair that went down all the way to her lower back.


    Her eyes felt incredibly heavy as she looked around, and her mind was incredibly hazy. Who was she? Was he a she or a he? Why and how did she know the difference? And why did it matter? And where in the nine hells was she?


    But the most important question, the one who could determine everything about her, was also the question who occupied most of her thoughts and still fuzzy emotions.


    ''Who am I?''


    She looked down at her own hands. How strange. They looked incredibly soft, and yet, she could feel as though with these hands, she could bend metal as easily as one bends grass.


    She captured a strand of her own long, silky hair. A golden color that resembled light itself greeted her, and she stared at it in wonder.


    Her hands roamed her own body, exploring every nook and cranny. Large, golden wings that could expand to a span of 4 meters rested on her back, and they felt as natural as any other limb.


    She duly noted he wasn''t wearing clothes. Why did that matter? What were clothes? How did he know the answer to both questions?


    She somehow knew things, and yet didn''t know how. It was a paradox in and by itself. Like a blind man who knows from his childhood days what the sky looked like, and yet not remembering ever being that child that gazed at the sky in wonder.


    She eventually finished exploring her body, and yet... It felt as though she needed to explore more. Learn more of who she was, is, and will be. She had a feeling, an instinct perhaps, that told her to search for that thing, and yet, she had no idea what the thing was.


    Her focus turned inward, focusing on her very sense of self. It was a strange feeling to describe, like looking at one own''s heart, and yet, said heart was not the heart that beat in one''s chest and pumped blood, but the heart of the self.


    The soul.


    A large, towering figure sitting cross-legged slowly revealed itself to the angel. Looking at it, the angel could only stare in wonder.


    The figure opened its eyes, and suddenly, the world changed.


    No longer was she seeing colors and shapes, but instead, she was seeing the very laws of the world. Looking at herself once more, she found herself as both the towering figure and the material body.


    Body and soul resonated, creating a strange, yet wonderful feeling.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    It was only several hours later that the angel closed both of her eyes and when she reopened them, both viewpoints had been fused together, allowing her to see so much more.


    Questions that she had before were easily answered now. It was actually pretty laughable, in hindsight.


    She had been an angel in another world once upon a time, but she had been banished because of his ideology and actions. In that world, she had been a fool on a quest for power.


    But that was the past. She felt... different.


    For the next year, from one spring to the next, she studied the world, trying to understand things. It was a slow process, and an incredibly difficult one, but she had both talent, determination, and time on his side.


    She hid, somewhat afraid of being caught by... something. Someone. She didn''t know who or what, but it felt... right for her to hide.


    She still had so, so many questions. In fact, for every questionshe answered, a hundred more pop up. It gave rise to a strange feeling within her, a hunger for knowledge that she never had before. Well, maybe she did in her previous life, but that life was incredibly fuzzy and the more time passed, the fuzzier it got.


    But at least, she now knew the basics. She learned of where she was and what the world around her was. Sure, questions like ''who am I'', ''what is my purpose'', and ''how does the big ball of fire in the sky work'' remained unanswered, but she was confident that she would find out eventually.


    With newfound purpose, even if shallow, she took to the skies as her body flew at impossible speeds, racing around the world. From the skies above, she watched and observed the large cities, filled to the brim with humanoids.


    She watched from high above, using her mysterious powers that she was constantly learning about and improving to hide and observe in silence.


    She watched as great armies clashed, as giant dragons slept, as peaceful villagers went about their daily lives.


    The language was an easy thing to learn. Their ''magic'', which was just a really shallow usage of the energy of the world, was also pathetically easy to learn. Still, it gave her ideas. Many, many ideas.


    With her powers, which were basically an application of the Laws of the World, she carved a cave for herself within a mountain before sealing herself inside. For the next fifty years, she would remain inside, never once even peeking out.


    For a being like her, sustenance, sleep, and excretions were unnecessary. All she required was the Energy of the World, and that was plentiful for where she resided, as she had specifically selected a place with a high density of Energy.


    She studied and practiced during the entire time. She learned to create material things from Energy, and Energy from material things.


    The Laws of the World amazed her. The profoundness and mystery within them made her ecstatic, for the more she learned, the more she knew that she knew nothing. This did nothing to dampen her spirit, instead, it only drove her forward.


    However, as the years passed, she gradually found her learning speed slowing down. By the fifty-fourth year, she had to wrack her brain to find the answer to even a single question.


    She was reluctant. She didn''t want to leave the cave, for the world outside held nothing that attracted him. However, she knew logically that she had no choice. She didn''t want to be a cave-dweller forever, but neither did she want to go out. Furthermore, the answers to her questions all laid open just outside his cave.


    Still, it was a difficult decision to make.


    But one she had to make nonetheless. With great reluctance, she flew out from the cave, easily turning immaterial and phasing through the walls.


    As she stood in the skies, her mighty wings beating slowly, more for effect than anything else, she gave one last look at her old home. She had no attachments to it, but it had still represented a sense of safety and tranquility.


    It was like a newborn exiting from its mother''s womb. She had been brought here with no memories or understanding, and only after entering the cave had she felt some semblance of normality and rhythm. Safety and peace. Now, she was leaving it once more.


    She heaved a regretful sigh, before slowly vanishing. She had an inkling of a plan on what to do, but it wasn''t very detailed. She first needed information.


    After all, everyone who dreamed of world domination had to start from somewhere, right?

 1 - The World Before (1)

    "And then, after we sell these humans, I''m going to go back home and finally confess. The army just isn''t for me." A tall and handsome man with long ears and a slim build lamented. His companions laughed heartily as they joked around.


    "Really? But you''re such a good bowman! Man, we''ll miss you for sure." Another elf said with a wink. The other man shivered slightly and put on an awkward face.


    "That... was a one-time thing..." He said lamely. The group of 20 elves around him laughed.


    Behind them, several hundred humans were chained together and were being dragged forward like dogs. Elves flanked them from all sides, blocking any escape they could possibly have.


    When a pregnant woman started falling behind, one of the elves harshly whipped her. She cried out in pain as the elf jeered. "Speed up, cow, or you''ll be fed to the wolves."


    With tears streaming down her face, the woman forced herself forward. She wasn''t the only one amongst the humans who were being abused, like the elderly, the young, and even the disabled were harassed. Even the healthy ones weren''t safe from occasional and completely random bursts of anger from the elves.


    The elf from before, the one who wished to retire, looked at the humans with not-so-thinly veiled contempt. "What a pathetic bunch. Just looking at them makes me want to cringe."


    A female elf, one wearing much fancier armor than the others, added, "You know, you weren''t cringing quite as much yesterday when you were enjoying one of their women."


    The male elf just rolled his eyes and didn''t bother retorting. He knew she was displeased with him. Not because of any empathy with the humans, no, rather, she thought of his actions akin to that of having sex with a rat.


    Suddenly, a voice rang out. "No! Please, let my baby go!" A woman wailed as she tried to take back her daughter, who had been roughly yanked away by a male elf.


    He laughed and spat at her face before pushing her down with one hand, and even kicked her a couple of times in the belly for good measure. "Shut up, human slut. I just want to get off real quick, no need to make such a big deal of it."


    The woman cried the name of her daughter and begged, but to no avail. The enslaved humans could only stare at the ground as the woman was beaten bloody. They had learned the hard way what would happen should they so much as look at their captors.


    Hundreds of years ago, humans stood at the same power as the elves. However, after a disastrous incident, the elves, beastmen, and demons formed a huge alliance and thoroughly trampled the humans to the ground. Since then, humanity had been living under the boot of the other races, with only a few small territories able to survive here and there, but even those were ultimately just commodities for the other races to use as breeding grounds for easy slaves and practice."


    Even as she was being beaten, the woman tried to cry out again. "Please! Take me instead, just leave my daughter!"


    Said daughter, who was being dragged away by the hair, screamed too. "Mommy!"The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "Enough."


    A single word echoed from above, but that single word was enough to send the entire forest into a deadly silence.


    The elves were frozen stiff by a strange power, and the humans too were frozen. With great effort, everyone turned their eyes upward.


    The single most beautiful being that every human and elf in the caravan lightly hovered in the air, her majestic and imposing wings spread out. Her gaze was neutral, but there was a hint of edge within it.


    As she stared down the group of elves and humans, the fancy-dressed female elf suddenly broke out of her strange trance and yelled. "Men! Get yourselves together!"


    This seemed to break everyone out of their trance as they pulled their bows out and aimed them at the winged woman, but they didn''t change position yet, as they still needed to keep watch on the humans. Obviously, the elves were very well trained.


    The angel in the skies glanced at the female elf with an almost lazy look that was enough to freeze the elf to the ground. "Ants like you should stay silent."


    This seemed to enrage one of the male elves, who released his arrow. Soon, hundreds of arrows were quickly unleashed upon the angel. And yet, when they got close to her, they dissolved into motes of light.


    "What!?" "How!? Those are magical arrows!?" The elves screamed, frightened at the display.


    The angel raised an eyebrow at the beings below her. She''d been observing the world for a little over six months now and had long since determined the pathetic state the humans were in.


    The strangest thing, however, was that this somehow... displeased her. Not like she particularly cared or anything, but seeing her previous race fall to such lows gave rise to particular feelings.


    Upon happening upon this caravan by chance and seeing the impending rape, she finally decided to reveal herself.


    Of course, this wasn''t a spur of the moment thing. She''d been thinking a lot about it, and had decided that perhaps, having a few mortal followers might be useful. Furthermore, in order to appear as non-threatening to the humans as possible, she had even given her body a few more female characteristics and even adopted the female pronoun for herself.


    Well, she was asexual by nature, so really, it was more of an aesthetic thing rather than anything else. She could be as masculine or feminine as she wanted, and her soul and body would easily accept it.


    "Hm... Disappointing." She murmured. With a lazy wave of her hand, small, needle-like lights shot out of her body and entered the body of the elves before any of them would so much as twitch.


    Following that, the elves began to disperse as their bodies turned into light. Screams resonated within the forests as the elves watched, helplessly, as their bodies dissolved.


    When all the elves were gone, the angel secretly captured the souls of the elves and stored them within her body for later use. The soul had always intrigued her, but she didn''t dare experiment on herself. However... These elves were a different story.


    As the last of the elves disappeared into nothingness, she turned her gaze towards the humans while contemplating inside. To take as followers, or to take their souls?


    Souls... Or servants... Or souls...


    Suddenly, one of the older men in the group slowly got onto the ground and pressed his head to the ground while murmuring in a low but clear voice. "Goddess... Thank you."


    This seemed to create a chain reaction as everyone threw themselves onto the ground with varying levels of intensity. The girl who had been so painfully close to rape seemed to be tearing up, as the once seemingly invincible elves had vanished with just a wave of the woman''s hand.


    The angel''s eyebrows suddenly widened a fraction of an inch, but even that was enough to convey the absolute shock she was feeling. And it was not because of the human''s actions.


    No. It was because of the strange energy that emanated from the humans and delivered itself to her. It was incredibly faint, but it''s purity was undeniable, and her soul hungered for it so much that it hurt.


    She quickly absorbed this energy into herself, and suddenly, her head felt clearer, and her body and soul just a tiny bit stronger, and the Laws just that much easier to comprehend.


    Every single plan she had formed before was scrapped at that moment, and all of her mental faculties honed onto a single word.


    More

 2 - The World Before (2)

    Helen had lived a shitty life from the moment she entered this world.


    She had been born in a small, run-down village where a scrap of bread was a rare delicacy, and where the fear of slavers and hunters plagued their minds every day.


    They were forced to live in absolute servitude, paying over 80% of their crops and resources every month to the elves who were the masters of the region. Basically, there was nothing left for the people living there.


    Helen had been lucky to be born to one of the wealthier prostitutes of the villagers. Apparently, her father had been a run-of-the-mill drunk who had raped her mother along with several other ''friends'' of his.


    Life was borderline impossible. In fact, Helen had only survived because of luck and her mind that had been forced to grow up far too early, along with a mother that did everything in her power to provide for her daughter, including starving herself just to give her daughter whatever scraps of food she managed to scrounge up.


    That had been her life for 9 years.


    And then, the elven slavers came.


    They descended upon the villagers like hungry vultures, capturing and chaining everyone, and brutally making a show of anyone that resisted. Their entire village, as small as it was, was completely enslaved.


    And then, they''d been shipped off in separate groups. She had been lucky to be in the same group as her mother, the only other human being that had ever cared about her.


    Through the entire journey, she had been humiliated, starved, tortured and even spat on multiple times. However, the thing that stung the most was watching her mother, along with several other women, be brutally raped. They screamed, and the elves laughed. If they didn''t scream or please their ''masters'' enough, pain would be delivered, and in terrifying doses.


    For over a month, they were forced to march barefoot across a hideous forest with barely any food or water. Disease reaped lives, and those too weak to keep up were brutally murdered by the elves.


    Slavers might not be innately bad people, but they needed force and terror to keep the humans in line. Hence, torture, murder, rape, and humiliation were all tools to destroy the resistance of the humans, who were less than animals in their eyes.


    And thus, when Helen was suddenly grabbed by one of the more... violent slavers, something in her heart broke. She knew she was about to lose something very important to her. Not her virginity, but instead, her dignity and pride.


    And when her mother screamed her name and begged to be taken instead, Helen felt tears stream down her face. She almost never cried, but this time, she couldn''t help it.


    She cried out for her mommy like a little baby. Like the useless, powerless little girl she was.


    All hope was gone, and yet, at that moment, her life changed forever, as did that of all the enslaved humans.


    A single word filled with endless dignity and power came from the skies, and with it, the most beautiful being Helen had ever seen, whether male or female.


    Her eyes alone seemed able to incinerate everything with a single look, and it made Helen''s heart beat with newfound hope.


    The hand that had slid down to her ass tightened once before releasing it as her would-be rapist pulled out his expensive elven bow and magical arrows that looked so threatening in all their enchanted and poisoned glory.


    However, without even lifting a finger, the arrows were annihilated before they could even come near the being who could only be a goddess. Her golden eyes swept across the elves and a disdainful look emerged on her face, her terrifying eyes holding a trace of ridicule.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Then, Helen watched in wonder as, with a mere wave of her hand, the once invincible elves were literally vaporized off of the face of the planet.


    The goddess then turned her eyes towards her group, who had huddled together. She had run back to her mother the moment she was released, and as tears streamed down both of their faces, they too got on their knees and put their foreheads on the ground.


    Being ultimately but a child, Helen couldn''t help but peek upwards to look at the goddess. Her expression held mixed emotions, and even those were extremely hard to read even for Helen, who specialized in reading people. After all, knowing your target when you pickpocket is important.


    As each second passed and the group got more and more nervous, the goddess'' expression changed. Softness filled her beautiful face as she slowly levitated down to the ground, and upon reaching it, her large wings that made Helen want to touch them laid down across her back.


    "My children." She said, and instantly, Helen felt a bit weirded out, but the adults seemed almost... elated? Helen had one mother only, she thought defiantly.


    The goddess walked towards the group like a ghost, the ground itself seemed almost afraid of letting out noise when her feet touched it.


    "You have been through so, so much." The goddess said again, and this time, Helen could tell she was close. Very close.


    The adults seemed almost afraid to raise their heads, so Helen obviously followed their lead. However, a small, delicate hand softly grasped her chin and pulled Helen''s face up.


    Cold sweat ran down Helen''s back as the goddess looked into her eyes. It felt as though her every secret was exposed before this woman, and Helen didn''t like this feeling a single bit. She liked her secrets where they were: Nice and hidden.


    The woman gazed deeply into her eyes for a couple of seconds before murmuring, her voice low but still loud. A contradiction in and on itself.


    "Children like you should be held sacred. What potential you hold, little one, I can see it in your eyes." The goddess leaned forward, their foreheads now touching. A strange feeling spread out from her forehead through her body, and she suddenly felt like a pile of goo. A happy, healthy pile of goo.


    When the woman retreated, Helen felt like she had been reborn. The goddess stepped backward, a slight smile on her lips as everyone stared at Helen in wonder. Including Helen.


    She looked at her hands that had once been rugged and scarred but were now much softer. The scars and burns across her body had vanished, and meat once more surrounded her bones, whereas she had been little more than a skeleton beforehand.


    The rags that were her clothing had magically mended themselves, and while still rags, they at least resembled clothes now. Helen looked up at the goddess with childlike admiration and quickly slammed her head on the ground so quickly it hurt a bit.


    "Thank you thank you thank you!" Helen said. The goddess'' smile only got wider.


    "It is nothing, child. Remember, treasure your mother, for you will only ever have one." She said as her gaze switched from Helen to her mother, who had been anxiously watching nearby.


    "Y-Yes!" Helen stammered, somehow happy and yet also embarrassed.


    The goddess smiled indulgently at the little girl. While it was true she had originally intended to just use her as a way to show off her prowess, what she had said came from her heart. She never did have the happiness of a mother, so she knew just how important it was.


    Her head turned towards the rest of the now free humans. "I wish not to force you into anything, but it is clear to me that you now have nowhere to go. I assume your village is now gone, and with the elves everywhere, you will only be once more enslaved, and this time, death will be a relief if they get their hands on you"


    Her eyes turned sharp as she stared at every person, around 200 people, right in the eyes. Or at least those who dared look at her, which was arguably a small amount of mostly young ones.


    "However, I have a proposition for you." She said, getting down to the point. Even now, the faith from these humans was intoxicating, and she wanted, no, needed more. However, she also knew she couldn''t force it. She would have to work for it.


    "Your home has been destroyed. Your future is bleak. Your past was miserable. Your present is desperate. However... I can change that." She exclaimed, spreading her arms out, wings flaring as her aura roared to life.


    The people now all looked up at her, and in their eyes, she was no longer a ''maybe that''s a goddess, who knows, maybe she''s just a mage''. No, now, she was their star of hope. The one who held their future in her hands.


    "Become my followers, and I will grant you a home. Believe in me, and I will grant you power. Obey me, and I will protect you. Become my warriors on this earth, and I will grant you the power to destroy those who wronged you." She said, her voice perfectly smooth, yet to the humans, it felt as loud as thunder. A good and easy trick to impress people. She yet again had to wonder who she had been in her past life for her ''people skills'' to be like this, because of she sure as hell never even spoke to anyone before this.


    The humans looked at each other for a couple dozen seconds, searching for an answer amongst themselves. Slowly, every one of them, young or old, once more lowered their heads.


    The goddess smiled even more.

 3 - The World Before (3)

    Having successfully gained a following, no matter how small or shallow it may be, the goddess was quite pleased. She could feel the strands of faith slowly coming into her body from all of the humans, some thicker than the others. Especially, the little girl she healed seemed especially devoted.


    She didn''t dare outright absorb the energy yet. She needed to study it, understand it, before deciding. She knew it was valuable, her instincts were screaming that. Still, caution goes a long way sometimes.


    "My children, let me bring you to your new home. A place of new beginnings, a home that will forever protect you from the elven hordes." She said, using the strands of faith connected to her to get the words to have more impact on her followers.


    Seeing their pleading and devoted faces, the angel-turned-goddess smirked inwardly. She could tell that, for as long as they had faith in her, her very presence would be enough to have them on their knees.


    However... What if they didn''t have faith in her anymore? What if they betrayed her?


    For some reason, this thought worried her a lot more than it should. She could tell that it was an echo of her past life, a life spent on the run and ultimately terminated because of the betrayal of her loved one.


    She shook her head. She would have more time for this later. For now, she needed to bring these people to a new home, and she had just the place in mind.


    She used her powers to bring them to the skies with her, ignoring their cries of amazement, fear, surprise, and excitement. With but a thought, they were soon flying across the skies at around 10 kilometers a second. This was just a slow speed for her, but one impossible for any normal human.


    Soon, they arrived at their destination. A vast grassland, with a giant forest on one side, a river on the other, and a hill perfect for a fort on the other. Naturally, there were some dumb critters doing their crittery things and whatnot, but a lazy glance from the Goddess was enough to vaporize them.


    Descending at purposely slow speeds, she gently landed each of the humans, watching as they all turned towards her with stars in their eyes.


    She smiled benevolently at them and waved her arm around. "Welcome... To your new home."


    As they looked around with Ooh''s and Aah''s, the Goddess now got to the real work. If she simply left them as is, they would most likely all starve to death or get killed.


    Therefore, she provided to them what they needed most. Using her powers in a showy way by having light fall from the skies and hit the earth, she fertilized the land enough to make it the most fertile in the entire continent. Next, she created all sorts of tools, from hoes to bows and swords. Nothing special, but enough to give them something.


    She looked at her followers as they diddled about. She needed to be honest with herself: Beside vaporizing things into nothingness, she had absolutely no leadership experience. Sure, she had the charm and power for it, but she needed experience. She also had no idea how to build a society from scratch, because that was her plan.


    Therefore, she first separated everyone into groups based on their professions. Carpenters, foresters, farmers, and fishermen were the main professions, with the rest without any real experience. Overall, of the 200 people, if one subtracted the children and elderly, as well as those without experience, only 40 people actually had any experience.


    She frowned slightly. No matter, she could just teach them. After all, even though she didn''t specialize in anything, she could easily learn a mere mortal profession in but an instant.


    ''Hold on... Why don''t I specialize?'' A thought struck her, and suddenly, like a dam being broken, she understood everything.


    "Damn it! How could I have been so stupid!? Of course, learning things will be a million times harder if I try to learn everything at once! I need to focus on a couple of things at a time and then build my foundation from that!" She screamed in her mind. To the humans, it looked as though their Goddess had just facepalmed as she was deep in thought.


    Digging her fingers into her soft facial flesh, she grimaced at her own stupidity. For 50 years, she had tried to learn everything about the laws of the world. No wonder she couldn''t make any progress, it was akin to learning a thousand subjects all at the same time and trying to keep up with all of them, and for every subject she finished, a hundred more popped up.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    ''Still, at least I have a direction to follow now'' She perked up at the thought and her mood soared. In her heart, she already knew what she wanted to specialize in, as shown by her way of vaporizing enemies.


    She turned back towards the humans, who had been working like busy little bees. The young, old, pregnant and weak were being cared for by the stronger ones. With a wave of her hand, a light shone across the area, targeting everyone. Exclamations rang out as the humans found themselves all healed up, the wounded and sick now at full health, and the pregnant women feeling a lot better.


    She smiled slightly. Now that she had given them a direction, she couldn''t interfere too much yet. She needed to let them sort themselves out. However, she could give them a home for the night.


    "My children." Her dignified voice rang out. Heads swiveled upwards to stare at her. She smiled and pointed at the cliff, and the heads turned towards the said cliff.


    With a mighty push of her powers, one that she knew would leave even her strained, the hill began to shake. Stone, wood, glass, and wool was created out of Energy and rose up from the ground, and magically began to assemble itself into a giant building 40 meters tall and with a base area of 200 meters.


    She modeled it after the temples she had seen scattered across the world but also adding her own touches. The foundation was that of a hexagon, with four smaller separate building that connected them through large arches. The roof was rounded, and the inside had a huge hallway as the centermost room that ran from the entrance all the way to the back. The hallway was flanked by large statues of all sorts of animals bowing down, and at the very end stood a large throne. Behind the throne was a huge statue of herself that looked down upon everyone in the room.


    The statue itself had been the most taxing thing to create. She had fused it with her own powers, and through it, the temple would gain a sort of... awareness. Power, perhaps.


    The humans stood there, mouths gaping. She could feel the strings of faith thickening each moment they looked at the huge temple, some even rubbing their eyes.


    She smiled as her voice resonated once more. "My temple shall become the center of our new city. I have imbued it with divine power, and it will protect all inside it. For now, it shall also be your home until the city can be developed."


    As the people buzzed and discussed, she announced one last time. "Creating this temple is just the beginning. I hope some of you will choose to become my priests, whereas you will forever become a resident of the temple. Naturally, not everyone can become one, as it very hard to train in my divine power."


    That was a load of bullshit, of course. It wasn''t so much as ''training her power'', but the real issue was that it would be very hard for their soul to accept said power, as once a priest was marked by a god, they would forever become devoted to him or her.


    She gave a couple more announcements, some light propaganda carefully hidden in her words, before retiring. She needed to consolidate her newfound enlightenment, and also give the humans some time to themselves. It wouldn''t be good if they became too reliant on her, after all.


    "My powers are based on light, for that was my power back then. Using it as the base for my domain would be for the best... but it''s not enough! I won''t be satisfied with just one domain, I want more!" She murmured, eyes gleaming with hunger. A hunger for knowledge.


    With a thought, all the souls of the critters she killed appeared, along those of the elves she vaporized.


    "Souls are the weakness of all living things, and yet they are also their greatest strength. If I can master it, it will be a great asset." The souls seemed to shiver, even though they weren''t really ''conscious'' anymore. They were too weak for that, as only a soul as strong as her own would be able to live independently without a fleshly body.


    "However... Ugh... I want more. Just one more." She clenched her first. It would be very difficult comprehending even one domain. As for two? That seemed daunting. Three was honestly just suicidal.


    "I don''t have a lot of information on fellow gods, but I know that three domains must be exceptional. I refuse to be normal!" She roared inwardly, the cavern she had dug out for herself deep in the earth trembled from her rage.


    She looked deep within herself, focusing on her own ''domain''. It was a strange thing, sort of like an understanding of the world solidified and then transformed. Several hundred miniscule domains floated about within her subconscious, with a couple of larger ones here and there. They were all the domains she had been trying to comprehend beforehand, and now that she had chosen, two of them had grown much, much larger.


    A golden domain, as well as a silver domain, stood out like towering giants. She instinctively knew that those were her domains and that they were only 20% completed. She briefly wondered just how powerful she would be if she finished even a single domain.


    Looking through all of her domains, she searched for that spark, that desire that she always had for both light and souls. Suddenly, a tiny, almost invisible domain sparked, and she knew she had found it.


    She grasped that tiny domain within her ''hands''. She immediately knew what it was.


    Domain of Rulership


    It was a small domain, and yet, the more she looked at it, the more she liked it. It was a domain that triumphed over everything, that controlled everything, and that knew everything. It had little offensive power, and yet it''s might was undeniable.


    Furthermore, it synergized well with her other domains. Thus, her choice was made.


    "Now, time to get to the boring part. Work. Ugh." She moaned but got to work understanding her three domains nonetheless.

 4 - Planting Seeds (1)

    A tiny hamlet had been born around the temple, and the people had moved out, leaving the temple empty. Although there were no priest recruitments yet, the Goddess had her eyes on several candidates.


    She had been thinking about the future a lot lately. If she wanted to accomplish her plan of world domination, she needed both warriors, settlers, and scholars to aid her in this. Warriors weren''t difficult, throw a sword or bow at a human, give them a couple of monsters to fight and they''ll figure it out eventually. Settlers were easy, as long as they had enough women around willing to have children, then that was that. Scholars were a bit tougher.


    All of these people were illiterate, and most of them had never held a book in their lives. They had already erected several wooden huts down by the grasslands and had even built a road all the way up to the temple. It wasn''t very far between the two, only a couple kilometers.


    The farmers had already begun to tilt the land, the children were slowly getting used to a life where, even though it was hard and rough on all of them, they were free.


    Monsters that so much as sniffed around the territory had been thoroughly exterminated by a very angry Goddess that refused to have her hard work destroyed by a bunch of overeager vermin. Furthermore, this land had once been infested by vermins (goblins), which she had exterminated. However, the elves and beastmen around these lands didn''t know that, and thus kept their distance from the annoying goblins that seemed impossible to kill for good as their breeding rates were simply insane.


    As time passed, a rhythm within the tiny village was eventually established. Several adolescents had begun training with swords and bows, all created by their revered Goddess. They were taught by an old farmer who had, once upon a time, been a guard.


    A year after the establishment of the village, which the Goddess herself had named Jade City (yes, her naming sense was bad, but she would never admit that), the goddess descended.


    The moment she appeared in the skies, everyone dropped to their knees to pray. They had seen their goddess act several times in the past year, from exterminating monsters, curing the sick, to simply giving advice.


    "The time has come, my children. I have chosen my candidates for priesthood, and I wish for them to head up to the temple at once..."


    She called a total of 12 names, some of them were old men, some barely in their teens and some in their middle age.


    Out of a population of 200, twelve was already a very generous amount, to be honest. However... She had absolutely 0 intention for her following to be so small. In fact, now that the town had been established and a system of governance, no matter how small, had been set up, she planned on going out and rescuing more humans from their captors and putting them into the city.


    It would cause a bit of chaos for a while, but it would be very beneficial. She had created a sort of elective council for this very reason, where 8 members are elected and work together to solve issues and manage things. Naturally, the real power still rested neatly in her hands, and nobody so much as dreamed about even thinking of taking it.


    But for now, priests.


    The Goddess watched as all 12 members of what she hoped would become her main way of spreading her roots through the world trecked through the dirt road that led to the temple. They were nervous, that much was obvious.


    She had included Helen in that group because honestly, she had far too much potential not to be included. If she accepted, The Goddess would gain what she hoped would eventually become her right-hand woman.


    Furthermore, if her research in souls, faith, and her Ruler domain was correct, then she would never have to fear a rebellion from any of her worshippers, be they priests or not.


    Upon reaching the great arch that was the entrance to the temple, they looked as though they were either entering the gates of hell, or those of heavens, or maybe both. Pretty accurate really.


    They eventually found their courage and entered, borrowing strength from the famed group mentality. As soon as they were within the great hallway, they immediately saw the form of their great Goddess sitting lazily upon the throne, her arms resting on the armrests, head tilted slightly to the sides and one leg over the other. Overall, it wasn''t a very dignified position, but the Goddes made it work. Somehow.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "Welcome, darlings. Today will be the day where you shall decide whether or not to bind your fate to mine." She said, her eyes closing and forming a cute little eye-smile.


    She pointed at one of the priest-hopefuls, a young woman in her early 20''s. "Come here, child."


    The woman''s eyes were wide, and she looked like a deer caught in a headlight. What''s a headlight? No idea.


    "Y-yes!" She said and quickly ran up to the throne and dropped to her knees in front of it. With a smile, the Goddess reached forward with her hand, lightly putting it upon the young woman''s head.


    For a couple of seconds, nothing seemed to happen as the woman closed her eyes. However, after exactly 5 seconds, the woman let out a loud gasp as she pulled her head back. Everyone, excluding the Goddess, stared in wonder at the young woman''s forehead, which now had a tattoo-like image of a pair of golden wings that started a little above the center of her two eyes and curved all the way to her cheeks.


    The woman gingerly touched the strange tattoo with an awed expression, causing the Goddess to chuckle.


    Truth be told, although it had only taken a moment, the woman had passed well over an entire day within her mindscape, forced to constantly bathe within divine light, which was the Goddess'' power.


    The Goddess hadn''t actually expected the woman to succeed in the ordeal, but surprisingly, she did. And quite well at that too. Now, as long as she trained for a couple of years, the woman would be able to cast spells utilizing the energy that the Goddess had baptized her with, and if she prayed for more energy during a battle or outside of it, the Goddess would refill her.


    Furthermore, she would now be able to utilize Divine Light spells, which the Goddess had spent around a month devising a whole slew of and recording them down onto books, before putting them in the temple''s library.


    Of course, the whole illiteracy thing would have to be solved, but the Goddess doubted that the woman would have any trouble with that when she had actually managed to accept and absorb all the power that she had sent, as it was hella painful.


    "I am very impressed, child. Congratulations on becoming my first priestess." She smiled at the woman, who was still gingerly touching her mark.


    For the next half hour, she baptized all the other priests. While not completely unexpected, it was still surprising that none of them failed the trial. She had indeed been experimenting a lot, and thus could tell the chances of someone succeeding in it and had chosen accordingly. Still, it was a pleasant surprise.


    Finally, it was the last priest hopefuls turn - Helen''s. The Goddess looked into the eyes of the youngest person in the room, who looked anxious enough that she might have fainted if not for the hidden determination in those eyes.


    The Goddess smirked inwardly. She could see a lot of pain behind those eyes, but also a strong determination, and her soul was so stunningly delicious that the Goddess couldn''t help but want to have it all for herself and no one else. If some other god so much as touched her, she might honestly rampage.


    She extended her hand and repeated the phrase that had been said 11 times. "Come here, child."


    Helen closed her eyes and took a deep breath before walking up to the Goddess with fake bravado in her steps and then getting on her knees.


    The Goddess gingerly put her hand on Helen''s head and sent a burst of power much stronger than that of those from before.


    Helen gasped as sweat trickled down her brows, but she didn''t pull away. The Goddess could see Helen''s soul as it swam within a literal sea of divine light.


    Once it looked like the light sea was drying up, she projected her voice into the little girl''s head. "Do you wish for more?"


    Helen''sbody trembled in pain, but she still gritted her teeth and nodded. Receiving all the consent she needed, the Goddess sent another burst of power into Helen''s body.


    Helen held back a scream as her very soul seemed to be burning up while also being torn apart, but she refused to give in. Her chance for a better life, one where her mother didn''t have towork herself to death just for scraps, stood before her. She''d rather die than miss it.


    The pain was almost unbearable, but she refused to give in. After what felt like forever, the pain slowly receded, until it completely disappeared.


    Helen collapsed, her body completely soaked with sweat. She wanted to stay up, to continue on, but as a pair of soft arms wrapped around her and pulled her onto an even softer body, she gave in to her desires.


    "Shhh... You''ve done well, child..." The Goddess cooed. She was a bit surprised at seeing tears coming down the little girl''s face, but, sensing her emotions, she could tell those weren''t sad tears. No, they were tears shed for a hopeful new beginning.


    And if the Goddess had a say in it, which she did, the little girl would forever be by her side, perhaps not always happy, but never again a powerless nobody.


    After a couple of minutes of softly petting the child, she inspected the changes on her body.


    Like the others, she too had gotten the two-wings tattoo on her face, but unlike the others, the tattoo ran down all the way to her feet, wrapping around her torso and coiling around her legs. Furthermore, Helen''s soul had now turned completely golden and felt at least a hundred times stronger than before.


    The Goddess smiled at this positive change. She handed the child off to the first priest, the young woman, before stepping back and looking at her newly made priests.


    "From today onwards, you all will be the Sacred Priests, and from now on, I am the Sacred Light Goddess. In my presence, you are to address me as ''Lord''. I will teach you how to read and write first, and then, magic. After that, I expect you to contribute to my faith, and to properly guide humanity." She said, her eyes roaming over her priests, who all held their heads down, eyes filled with reverence and expectation.


    She nodded. "Good attitude. Let''s go." With that, she teleported her followers over to the library, where she began the first teaching session, one of the many, many more to come.

 5 - Planting Seeds (2)

    Sacred Light. She tasted her own name like it was a particularly delicious treat. She liked it very much.


    It felt... good to have a name. Perhaps, good is not the correct word. Satisfactory, maybe, but even that word would be unable to convey the abyss of emotions Sacred was feeling as of then.


    Every time she heard it within a prayer, every time someone so much as whispered the words ''Sacred Light'', she would hear it. It was... Delightful.


    A sense of being something more than just ''a goddess''. No, she was the Sacred Light Goddess. This newfound sense of identity was incredibly helpful in uplifting her mood.


    5 years had passed since she had branded her priests. They had graduated from her teachings two years ago, and then she sent them on several missions both across the town, which had graduated to being a proper village and also towards other human towns to spread her word and recruit worshippers.


    It was actually pretty incredible. Entire towns just straight up threw themselves at her just for that small spark of hope, and she gladly gave it to them. Of course, it wasn''t without a hitch here and there, either some elves being nosy or some humans refusing to believe in her. Both were solved with a little show of her power though, so it wasn''t a big deal.


    Now, Jade City had a total population of around 5000 people, far more than what she started with. Faith rolled in every day, and Sacred Light loved it.


    She''d yet to absorb the faith, but she had already formed several ideas on how to use it both on herself and... other things. Unfortunately, she didn''t have enough faith for it, so she needed to hold off for a couple more years before putting the plan to action.


    Truth be told, Sacred Light was swamped with work. Between having to manage all the faith, she also had to manage the economy, settle the newcomers, comprehend the Laws, order her priests around, and also defend Jade City.


    It was a lot of work, but Sacred wasn''t a goddess for nothing. She could easily make incarnations of herself to help her manage everything.


    And hot damn was it satisfying watching all of her work come together. Although still a bit rough around the edges, the economy was starting to pick up as farmers started harvesting the big crops, the miners found their veins, the various artisans finally had the resources to work, and the priests helped keep the population in good health.


    She''d built a miniature church in the village, even just so the people could come together to pray every once in a while. Although that wasn''t really the biggest reason for it, as in reality, it was more of a school for children to be educated and indoctrinated in. It also served as her priests'' main residence, so that was nice.


    Furthermore, the church also acted as a sort of town hall. In it, the council would work on various mundane issues that Sacred Light couldn''t be bothered with. The best thing about it was that it was actually democratically elected every 2 years, meaning that the people in it truly did have the people''s best interest in mind. Mostly. And if they didn''t, Sacred Light wouldn''t be happy, and god forbid making her angry.


    Of course, it was a very, very early version of what Sacred Light hoped would eventually become a government capable of ruling over the entire continent. There were still a ton of issues in it that Sacred Light had to fix every day, but it was slowly coming together through sheer force of divine will.


    And now, there was still one crucial piece missing. An army.


    Jade City did have a couple of dozen hunters, but they obviously couldn''t be considered an army. Hell, they couldn''t even be seen as a militia. And that was troubling.


    Sacred knew that she couldn''t protect everyone forever. Eventually, they would have to graduate from being held by the hand by her all the time, otherwise, Sacred would never be free to do other things.


    However, it had still been impossible to form a standing army with a small number of people. Even now, Sacred wasn''t sure if it was a good idea to take the strong and capable youth away from the village, where they were most needed. Still, it was necessary to at least start training them seriously, as she knew the various elven kingdoms were starting to get wind of her village, and it was impossible for them to let such a place exist.


    Of course, if her assumptions on elven culture and politics, it would take at least a bunch of decades before they properly decided to send an army here. Of course, if she was to do something drastic, they would come here much quicker.


    Although, she wasn''t worried at all about the mortal elves. She could exterminate hundreds of thousands of those with a single attack. No, what worried her was the semi-deity of the elves, the Life-Giving God Tree.


    The stupid tree had existed for tens of thousands of years with constant worship from far too many elves. Although it was still a dumb tree that couldn''t really move around and thus didn''t worry her, she still wished to be cautious.


    Of course, the moment she finished comprehending all 3 of her domains would be the day she would rip that tree out of the ground. She salivated at the mere thought of having an experimental subject on the level of a deity.


    Still, that was a far-off goal. She''d only just reached 30% on her Light and Soul domains, and 10% on her Ruler one. Thinking that far ahead would only dishearten her.


    As Sacred sat on her throne inside the large temple, contemplatingall of these things while also focusing on comprehending the Laws, while also making sure that Jade City was running smoothly, her mind suddenly received a transmission.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    "Hm?" She hummed. She sent a strand of her thoughts to discover which of her priests had activated the talisman that she had given them, with express instructions to only use it if theyreally needed her personal intervention.


    In her mind''s eye, she saw a bird''s eye view of a small, run-down settlement. Helen stood there in the center of the town, facing four robed figures. Behind her hid a dozen or so children, all of them trembling and absolutely reeking of fear and terror.


    Sensing her Goddess'' attention, Helen unconsciously relaxed just a fraction. Her sharp eyes focused on the four elves that were chatting as if she wasn''t even worth their time.


    "What a strange human she is. Look at those tattoos... They feel as though they were made with magic." One of them, a middle-aged elf with silver hair said while stroking his chin and looking at Helen as if she was an interesting puzzle.


    "Gentlemen, since I was the one who found her first, it should be natural she belongs to me." The oldest one said, giving the middle-aged one a lazy glance.


    "Hmph." The middle-aged elf snorted, refusing to add anything to that.


    "Alright, enough chit-chat. Kill the brats and get the weird one, then we can report for a successful mission to His Majesty." The third elf, one with long, black hair and a feminine face said.


    "Yeah, yeah." The middle-aged elf raised his hand and lazily pointed it at Helen, whose eyes went wide as she hastily cast a barrier spell.


    A boom went off as a spear of lightning shot out of the elf''s hand and smashed into the barrier. Helen grit her teeth as she poured more power into it, eventually letting both spells cancel themselves out.


    "Oh? A mage?" The last elf, an actually pretty average one, commented. "That''s rare amongst lowly humans." His lips turned a bit perverted. "Hope you gentlemen won''t mind if I have her for a bit after this, yes?"


    Helen''s eyes turned dark. She''d been assigned to this recently discovered town to gather followers, gain some wealth, and if possible, some intelligence on the elves nearby. However, upon her arrival, she found that the town had been massacred and that only these children had somehow survived.


    She''d rounded them up and fed them while also casting some spells to heal them. As she found out, these four elves had actually come sometime earlier and killed everyone before leaving. She''d been in the middle of giving the kids an emotional speech about new chances in Jade City when the elves had returned for some reason, and that led to where they were now.


    "You truly are arrogant, you disgusting tree-shitters." She spat out. The elves glanced at her lazily.


    "Look at the little bitch yipping. She needs a good whipping to get herself in order." The average elf laughed. He was quite enjoying toying with the little human bitch.


    "You..." Helen was like a volcano at this point, just about ready to explode. However, she still wasn''t ready to face these powerful Royal Mages, the cream of the top of the elven mages.


    Seeing all of this, Sacred Light''s eyes closed for a second. When they reopened, forget volcanoes, they were like supernovas.


    "YOU VERMIN DARE COVET WHAT''S MINE!?!" Her earth-shaking voice roared out, the skies turning dark. The ground in Jade City trembled, and every one of her followers could feel her absolute wrath, causing them to turn deathly pale.


    Her body vanished from her throne, flying at impossible speeds. The earth shook and cracked wherever she passed until she reached where Helen was, stopping mid-air.


    The four elven mages were still ignoring Helen when her full power was suddenly unleashed, causing the ground to shatter and the skies to darken.


    The elves swiveled around to stare up at her with wide eyes and gaping mouths. Sacred looked at them with fury burning her veins.


    "Filthy scum, your souls will never find rest for the next hundred thousand years, with only the worst kind of pain as your companion" Sacred roared as her domain pushed the four pathetic elves to the ground, face first.


    With a wave of her hand, the four large lances of light appeared in the sky, their presence alone causing huge winds. With but a thought, those lances impaled the four elves who could do nothing but stare in horror as the lances buried themselves in their bodies, causing them to turn into nothingness.


    Their screams were pleasing enough for Sacred, who still wasn''t used to feeling such intense anger. She extended her arms and collected their souls, who would be used in the absolutely most painful and horrifying experiments, and then finally turned to Helen, her demeanor changing from a world-ending monstrous goddess to the calm and, if not loving, at least caring goddess that she usually was.


    "M-my Lord..." Helen was still wide-eyed as she immediately kneeled, tears coming out of her eyes. It was obvious even to the emotionally-stunted goddess that Helen was having a slight relapse of her relatively short time as a slave, and that this experience had shaken her.


    "Helen. Rise." Sacred ordered, and Helen obeyed, lifting her head to stare at her savior, her goddess, and the person she looked up to the most.


    "Helen. I am very, very proud of you." Sacred said, casually walking towards Helen and stopping in front of her, delicately caressing her head.


    "B-but... I didn''t do anything! I was worthless!" Helen stuttered, cheeks flaming in shame. Sacred shook her head and walked past Helen to the group of children, who were still paralyzed from both fear, awe, and a slew of other emotions.


    Sacred took the hand of one of the children, and asked: "May I pick you up, child?"


    The little girl, no older than six years, was still looking at her with wide eyes. Her mind obviously still a bit in shock, but she nodded slightly nonetheless.


    Carefully picking up the child and holding her up to her non-existent chest, she turned back to Helen. "You put yourself in danger just for these beautiful children. I may not be the most appropriate person to say this, as I know I am not a good person, for that is not what I am. But you, Helen, are indeed that good person everyone needs in their lives."


    "Your courage allowed for these children to remain safe, whereas you could have just run away. Don''t shame yourself for your weakness, instead, use that courage of yours to make yourself stronger, so that the next time you encounter such a situation, you will be able to protect those you wish to keep safe."


    Helen looked to be on the verge of tears as she bowed again, even deeper this time. The children were all looking at her with sheer awe now, and one was even trying to reach out to her wings, which Sacred allowed with no small amount of humor.


    "I must go now, my children. The elves have been getting increasingly on my nerves, and this is the last straw. It is time for us to take more drastic actions." Sacred said, her eyes locking onto those of Helen, who could only quickly nod.


    "Take the children back to Jade City and make sure they''re cared for. After that, go to the church, for it is time for me to make an announcement." Having said all that needed to be said, Sacred put down the child who''d been clutching at her golden clothes, feeling their softness. She patted the child''s head and then vanished.


    Helen watched the spot of where her lord had been but a moment ago. Her words rang in her head.


    Clenching her fists, she looked at the poor children who reminded her so, so painfully much of just who she had been, and could have continued to be. ''I promise, my lord. I will become stronger, strong enough to protect these children and so many more.''


    But first, she had underwear to clean, because obviously the children had been frightened enough to poop themselves. Helen rolled her eyes inwardly at the mood-killer.

 6 - Planting Seeds (3)

    Within the large church, Sacred sat upon her throne, as usual, holding fancy-looking books in one hand and an inked feather in the other. Her hands blurred as she wrote down entire books in matters of seconds.


    Finally, after a couple of minutes and over 200 books later, she stopped and allowed the feather in her hand to vanish into golden motes.


    Heaving a frustrated sigh, Sacred leaned back to rest her back on her throne, her wings automatically turning immaterial as to not block her.


    "This should be enough, right?" She muttered to herself, eyeing the 1000+ books that she''d written over the entire day. Each of these books was specific to either a martial art, a technique for some weapon, or just general information on warfare.


    She''d dedicated quite a bit of her mental faculties to achieving such results in a short time. Her reason for doing was that she hoped that, thanks to these books, her soldiers would be stronger than their enemies. She knew she couldn''t rely solely on words to make her soldiers stronger, but it should be a great help.


    Still, she planned on personally training the first generation herself and then assigning them as commanders and trainers for the future soldiers. While she wasn''t a generally vain person (she was, she just didn''t like admitting it), she knew she was a good teacher. Maybe not the best, but with her power, if she couldn''t churn out some top-grade generals and warriors easily, then she should just kill herself and be done with it.


    She rubbed her temples as a headache threatened to rear its ugly face. She was swamped with work, and honestly, it was really starting to tax her. She had a number of huge projects as of now that she needed to finish: the army, the government, the church, and finally, her biggest plan of all, her personal divine realm.


    Sacred wanted a separate dimensional space carved outside the earthly realm that she could use for her experiments, and to store the souls of her followers. Each time someone who prayed to her enough died, their souls would automatically be attracted towards her, and Sacred thought it to be her responsibility to manage these souls. Obviously, she didn''t have that many as of now, since her following was still pretty small, but in the future, she would need somewhere to store them other than her own body.


    Heaving yet another tired sigh, Sacred slumped further down into her seat. The army would require at least a couple incarnations to teach them, meaning at least 20-30% of her consciousness. Then, the divine realm needed to be thought over and planned, while also accumulating the horrifying amount of faith energy that was required. That was at least another 40% consciousness gone. Then, she also needed to make sure the civilian matters of her people were cared for, and that her priests weren''t fucking things up. That took another 15%. Finally, whatever mental faculties were left were totally concentrated on furthering her own Domains, which were really starting to plateau due to her lack of complete focus.


    Her senses alerted her to people coming into her temple, and she immediately sat upright, changing her posture from tired beyond belief to one of confidence, power, and dignity. And maybe a tad bit of arrogance in there as well.


    Coming into the great hall that was the temple''s main area, over 40 priests gathered in an orderly, if not a bit nervous, manner. They neatly arranged themselves in lines in front of her throne, going by order of power and position. Obviously, Helen stood at the very front, along with three other priests that Sacred heavily favored.


    Eyeing them approvingly, Sacred lazily waved her hand, causing all the books she had written beforehand to appear in front of the priests.


    "Each of these books contains enough knowledge to transform a simple man into a great general. Your job will be to find people to transcribe them and put them in lower temple, where both children and soldiers can benefit from them."


    She allowed her priests time to go over them, and then had the books float over to a corner so they wouldn''t encumber the rest of the meeting.


    "Now, on the topic of soldiers, I wish to finally create a standing army for my people. I alone cannot, and will not, guard over everything myself. While I have some ideas, I would like to hear your ideas, so speak up." She said, and immediately, discussions and murmurs came from her cute little priests.


    Over the following hours, many ideas were made, rejected, remade and improved upon. Finally, Sacred put her foot down when she felt that the current idea was the most efficient and feasible one.


    "Silence!" She ordered, and immediately, all the noise stopped. "While there can be a lot of improvement, we are still small. We will divide the army into three main sections: The police force, the frontline soldiers, and the holy warriors. I will personally train the holy warriors, and their job will be to act as the main spearhead for our forces."


    Sheplanned to have the police force separated into two sections, the peacekeepers loyal to the church and the church alone, and the occupation forces, which would act as militia to occupy and bring order to conquered territories. This wasn''t anything particularly novel, but she did plan on including several priests into both forces of the police in order to keep the policemen themselves in line. Of course, this wasn''t doable right now with the meager amount of priests, nor was it necessary, but it was good to plan ahead.


    As for the frontline soldiers, those would be the main fighting force. Their job was pretty obvious: Kill the enemy. They would be the main fighting force, and also the one who would, unfortunately, have the highest casualty rate. Sacred chose to not separate them for now, but she planned to form specific corps based on specialization later when she had more manpower available. Things like the Scout Corps, the Archer corps, the Mage corps... Basic, but efficient. That was Sacred''s main goal.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Sacred frowned slightly at that. She had a bunch of priests, but they were all still pretty weak overall, but she had absolutely no mages. That had to be changed, and soon.


    Humans were much less attuned to magic than elves were, and were much weaker than beastmen. They were just okay in all areas, and that was a bit problematic for Sacred, as what she needed were incredible specialists, not a jack-of-all-trades.


    Finally, the last and most important section of the army: The holywarriors. These would be the absolute elites of elites, the most powerful warriors under her command. Naturally, the level of power she expected wasn''t something feasible for a normal human, but luckily, she was a goddess, and one with a very convenient domain.


    Earlier on, she had used her Ruler and Soul domains to form something she cheekily called a Cultivation Path. It was incredibly similar to what she did to her own priests, but while priests got stronger by training their souls by absorbing her the world energy through her power and connecting their souls further with their Sacred Goddess, this path was different.


    It focused heavily on training the body by transforming it using divine energy, which they would obtain by transforming the energy of the world through what she dubbed divine symbols.


    These symbols started as simple wings tattoos formed on one''s back, somewhat like those priests held. However, as one progressed through the path, the symbols would gradually transform and cover more of the body, and if one completed the path, the tattoos would transform into spiritual wings, which would symbolize their complete connection to Sacred Light, as well as act as excellent conductors of divine energy.


    There was one drawback to following this path, however. Sacred was a bit nervous about creating powerful warriors that could potentially cause trouble, therefore, the stronger one got by traveling the path, the more their souls would fall prey to Sacred''s influence. If one completed the path, they would forever be unable to so much as think of disobeying Sacred''s will.


    It wasn''t exactly like taking away someone''s free will, but it was somewhat similar. Truth be told, Sacred''s goal for her divine realm was to use it to influence this world, projecting her influence down upon her followers at minimal cost, allowing her to gradually turn the population into absolute zealots.


    While that was still far-off in the future, Sacred knew that the moment she completed her divine kingdom and somehow found a way to connect it to the mortal realm, the profits gained would be immeasurable.


    Sacred believed in the saying that the more power one had, the greater one''s responsibility should be. This was shown in her way of governance, and the way she treated her followers. She expected very little of those with little power but demanded the absolute best from her elites. Hence, she had absolutely no plans for abusing her influence, should the plan come to fruition.


    As her priests left the temple with the orders to immediately begin recruitment into the police and army, Sacred stopped Helen from leaving with a call of her name.


    Bowing deeply, Helen looked up into her Lord''s eyes, still excited at the prospect of finally being able to fight back against their elven, beastly and demonic oppressors. Although she''d only met beastmen once or twice in her life and never seen even a sniff of a demon, she had still heard stories of their cruelty towards mankind, and thus was more than happy to have them purged from this world.


    "Helen," Sacred called with no small amount of humor in her voice. "Don''t think I haven''t seen those eyes of yours as we discussed the holy warriors."


    Helen''s cheeks flared bright red as she was caught red-handed. "I... I just-"


    She stopped as a golden-rimmed book was suddenly thrown at her chest. She stumbled back as her arms reflexively caught the book. She blinked a couple of times and then looked at the book''s title before gaping like fish.


    "T-this... It''s the Holy Warrior''s path?" She asked with wonder in her eyes. Sacred laughed lightly before waving her away.


    "Next week, when I will announce the first generation of Holy Warriors, I''ll be expecting you up here in the temple to begin training. You already have a head start, and I''m expecting great things from you. Go now, and use your time wisely. You''re going to be off the mission board until I deem your training enough."


    Helen nodded rapidly, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She clutched the book to her chest as though it was her own baby, and she quickly left the temple to head towards her room in the lower temple.


    When she was sure Helen had left, Sacred let out a loud groan as she slumped back on her throne. "Ugh... So much fucking work." Even though it was physically impossible, Sacred felt as though she really did have a headache.


    With a sigh of resignation, Sacred stood from her throne and vanished. She needed to comb through the population of her followers to find those with the best compatibility in the cultivation path. It was easy enough for her, as she only needed to watch the soul of a person for a couple of seconds to determine it''s compatibility, but since there were over 5000 people to look through... It wouldn''t be easy.


    However...


    A couple of minutes after Sacred had vanished, a shadow slowly crawled up from the ground and gradually formed into a short, horned demon with blood-red skin.


    A crazed grin spread on the demon''s face as he looked at the throne. "Jejeje... Foolish godling. His Majesty will be pleased with all of this information."


    Reactivating his Shadow Merge technique, the demon transformed back into a shadow and quickly went back to his demonic lord''s palace, where he planned to give all the information he''d just obtained by peeking in on this meeting.


    From what he''d seen, it was obviously a jumped-up demigod trying her hand at forming her own nation. Considering she hadn''t even noticed him, she wasn''t very powerful, which was good for his lord. While it was a bit annoying that her followers were humans, his lord did mention that the elves and beastmen were starting to show signs of forming an alliance.


    Once he was back at the palace and with the information, his lord would reward him handsomely. Perhaps, his own territory might even double just from this one espionage mission.


    But, life isn''t so easy.


    "Eh? Why isn''t this working?" He exclaimed, furrowing his brows in confusion as his shadow merge refused to activate.


    The demon suddenly froze, eyes as wide as saucers as a soft hand landed on his shoulder. A delicious breath tickled his neck, making him shiver.


    "I''ve yet to capture a demon to interrogate, but... You know what, child, you''re an okay spy. I was just in need of somebody to take create a spy corp for me..."


    The demon tried to fight back, to move, to do anything. However, an overwhelming power held him in place as his body turned into golden motes. There was no pain, only a terrifying sense of loss, and the knowledge he was dying.


    "Don''t worry, my child... Once I properly show you my light, you will learn to accept me, and give your everything to me..." Sweet words resonated in his ears even as his head and brain turned into nothingness, and like that, the demon known as Hagrid Brightfire was forever lost to the world.

 7 - Spreading Roots (1)

    Sacred hummed while slowly tapping her fingers on the armrests of her throne, forming a random rhythm. In front of her, several floating screens formed by light floated around, showing her various situations.


    In one screen, several dozen young men and women were training, an incarnation of herself floating in the skies above them, giving them commands and encouraging them, while occasionally pointing out a flaw in footwork, technique, or just mindset.


    Those men and women had been hand-picked by her to become the first generation of holy warriors, and they held a lot of potential. Of course, whether they would be able to realize that potential all rested on chance and their willingness to suffer pain for a greater future.


    Her eyes shifted to another screen. In this one, Helen stood alone, holding onto two short swords, one in each hand. She was fighting against a large panther at least 6 meters in length. Her body glowing with divine light as she fought for her life.


    Naturally, Sacred had an incarnation supervising Helen, giving out pointers and the occasional compliment. For as confident Sacred was in Helen, she wouldn''t risk her life without some precaution put in place.


    Sacred truly liked Helen. She was the perfect subordinate in her eyes. She was extremely talented, careful yet decisive, kind yet brutal when needed, and she knew what orders she had to obey without question, and which she could afford to question.


    Furthermore, her loyalty was absolute. It was actually quite sweet, and Sacred was very, very pleased with herself for having picked up this little girl who would have otherwise been nothing but a rape-toy for some dick-for-brains elves.


    With all of this in regard, it was no wonder Sacred spent so much effort carefully grooming Helen. She''d been the only one capable of surviving two doses of her power during her initiation as a priest, and that had been an immense benefit for Helen.


    Naturally, now that over 10 years had passed since the establishment of Jade City, things had changed. All of her original priests had now undergone the second baptism of her power, increasing their power and status accordingly. 5 of them had even opted to begin training in the Sacred Path, as the soldiers had begun to call it.


    In truth, the Sacred Path wasn''t difficult to cultivate in. All one needed to do so was some effort, a smidge of talent, and a little bit of time. What was difficult to do, however, was excelling in it.


    As one progressed further down the path, it would require more and more energy. If it was just that, then okay, but instead, one also needed to find their own path within this path, and that was incredibly difficult.


    A path was more than just a direction. it was a belief, a moral code, a determination to do something, and an understanding of how to do it. The only one who had touched upon their own path was Helen, and even hers was still the basics of the basic.


    Naturally, there were other roadblocks and bottlenecks within the path, and each one got progressively harder. Despite all her power, even Sacred couldn''t circumvent this. In fact, everything considered, the Sacred Path was already a very easy thing to cultivate. After a thorough interrogation of the little demon spy, she''d found that the technique the demons used to become stronger was much, much more difficult, and relied heavily on the bloodline of the demon.


    As for the elves... Well, even Sacred, who held little love for their race, found them a bit pitiful. Their path to strength was honestly pretty pitiful, as it was completely reliant on one''s aptitude for magic. If one wasn''t attuned enough, they would never be able to advance. Yes, they could become master swordsmen and archers, but comparatively, a single royal elven mage could obliterate a hundred master swordsmen and archers.


    Her gaze switched over to the third screen. This screen was divided into many smaller sections, with each providing a bird''s eye view of many smaller settlements, each founded around little temples.


    Jade City had recently hit the 40.000 population cap, which wasn''t surprising considering the massive migrations happening. Basically every human settlement that still retained a smidge of autonomy was doing it''s best to come to Jade City, and naturally, Sacred was more than happy to help them out.


    The other races had long since understood that something was happening, but they were still completely clueless as to what exactly. Sacred made sure that any rat that dared sniff too close learned that her wrath was not something a mere mortal could ever survive, even if they hid to the other corner of the world.


    Sacred had even sent out her newly-made army a couple of times to some weaker elven settlements, and to great effect. The loot alone was probably worth their time, but the vengeance that came along with it was amazing for propaganda. Furthermore, the elven souls she''d gathered during those raids had been a great help for her Soul domain.


    The human slaves freed in those camps were all extremely malnourished and often had their spirits completely broken, thus, the Sacred church had created several programs to help these people re-settle back into society, and to aid them in their recovery.


    There had been a couple of cases of disdain towards these ex-slaves from those that came from better-off villages, but Sacred had mercilessly dealt with this disdain with a vengeance. In her eyes, anyone who prayed to her was worthy of receiving all the help they needed and should have an equal social standing in society. Things like sexism and scorn for those worst off was something Sacred would absolutely never tolerate.


    However... She wouldn''t lift a finger should harm come to pass to someone who refused to have faith in her. Furthermore, during the raids, several elves both male and female had been captured. Naturally, they''d been brought back to Jade City and sold off as slaves to be used for either hard labor or as sex toys. Considering that elves were praised for being the most beautiful race, it was highly unlikely for them to escape sexual abuse.


    Sacred didn''t help the elves. In her eyes, they were the natural enemy of her followers, and thus it was only natural that they either be purged or enslaved. However... children were a different story.


    As long as an elf and a human had a child, no matter which was the male or female, and even if that child was born from rape, the child would be considered a full member of society. Any aggression towards the person would be met with the force of law, and if the law decided to be unfair, then the church would immediately take action and the punishments would not be light.


    They already had many children in such situations. They were technically half-human, half-elf, and should they have been back in elven society, they would have met a fate worse than even that of a normal human, as they were considered abominations of nature.


    However, in Jade City, they were just people. In fact, the church would gladly take them in to teach them, as they made excellent mages and priests, much more so than normal humans, even if their physique was often weaker.


    There weren''t any adult halflings, only children with the oldest being 9 years old, but Sacred still saw the possibility in them. If she could introduce some of that elven blood into human society, it would be a great benefit.


    Almost all of those children were being raised through the church''s effort, but a number of them had been adopted or kept by the human parent of the child. It was forbidden for the elves to raise the halflings, in fear of them being indoctrinated to the elf''s side, but the human parent would have the option to have legal custody or to give the child to the church.


    On the matter of law, Sacred had finally deemed it time to pass the reigns of civil matters off to both the church, which held power to act should something that displeased the Lord happen, and to the Grand Council, which was now finally taking shape.


    The Grand Council was formed by representatives sent from all other councils, which would, in turn, be formed from even smaller councils. It was still a bit chaotic, but the basics of it were that each settlement, depending on its population, would send a number of representatives over to the Grand Council, and each of those cities held their own councils that helped rule it.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The system was very democratic by nature, but there were still attempts at manipulation here and there. It was something unavoidable, and even Sacred Light couldn''t do much about it. However, the moment anybody crossed the line in their bid of power, or if corruption was involved, the wrath of the church would come raining down upon the suspects. Thanks to a convenient lie-detection spell that almost every priest learned, it was impossible to lie to the church, hence the innocent would always remain that: innocent.


    Everything was decided through votes, which made things a bit slow, but that was acceptable. Truth be told, a democracy of this level had never existed before in the continent, and it was a completely revolutionary idea.


    It was because of this that several people voiced their desire for something more... monarchic in nature. However, they were the minority, and even they really didn''t have much to complain about since their desired monarch, Sacred Light, had been the one to design the system in the first place, and she still held the reigns of power regardless.


    The law was absolute, but the Goddess'' words transcended everything. If she ordered you to kill yourself, you happily picked up the knife and offered her your own heart. That was simply how it was.


    Sacred''s gaze turned towards the fourth, and last, screen. There were no images on it, instead, it was filled with numbers and statistics.


    "Hm... We''re going to need a bit more iron this year." Sacred muttered before sending down a message to the church, which immediately acted upon it. She had designed this screen about a year ago, and it had been an absolute godsend. (hah, get it!?!)


    The screen acted much like the Status screen of video-games, but instead of your statistics, it contained all the information that Sacred usually dealt with. Things like food amount, things needed, population count, crop status... It was all held within and gathered through a complex spell that read directly into her follower''s souls to determine everything.


    With it, every single secret of her followers was exposed before her. Although, she really didn''t need those secrets, as there was absolutely nothing a mere mortal could give her other than faith that mattered. At most, she''d know of some stupid secret crush of a random brainless teenager dreaming of becoming a holy warrior and serving under the Lord''s banner.


    On the topic of banners, Sacred had been at quite a loss. She honestly just wanted to put two golden wings on a piece of fabric and be done with it, but even she could see that was the apex of uncreativity. Thus, she''d asked some of her more... creative subordinates for some ideas of their own.


    She''d ended up with two golden wings forming a circle with a red background. Within the circle was a red scepter, which apparently represented the council, while the wings represented the church.


    Overall, she was quite satisfied with it, and thus had given her approval for it to be used to represent the newborn nation. There was no official name for it yet, for Sacred still thought they should at least conquer a bit more land before doing so. Although, in reality, she was just clueless as to what name to use and thus was procrastinating.


    "Hm?" Her gaze left the last screen to look back at the entrance to her throne. Now that the city had expanded enough, the temple she''d made her home had become unnecessary. Thus, she''d torn it out of the ground and brought it into a separate dimension that she''d carved over the years, which was what she hoped would eventually become her divine kingdom.


    She''d created several space-time runes which served to allow anybody who had permission to enter the not-quite-divine realm-yet through the normal temples back down in the mortal realm. This also allowed her to be able to teleport to any of those places automatically, and the moment she finished building up her divine realm and making it, you know, actually divine, she would be able to use the earthly temples to spread her influence and light, gradually transforming the souls of those in it into golden souls, which would signify complete and utter allegiance to Sacred Light.


    Of course, this would also have a massive benefit to both the land and the people. Under the Goddess'' influence, the land would forever be extremely fertile, the people would basically be unable to be sick, wounds would heal much faster, the people in it would be stronger, and any hostile that entered the region would be weakened, and if Sacred Light chose to, completely squashed without her even moving a finger.


    Hence, for now, she wasn''t trying to expand her influence yet. It wasn''t necessary, and it would be much easier to take the world by storm once she''d gathered enough people, created enough powerful warriors, and finished forming her divine realm.


    Granted, she''d still created a couple of smaller villages, but that was mostly so that the city wouldn''t overcrowd faster than it could expand. But, those were but small villages whose only use was to allow for a little more living area for her people, and to have more resources such as wood, minerals, and farmland. They weren''t meant to act as true cities, at least not yet.


    Compared to those villages, Jade City had turned into a true metropolitan. It was mainly built using stone and wood, but lately, there had been a push to build better homes and to allow for more commodities. Better beds, couches, furniture, and pottery had finally picked off about three years before. Shops had started popping up all over, and because of the high necessity, there were many blacksmiths and armorsmiths getting very rich through very generous contracts that the government gave them in exchange for their weapons and armor.


    There were no walls yet, as they would only limit the city''s growth, and the defense wasn''t really needed thanks to Sacred Light''s protection. Still, outside the city proper, many much smaller communities had been formed, all of them still part of Jade City, but still with a bit of autonomy. Those were the zones where the farmers lived, raising crops and livestock and then selling it for a good profit to the residential area, in exchange, they would buy everything they needed from the shops in the city.


    Originally, when the city had first been founded, bartering had been the only way for trade. However, now that a government had been put in place, the church had created a standard currency of copper, silver, gold, and jade coins. 100 copper was 1 silver, 100 silver was one gold, and one gold was 100 jade coins. It was a pretty basic exchange rate, and the government ensured inflation was under control. Luckily, it was impossible to fabricate fake coins, as they were all made with a sliver of Sacred Light''s energy, giving them a very specific glow that was impossible to replicate.


    Sacred Light blinked a couple of times as her thoughts suddenly went off a tangent. She shook her head and refocused on the entrance of her temple.


    A middle-aged man with silver hair and a shady face came in and immediately bowed before reporting. "My lord, our spies have successfully infiltrated the elven capital and the demonic court. While we''re having a bit more trouble with the beastmen kingdom due to their excellent sense of smell, we should be able to plant our spies in high positions soon.


    Sacred smiled slightly as she beckoned the man to her. With a shiver, he quickly walked towards the throne, where he stopped a couple of steps away from Sacred Light.


    Lazily getting up, Sacred reached forward with her hand, putting it on the man''s cheek, caressing it gently. "What a good boy-toy you are. I truly overdid myself this time."


    Indeed, the middle-aged man had, once upon a time, been a demon noble who specialized in espionage. However, upon having his body destroyed and soul captured by Sacred Light, he had been forcefully reforged. His soul had undergone what Sacred called a ''remodeling'', which basically meant he''d had a whole bunch of Sacred''s divine energy shoved into his soul.


    Due to Sacred''s Ruler Domain, which had just recently hit the 40% bottleneck, her energy was able to completely remodel his personality, transforming him into a completely loyal servant which still held all the memories and experience of his past, but still considered himself a servant of the Sacred Light Goddess.


    Then, Sacred had re-created the man''s body and shoved him into it. It''d been a bit tricky, but because she''d been careful not to damage the soul during extraction, she was able to pull it off. Should a person die by normal means, their soul would be damaged, and it would be impossible to put them back in a body. Well, unless one wanted an undead.


    "Y-yes, my lord..." The man stammered. Sacred found it kinda cute how embarrassed he got at being called a boy-toy by the one who had technically murdered, then mind-fucked him. It was cute in the way a little puppy would yip and yap over having his fur pet.


    Releasing the poor man, who she totally did not enjoy embarrassing, she asked: "So, are there any problem with the current plans?"


    The man took a couple of steps back to a safe distance before replying. "No, my lord. I''ve already received several reports from our spies saying where several human hideouts are, and where the highest amount of human slaves are. If we can act on those reports, then we could increase our population to over 80.000 people by the next two years".


    Sacred hummed happily. "Great. Once the new year hits, I should have gathered enough faith to finally create a decent divine realm. The moment my people have it, it will be far easier to consolidate the lands we will conquer..." A smile rose on Sacred''s face as she thought of finally getting down to conquering those annoying elves, beastmen, and demons.


    As she was about to return to doing her godly things and whatnot, she furrowed her brows and looked at the middle-aged man. "What''re you still doing here? Get out already, I''m sure you''ve got your things to do."


    The man quickly nodded and retreated. His new body had been upgraded quite a lot from his previous one, and considering it had been made with the Sacred Path in mind, it held great compatibility with it, thus allowing for the man to rise in strength very quickly. He became something akin to the chief of the spy department, giving him even more power than what he had back in the demon king''s court.


    With a smile, he thought back to his previous foolish king. "Hehe... Your Majesty, you were truly foolish to consider My Lord as a possible ally. Your fall nears every day, and then, little Timmy will finally be avenged." The man snickered as he vanished into the shadows, leaving behind a gloomy foreshadow.

 8 - Spreading Roots (2)

    Inside an elven city, life was going about its usual pace.


    Merchants shouted for their goods, elves walked around in pairs while holding hands, some gathered together to discuss nature and gossip, and the occasional beastman would moan and bitch about how girly the elves were while claiming to be ''ultra-stronger'' than them.


    Overall, life was pretty decent inside the city. Tall walls ensured good protection from monsters, and even demon or beastmen warbands wouldn''t dare think about daring to attack such a well-fortified place.


    In one of the large shops at the center of the city, a large number of humans, all stripped naked, were being displayed like everyday goods.


    "Come buy some human slaves! Top-quality humans, we have a human for everything you need! Best deals of the seasons, only now!" A teenage elf shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to attract customers. There was the occasional elf who would stop by to take a look at some human, but it was often more of a curiosity thing than a desire to buy them.


    The teenage elf sighed. In the city, human slaves weren''t really all that useful. At best, there would be the occasional noble who would buy a batch of them and use them for pleasure, whether carnal or sadistic. However, those nobles were rare, and most disdained such activities.


    With a defeated expression, he took out his whip and quickly got the humans back into the building, putting them in their appropriate cages. He''d have to feed them tonight, he grumbled. Maintaining slaves was quite expensive, unfortunately, especially good ones.


    "How''d today go, Yumi?" A beautiful girl elf asked as she sat at the counter of the store, leaning forward in a very suggestive pose.


    The teenager swallowed. "Uh... It went ok, I guess. There was a beastman who wanted to buy one of the more expensive females to use to cool down his heat. Apparently, that''s a thing." The teenager laughed awkwardly, but the girl didn''t mind as she too stifled a giggle.


    "Mmh..." She said. "You know, I''ve heard there''s been a recent rise in human migration. It''s been getting pretty hard to capture good specimen lately."


    The teenager''s hormones instantly cooled down. He liked the cute girl who worked with him under his uncle, but he liked his job a lot more.


    "Yeah, uncle''s been pretty pissed off lately. Apparently, there''s been a number of slavers going missing along with their cargo. Uncle says it''s the demons getting jealous that we get a lot of business through human trafficking, and they''ve been interfering."


    The girl''s eyes furrowed in confusion. "But I thought the three great races were allied?"


    The boy looked at her weirdly for a second before his hormones kicked in and he instantly answered, "Well, yeah, we are, but only on the surface. Apparently, there''s a lot of conflict over interests happening as of late."


    The girl smiled sadly. "You know a lot about this, don''t you?"


    The boy smiled shyly. "Uncle says a good slaver should always know their politics. It makes life easier, you know?"


    Slowly, the girl got up from her seat and walked towards the boy, affection in her eyes. As she drew closer, the teenager''s breath hitched, and as their mouths got closer...


    Screams and explosions tore through the air, loud war cries stunning the both of them as they jumped apart.


    The next instant, a large, half-naked human wielding two large axes smashed through the door. His eyes gleamed with madness as, with a single glance, he saw what the shop was about. Human slavery.


    "Filthy elven scum, die!" He roared, the panicking elves backtracked, trying to get away.


    "W-why is a human free!? Where''s your master?" The girl asked, voice hitching in fear.


    The man took some steps forward. "My master!? My only master is the glorious lord, the lady of the bright sky, bringer of hope and vengeance. You filthy elven scum will be exterminated soon!" The man laughed in madness as he toyed with the two lovesick teenagers.


    "Gregor, shut up for a second, will you?" Another man said as he too entered the shop. He was much smaller than Gregor, and his tattoos were those of a priest.


    With a glance, he could see all the chained humans and the horrible state they were in. "Seems like the intelligence was accurate. Once we burn down this city and plant the evidence, it''s very likely war will start. The Lord will be pleased."


    The teenage boy elf finally found his courage, and in a shaky voice, asked: "W-who are you people? Where''s the city guard?"


    Gregor laughed loudly. "Those flimsy little wimps? The Holy Warriors did a quick work of them. And soon, you too will join them. Rasmus, are you ready yet?"


    "Yeah, yeah. Don''t kill them, they look like they''d be worth quite a bit. I''ll take care of our brethren." He murmured as his tattoos glowed with golden light.


    As Rasmus focused on the captured slaved, Gregor turned back to the teenagers, casually stopping the boy from trying to stab him with a flimsy knife. "Brat, you''re lucky I ain''t one of the more hardcore elf haters, or I''d have ripped your balls out for that."


    With a smile unbecoming of the situation, he backhanded the boy on the back of the neck, dropping him into sudden unconsciousness. The girl''s eyes were wide as she tried to find an escape.


    She sprinted for one of the windows, but with a shout, Gregor jumped over to her. "Don''t even try that, elven scum."


    He delivered a punch on her stomach that sent her slamming into one of the counters, and then quickly backhanded her on the neck as well. He gathered the two elves up, holding them like sacks of potatoes as he turned back to Rasmus, who was talking softly with one of the slaves.


    He waited for 5 minutes as Remus gave directions to the slaves, who looked as though they had finally found the light of salvation. As the ex-slaves ran out of the shop, heading towards the other priests, Remus turned back to Gregor.


    Gregor looked like a mix of nostalgia, pain, and remembrance. "You know, I used to be just like them. I still remember when you suddenly came, murdering the disgusting elf that called himself my master. I swear, I thought the heavens were falling on me that day."Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Remus smiled slightly before commenting, "You know, with your strength, you could probably apply for a soldier rank in the Holy Warriors."


    Gregor laughed slightly as he left the shop with Remus. "I know, but I''d rather climb the regular ranks for now. When I''m confident enough, I''ll apply. I heard that the training they get in the Holy Warriors is extremely harsh..."


    Situations like the one Gregor and Remus took part in were happening all across the city. Half an hour earlier, under the cover of their priest''s spells, a thousand soldiers, headed by a dozen Holy Warriors, infiltrated the city and quickly murdered the watchmen, before bringing death through the entire city.


    Gregor and Remus could actually be considered to be the most tolerant and relaxed soldiers. Most soldiers were incredibly brutal in their treatment of the elves, and very few had the chance to be enslaved. Most were brutally sacrificed, their entrails ripped out from their intestines and force-fed to themselves. Some of the female warriors took particular enjoyment in castrating every male elf they found before stuffing their penis up their anus, then murdering them.


    Such brutal treatment was not only ignored by the Holy Warriors, who could be considered as the officers of the operation, but it was also actually encouraged. After all, elven slaves held little value beyond carnal pleasure. Their frail bodies made them unsuitable for hard labor, and the few mages who had a magic talent were unlikely to be captured.


    By the end of the third hour, the entire city was in ruins. Several soldiers had blocked the gates and walls, ensuring no elf could escape. It was a complete massacre, and it left the higher-ups very satisfied.


    As the common soldiers retreated, the Holy Warriors, who''d limited their intervention to ensuring a successful infiltration, quickly got to work in planting fake evidence. Demon corpses were thrown about, and several sacrificial symbols unique to demons were drawn. An hour later, with all the evidence planted, they too left, carrying with them as much loot as possible while high-tailing it back to Jade City.


    Inside another dimension, a screen showed everything to a certain Goddess.


    "Perfect operation. Nobody escaped, the evidence is perfect, the soldiers behaved themselves very well, and the loot is very good. I''m expecting a lot of promotions for those involved." Sacred Light commented. 8 priests sat on the ground in front of her throne, staring at the large screen of light that appeared before the lot of them.


    "Yes, Lord." An old man with a long beard said, his eyes gleaming with happiness. His own son had been included in the operation, so he was naturally ecstatic for it to have gone so well.


    The church had been structured much like the civilian government, yet it was also very different. Every member in front of Sacred Light was considered as the cream at the top of the Sacred Church, all of them holding a lot of influence. Naturally, they were also the most devout followers of Sacred Light and the strongest priests available. Some even dabbled into the Sacred Path.


    Each of them had been hand-picked by Sacred Light herself, therefore, their authority was unquestionable, and their power was not any lower than the members of the Grand Council. Furthermore, if they found evidence, or even just suspicion, pointing towards something that could displease their Lord, their executive power would become so absolute that nobody could obstruct them. It was for this reason that they held a collective title, the Bishops.


    Of course, there was an exception. There were three people with a standing even higher than theirs: the Three Champions of the Sacred Goddess.


    Helen Judas, the strongest and also most favored champion of the Sacred Goddess. She was a rare sight within the Jade City, often undertaking the most dangerous of missions and the harshest of training amongst any follower. Her influence in church and state politics was limited, but that was only because she was often busy acting outside the Goddess'' influence. If she did say something, though, that thingwouldbe done, by hook or by crook.


    The second champion, Hagrid Manstin, considered as the shadow of the church. He was the one who did all the dirty deeds that nobody else wanted to dirty their hands with, and thus, although knowledge of his existence was limited to only the elites of the elite, he was very much respected by them, especially because the Goddess was rumored to have personally created this man with her own hands.


    The third champion, and also the youngest, was actually a half-blood named Mark Lutervinsk. With an elf father and human mother, he was proof that rape can happen to both genders. Currently, he was only 11 years old, but even now, his genius was undeniable, and the Sacred Goddess had personally deemed worthy of receiving her direct teachings, taking him as her disciple.


    Since the Sacred Goddess had personally acted, every single half-blood hater could only nod in acceptance and smile. Actually, with the Sacred Goddess personally teaching a half-blood, it had set a huge example, and although discrimination against half-bloods had been frowned upon before, it was now completely forbidden. After all, the highest sort of crime possible for any Sacred follower was to offend their Lord.


    "Well, with this, hopefully, we can further fan the flames between the elves, beastmen, and demons. If they fight amongst each other and weaken themselves, it will be much easier for us to swoop in and reap the highest reward for the lowest cost." Sacred Light laughed, her soft, bell-like voice echoing through the church.


    The bishops exchanged excited glances. With no small amount of expectation, the old man from before, the current ruling Head Bishop, a title not unlike that of a pope, asked, "My Lord, has your divine realm finished building?"


    Sacred Light glanced at the head bishop, eyes gleaming. "Unfortunately, not yet. However... I have finished gathering everything needed for its construction. That was also the reason I called you bunch up here." Her voice shifted from her usual soft and caring tone to the hard and commanding one that she adopted whenever the situation was serious.


    Sensing this, the bishops all straightened up unconsciously.


    "For the following month, I will be closing all entrances to this realm. I plan on using this dimension as a foundation of the divine realm, and thus cannot allow any interruptions. I will leave behind several incarnations to manage things while my main body focuses on building the divine realm to acceptable standards. When I finish, I will be expecting the army to be ready, settlers to be prepared, the police to be at hand, and several war churches already pre-built and ready for deployment."


    The bishops nodded solemnly. The war churches were, as the name implies, churches built for war. They were akin to small forts, able to be taken apart and rebuilt in less than a week by a capable enough workforce. Once the divine realm was established, they would be able to spread Sacred''s influence just as well as regular churches, but they also doubled as very effective strongholds. Supplies and weaponry could be safely stored within them without fear, and within the church, even a simple soldier would have his or her strength shoot up by over a hundred times.


    Effectively, once the war churches were deployed, it meant the area will be held with an iron grip, and if the enemy wished to take it back, they would have to pay an immense price for it. Actually, Sacred secretly hoped that the opponents would do just that, ram their heads against her churches and suffer heavy losses while within her influence. They''d probably learn quickly, but by that time, their losses would be massive.


    With a wave of her hand, she dismissed the bishops. "Tell the Sacred Generals to start drafting up invasion plans. The war will be coming very soon."


    As the bishops left, Sacred relaxed into her throne. She could almost taste all her preparations and plans coming together.


    She was extremely proud of herself for having resisted the temptation of absorbing faith. Because of that, she had now discovered several flaws within the power of faith, namely the restrictive power it held. If she absorbed it without care, she would only bind herself down, becoming unable to advance.


    No, the true use of faith was as a building material. With it, she could build a realm completely in tune with her power, and using the realm as a medium she could absorb the faith harmlessly, for the only thing it could restrict at that point was the realm itself, which was impossible. Hence, she''d finally be able to absorb faith freely, and her power would skyrocket as a result.


    She looked forward to it. With a wave of her hand, every single teleportation rune in the temple shut down. Then, with another wave of her hand, terrifying waves of faith rushed forth from every corner of the temple. The entire separate realm trembled at the power of faith.


    With a smirk, Sacred got to work.

 9 - Spreading Roots (3)

    The entirety of Jade City was in an incredibly festive mood. Food, drinks, songs, hookers... A sort of festival was being held all through the city, and at it''s centermost were the temples.


    Priests paraded around, holding the flags of their still not named country. Many called it the Sacred Nation, some called it the Light Country, and even others called it Human Paradise. However, no name had been made official by the goddess yet.


    Today would be the day the divine realm of humanity''s Lord opened. From thereon, any who died would simply go back to their master to live in happiness for the rest of eternity. Or so the priests said.


    Observing the festivities from the roof of the temple, Helen stood there with her arms crossed, a small smile on her face. She could see her mother, now an old woman approaching her 50''s, having the time of her life with her friends. No longer was she the dirty and poorly dressed skeleton that she was in the past.


    Thanks to Helen''s efforts, her mother now lived in a comfortable home in the middle of her city. She was probably one of the richest people under the Sacred Lord''s influence, and Helen couldn''t be happier about it.


    She herself was now a 22-year-old woman, no longer the scared and weak little girl she had been when her Lord first singled her out from amongst the hundreds of other nobodies. No, now she was Helen Judas, champion of her Lord, and the one many thought she will be the first to complete both the Priest and Holy Warrior paths.


    As she observed the festivities, not taking part in them herself due to her distaste of crowds, light steps echoed from behind her, and she lazily glanced backward.


    A young boy no older than 12 years walked towards her. His ears were slightly longer than that of normal humans, and despite being a boy, he could be considered beautiful rather than handsome. Not that Helen particularly cared for this little detail, as she was no pedophile.


    "Good afternoon, Ms. Helen. I see you''re enjoying yourself up here in all your loneliness?" The boy joked, no real venom in his words.


    "Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, brat." Helen dismissed, returning her eyes onto the crowd, allowing them to linger for a moment too long on the half-naked men brawling on the streets.


    Sitting down next to her, the boy kept his silence as he too observed the proceedings. Although it was fuzzy for most priests, those who held particularly strong faith in their Lord could faintly sense her mood. Being one of her champions, a title that hadn''t even been given by the Goddess, but by the people, he could tell that their lord was incredibly happy right now.


    "So, little Mark, what''s got your tongue tied? You''re usually much more talkative than this." Helen said after a couple of minutes, shifting her eyes away from the deliciously muscled man carefully playing with children, who were clinging to him and begging to be lifted up.


    Mark sighed. "Aaah. It''s nothing. I''m just thinking about the past, y'' know."


    Helen''s eyes turned softer. She actually really favored the kid, and it wasn''t even because he was her Lord''s student. She genuinely liked the brat.


    He''d had a hard life, even if he didn''t talk about it. Despite Helen being one of the most passionate non-human haters due to her traumatizing experiences with them,she still considered halflings as worthy of the same status as normal humans. However, there were people under the Lord''s guidance who thought differently, and it was hard to rid them of this hate.


    Still, the boy had risen up despite that, even managing to catch the Lord''s attention with his talent, diligence, and intelligence. Based on what she knew of her Lord, she could see that Mark was very much like herself, in that he was a rough gem that just needed some polishing to shine, and their Lord wished exactlyto groom him into a capable aid.


    If she could be considered the current right-hand woman of the Lord, the boy would most likely become the left-hand when he grew up and gained more experience.


    She reached out with one hand and forcefully dragged Mark over to her, keeping her hand wrapped around his shoulder. Ignoring his surprised yelp, she laughed. "Brat, we''re supposed to be celebrating, not moping and being all depressed. You''ve got the rest of your life to do that."


    Smiling awkwardly, Mark snaked out of Helen''s grasp, only to have Helen catch him once again and pull him in for a painful noogie. They were both laughing by the end of it.


    Meanwhile, in the divine realm, Sacred Light observed everything happening within her city and more.


    With a proud smile, she turned to look at her majestic divine realm that she had personally crafted. It resembled an endless sky where the clouds were actually solid, and below the clouds was an endless sea. She even personally created an incredibly powerful and shining sun for this realm that, while not in any way comparable to the real deal, was still incredibly bright and hot.


    The realm was a grand total of 5000km squared, and it was still in its birth phase. Hence, it held endless potential for expansion and upgrades, as it was still only the bare bones of a true divine realm.


    She had still put a lot of thought and effort into it. The clouds were crafted using only the Soul domain, meaning that they could allow souls to rest comfortably within. The sea below was a gigantic storage for faith energy, and it held a mechanism that would now automatically connect to her believers and collect their faith, taking a huge burden off her shoulders. As for the sun, it was crafted using solely the Light domain, therefore symbolizing her entire understanding of the domain.


    Finally, the entire realm held a hidden aura of magnificence, power, and dignity. It was her realm, and anybody who dared to barge it into would be absolutely annihilated. This was the power of the Ruler domain. Within it, Sacred''s power could rise up to 1000 times the power she otherwise held within the mortal world.


    Even Sacred hadn''t expected such grand results. She''d expected a lot, but this was still out of her expectations. Now that she had personally created her realm, she understood a lot more about godhood itself.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Truth be told, she wasn''t a full goddess yet. Before, without a divine realm, she could only be considered as a very powerful demigod. Usually, a true god would need to grasp a complete domain, and then, using that domain and the aid of the world energy that descended the moment one grasped a full domain, they would build their own divine realm.


    However, Sacred was outside the norm. She was much more powerful than even peak demigods, and yet hadn''t grasped a full domain, and now also held a divine realm. Even she herself wasn''t really sure how all of this happened, but it had given rise to a lot of delicious options and plans.


    Now that her realm was complete, she could connect it to the mortal world''s temples, allowing for her followers to access her realm. Naturally, it would be a bad idea to allow just anyone to come and go as they please, thus, only the elites of the elites would be able to enter.


    Another idea that had cropped up in her head was to use her realm as a medium for transportation between mortal temples. Meaning, if they entered a temple, then entered her realm, then exited towards another temple which wasn''t the original one, it would allow for her armies to be able to defend any location with a temple and for supplies and logistics to be so, so much easier to handle.


    Naturally, she''d have to handle it so her followers wouldn''t be able to see her divine realm. As long as it remained something mysterious and only spoken and praised by her priests, in the hearts of their followers, it would be the ''place after death''. If they entered it while alive, it would break the illusion.


    But, all of that was stuff to do ''soon''. Not now. And no, she was not procrastinating god damn it, she''d do it! ...Eventually!


    Shaking her head to get rid of her silly thoughts, Sacred looked back at the seemingly endless realm that wasn''t really all that endless. With a frown, she saw the sheer... emptiness. It bothered her.


    With a wave of her hand, around three thousand souls were released out of her body. These were all the souls of her followers, and they were all exclusively human souls since all the elven and beastman souls she''d captured so far had been used for... other things.


    The souls immediately took to the realm like fish in the water. Although these weak souls held no real intelligence or memories, they still had some instincts, and thus immediately went to where they felt more attracted to.


    Some dived down onto the Faith Sea, while others took refuge within the Soul Clouds. There were even a couple particularly brave souls who went all the way up to the fake sun and entered it or circled around it, looking like specks of dust in front of a giant.


    Sacred naturally would never harm her people''s souls, and thus, had made it so the sun''s rays wouldn''t hurt them. In fact, if these souls slowly cultivated within the sun, sea or clouds for long enough, they''d be able to slowly absorb the realm''s divine energy and eventually regain their intelligence and memories, effectively being able to return to life.


    Should such a thing happen, Sacred would naturally give them the option to reincarnate with their memories or to serve her. Souls strong enough to hold intelligence were extremely precious, after all.


    Sacred frowned. Even with all the fish-like souls swimming and flying about, the realm still looked empty.


    "Ah." She muttered, eyes gleaming with enlightenment. Raising both hands to the sky, she cried out, "Rise, Sacred Palace!"


    '' Fucking damn it'' she cursed immediately afterward. Her imagination for names was worst than her imagination for all things non-godly, which basically amounted to a nice little zero. All she knew was to add ''holy'', ''sacred'', ''light'', or some other obvious prefix before it. She wanted to cry, but she had a palace to make still.


    A temple not unlike the one she inhabited beforehand rose up from the ground. She''d actually grown quite fond of the place, and thus, wanted to make something very similar to it.


    However, unlike the previous palace, this one was at least 100 times larger, and it contained a much more symmetrical and antique feel to it. Two giganticwinged snake statues rose and coiled around a huge tower that was the center of the temple, with four separate but connected buildings connecting to the main body of the temple.


    Like before, the main room was the gigantic entrance and hallway that led directly to her throne. Her throne was pretty much the same, as she found she quite liked its design, and comfort wasn''t really an issue. However, unlike before, there now were several tables and chairs at every angle of the room, so as to allow those who come to attend meetings would have somewhere to sit that''s not the ground.


    She even added a couple of toilets hidden behind some of the statues lining the passageway. She smiled secretly, not having missed the looks the priests got a couple of times when they came to meet with her and had to stay for hours upon hours.


    With a proud nod, she sat her butt down on her throne with a happy smile on her face. Ah, her vanity feltlike it would burst by how proud she was of herself at having remembered to include an automatic function that would allow her wings to pass through without requiring her to turn them immaterial. Bless her eidetic memory, because she''d never have remembered otherwise.


    Done with playing her little kingdom-building-game-that''s-not-actually-a-game, she waved a screen back into existence, allowing for her to have a much clearer picture of what was going on in Jade City.


    The festivities had just about reached their end, and everyone was now waiting for her to show the results of her effort. With a smile, a giant rune appeared underneath her palace. Immediately, it glowed bright gold.


    Back in the mortal realm, everyone watched in awe as all the Sacred Churches began to glow bright gold. Large rings of golden light rose up from their roofs and gathered in the sky right above Jade City.


    Connecting together, the various golden rings formed something akin to a giant mirror in the sky. However, instead of reflecting what was below it, it showed the image of a giant Sacred Flag.


    Then, a voice reverberated inside the heads of every single believer of the Sacred Goddess. "The divine kingdom has been established. As a commemoration for this glorious day, I shall bestow upon this day the name of the Realm Day, and bestow upon this nation born from my blessing the name of the Golden Republic."


    Cheers rose up like tidal waves amongst the masses and elites alike, as theywatched as golden domes shot out from the churches, enveloping large areas of land. For those within these domes, they immediately felt themselves become stronger, faster, healthier and more connected with their Goddess.


    As the masses celebrated, Sacred sent down a divine order to her church elites. "With the divine realm established, everything is ready. When next spring comes, the Reclamation shall come, and we will annihilate the inhuman scum. Train well."


    Satisfied, Sacred retreated back to her realm, ready to begin something she had waited for far too long to do, and yet had never been happier not to have done: Absorb the massive amounts of faith she''d collected.


    As she sat on her glorious throne, Sacred closed her eyes. The next instant, the great Faith Sea of her realm rumbled, as giant streams of invisible energy shot up from it and into Sacred''s body, bypassing through any and all barriers and directly entering her soul.


    Sacred gasped and moaned in pleasure. A giant smile appeared on her smile as she immediately focused all of her attention on learning the Laws of the world and also strengthening her body and soul.


    With a booming laugh, she exclaimed "Totally worth it! This is awesome!"


    Like a baby having been given an entire country worth of candy, she threw herself fully into the feeling of absorbing faith, instantly skyrocketing in strength.


    Somewhere far away, a large tree shivered as it felt something weird. It ''blinked'', and the feeling was gone. It shrugged it''s metaphorical shoulders and went back to sleep, having lived for far too long unchallanged and uncontested, it didn''t even think that anything could ever threaten it.

 10 - Spring of Death (1)

    "Helen. The Lord is requesting your presence." An old woman called, sounding a bit jealous. Helen didn''t even look at her as she murmured a quiet "Alright". The hand that was currently being tugged and pulled by little giggling orphans was pulled away, ignoring the loud whines of said orphans.


    She smiled slightly at the orphans before giving a nod to the matron, a kind middle-aged woman who''d been hired by the church to run the hospital. She''d done a wonderful job so far, treating the orphans as the children she never had, and would never have due to a grievous wound she received to her womb.


    "Grow strong and healthy brats, so that one day, you will become amazing like me." She boasted. The children started yelling and boasting too, their innocence was so painfully obvious that Helen''s heart couldn''t help but twinge in pain at the thought of what was coming far too quickly.


    War. The greatest war that this world would likely see for a long time, no matter the outcome.


    As she left the orphanage, she could see the soldiers lining the streets, expressions filled with steel and murder in their eyes.


    On the rooftops, she could faintly see the spy and ranger corps heading to their hidden taverns and gathering grounds. In the streets, merchants were trying to sell everything as quickly as they could, offering exceptional prices to the men and women heading towards what would either prove to the world the superiority of the Sacred Goddess, or the complete annihilation of mankind.


    Helen knew that she too held the same eyes as those men and women. All the pain, injustice, discrimination, abuse, torture, and rape attempts she received from the elves guaranteed that no love was held between herself and that damnable race.


    On an intellectual level, she knew elves and humans were extremely similar. In fact, they probably held the same ancestors. However, on an emotional level, she saw elves as nothing more than monsters that needed to be purged from the world. She wasn''t the only one who held this train of thought.


    As she quickly headed towards the nearest church, her head was so in the clouds that she ended up bumping against someone.


    "Oh, my apologies... Lady Helen!?" The person she bumped, a large man that had two large axes strapped to his back.


    "Hm. Gregor, yes? My sincere apologies, my head is a bit in the clouds today..." She murmured before quickly darting around him and speeding away.


    Gregor scratched his head in confusion. The borderline legendary Helen Judas just bumped him and then immediately left? Apparently, the war seemed to be taking its toll even on the legendary figures of the Golden Republic before it even started.


    Helen finally arrived at a church, a rather small one just recently established at the edges of Jade City. The priests there all quickly bowed slightly to her, and she nodded in return before quickly heading up to the innermost room of the church.


    In that room were large Golden Republic banners hanging onto every wall, and in the center was a large, complicated rune that glowed a slight golden hue.


    Heading over to this rune, she stood on top of it and whispered "The Lord''s Realm."


    Immediately, she felt the world shift, and the next instant, she reappeared over to the Sacred Palace, in the arrival room. She quickly sped out of there and over at the main area, where her Lord was sure to be hanging out at, as she always did.


    Helen knew of her Lord''s borderline obsession with all things shiny and expensive, thus, she wasn''t surprised to see a number of extremely expensive-looking jewelry pieces lining the statues and walls, along with beautiful artworks decorating the more empty spots.


    Hearing voices coming from the main hall, she fearlessly strode in, her steps filled with confidence gained by years upon years of hellish training and battles. With a sweep of eyes, she immediately determined the situation.


    The Sacred Generals were all gathered on one side of the great hall, while Bishops were on the other. The Grand Council members were here too, their seats equal to those of both Bishops and the Sacred Generals, signifying that their positions were not any lower than theirs. Many of those on the Grand Council were old men and women who had lived through countless things, and thus, held the necessary experience to run a nation efficiently.


    And of course, above everyone, staring down at the people that she had chosen to take under her wings, sat the highest power of the entire Golden Republic, the absolute Lord of mankind, the greatest hope for every abused orphan through the entire continent: The Sacred Light Goddess.


    The Lord smiled widely upon seeing who just arrived, and with a beckon of her finger, she invited Helen at her special seat, designed to only be under that of the Lord. It was a clear declaration of Helen''s status and the favor she was graced with, and Helen''s heart swelled every time she sat on it.


    She would rather die than disgrace the Lord who had allowed to rise to where she was today. Hence, with dignified and confident steps, she reached her special seat and plopped her sexy ass down on it, lazily swinging one leg over the other and crossing her arms in a posture that might or might not have been copied by the one the Lord usually held.


    The Lord''s smile only intensified upon seeing this, a trace of humor in her eyes. With a cough, she hid both away and turned back to her subjects.


    "Well then. I''m sure everyone knows why we''re gathered here today, I assume." With a sweep of her divine eyes, she watched as everyone nodded slightly.


    "Good, in that case, what I''m about to announce will shock just about nobody. We''re going to war." She declared, her tone filled with steel, but still with a hint of playfulness that unconsciously allowed the various elites gathered here to relax just a little.


    She lightly waved her hand in the direction of the Sacred Generals. "Report the situation, please."


    Coughing slightly, one of the generals stood up. "My Lord, the Sword Corp is ready for deployment at any time. Your will is my command." Having said that, he sat back down, and immediately, another general stood up.


    "My Lord, the Archer Corp is ready for deployment at any time. Your will is my command." Repeating his predecessor, he sat back down. The various corps then stood up, reporting their readiness.


    Helen watched all of this with slight boredom. She never did understand the need for all of these formalities, but when she asked her Lord, she''d just smiled and said, "It makes them feel important, and gives them a sense of rhythm. You''ll understand eventually."


    She yet had to do so.


    Finally, the last general stood up, a grimace on his slightly aged face. "My Lord, I fear the Mage Corp should not be deployment for yet another couple years. Our mages are all still very inexperienced, and I fear that thrusting them into the war like this will not help at all, and they might even be a detriment." He bowed but didn''t sit down, awaiting the Lord''s judgment with a hitched breath.


    Contrary to the man''s expectation, but not at all to those of Helen, the Lord merely laughed slightly. "As expected. We cannot expect to obtain powerful mages that easily. No worries, the priests should be able to handle all the magic required until the mages can be deployed. We might suffer a bit in the civilian matters because of this, though. Are there any problems with that?" She asked, glancing over to the Grand Council members.


    They all shook their heads, as the elected Council Head, or more commonly called President, stood up. "No, my Lord. Our bureaucrats have successfully taken a lot of the load that the priests had carried up until now. The only department that desperately needs the priests is the law department, due to a lack of solid lawyers."Stolen novel; please report.


    The president only held a little more power than the other council members, but the biggest privilege of becoming the president was the ability to directly speak for the council. This became especially prestigious during meetings of the Grand Council with the Lord, as there was no human alive who didn''t wish to be able to speak with their Goddess.


    The Lord nodded with a smile, glancing over at the Head Bishop. The man quickly nodded, "We will immediately begin training a number of lawyers according to the law code you have written, My Lord."


    "Perfect." Clapping her hands together, Helen watched as her Lord waved a giant hologram into existence in the middle of the meeting area, allowing everyone to easily look at it.


    "These are the plans drafted up by the Sacred Generals. I have personally gone over all of them and improved them slightly, but I will still admit that many of them were incredibly well-thought out. My praises to all of you." She said. The generals all either smiled or beamed, clearly overjoyed.


    Helen, however, immediately noticed the moment that her Lord finished speaking, her whole posture changed. She immediately recognized the change, having seen it herself a couple of times. It reminded her of that time she had seen the true wrath of Her Lord falling upon the four Royal Mages that had threatened her while she had still been but a mere weakling.


    "This will not be a pretty war. Blood will flow from both sides, and mountains of corpses will be formed. However, thanks to my priests, any fatal injury should be easily treatable once off the battlefield, and any non-fatal one should be easily patched up during the fighting. Thus, I''m expecting far more casualties on the enemy side."


    Her lord''s eyes were closed now as her mouth spoke words of death and steel in her honey-like voice. Everyone in the room unconsciously straightened under the unseen but easily felt pressure emanating from their glorious Lord.


    The Lord''s eyes shot back open, and immediately, the hologram that had still been fuzzy and unrecognizable changed into a giant map. In the center of it stood the area that Jade City occupied, including the various outposts. Their area was golden, while red signified all the enemies, which basically meant everyone else.


    "This war will have two stages, I expect. The first will be the Blitz, in which we should easily be able to trample everything under the might of our forces. We currently have hundreds of temples already pre-built, their runes are already written down. I have already initiated a connectionbetween my Divine Realm and them, and it would take but a moment to finalize it. Thus, we must gain as much land as possible as fast as possible."


    The generals nodded. That had been their plan as well, while the bishops already looked pain at the prospect of the mountains of paperwork they''d soon be swamped in. The Grand Councilmen looked thoughtful.


    The President stood up. "My Lord, what will be the occupation policy of the land we take?"


    Sacred Light''s smile sent pleasant shivers down everyone''s back, including Helen. "Naturally, we will colonize everything. The prior residents will be completely and utterly purged from this world, their land and wealth seized. Thanks to the War temples, the countryside will be perfectly safe for our settlers to move into, and Helen here will make sure any and all beasts deemed too dangerous to be kept alive meet their rightful end."


    All eyes in the room shifted to Helen, who maintained her lazy expression. "Naturally, My Lord. I shall accomplish my duty to perfection. Will I be doing it alone or will there be support?"


    Her Lord looked slightly rueful as she sighed. "I''m afraid I''ll need you to do this alone, Helen, at least during the Blitz phase. All our forces will be focused on complete offense, and I need someone who can quickly take care of everything before heading back to the frontline in an instant."


    Helen nodded, having expected the answer. Currently, they boasted a population of 120.000 people, but compared to the millions of elves and beastmen, they were extremely under-populated. Thus, every single life was extremely valuable, and only she held the capability to act on both the homefront and battlefront.


    The eyes in the room shifted back to the Lord as she continued. "Anyways, the goal of the Blitz is to reach all the way to the elven capital and capture it. It''s an extremely important city for three reasons. One, it is the main trade hub of the entire continent, and if we can capture it, we''ll be able to choke our enemies'' trade to death. Second, it will be an immense moral blow to the elven people. Third, it will be amazing propaganda for our own. Luckily, all the elven and beastmen forces are currently focused on the demon armies, thus, we won''t meet much resistance."


    With a wave of her hand, the golden area on the hologram shifted, swiftly expanding in all directions. Considering it''s relative closeness to the ocean, a giant pocked would be formed, encircling a giant area of both elven and beastmen territory. Thanks to the war temples, reinforcements would be completely cut off, and the large pocket would easily be overrun. Then, the human forces would swiftly rush to secure the most fertile lands and most productive mines of the Elven kingdom, which were all around the elven capital. After that area had fallen, the capital would be next, and then the surrounding areas would be further occupied.


    By the end of it all, the entire western side of the continent would be occupied, forming a huge, somewhat straight line dividing the continent into east and west. Considering the demons were the ones who originally held the most lands in the east, their territories would remain mostly untouched. Thus, it would be unlikely for them to immediately attack the humans. Rather, they would seize the occasion and shatter the elven and beastman army, which would have nowhere to retreat.


    The Beastmen kingdom would have a lot of its land seized, but it would still retain a large portion in the east. Out of all of them, the elves would be the ones who would suffer the most, with almost no land remaining if everything went according to plan.


    Having shown everything, the Lord''s eyes turned back to those of her followers, who did not dare to meet her gaze. "This will be a massive amount of land to hold, probably far more than we reasonably could. However, thanks to the war temples that will be deployed in every strategic location, we will be able to hold onto it. The army will at this point make use of the teleportation ability of the temples to fight off attacks at the new borders, focusing completely on defense for an indeterminate amount of time as our people settle into the lands and the purge of elves and beastmen alike is carried out by our elites, just like they once did to us."


    Her words caused a frenzy of discussion amongst everyone present, and the Lord did nothing to stop it. Finally, the President once more stood up.


    "My Lord, how should we carry out the resettlement of the population? It would require almost 80% of Jade City''s citizens to be moved out to begin proper colonization..." The President trailed off.


    "Naturally, we will encourage them with the promise of land, glory, and wealth. Money and supplies will be funded to all of those who wish to re-settle, and I will personally ask my dear followers to do sacrifice a little bit for the future of our nation, and for a glorious future for their children." The Lord smiled, eyes gleaming.


    "That will be the second phase of the war: the Colonization. Our army will focus completely on defense, aided by our war temples, and they will allow for our civilians to settle down onto the newly acquired lands. I will not tell you all what comes after the second phase, for even I cannot predict that far." Helen listened attentively as the Lord finished outlying the plan. She smiled somewhat cruelly at the thought of a good old purge for the enemies of her Lord.


    An hour later, all of it filled with boring talk about details and civilian plans, the Lord made the final announcement for the meeting.


    "My cute little followers, I am glad to announce that a proper commander has been found for the Holy Warriors," Sacred said. Everyone fell silent as they awaited her next words.


    "I announce... Helen Judas as the new Holy Champion."


    Helen shot to her feet, eyes gleaming with happiness and secretly dancing in happiness in the safety of her mind. She''d expected this, and yet, hearing it with her own ears only made it all the more special.


    Everyone present, excluding Sacred Light and Helen, began clapping. After a little, the Lord waved for everyone to stop.


    "Helen, my dear, you will probably have the hardest job of everyone here. Thus, it is only reasonable that you have authority to do as you wish. Sacred Generals, should Helen command you to do something, I expect you to obey it perfectly. Am I understood?" She glanced at the generals, who all quickly nodded complacently. If the Lord says to jump off a bridge, you don''t ask why. You jump off the fucking bridge. And if she orders you to obey someone, you god damn obey that person.


    "Dear, your job will be though. You will need to coordinate the Holy Warriors with the regular troops and use them to secure key positions. I will give you the plans later, but they are but mere plans. Should the situation call for it, you may discard them. The only absolute requirement this campaign has, and I''m looking at you too, generals, is that everything gold on this map should be ours by winter at most. Am I clear?"


    Determined nods were all the answer Sacred needed. Before dismissing everyone, her last words were "By week''s end, everything, and I do meaneverything, will need to be ready. Prepare well, for I cannot interfere in the war until the big guy shows up."


    As everyone left the Sacred Palace, swiftly heading out to begin last-minute preparations, Sacred Light watched with a dark gleam in her eyes.


    "Little God Tree, you truly are a foolish thing. To choose to go into hibernation at such a time... I wonder what''s wrong with its brain, if it even has one."


    Her eyes turned inward, gleefully observing the towering gold, silver, and rainbow balls of light that rested inside her soul. "90% completion for all of my domains... By the time the little tree comes out and notices what has happened, everything should be ready."


    Sacred smiled cruelly. Her words were big, her plans were bigger, but her ambition was the sky. The moment everything fell into place, this entire continent would fall into the palm of her hand, and after that... Well, the world wasn''t such a big place after one became a true god, was it?

 11 - Spring of Death (2)

    A tremendously loud horn was blown from somewhere, spreading across the entire continent. It contained a strange power, for it held the same volume no matter the distance from where it was blown.


    Elves, beastmen, and demons everywhere confusedly looked about, with royal mages trying to investigate the source to no avail.


    However, the impact of the horn soon reached the elven doors.


    In a large city, the largest of the region it was in, life had been more or less the same for hundreds of years. There was the occasional monster attack, but they were always easily repelled with minimal casualties.


    However, that peace was not to last.


    The watchmen on the wall and gates, usually the laziest of the lazy, were the first to feel it. A strange sensation running through their bodies, sending small shivers down their spines.


    "What''s going on?" The general of the guard wondered, leaning over the tall walls to have a better look. The city was surrounded by plains, making it almost impossible for attackers to hide.


    His eyes shot open when he finally saw it.


    Tens of thousands of humans armed to the teeth were rushing forward like a tsunami of bodies. Behind them, large beasts were carrying forward giant construction materials.


    At the forefront, a hundred Holy Warriors spearheaded the attack. Eyes held with bloody determination, their expressions grim and ready for death.


    At the forefront, Helen stood. Her whole body radiated golden light, and the very air seemed to shy away from her. Seeing that they had been spotted and that the invisibility spell had run out, she roared out.


    "Charge! Destroy the elven scum!"


    Hearing her words, the entire army charged forward. The elven guards caught completely unprepared and being completely inexperienced in the first place, panicked. Within moments, the Holy Warriors had reached the gates.


    Leading at the front, Helen slashed forward with her twin swords, cutting a dozen guards in half with a single attack. She then proceeded to smash the gates that hadn''t even begun closing yet into pieces.


    Holy warriors surged into the city through walls and gates alike, the tall walls nothing but small bumps on the road to them. With their abilities, jumping several dozen meters in the air was as easy as breathing.


    Screams of panic and pain rang out through the city as a slaughter began. After a couple of minutes, the more normal soldiers reached the gates that had been secured by Helen while the Holy Warriors took to creating panic and clearing out the walls.


    With the main infantry having arrived, the Holy Warriors focused on holding and clearing out the tall walls while the soldiers slaughtered anything that moved inside the city. Their frenzy was impossible to stop, and even Sacred Light would have found herself at a loss on how to stop their madness. However, nobody needed nor wanted to stop them.


    By the next hour, 90% of the city had been cleared out. Only the innermost part remained in the elven hands, holding out only thanks to magical barriers and elven adventurers.


    However, after everything else was secured, the Holy Warriors moved along with Helen once more, easily smashing apart whatever defenses had been put up and quickly securing the city.


    There had been no casualties on the human side at all, while the entire elven population had been slaughtered. There were still a couple of hundred elves hiding here and there, but they were no threat at all, and thus, the human army focused on their next task.


    While the Holy Warriors led the various soldiers to guard several sections of the city, Helen focused on directing the regular soldiers as they carried into the city the most important parts of the operation: the War Temples.


    After several hours and a couple of mistakes, the first war temple was erected. Immediately, a holy light shone out of the temple, symbolizing it''s activation. An invisible dome expanded outwards from the temple, covering the entire city and beyond.


    The priests that had been part of the assault closed their eyes in almost unison, relishing the feeling. The next hour was spent rooting out the various hiding elves, which had easily been discovered thanks to the holy dome.


    By the end of the day, four war temples had been erected. Hundreds of regular humans and policemen were constantly trickling out of the temples and into the city proper, while the army completely left the city, only leaving behind a couple of dozen regular soldiers to do some of the heavy work that would soon be required.


    As the priests cast several large invisibility spells once more, spells especially made by their Lord exactly for this purpose, the army moved to secure the surrounding countryside. Villages were occupied one after the other, with even the farms outside of the villages being destroyed, their residents turned into corpses.


    Sacred Light watched all of this happening from within her divine realm. Her eyes focused on a map hologram showing gold and red colors.


    With the capture of the regional capital, the entire elven structure fell apart, and with all the soldiers and mages off fighting the demons, it was all too easy taking everything over.


    Four main armies had been formed, along with several dozen much smaller ones. Each of the main armies was focused on taking over a region, while the smaller armies moved to secure the countryside.


    Naturally, this level of organization would never have been possible without Sacred''s constant interfering and watchfulness. The moment an army seemed to stray off its course, Sacred would immediately send a message to the one in charge of it, ''gently'' reminding them of their roles. Communication was also kept up between the armies thanks to Sacred, who acted as the glue holding the entire structure together.


    The elven cities and villages not yet conquered had begun hearing rumors and things, but many were still skeptical on what exactly was happening, and there were very few people escaping. However, as each day passed and as village after village fell, with even two other regional capitals falling to the Golden Republic''s army, people finally understood that a star of death was rising upon the world.


    Helen''s army had, by far, been the most accomplished of the four main armies. Thanks to Helen''s strict discipline with her soldiers and genius tactics, along with her power, she was able to fell another large regional capital, securing two in total with her soldiers.


    As she saw all of this, Sacred would occasionally act in secret, vaporizing a couple of troublesome cells here and there that refused to die and decided to hide, but other than that, her role was very much as a supreme general and organizer, and not as a member of the fighting force.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Sacred''s eyes fell upon one of the various mirrors that she basically kept up 24/7 by now. In it, a handsome elf with a crown on his head was raging about, yelling at his subordinates.


    "You incompetent fools!? What do you mean there''s an enemy in our own borders??" He yelled, making the kneeling elves in front of him flinch. They were within a tent at the allied beastmen-elven camp, and thus, far too away to do anything.


    The elf standing in front of him, a young-looking boy, trembled as he spoke.


    "Y-your majesty, I''m just a messanger! I-I was just told to report to you about the strange force attacking our hom-"


    The messenger didn''t get to finish his words as the elven king''s hand flashed, and the next instant, the messenger''s head flew into the air, his body slowly falling backward.


    Turning towards his other subordinates with eyes burning with rage, the king was about to kill them as well before a hand fell onto his shoulder.


    "Karl, you''re going too far." The instant the person holding his shoulder spoke those gentle words, the elven king, Karl, deflated like a balloon.


    "My apologies..." He sighed, turning towards his wife, who stood behind him with a small smile on her face, even if her eyebrows were twitching.


    "Nonetheless, I will still kill you all if you do not find out exactly who is attacking us. And if you reply with ''humans'', I will throw you into the dungeon and torture you until you''ll be nothing more than a vegetable." He said, glaring at his subordinates.


    His subordinates all nodded, tears in their eyes as they quickly fled the tent. Karl sighed and turned back to his wife, shoulders slumping forward as his hand went to cover his eyes.


    The elven queen quickly moved to gently hug him, not saying anything. She understood her husband the best out of everyone, and she knew that his anger was born from a sense of deep sadness.


    "All those lives... Who would do this? Why?" He asked after a while. He''d seen the reports, and despite the extremely limited information they had, they weren''t dumb enough to assume the residents of the territory that had been taken over by the mysterious enemies had been spared.


    "I don''t know..." The elven queen sighed. She too could have never imagined that such an enemy would suddenly crop up out of nowhere.


    Well, it wasn''t exactly out of nowhere if she thought about it. There had been countless reports about the strange migration that all the still free humans had been having. In fact, in the recent months, there had been a sharp decline of human slaves as they kept disappearing, and the slavers that went out rarely returned alive, and those that did were always empty-handed.


    Sitting down onto his make-shift throne, Karl went deep in thought as he too followed the same train of thought as his wife. "Dear, why do you think the humans suddenly decided to rebel? There''s no way this was a casual thing."


    His queen nodded with a serious face. "Indeed. There must be something, or rather, someone, holding them all together. Humans are shallow creature, and as long as they feel safe, they''ll follow even the devil."


    Karl sneered slightly. While he personally wasn''t fond of humans, he knew that his wife would get upset if he acted like a racist bigot.


    A chill suddenly went down the spine of both Royals. Their eyes shot completely open as they stiffened in instinctive fear.


    A hard voice spoke from behind them. "Indeed, humans are fickle things. However... elves are much the same, aren''t you?"


    The king spun around, one hand reaching for his sword and the other readying a spell, but by that time, the figure had disappeared. The next moment, he heard a familiar scream, and he swiftly turned.


    A cloaked figure stood at the edge of the tent, holding his wife with a sword on her throat. Her eyes were wide open as she trembled, but she refused to cry even as the sword dug a small, red line on her throat.


    "Do not move, elf king, or your wife will lose more than just her chastity." He said, and even though his face was hidden behind a black mask, Karl couldfeel the smirk.


    Gritting his teeth, he slowly put down his weapons. "What do you want? Who are you?"


    "Oh, I am but a small servant of the Great One, the Lord, and the one who will soon become the master of this world. And today, I come in the Lord''s name to... ask you a small favor."


    The king''s eyes were hard, fury burning behind his irises, but he could do nothing more than grit out a "What?"


    "You see, the Lord is quite worried you would do something... unpleasant. Thus, all I ask for in exchange for your cute little wife is... that necklace."


    "What?" Karl''s eyes furrowed. His necklace had been an ancient inheritance that was traditionally passed down from king to king, but it was purely ceremonial. It held no actual purpose.


    "How do I know you''ll let my wife go if I give you this?" Karl asked. The cloaked person sneered. "Quit yapping. If you''re trying to stall for time, it''s useless. I''ve already got my people sealing this room, so no matter what you do, nobody will come. And I can promise you under the Lord''s name that I shall release your wife if you give me what I want."


    Growling, Karl tore the necklace off of himself and roughly threw it at the man. Another shadowy figure appeared and captured the necklace mid-air before vanishing once more.


    "Hehe... good. Don''t worry, your wife will live." The man laughed. His hand reached down and roughly squeezed the poor queen''s behind before abruptly retreating as the man jumped backward, quickly vanishing into the shadows as Karl rushed forward and tried to catch him.


    "DAMN IT!" He roared before hurrying over to his wife, who had fallen to her butt and was trying to hold back her tears.


    "I... I was so useless..." As she was finally held by the one she loved, the queen finally allowed her tears to run free as she lamented her powerlessness in the situation.


    Meanwhile, Sacred''s smile was so wide it threatened to split her face. Her fingers continuously tapped against her throne, impatiently waiting for her little friend to come.


    Finally, a couple of minutes later, a cloaked figure appeared. "My Lord, I have gotten what you desired."


    Sacred full on grinned. "Hahaha, great! Absolutely fantastic! You''ve done incredibly well this time, all the research you''ve put into this little escapade has truly borne fruit. Quickly, hand it over."


    "Of course, my Lord." The man said, quickly taking a small, silver necklace with only some pearls on it. He gently threw it at his Lord even as he kept his head bowed.


    "Hehe... You know, my cute little boy toy, I''ll get jealous if you randomly go about grabbing some random girl''s butts like that..." Sacred said in a dramatic voice even as she happily inspected the necklace.


    "M-my Lord!" The man cried out in embarrassment.


    "Haha, don''t worry, don''t worry. You''re a bit too mortal for my taste anyway. If you desire so, once we win this war, you can keep that little girl for yourself. I can even re-write her memories for you."


    Sacred was feeling especially generous now that she''d gotten this little toy. Truth be told, 99% of the work and research behind this little find was to be attributed to the little guy in front of her. Her little boy-toy, previous demon noble, Hagrid Manstin, a name she had given him herself after his ''rebirth''.


    "Yes, thank you, my lord. I would very much like that." The man said excitedly. Sacred waved him off impolitely, "Alright, alright. Get outta here, now, I have things to do."


    As Hagrid vanished back into the shadows, Sacred could barely keep the smile off her divine face. "Once a demon, always a demon. The little guy''s got a good taste though, the girl''s not too bad. I should probably make a body like that one day or another." She muttered to herself as her eyes roamed over the biggest find of this entire life of hers.


    "The Life-Giving Necklace... Rumored to be able to bring the dead back to life. The Laws in this thing are far, far beyond anything even I could ever achieve." Sacred''s eyes glazed over as she drowned herself within the incredibly mysterious workings of the necklace.


    Mere mortals would never be able to see the profoundness of the tool. In fact, Sacred suspected that the entire reason the God-Tree could become a demigod was because of this cute little thing. She had no idea how it ended up in a stupid mortal''s hands, but she happily took it away.


    Hours later, Sacred''s eyes finally turned back to normal. However, a crazed gleam still rested within them.


    ''This thing is far, far beyond anything I could ever dream of making. Whoever made this must be beyond even divine comprehension...''


    Her chest ached with almost sexual desire at the thought of having such power. Although, it would be more appropriate to say knowledge rather than power, as that was her true desire.


    She still hadn''t forgotten the ambition that had appeared within her chest the day she left her first cave. To learn everything there is to learn and to find all the answers to every question.


    "Mm... I''m thinking too far ahead. It wouldn''t do to get overconfident so soon." Her eyes glanced with unhidden desire at the necklace, but she still stored it away before turning back to the hundreds of screens that popped up once more. With experienced ease, she got back to working on the war effort.

 12 - Spring of Death (3)

    "And so, this is where it all ends," Helen whispered, watching from atop a faraway hill as elven soldiers and guards swarmed into the elven capital by the thousands.


    "Indeed. If we lose here, humanity will be forced to rely upon the Lord for protection for the rest of time." A half-elf said from beside Helen.


    "Hehe... Little Mark, you say that like it''s some kind of bad thing for us to rely on the Lord." Helen giggled, but it was obvious she was very nervous. The odds were not in their favor.


    Winter was coming soon, and the deadline was approaching quickly. They had secured almost everything by now, and the last piece missing was this city. If they could take it, that would mean a strategic victory.


    However, they were currently stretched far too thin. There were barely ten thousand soldiers available for the capture of the capital, compared to the close to 60.000 elven warriors within the capital and all of the elves streaming back from the demon''s front.


    "Well, it is! It would be unbecoming for us to rely on the Lord. She has done so much for us, and we so little for her. Haven''t you noticed how she hasn''t smiled in such a long time by now?" Mark pointed out intelligently.


    Helen pursed her lips but didn''t respond. Mark was unfortunately correct, as much as Helen hated to admit it. The brat was far too observative for his own good, Helen thought.


    Sighing, Mark turned back towards the capital and stared at it with analytical in his eyes.


    Seeing this, Helen could only laugh somewhat sadly. "Mark, I know you like thinking, but don''t do it too much. The generals are all wracking their brains over a possible strategy to take this damn city, but we''ve come up empty so far."


    "Helen," Mark whispered, eyes wide. "Hm?" She hummed, locking her eyes with Mark''s.


    "I... I think I have an idea." Mark''s eyes were gleaming so much they looked almost eerily akin to those of Sacred Light''s.


    "Huh? Really?" Helen asked, somewhat in disbelief. She wasn''t the brightest tool in the shed compared to the sheer genius of some of the strategists of the Golden Republic. She was more of a hands-on kind of woman, preferring to think things up on the fly. Thus, even if she tried, coming up with an assault plan for the capital would have been difficult for her, and should have been much more so for a 12-year old brat.


    However, as Mark whispered his plan into her ear, her expression went from apprehensive, to shock, and finally to complete elation.


    "Genius! You''re a bloody genius, Mark! How the hell didn''t any of those damn generals think of this!? I''m going to implement the plan immediately!" She roared in laughter, vanishing as she ran off at insane speeds back towards their hidden camp.


    "H-hey! Wait for me!" Mark yelled, quickly taking off. Compared to Helen''s tyrannical strength and magical techniques, he was much more specialized than her, having chosen to devote himself to a self-created path that he called the Holy Mage, which focused much more on destructive holy magic but somewhat neglected his body. Thus, he was much slower.


    A couple of minutes later, Helen charged into the temple set up in their camp. She was so excited she even accidentally bumped into a few priests who were running about, healing the injured or doing some other tasks. She quickly apologized but nonetheless didn''t stop as she kept running.


    When she finally reached the interior, finding within several generals pouring their entire minds into maps and plans. The moment she entered and the generals saw her, they all stood up and bowed to her.


    "Champion Helen, what brings you here today?" One of the generals asked, eyebrows raised and arms crossed underneath her very generous chest.


    "Silence, Slut Macgee, my cute little fellow champion just came up with a genius plan." Helen retorted. The female general wasn''t even fazed at the nickname as she, along with all the other generals, leaned forward. "Oh? A plan?"


    After telling them of the plan, she could see the shock in their eyes as they looked at each other. "Holy shit, why didn''t we think of it? It''s so simple!" Another general cursed, holding his face in his hands.


    "Quick, get the troops ready. I''ll rally the Holy Warriors, the sooner we do this, the better. Also, keep in mind that if this plan succeeds, youwill say that it was little Mark that came up with it. Understood?" She glared at the generals, who all quickly nodded. Even the feisty female general didn''t dare be sarcastic when Helen was serious, for she had seen the consequences of making Helen angry.


    The next day, the troops were all ready and lined up for war. There were only around 1200 soldiers along with a couple hundred holy warriors to execute the plan with, but if it worked, perhaps that would be enough.


    Around mid-morning, the regular infantry marched forward and stopped around 700 meters away from the capital, forming into three lines in front of it. Several dozen priests were ready to cast barrier spells in case the elves thought they could bombard them from far away.


    "Hey, what are the humans doing?" One of the Royal Mages asked, eyebrows furrowed.


    "Who knows. They might just want to surrender." Another Royal Mage sneered, eyes fuming with anger at the sight of the human army finally showing itself. They knew they''d been somewhere around here, but they couldn''t find them and didn''t dare leave the capital in case of a sneak attack.


    "Hmm... What should we do?" A third royal mage asked. In the entire garrison, there were only 6 royal mages, while all the others were off fighting the demons. In truth, there were barely 600 royal mages in total through the entire elven population, thus, each one was especially valuable and powerful.


    Humans were much weaker than these royal mages, but they had a lot more opportunity to grow in strength. The holy warrior path, for example, was much laxer in its requirements compared with becoming a powerful royal mage. Thus, there were more Holy Warriors than Royal Mages, even if they were weaker. However, considering the difference in population, it was obvious which path was harsher.


    "Go kill them, quick. If they run off once more, it''ll be difficult finding them. If we can pin them here and destroy them, we''ll achieve a great victory for elfkind." A female royal mage commented, eyes gleaming with desire at the glory such an achievement would bring.


    "Alright. But, how should we do that?" The first royal mage asked. "If we ourselves go, we''ll just deliver ourselves to them. Their winged warriors are rumored to be close to us in power."


    "Hm..." The final royal mage, an elderly elf with a long beard hummed. "Send forth 40.000 troops. If it''s some kind of trap, we won''t lose everything. If there''s no trap, they''ll be slaughtered."


    "Yes, Lord Grumblebirb." All the royal mages instantly said in compliance. In less than 5 minutes, the order had been passed around, and the great gates of the capital swung open as 40.000 elves charged out.


    Seeing this happening, Mark and Helen''s eyes gleamed with happiness. "Those fools. They''ll be slaughtered." Helen roared in laughter.


    "Hehe... The war temples have been erected, and although it might take a bit longer to move them into the city, we should manage." Mark laughed.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Mark''s plan had been incredibly simple. Simply set up the temples outside of the city. Although the effect would be much duller and less strategically important, they would receive the boost all the same. Although the effects would only be 50% as effective inside the city due to the various magical barriers, it was still incredible.


    The fact that nobody had thought about this went to show just how little experience the soldiers and generals had with something as heaven-defying as the War Temples. Once plopped down, they could become a huge fort in and by themselves, comparable to the city standing in front of them.


    The human soldiers were all grinning as they waited for the enemy to line up. Amongst the common soldiers, Holy Warriors hid, prepared to wreak havoc amongst the enemy common troops.


    Once the two armies were within two hundred meters of each other, arrows rained down onto the human soldiers but were easily repelled by the barriers of the priests. Archery was but a joke in front of holy sorcery.


    Standing in front of the army, Helen and Mark, along with all the sacred generals, let out an earth-shaking roar together. "CHARGE! SLAUGHTER THE ELVEN SCUM, RID THIS EARTH OF THEIR UNHOLY TAINT!"


    With their warriors, the 4 War Temples that had been hiding behind their lines, having been cloaked with the most powerfulinvisibility spells, roared into effect as golden dome after dome charged outwards, covering the entire area.


    Immediately, the six royal mage''s expressions changed to those of panic of fear. "What the hell is this!? Begone,Nature''s Fury!" One of the mages roared out, green roots shooting out from his body and trying to destroy the dome, albeit uselessly. It wasn''t exactly a tangible substance, but the magic-attuned elves could easily see the golden energy surrounding them, suppressing them and stopping them from absorbing mana.


    As the royal mages panicked and tried to destroy the golden dome, not realizing what the source was, the human army charged forward, slamming into the panicking elven lines that had lost both magic and a good portion of their physical strength.


    This kind of attack would likely not work once the elves figured out the trick behind the War Temples. After all, those things were much more suitable for defense than an offense like this, but Helen and the generals were happy to exploit the elves'' lack of knowledge. After all, as they say, knowledge is power, and lack of thereof is a weakness.


    The elven line gave out almost immediately while facing regular soldiers that were easily ten to twenty times as strong as normal thanks to the full-out effects of the war temples. Furthermore, the Holy Warriors that had been hiding came out like thunder, shattering and murdering hundreds of elves almost instantly with their special attacks.


    "Hmph. Small fries like you will only die. When will the big kids come, or will they hide like the vile rats they are?" Helen roared out, purposely having her voice reach the royal mage''s ears.


    "That bitch! I''ll kill her!" One of the royal mages fumed, flying over to her with a spell. "No, stop! She''s baiting you, you moron!" The older mage roared, but to no effect as Helen''s next words came.


    "Wouldn''t you like to avenge all your little friends? Oh wait, you can''t, you''re nothing but hiding rats filled with so much shit your mothers can''t even recognize you." Helen laughed arrogantly as she tore apart an entire section of the elven line by herself. By now, the elven army had completely collapsed, facing massive casualties as they rushed back towards the city.


    Landing in front of her, two royal mages took out their staffs as they sneered. "Human slaves like you are good for nothing but a quick fuck. Shut up and suck my dick, slut." The first royal mage roared, readying a spell.


    "Haha... You retard." Helen laughed, licking her lips. The first mage suddenly yelled in pain as a knife stabbed into his guts before bisecting him.


    "What the fuck!?" Turning around, the other elven mage that had also been preparing to cast a spell turned to find a cloaked figure holding two long knives, licking the blood trickling off of them.


    "Jejeje, elven blood. It''s my favourite!" The figure laughed before charging towards the remaining mage. "Shit! HELP ME!" He roared as he cast the spell before it was completed, launching hundreds of ice spears towards the figure.


    "Hey, scum, forget about me?" A voice suddenly said from behind him as Helen slammed her fist into his skull, slamming him to the ground.


    Turning back towards the city, she licked her lips. Apparently, the elves had decided to turtle it out, otherwise, they would have immediately reinforced the two overreaching mages.


    That was probably the worst thing for the human army, but also the most expected. Thankfully, over 35.000 elves had been killed, and the remaining that had survived would likely not be able to fight anytime soon.


    "Bring this shit to the Lord. She''ll appreciate this little gift." Helen said towards the cloaked figure. Taking off his hood, revealing himself to be Hagrid, the man nodded and heaved the elf onto his shoulders before vanishing into the shadows once more.


    "Damn is that a useful ability. I can''t wait to finally break through gain my own complete path." Helen''s eyes held a little bit of desire. She was so, so painfully close to breaking through both the Priest and Holy Warrior path, but she lacked just that little, little bit to do so. When she had complained about it to Sacred Light, she''d just laughed and told Helen that it would come with time and to not worry about it.


    Once she broke through, she would become the first Angel. The Lord hadn''t given her any information beyond what was beyond those two paths, but judging by the teasing smile on her Lord''s face, she guessed it was something pretty amazing.


    "My warriors! Followers of our Lord!" She roared out as the chaos of the battle began to die down. "Our Lord wishes for us to take this town. Even if we die, we will merely reunite with Her, and continue living forever! This is for the glory of the Lord, for the safety of our children, and revenge for all the years spent under the elven boot! Charge forth now, annihilate the filthy scum!"


    Her words were all the encouragement the humans needed as they charged forth. Holy Warriors led the charge as they slammed into the gate, quickly tearing it apart.


    Even as the elves on the walls rained down death on the humans, it was ineffective. With their magic sealed by the War Temples, the elves had lost over 90% of their offensive power, while the humans had gained far more than that. Furthermore, the difference in number wasn''t as staggering now, even if the humans had also taken a number of casualties.


    However, as the humans were about to break into the city, a terrifying pressure fell onto the city as a towering figure fell from the skies.


    Giant reptile wings, a salamander-like body with indestructible scales, and smoke coming out each time it breathed out. It was undeniably an ancient dragon.


    "Foolish humans! You dare act presumptuously in the territory of I, Xakarak Hardscale!" The dragon thundered, the skies darkening with its oppressive voice. Helen''s eyes were hard as she looked at the giant figure that was looking down upon the warring mortals.


    "For your crime of offending me, you will all die!" It roared before breathing out a literal ocean of fire that charged into both human and elven lines.


    Or so it should have. However, an oppressive force tens of thousands of times stronger than that of the dragon fell upon the world as the darkened skies split open and a golden figure flew down, the earth shaking under her wrath.


    "YOU DARE BREAK THE PACT YOU''VE MADE WITH ME!?" The figure, obviously Sacred Light, roared out in pure wrath. Having seen her followers so close to victory only to be halted by a dragon that didn''t seem to agree to her plans of world domination, she threw caution to the side and charged down.


    "Y-you! You''re not allowed to descend unless She comes!" The dragon cried out as it''s breath attack was vaporized by Sacred Light''s aura.


    "YOU FUCKING DARE TELL ME WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU YOURSELF BREAK THE RULES!? I''LL FUCKING MOUNT YOUR HEAD IN MY PALACE!" Sacred Light roared in pure madness. As of right then, she waspissed.


    "W-wait!" The dragon cried pitifully as it tried to fly away, but a golden ball surrounded him, trapping him inside of it.


    "Light Annihilation" Sacred called out with no little amount of venom in her voice, and the moment her voice sounded out, the dragon''s cried and struggles stopped as the ball shined brightly before vanishing. Nothing was left behind except for a dragon head floating there.


    "Hmph. Foolish reptiles, if they don''t submit after this offense, I''ll really kill them all." Sacred sneered. She''d come to an agreement with the dragons that, if they didn''t oppose her and joined her after she won this war, she wouldn''t touch them. However, they were forbidden from interfering in her affairs, and she in theirs.


    However, that was before one of them acted against her directly like this. Now, Sacred was pissed with them. She''d spared them immediate subjugation and/or destruction because of her admiration for their beauty, power, and history. But, that was before they were a threat.


    She turned back to the stunned elves. Her followers looked as though they had seen the Goddess, which was true. Their expressions filled with reverence, including Helen''s and Mark''s, who knew of her strength, but still rarely got to see it.


    "Since I''m here, there''s no need to continue fighting. Disappear." She called out, and immediately, all the elves in the city began to find their bodies disappearing into golden motes. Their pitiful cries served for nothing as, within ten seconds, they were all gone, including the oh-so-powerful Royal Mages.


    In front of the gods, mortals were all the same. It was pointless for one to resist, as a mere look could exterminate a country.


    Sacred slowly descended onto the ground where Helen was, who immediately got to her knees. Sacred cracked a small smile seeing this, and said, "Well, looks like we got here before winter. That''s good, even if I had to come out earlier than I wished, it shouldn''t be a problem, as I made sure there were no survivors."

 13 - An Unstable Peace (1)

    News spread across the continent quickly. Elves everywhere despaired as they heard that the royal capital, the city of nature, the greatest masterwork of elven craftsmanship, had been taken over by humans.


    Waves of fear and anger spread through the continent, reaching even the demons, who were still conflicted on what to do. The Demon King himself advocated for the extermination of the elves and beastmen before turning against the humans, but his nobles advised otherwise.


    At the end, when winter ended and a new spring burst forth, a new and more powerful alliance had been forged.


    Elves, beastmen, and demons had banded together, even if loosely, to combat this newly arisen threat. The hundreds of thousands of elves that had fled onto the remaining elven territory and also towards the beastmen lands called for the retaking of their lands, but it was impossible to organize an assault yet due to all the logistics and political trouble.


    Meanwhile, anger against humans spiked to an all-new height as the few remaining slaves were tortured to death or outright slaughtered. There were also many who escaped and ran for the rumored human heaven, and many of them successfully made the trip as they were helped by hidden spies within the allied territory.


    In the newly-conquered human territory, it was a bureaucratic nightmare, but thanks to the massive amounts of efforts by Sacred Light''s part, things still went smoothly as colonists spread out across the new lands and slowly began the long process of rebuilding.


    Holy Warriors went on a campaign through the territory to exterminate any pockets of resistance or dangerous monsters. Aided by the holy light of the Lord, their job was made much easier.


    There had actually been several elves and even a couple dozen beastmen willing to defect to the human side, which Sacred happily accepted on the condition that they accept her ''baptism''. They took the deal.


    After all, Sacred''s campaign of genocide wasn''t actually based on race. What she wanted was a world loyal only to her and her alone. At this point, it honestly wasn''t even for the faith anymore, but simply because that had somehow become her ambition.


    While these few defectors faced intense discrimination, Sacred Light kept up their support as she encouraged their integration. If humans, beastmen, elves, and beastmen could begin a merging process, it would further the races as a whole, in Sacred''s opinion.


    Still, before elves were accepted, drastic things had to happen. As of now, those few defectors lived harsh lives, with even the church reluctant to support them. Nonetheless, Sacred still did it, as it was best to begin early rather than too late.


    While all of this was happening, she was also keeping an eye out for anybody too powerful for her followers to take on. Almost all of the dragon race had already sworn themselves to her out of fear of annihilation, and even though she allowed them to not participate in the war, she had demanded that, when she inevitably won, they become her followers.


    The dragons had been very apprehensive. As creatures with a hint of divine heritage within them, they could see that Sacred''s baptism was something incredibly influencing. The moment the baptism was complete, any creature that underwent it would forever be under the control of Sacred Light. Of course, that control was basically always kept at next to nothing, but it would still forever forbid them from even thoughts of rebelling.


    Nonetheless, the dragons, along with several other legendary and intelligent creatures, chose to undergo it after some of the more radical creatures chose to try their luck and attacked Sacred Light.


    She didn''t even have to move a finger.


    Thus, she secured herself a new following. She would have to work out the kinks and details of their privileges and responsibilities as what she wanted to call as the Sacred Creatures, but all of that was work for another time.


    Sitting upon her high throne, Sacred idly toyed with her wing, carelessly grooming it as she focused on other things. She''d picked up the habit recently, and it had helped her quite a bit to deal with all the stress her work was bringing her.


    Sacred was trapped. There was no question about it, she''d completely trapped herself. She had taken on a huge responsibility upon her shoulders, and her pride and ideals forbid her from running away from them. However, that didn''t mean it didn''t stress her to the limit.


    She was always at work. The only time she had for herself was spent desperately cultivating her almost finished domain or trying to study the necklace.


    As a goddess, she physically couldn''t get tired, and yet, she felt as though her body was beyond exhausted. However, stress and exhaustion were nothing compared to the sheer amount ofloneliness she felt.


    Every time she turned, she could see herself surrounded by invisible souls. Every time she looked down, countless followers gave her their devoted and sincere prayers, thanking her for giving them such a good life. And yet...


    She still felt alone.


    Her domains had begun to fuse as of late, and she was beginning to discover her own godly path. She wouldn''t truly find it until she at least became a true god, and it would likely be very difficult, but she could already feel the laws that her path set down upon her.,


    Her light domain was one of both extremities. It contained immense destructive power, but also incredibly gentle healing. Her soul domain was much more mysterious, as it allowed her to do all sorts of things. Her screens were actually crafted mainly from it. As for her ruler domain, it allowed her a general... control over all living things.


    Together, these domains set down certain guidelines for her to follow. She could go against them, but it would be against her very nature and personality to do so. And one such rule was the fact that she, as the supreme Goddess and master over countless lives, had a responsibility to help them, and to not be helped by them.


    She simply couldn''t forge a relationship of any kind other than that of a lord and follower with anyone unless she could truly view them as an equal.


    When she first came onto the world, she held no need or desire for friendship or any of those disgusting things. However, as time passed and her workload and stress and desire forplease, help me increased, she found herself wanting a true friend more and more. Someone she could share her trouble with.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    But it was simply impossible.


    Slumping into her seat, Sacred let out a long sigh. She was thinking about things too much again and got depressed. Again. That was actually about the only disadvantage her frankly insane comprehension abilities and thought speed brought to her. She thought about things too much, and that was sometimes a bad thing.


    Waving her hand, she banished the hundreds of screens that had appeared next to her. With her constantly increasing strength and ability, she could create almost a thousand of such screens and view them all at once, but she was starting to think that really wasn''t a good thing.


    Getting up from her seat, she stretched as far as she could, hearing the satisfying pops of her joints. With a thought, a large book appeared in front of her.


    "Let''s see... What''s my next job... Ah, I have a meeting with the last dwarf king, then I have to do a routine check on the bureaucracy of the Golden Republic, then I have to control my priests are happy and doing their jobs, then I have to check the colonists are receiving everything they need... AAAAH!" She screamed, throwing the book at one of the walls of her palace. The book vanished before it could hit.


    Holding her face in her hands, Sacred took deep breaths. "Fucker" She cursed as she whipped herself up into shape. Feeling one of the church teleports activating, she stiffened slightly before quickly vanishing and reappearing over at her throne, as nonchalant and casual as ever, her eyes returning to the gentle and confident, yet firm eyes she always had whenever she spoke with her followers.


    Four priests garbed in golden robes with winged insignia on them entered. Like all of her priests, their faces had a winged tattoo that started from their foreheads and went down to their chin in a curve. They could hide it if they wished, but almost all of her priests chose to keep the tattoo as a sign of pride, only hiding it when absolutely necessary.


    Reaching the front of the throne, the four priests dropped to their knees. With a lazy wave of her hand, Sacred called out a gentle "Rise"


    After getting up, one of the priests stepped forward, having been chosen to be the one to speak. It was a common custom that Sacred heavily encouraged, after all, it would get chaotic if everyone tried to speak up at once. Thus, it was common courtesy to choose a speaker before each meeting.


    "My Lord, the allied inhumans have begun probing our new territory. They''ve even tried to sneak attack one of the cities along the border, but thanks to Champion Helen''s quick intervention, they were repulsed."


    Sacred smiled slightly. She''d taken a rather hands-off approach on the defense of the new lands, and had given the gargantuan task to a committee heralded by Helen, who was beginning to get used to being in command.


    "Very good. How is the police force holding up?" Sacred asked, appearing as though everything was well even though her heart was somewhat anxious.


    "Err... They''re holding, but they''re extremely understaffed. Thankfully, my Lord, your powerful Holy Warriors have cleared out all external resistance, and the police can focus entirely on keeping things orderly. Even then, however, they are in drastic need of reform and manpower..." The priest said carefully.


    Sacred nonetheless heaved an internal sigh of relief. She''d worried the police would collapse, and that would create a whole slew of trouble. Nonetheless, now that things were beginning to truly get going, they''d have a much easier time, and there would be more manpower coming in.


    Jade City had lost almost 95% of it''s population, with the only people remaining being those who truly had fallen in love with the city and wished to continue living in it. Everyone else had been heavily incentivized to leave and go settle in new lands, which many did happily. Farms were beginning to be set up, mining operations were being planned, villages and cities were turning lifeful after some time of being ghost towns, and the various roads that had been carefully kept intact by the armies were being upgraded and put to use for the huge amount of commerce that would soon take place within the Golden Republic.


    Sacred wanted to smile, but couldn''t bring herself to do so. Thus, she settled for waving her hand randomly, yet with dignity. "Very good. Continue as planned, oh, and do report to the Grand Council that I am quite pleased with their work. Their idea of creating several smaller committees has truly paid off."


    The Golden Republic''s government was quite unique in its creation. It was extremely decentralized, with almost every department having its own councils and committees, but in reality, it was also extremely centrilized because everything was ultimately controlled by the Grand Council, which had the power to intervene in things if they saw them going off their course. Furthermore, every single person in the Golden Republic would do literally anything Sacred Light ordered, thus, when the need for things to be donenow, bureaucratic work could be skipped thanks to Sacred Light, even if she rarely did so.


    Bowing, the priests quickly scampered off even as large smiles rested on their faces. Meeting with the Lord was considered one of the greatest honors any person in the Golden Republic could ever obtain, no matter how short the meeting would be.


    In fact, there had been several proposals going through the Grand Councils about organizing some government festivals in which Sacred Light would personally participate, but due to her current workload and the war, those plans were put on hold.


    Once the priests had left, Sacred unhappily got to her feet once again before taking a stroll outside of her palace. With a glance at the book that had once again appeared, she could see that it was time for her to take a look at her divine realm.


    As she was taking this small stroll through her home, Sacred suddenly felt a small tug within her mind. With a frown, she inspected the feeling and cast her vision down upon the mortal world.


    There, she saw her favorite subject, Helen, absolutely livid. She was holding a middle-aged man by the collar, a sword held against his nether region. The man was completely pale, seemingly absolutely terrified.


    With a frown, Sacred wondered what was wrong. The man was human, so it was strange for Helen to get so mad. Her full attention fell upon the situation, casting an invisible presence in the whole area.


    Helen stiffened slightly before a horrifying smirk appeared on her face as she glared at the man with so much hatred in her eyes.


    A thunderous shock run through the area as a sense of overwhelming fury fell down like divine punishment. Trees were flattered and the ground shook. The buildings and people were spared the wrath, but it was obvious the Goddess was beyond furious.


    "You''ve fucked up now," Helen whispered venomously.


    "Helen." A voice came from the skies. "Give him to me."


    Without hesitation, she threw the man into the skies. Even as he screamed, a golden portal appeared and a pair of giant hands reached forward, snatching the man before dragging him back with them into the portal.


    There, Sacred''s eyes burned with fury. This man had been a high-ranking member of one of the higher councils tasked with keeping track of the education, making sure every child had access to it.


    However, apparently, he had also been amassing wealth for himself in secret through blackmail and threats. How he had not been found out earlier boggled Sacred''s mind, and she would be sure to thoroughly investigate. But, his biggest crime of them all was that he had kidnapped several children as hostages, keeping them so that their parents would obey him.


    "I was in a good mood." Sacred said to the man who''d been stripped naked and bound to a large Christian cross. "But, you ruined it." She added, almost like an afterthought.


    The man''s mouth couldn''t open no matter how much he tried, and he couldn''t make any sounds. "Don''t bother. I don''t want to hear whatever excuse you have. Souls of Pain, feast upon him for the next ten years." Sacred said before walking away. The cross that had been floating in the air suddenly shot downwards into the Faith Ocean.


    Plunging inside, several hundreds of monstrous and horribly-shaped souls rushed at the man who couldn''t even scream and began to slowly tear him to pieces, yet always healing him afterward.


    "Helen." She transmitted down. "Good job. I wasn''t expecting such a thing to happen until the war had ended, honestly, but it seems I have underestimated humanity''s potential for evil."


    She could feel that Helen was still shocked at this event. From what she could gather, Helen had noticed a couple of the children she always played with whenever she had time had disappeared, and she''d tracked them down using a sensory technique. That was when she found the man, and after a nice little chat (beating), she''d found everything out.


    Sacred cut off the connection when she saw Helen not being in the mood for answering. With a long, drawn-out sigh, she went back to her throne even more depressed than before.


    And for the next several years, that would be where she would stay.

 14 - An Unstable Peace (2)

    "A long, long time ago, mankind fell to the evil kings. For hundreds of years, we lived as slaves and refugees, constantly fearing for our lives. Then, one day, the Lord reached down Her hand to us and pulled us out of that hell, creating a legendary city where everyone could live happily ever after. However, even today, the inhuman enemies still loom on the horizon, threatening our people and lives... Good essay. Good job, brat." Helen said with a small smile on her face.


    The group of 8-years old children that had worked together to complete the essay cheered and immediately fell into chaos as they began goofing around.


    Helen watched all of this with some sadness in her eyes. The brats in front of her were so innocent, and yet, they would likely have to soon be pulled away from their everyday lives, away from their families, to serve the Republic in some ways.


    Helen still held her youthful looks even after years had passed, as a benefit of cultivating her path. Strengthening one''s body and soul tended to slow down aging, allowing people to live a lot longer than otherwise.


    "Alright, brats. I''ve just got a call from some important people, so I can''t continue being your teacher for today. Be good to your parents, okay?" She asked in a loud voice. The children whined but still complied.


    Their mysterious but kind teacher that came and went as she pleased was the absolute favorite of the children, as she was very good with them. She also brought treats almost every time, and that was a huge plus for their young minds.


    With a smile that contained quite a bit of sadness, Helen vanished from the small school that had been established. She was currently on patrol around the newly established villages and towns, making sure nothing was wrong. The reason she''d been chosen for this job was...


    Taking off her large coat, Helen revealed a pair of shining silver wings. Rustling them slightly to get rid of the stiffness, she prepared for take-off.


    After a year spent fighting off the unorganized but still dangerous assaults of the allied inhumans, Helen had suddenly, and rather randomly, broken through. She''d become the first Angel, allowing her strength and magic to sear to a completely new level.


    During Helen''s advancement, she''d seen the divine power roar into the region, making sure nobody dared to disturb her. The enemies that she''d been fighting at the time, a couple of Royal Mages, had been exterminated by the Lord''s will.


    Afterward, a huge feast had been thrown through the entire republic, allowing for the wavering morale to soar as they gazed upon the legendary wings similar to those of the revered Lord. Of course, the wings were very useful, but the real deal was that Helen had touched upon the beginnings of divinity.


    Upon completing her advancement, Sacred had directly taken Helen into her divine kingdom and thoroughly explained everything.


    Although the paths were many and even Sacred couldn''t know them all, she was still able to give Sacred a crash course on what being an angel represented.


    She''d basically taken a step into divinity, a very, very small one, but one nonetheless. In theory, Helen was a step below a divine being, which was a realm below a demigod, which was at a realm below that of a True God. Sacred didn''t explain what came after, for she too wasn''t very sure.


    Nonetheless, Helen had now become the second divine within the republic, even if a slight one. Sacred had happily confessed that she''d been grooming Helen through all the years exactly for this moment and that from now on, she would become the official right-hand woman of Sacred Light.


    Since then, Helen had to work non-stop through the republic, taking a huge load of work off of Sacred''s shoulders, not that Helen minded even one bit. Naturally, she''d also spent a lot of time exploring her new powers and abilities.


    As an Angel, her body and soul had undergone a qualitative transformation. She could easily create earthquakes with a punch and cause even decent warriors to faint from the pressure of her killing intent.


    If before, her status was only lower to that of the Sacred Light, her status now was akin to being directly ordered from Sacred Light herself. As the right-hand woman of the Lord, her word transcended the law.


    Helen smiled slightly as she thought about the past. With her new abilities, she could now see a lot more than before, and not just in a mortal manner. Although nowhere near that of her Lord, she could begin to see from a divine point of view as well.


    She could see the Lord''s influence spreading outwards from the temples, nourishing the land and people. And with that, she became privy to the biggest secret of Sacred Light, the influence of her light upon her followers.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    In truth, though, Helen had long since known, along with Mark and some of the other cream-of-the-top priests. And as priests themselves, they actually quite liked that, as in their minds, the Lord was everything.


    As she flew around at sonic speeds, easily breaking past the sound barrier and beyond, she observed the population of the Golden Republic.


    Through the years since the now-termed Human Rising, or Blitz, several large-scale renovations and colonization projects had been put into place. Furthermore, with the gigantic increase in living space and resources, a giant baby-boom had taken place, aided by the government and religious people.


    Schools and teachers had been set up by the church in nearly every village and town, not to mention the larger cities. Furthermore, several child care acts had been put into effect, and maternity leave and support had also been put down. It was very expensive to maintain all of this, but wealth was hardly a problem considering the Sacred Lord was behind it all.


    All of this, combined with a safe life under the protection of the Lord''s influence, had allowed the population to absolutely skyrocket. The police and army had finally received the extremely needed manpower, with several very talented youths and children being offered training to become part of the Holy Warriors.


    Attacks had also increased drastically along the newly forged borders between humans and the allied inhumans. However, with the humans completely focused on defense, along with the ability for the entire army to teleport to any region under attack, there had been no breakthrough.


    In short, everything was going splendidly. There had been a lot of mistakes, casualties, and hick-ups on the way, but things were finally coming together as the Golden Republic''s roots spread through the world.


    In comparison, things on the inhuman side were falling apart. The alliance that had been hastily made between the three main races had been a tense one in the beginning, and as time passed and their losses mounted without any gains, things fell apart even further.


    The demons had long since retreated back into their lands, having taken a lion''s portion of the beastmen and remaining elven lands. Now, they were merely licking their wounds, and there had even been several diplomatic exchanges between demons and the Republic.


    The elves and beastmen had been stuck in the middle and were now completely blocked off in the center of the continent with miniscule amounts of land and a ton of refugees from both the elves and beastmen.


    As Helen contemplated everything, her body easily soared through the air, eyes roaming the lands. Suddenly, an uncomfortable sensation appeared in her chest, making Helen sigh.


    This feeling came from the connection between her Lord and herself. When she''d been a mortal, it had been basically nonexistent, but as an angel, she could faintly feel her Lord''s mood in a much deeper way than before. And, unfortunately, that bond had allowed her to see the true state of her Lord.


    One day, she''d actually managed to catch her Lord when she was deep in thought and not paying attention. What she''d seen then and there had actually scared her shitless.


    Her Lord had been crying. Actually f*cking crying. Well, it had been merely a couple of tears, but the pained grimace she''d held at the time had horrified Helen. Her lord wascrying. The Lord that held the world on her shoulders.


    They hadn''t talked about the event ever since, with Sacred acting as if nothing had ever happened and Helen not daring probe into the event.


    "Ugh..." Helen groaned in annoyance. With tired eyes, she looked upwards into the sky. "The Lord needs a vacation..."


    Before she''d become an angel, she would have never dared even think such. However, she now understood a lot more. For as indestructible and divine Sacred Light acted, she was incredibly fragile in the inside.


    Sighing, she got back to work.


    Meanwhile, the Goddess that had occupied Helen''s thoughts wasthat close to throwing the biggest fit in the continent.


    "Fucking root-sucking, shit-eating tree! Wake up already!" She roared, her voice shaking her divine realm. Her normally golden eyes had a twinge of red in them, and she even had eye bags.


    "AAAAAH!" She screamed, the divine realm shaking even more intensely. After a bit, she calmed down and took deep breaths before exhaling loudly.


    "Just a couple more years, then you can take a break. Yes, just a little longer, Sacred. Just patiently wait like the responsible little goddess you are..." She murmured to herself. She felt quite pitiful as of right then.


    Her cultivation had been forced to a halt due to her master plan, which she was beginning to get impatient about. The Republic had begun to be able to manage itself,and the enemy forces had more or less fallen apart. Nonetheless, Sacred felt as though she only had more things to do as of late.


    Between checking that everything was truly smooth, taking care of her divine realm, grooming her subordinates and a shitload of other projects, Sacred was honestly beginning to wonder if this was all even worth it. However, each time she looked at Helen or the countless people praying to her, her morals and innate sense of responsibility forbid her from hiding in the deepest cave in the earth and just going to sleep for the rest of time.


    She now understood why there were so few gods who actively participated in mortal affairs. It gave them a sense of responsibility, and even the strongest gods would eventually wear down after millennia of constant work, not to speak about peak demigods like her.


    Closing her eyes, she allowed her body to fall onto the cloud she''d been hovering over. Hugging the soft thing to herself, she allowed herself to completely relax for once, blocking the thousands of thought processes that she always kept active within her overwhelmingly powerful mind.


    Dully, she noted that the world around her was blurring, and her mind was getting sluggish. Panicking, she shot up, chest heaving in fear at the feeling. "W-what was that?" She asked herself, still feeling a strand of fear at the strange thing that had threatened to overtake her.


    Despite how intelligent she was, Sacred couldn''t see the obvious in front of her. Before she could think further on the strange occurrence, a bell went off in her mind.


    "So it wakes up, huh..." She mumbled, somewhat irritated at having been interrupted. With some effort, she sent down a message to all of her priests.


    "The enemy false god awakens. Prepare for the next phase of the plan."

 15 - High Battle (1)

    As she sent the order down to her followers, Sacred busied herself with locating the dumb tree. Which, despite it supposedly being the biggest tree in the world, was actually quite difficult.


    Finally, a dozen or so minutes later, her senses finally pinpointed its location. Getting up from her throne in an almost lazy fashion, Sacred stretched her sore body.


    "My Lord, the people have heard your command and are now hiding as best they can." She heard from Helen, who was currently also hiding.


    "Perfect. Be aware that I will not be holding back, and some crossfire will be inevitable." She dully replied, still stretching slightly.


    Finally, when she felt the tree move away from its location and towards the remaining elves, she allowed herself a small smile.


    "The final showdown... Well, I guess I finally get to fight my own fight."


    ~~~~~~~


    Meanwhile, the elven king Karl was having the shock of his life.


    "What do you mean the Great Tree has awakened? Is it because of the humans?" Karl could feel a deep chill going down all the way to feet.


    For thousands of years, the Great Tree had laid dormant. Even during the Great Race War hundreds of years ago, it wasn''t enough to warrant it''s attention.


    "So... that Lord of the humans isn''t fake?" His wife asked cautiously. She was still quite shaken from when she had been used as a hostage, and that Lord of the shadowy figure had cleared up a lot of confusion.


    "I don''t know..." Karl sighed in regret. It was obvious that this was no longer a battle between races, but rather, a war between deities.


    It had been quite obvious the humans had a great backing for quite a while. After all, although getting basically any information on what was happening on the human side was borderline impossible due to a variety of reasons, they were still able to figure out quite a bit.


    From the birth of Jade City to the creation of a special class of warriors capable of matching their own wizards, and priests capable of going toe to toe with their shamans. There was no way all of that had been made by simple humans in the minds of Karl and his wife.


    "We can only hope the Great Tree emerges victorious once more. Were it to lose... I don''t want to think about it." Karl grimaced as he confided his insecurities to his dear wife, who could only hug him with empty comfort.


    The athmosphere in the remaining elven people was horrible. Many had died from starvation despite the magicians'' and king''s best efforts, and more or less everyone had been forced to flee and abandon everything. Furthermore, their beastman and demon ''allies'' had also abandoned them, and most suspected them of beginning to even corroborate with the human scum.


    And, while the king hadtried rallying the other races to arms once more against the humans, it had been all useless. Both demons and beastmen had been frightened silly by the weird powers of the human forces, and how they somehow always knew where they were coming and always met them with their full forces.


    All in all, odds were that the elves would likely be subjugated or destroyed in less than a dozen years, unless something drastic were to happen.


    Something... like a certain tree demigod showing up.


    And indeed, as Karl rejectedly tried to command his subordinates to try and organize things up, a great quake began to throb through the land, threatening to knock down buildings, trees and people like dominos.


    As panic spread through the entire area, large roots began to rise from the ground, with each being at minimum the thickness of an entire tree. Then, a stupidly big tree shot up from the ground and into the heavens.


    While most common elves and some members of other races panicked, the nobles and royals elves were ready for this to happen. Their shamans had long since felt the awakening of their patron deity, and they prepared to welcome it.


    Unfortunately for them, their divine tree was not quite in the mood for pleasantries.


    Having been forcefully awoken from it''s slumber by the strange aura of another demigod daring to enter into it''s territory, it was ready to forcefully remove this cancerous tumor that dared spread through it''s land.


    However, it first needed to collect something: the Life-Giving Necklace.


    But, as soon as it spread it''s will through the area and found the current elven emperor, the artifact wasn''t on him.


    "Emperor of the Elves, where is the divine artifact?" It questioned in a booming voice that came from it''s entire body. The sound was mystical in nature, quite similar in fact to Sacred''s own, able to spread through the area without losing or gaining volume.


    Eyes wide, Karl immediately bowed as deeply as he physically could while answering. "My apologies, my godliness. The divine artifact of the royal family was stolen some years ago from a powerful assassin claiming to be under the Lord of the humans!"Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "AND YOU DID NOTHING!?" The God-Tree roared back. Initially, it thought it might just have been hidden, but stolen?"


    By now, the elven nobles had long realized their god wasn''t exactly... friendly. Many faces drained of blood as they remembered the legends of the brutality and sheer bloodlust their god was rumored to possess.


    And indeed, the God-Tree was feelingincredibly murderous. However, before it could exact it''s punishment, it felt it''s danger sense flare up drastically.


    Reacting within the same instant, it immediately activated all of it''s defenses as roots shot up and tried to block the supposed attack coming. However, it was too slow.


    A horrifying strike landed fully upon the God-Tree''s trunk, and although it failed to break it in half, it sufficed to shatter the outside and middle layer of it''s body and send it skidding backwards even as the remaining roots in the ground failed to hold it.


    As the dust cleared and both attacker and defender were revealed, a golden-clad figure with large wings hovered in mid-air, idly checking over it''s knuckles. On the other side, the God-Tree stood, as tall as the heavens and already fully healed from the attack.


    "You know, for all the fanfare and pompousness that you showed up with... You''re really not all that strong." Sacred Light commented with a dark smile on her face. The God-Tree said nothing as it sized it''s opponent up.


    Despite being extremely tall for a humanoid, standing at well over 2 meters in height and with a relatively slim build, her appearance hid the strength it carried, while all the yellow outside hid the darkness within. A darkness that the God-Tree would never fail to detect.


    "I was wondering why you would head to your little minions immediately after awakening instead of coming to face me. But... Perhaps, it''s because of..." Sacred''s already dark smile only widened. "This?"


    A fancy necklace appeared in her hands out of nothingness. The God-Tree''s ''heart'' dropped as anxiety spread through it.


    "You filthy thief... I will enjoy consuming your flesh and blood." It hissed with venom strong enough to melt steel. Unfortunately, Sacred was no man of steel, but rather, a fearsome divinity capable of shattering entire mountains with her pinky.


    As the two divinities exchanged garbs, the elves below, or at least those powerful enough to see, could only gawk.


    While their patron god wasn''t exactly part of their daily lives, it was still considered the creator god of all life and whatnot. Thus, for another being to be able to harm it... Well, it wasn''t easy for them to comprehend.


    However, it didn''t matter whether they understood it or not, Karl thought idly. He wasn''t dumb enough to think their patron god cared enough to protect them, and he wasn''t naive enough to believe the human lord, or rather, lady(?) would spare them.


    And indeed, as Sacred began getting increasingly annoyed at the God-Tree lack of any response after the initial threat, she chose to take the initiative as she rose to the skies and pointed upward with her hand.


    "I suppose it was not a pleasure at all meeting you. I''m going to enjoy my stay on this world after you''re returned back to nothingness." She snarled as she activated her technique.


    Giant skulls of varying creatures formed out of nothingness, appearing in the skies above. Instantly, the God-Tree shot into action with a roar as thousands of giant roots tore through the earth and shot up towards Sacred.


    However, it was too little too late as Sacred roared back, and immediately all the hundreds of skulls opened their mouths as golden dots appeared in their eye sockets.


    With a thunderous sound, they began to fire light rays towards the God-Tree, annihilating everything in their path as they attempted to evaporate Sacred''s enemy.


    Not to be outdone, the God-Tree called up even more power as the roots began to multiply drastically and become even larger and more powerful. Hundreds of thousands of more roots shot out of it''s body and into the fray, attempting to get past the cannons and destroy Sacred Light herself.


    Seeing this, Sacred''s smile fell as she got serious. Tens of thousands of new skulls appeared all around her and began to bombard the God-Tree as well.


    "Ancient Warrior Transformation!" The God-Tree roared as Sacred was busy annihilating all the incoming roots. It''s tree-like body began to shift and change as it transformed into a more humanoid version, and within instants, it was more akin to a giant made of wood and bark.


    "... You know, if you weren''t all woody and stuff, I''d even find that form attractive." Sacred commented as she eyed the new form of the God-Tree carefully even as her cannons took care of the stubborn roots still charging at her."


    Instead of answering, the God-Tree charged forward itself, weilding it''s own body as a deadly weapon as the very ground shattered under it. In fact, many elves, all of them loyal worshippers of it, were pancaked as it charged.


    Seeing the threat incoming, Sacred narrowed her eyes as she too charged forward, punching through any root that wasn''t annihilated by her still roaring cannons.


    The two divinities met in a thunderous clash. Sacred''s much smaller body dodged and weaved around the God-Tree''s mountain-sized fists, but her own punches failed to inflict any real damage.


    Eventually, after a couple seconds that were actually akin to hours for the two fighters,Sacred chose to disengage as one of the God-Tree''s fists almost touched her.


    "You have great strength... but your domain is so pathetic I can barely feel it. You''re no deity, you''re just a disgusting brute!" Sacred roared, now throughtly annoyed at her failure to completely trash the much inferior opponent.


    In truth, what she said was true and the God-Tree knew it. However, because of her pride and stubborness, she chose to continue engaging in close-combat fighting instead of fighting from afar, utilizing her comprehension to trash it, and the God-Tree happily seized the opportunity.


    Choosing to once more ignore her, the God-Tree gave chase even as Sacred retreated. Eyes flashing with hatred, Sacred clapped her hands together hard enough to produce a shockwave. She kept them still for an instant before pointing them at the God-Tree, who had been forced to stop it''s charge in order to defend itself from the cannons that had finished up with the roots and began to bombard it.


    "Great Light Annihition" She roared as two flashes of light escaped her hands and headed for the God-Tree. They were so stupidly fast that they reached it basically immediately.


    Two horrifying explosions tore through the area as the animals, trees and whatever else was still in the area around them were incinirated. The God-Tree itself didn''t escape the consequences as it roared in pain, two giant holes having been burned into it''s side.


    Retreating even further backwards, Sacred glared at the God-Tree as it''s wounds more or less instantly healed before smirking. "You know... You might win with attrition... But, can you catch me?"


    And with that, she flew away at top speeds, stunning the God-Tree for an instant before it chased after her with a terrifying roar the next moment.

 16 - High Battle (2)

    As the two deities clashed, the mortals below could only tremble and hide uselessly. Karl and his wife had fortunately been able to escape in time, as had most of the nobles. However, while they fled, they abandoned the common people to their fate.


    The moment Sacred Light''s skull cannons were taken out, the city Karl and the nobles had been in was annihilated within an instant. The countryside wasn''t spared either, as the God-Tree''s root attack broke the land into a million pieces.


    And as the titans clashed further, natural disasters were created left and right. Earthquakes broke apart the land, tornadoes were formed out of the slightest of movement from either deity, and titanic explosions of lava erupted from where the ground was shattered.


    And that wasn''t even to say for when Sacred''s cannons began their full barrage. The land itself was roasted, with hundreds of thousands of casualties for all races, with humans not being spared from the massacre either, albeit their casualties being far lower due to Sacred''s previous orders.


    With a titanic roar, the God-Tree''s fist smashed onto the ground, narrowly missing Sacred Light. In response, she formed a bright golden spear and harshly stabbed it into the offending arm, blowing a large hole all the way through.


    As the two continued to trade hits back and forth, Sacred directed their fight away from Jade City and towards an already existing wasteland. Fighting with the fury of an ambitious conqueror, she now had literal millions of house-sized skulls covering the skies and constantly firing off rays powerful enough to evaporate entire cities.


    Meanwhile, the God-Tree''s was forced to split its attention between defending from Sacred''s main body and cannons, giving chase, and also attempting to flatten her into a pancake.


    "Descent of Fury!" Sacred murmured as she constantly backtracked away from the tyrannical body of the God-Tree. A large circle appeared above the both of them even as the skulls moved away, and soon enough, a gigantic pillar of light descended upon them.


    "It''s useless!" The God-Tree roared as it reared back it''s fist and smashed it into the rapidly approaching death pillar. It was successful in holding the attack back... for about 3 instants.


    As Sacred faded away into her own attack only to reappear outside of it, the God-Tree''s pained roar echoed through the land as the attack shattered it''s fist and crushed it down into the earth, all the while melting away its bark/skin.


    However, when the attack ended, the God-Tree slowly got up, it''s skin and arm easily regrowing. With hateful eyes, it glared at Sacred. "As I said, useless. You will be crushed, and I will enjoy feasting on your flesh!" It tried to leap towards Sacred, only for another pillar to fall upon it and smash it into the ground once more.


    "Yeah, yeah. Die already, you inferior creature." Sacred hissed venomously as she continuously used her power to call forth pillar after pillar of light. After a couple hundred pillars had descended and thoroughly ravaged both land and enemy, she once more fled, with the God-Tree who had already healed quick to the chase.


    "Almost there..." Sacred murmured to herself, one eye carefully judging the distance between her and the God-Tree, as a single hit could easily cause massive damage to her, and another determining her future path.


    Finally, she spotted her destination. An evil smile showed itself on her lips as she charged forth at full speed, abandoning her half-fleeing, half-defending of before. Noticing this, the God-Tree hesitated for a moment before it too charged ahead, trying to catch the much, much faster and more nimble goddess.


    Finally, Sacred stopped when she was in the middle of... something and turned to face the God-Tree, who had cautiously stopped some distance away from Sacred.


    The dark and greedy smile on Sacred''s lips sent very loud warning bells off in the God-Tree''s mind. In fact, it was tempted to abandon the chase and try to finish off the opposing deity later... but it was too late.


    "It was not fun knowing you, a mere plant. However... as all plants should, your final job is to die and to fertilize the ground beneath you..." Sacred said as she noticed the God-Tree''s hesitation, which only furthered her smile until it was a full-on crazed grin.


    "Gates... Open!" She roared as she slammed her palms down upon the ground, and just like that, the fight was over, and the slaughter began.


    Gigantic pillars that towered even above the God-Tree rose at four corners miles away from the two combatants, and barriers then formed between all the pillars, trapping both fighters within.


    The God-Tree was frowning now, confused. "Mere tricks will never be enough to defeat ME!" It ultimately roared before charging forth and smashing its fist into the closest barrier, only to roar once more, but this time, it was in pain as its fist was repelled and also burned severely.


    "HOW!?" It shouted at Sacred, who had still not moved from her position with her palms to the ground.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    "Well... You see, inferior little shits like you have to abide by the rules of the divine. I, on the other hand, am smarter and better than you. Thus... Hehehe..." She giggled slightly at the end, with more than a little insanity in her voice.


    "Divine Realm... Teleport!"


    Immediately, both fighters vanished from where they were, along with the pillars. Where they reappeared should be obvious.


    "Oh no..." The God-Tree visibly paled despite being made of wood as it took in the heaven-like appearance of its new surroundings.


    "Oh... Yes!" Sacred''s smile dropped as she too took in her surroundings. "Well then... Any last questions?"


    "How in the world do you have a divine realm as a demigod!? How did you teleport us??" The God-Tree asked, obviously trying to stall for time.


    "Well... You asked your questions. A shame I don''t feel like answering them. Die." Sacred casually responded as she teleported in front of the God-Tree and flicked her pinky at it.


    The God-Tree''s whole body exploded into a million pieces, it''s regenerative abilities useless. With a casual grab, it''s relatively weak soul for a deity was captured by Sacred.


    "Well... That was disappointingly easy." Sacred said, now feeling a bit let down by the God-Tree''s miserable end. After all... The enemy that she had been preparing to fight for such a long time... died just like that. With a mere flick of her pinky.


    Shrugging tiredly to herself, she looked at the terrified soul that now rested within her hands, completely at her mercy. And she wasn''t feeling very merciful.


    Opening her mouth wide, she shoved the golden-green soul into her jaws and masticated it for a bit before swallowing it. Teleporting herself into her throne within the main temple of the realm, she spent the next couple hours absorbing whatever little domain pieces she could from the remains of the God-Tree''s soul.


    ''He truly was a demigod by a fluke'' Sacred thought, somewhat angrily. She felt that any deity should be more like her, with their focus on comprehending the world rather than focusing on their material body. But, in the end, that was just her opinion.


    Satisfied with her gains in both the Life and Plant domain, especially that of Life, she focused on the next task at hand. She gathered all the remains of the God-Tree''s body and distributed it all through the divine realm before returning to her throne once more.


    There, with everything now in place and her last enemy within the continent having been annihilated and absorbed, she felt confident to break through and shatter the shackles still holding her back from her ambitions of knowledge.


    Within mere moments, all 3 of her domains reached 100% completion. A bell went off through the entire divine realm, soon spreading through the entire continent and beyond.


    Despite the unimaginable amount of life within the universe, the number of deities was pathetically low. Hence, each deity would usually make quite the splash when they appeared. But, at the same time, because the universe was so vast... It was borderline impossible for other deities to notice a new one emerging.


    With her domains having been completed, Sacred''s soul began transforming and becoming stronger. Her body didn''t quite receive the same boost, and it likely wouldn''t reach the God-Tree''s power for a very long time... but she still received quite a power-up.


    As each hour passed, Sacred had fallen into a state of semi-consciousness. She was faintly aware of the changes in her body, but by the third hour, she''d finally fallen asleep for the first time in this life. And with that, the transformation could truly begin.


    On the outside, she didn''t change. Her aura, however, became much more mystical and powerful. By the end of the 10th hour, the first power-up had finished.


    For most deities, that would have been it. However, Sacred had been much more ambitious, lucky, and talented than other deities. She already knew the path she wanted to take further down the line, and she already had the necessary building blocks for it: the three domains.


    The Soul, Ruler, and Light domain soon begun fusing together into a single more powerful domain, one which was named the Sacred Light Domain because of course it was.


    Thus, by the end of the second day, Sacred had officially become a Medium God, skipping straight past the Lower God level.


    As her own transformation continued, her divine realm too transformed. Strange energy entered it from an unknown realm, fueling the transformation. In addition, the energy-filled remains of the God-Tree were also absorbed, at the Divine Realm''s nascent consciousness'' delight.


    Even further, the vast amounts of accumulated faith were consumed to fuel the transformation even further. With all three sources of energy combined, the realm was able to expand a hundredfold it''s normal size, and the density of its power was increased by almost a thousandfold.


    In theory, a divine realm should only be formed once becoming a real God. But, with Sacred''s stupidly high talent and stubbornness, she''d successfully birthed one before becoming a true god. The benefits of this showed themselves, as the immense resources that came from advancing went straight into upgrading it rather than building it.


    The massive Sea of Faith became a literal ocean, giant golden trees pushed themselves out of the earth, the clouds that carried the realm became much denser and numerous. Giant mountain ranges also began to appear, along with corresponding ravines that seemed to reach unknown depths.


    As both creator and creation finished their transformations by the end of the fourth day... The world had fallen into complete and utter chaos.


    The devastation of the horrifying battle between the two deities had left smoldering ruins if lucky in their wake. If unlucky... Nothing was left.


    While the elves waited anxiously to see their legendary patron god return and lead them to glory... It never came.


    The humans, on the other hand, knew full well that they beloved goddess had won, as everyone who''s soul had been influenced by Sacred''s power instinctively knew that their goddess was still well and alive, and the priests only confirmed this fact.


    However... This didn''t mean it wasn''t without its own problems. With the vacuum of power and management created by Sacred''s temporary sleep, Helen had stepped forth when it looked like the fight had ended, and taken on the full reigns of the church and republic in her hands.


    Thankfully, while the democratic system and divine-focused management weren''t perfect by any means... They could easily hold themselves together and organize everything properly.


    While Helen didn''t dare organize anything major without the approval and oversight of her Lord, she did successfully reassure the nation and people, as well as manage the drastic famine that was sure to result of the massive fight.


    And, indeed, at the end of the week following the divine battle... Sacred Light awoke.

 17 - New Order (1)

    Waking up for the first time in her life was a strange experience for Sacred. The dizziness and confusion that came with it were also very new for her, and while not a particularly enjoyable feeling... Sacred felt refreshed.


    Her eyes blinked lazily for a while as she remembered everything that happened and her sudden nap during her breakthrough. When she remembered that little detail, she forcefully shot up to her feet and quickly examined herself.


    Clenching her fists a couple of times, she threw random punches at the air, achieving nothing except make herself look quite stupid. Nonetheless, she smiled in satisfaction and then delved into her soul.


    The many domain lights that once rested within her mind were now all gone, including her three main domains. In their place now rested a gigantic rune seemingly built of light. Light blue whisps seemed to sometimes float in and out of the rune, and just by looking at it, Sacred instantly understood everything about it. After all, it was a representation of her newfound godhood.


    "Perfect..." She whispered with a giant smile as she looked at the divine realm around her. She now felt much more connected to the realm, and could even feel a slight conscience separate from her own beginning to develop within it.


    This consciousness was intricately connected to her own, and she instinctively knew that it was akin to a second heart. Absolutely loyal, absolutely useful, and that without it... She didn''t want to think about it.


    Licking her somehow dry lips, she focused on the Laws around her. Immediately, she could feel everything be so much easier to see and understand, and her thought process and speed had increased immensely as well.


    Immediately, Sacred could feel her goal of omniscience coming closer. She knew that she may never truly know everything... Sacred had grown up during her time in this life. She knew better than to rush things.


    Looking away from the laws despite her immense itch to just go to her throne and grasp all the domains she could, Sacred spent the following hour testing out her new and past powers, trying to understand how, where and how much becoming a true god had strengthened her.


    Turns out, quite a bit. While she couldn''t be sure, she knew as a fact that now, a single slap from her would be able to shatter the God-Tree''s body and extinguish its soul. All of this without counting her Divine Realm.


    "I''ll have to upgrade my follower''s cultivation technique as well when I have the time..." Sacred mused to herself, thinking about the various ways she could now improve their technique. Although, she wasn''t all that worried since their power wasn''t very important in the overall scheme of things.


    Only her own power mattered. If she was strong enough, she would even prefer her followers to never have to fight again, but she was willing to give them the option anyways. Furthermore, their faith, while now useless to her in person, was still a very valuable resource as a building material for her realm.


    Having taken everything into account, Sacred chose to finally take a look at how things were going down in the mortal realm. She was pleasantly surprised to see the situation more or less the same as for when she left, with Helen having taken in the reigns as overlord of the Golden Republic during her absence.


    Pleased with her right-hand woman''s ability and actions, Sacred finally decided to reactivate the teleportation runes etched within her divine realm, effectively announcing her awakening.


    And indeed, she didn''t have to wait for long before she felt several teleportation runes activating. She was easily able to feel out who came, and she wasn''t surprised.


    More or less every important figure within the Golden Republic soon arrived at her Realm: Helen, the Grand Council, various generals, important bishops, the more powerful Holy Warriors, and the other two champions: Mark and Hagrid.


    There were far more people than those, but Sacred was too lazy to try and remember who they were. Instead, she seated herself upon her throne, her large wings easily turning immaterial to allow for her to not have to lean forward.


    The first person to arrive was, naturally, Helen. Seeing her Lord alive and healthy brought immense relief to Helen, despite the knowledge that it was impossible for her to have died, or the Divine Realm would have collapsed.


    "My Lord!" Helen immediately kneeled, now feeling a bit nervous over her uncommanded actions during the Lord''s absence.


    Nonetheless, Sacred easily waved off any concerns with a wide smile. She beckoned her closer with her finger and Helen obeyed.


    "You have done well, my child. Now that you''ve had a taste of responsibility for the first time, you should have learned much, correct?" She asked her faithful follower, who mutely nodded.


    "Well... I would get used to it, then." Sacred joked lightly. Helen blinked in confusion a couple of times before what her Lord had said set in. Before she could utter any protest, the other followers arrived in the main hall.


    As everyone enthusiastically greeted their Lord and took their seats, all of them being smart enough to understand that this would be a moment that would forever be remembered through the world. Hence, the excitement was high.


    Seeing this, Helen reluctantly seated herself as well, idly noting that her seat was now situated the closest to that of Sacred Light, and it was almost at the same height.


    Once Sacred determined everyone to be ready, she spoke. Her followers had long since gotten used to her mystical voice, but even the weakest was able to determine that her voice itself had somehow become even more mystical now.


    "I am glad for all of you to have come here on this day, my children. Today... I am announcing my official advancement to a true god." Sacred''s first words were enough to shock everyone, but not enough to cause a ruckus. Those high enough in the government were long since aware of Sacred''s demigod status, and her desire to hold off on advancement until she took care of the God-Tree. Of course, only Helen and the other champions had been told of this directly, but they''d been allowed to tell others, allowing the information to spread.


    "My second announcement shall be my plans for the future. While I could have done this a long time ago, with the last thorn in my side having been eliminated... I am planning on uniting this continent underneath the Golden Republic''s rule."


    Once more, there was little surprise there. Nonetheless, even the ever-expressionless Helen found herself grinning at the announcement, not to mention the other people in the room. A buzz went through the room before it automatically spoke when Sacred opened her mouth once more.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "To unite the continent... I am unsure of what to do. This is also why I have gathered you all here, to hear your opinions. I have given the idea of straight-up conquest some thought but determined that it would not be the most efficient. Nonetheless, I will not rule the option out." Sacred said.


    When it looked as though Sacred was finished talking, several people began whispering to each other. Sacred allowed this, and when she noticed a general standing up from his seat, she nodded once to him to give him permission to speak.


    "My Lord, while I may not be the most qualified person to speak about civil management... I believe that forcing opposing races to submit through force would both be extremely costly in terms of manpower and resources, but also create a lot of resentment to your holy rule. Thus, I believe that the best options would be to either have our enemies be forced to join us but granting them limited independence... or to thoroughly exterminate them." The general''s eyes glinted at the end, showing his favorite option out of the two.


    Sacred nodded to the general looking around for anyone with anything to add. And, indeed, an old bishop chose that moment to stand up, and after receiving a nod from Sacred, he spoke.


    "While General Markus'' idea holds merit, both options would still be difficult to achieve. I believe that, instead of forcing the other races to submit, we could instead give them a deal. Submit themselves to the glory of the Lord, or be exterminated. While the upper nobility of the inhumans would need to be exterminated... The common people could be assimilated."


    Loud, unsatisfied murmurs arose from various parts of the room. A councilwoman with horrifying scars on her face stood up and faced the bishop with an air of borderline hostility.


    "Bishop Franz, the inhumans hardly deserve to be ''assimilated'' into our glorious republic. They would only contaminate it." She spoke, and while she wasn''t particularly venomous, the bite in her words was impossible to miss.


    As more and more opinions on this rose forth, it was pretty clear there were really only three choices. Kill them all, force them into the republic as little more than slaves... or have them willingly join with the same status of humanity.


    While the generals favored the first option, the councilmen favored the second, and the bishops favored the third. This was mostly due to their personal experience, with the generals often holding the greatest hatred towards inhumans, the councilmen having little mercy due to all the atrocities they suffered and had to deal with by the inhumans, and the bishops had all been promoted due to their personal strength, traits and personality, and one such trait needed to be a high-ranking member of the church was compassion and kindness. Thus, they favored the third option, despite even them having little love for the inhumans.


    Sacred listened to her followers discuss and debate the various pros and cons, which mostly revolved around cost, moral reasons, and simple vengeance. The idea that the inhumans could resist whatever fate the humans chose to deal out wasn''t even thought of, as it was clear as day that with Sacred now openly in the field... Resistance was useless.


    Finally, Helen stood up. Immediately, everyone quieted down, with those who had been speaking previously wisely shutting up and seating themselves.


    "I hold absolutely no love for the filthy inhumans." Was the first thing Helen said, her tone cold and hard. "However... my own personal views are pointless. It is not my, nor your, job to tell the Lord your opinion. Our job is to discuss what the best solution to Her problems are."


    Most people present had the decency to look a bit ashamed at Helen''s reprisal. Nonetheless, she carried on.


    "With humanity having sufficiently beaten back the other races and the show of force of our Lord, they are all in dire straights as of now. Even the races who were originally neutral in our war have sent me a letter after letter begging for mercy. Thus... Giving them the option to directly submit is an option, but it would be a nightmare to actually have them submit."


    Sacred listened with quite a bit of interest as Helen spoke. She could tell where she was going and was quite happy with it. It had been her original idea too.


    "Thus... I propose to call forth a continental congress to decide the fate of the races, inviting all leaders and major figures of every intelligent race and nation in the continent to have them propose to us their own plans and problems!"


    There was silence for a while before everyone turned to Sacred, seeking an answer. The proposal was good on paper, and it could likely be done, but would the Lord approve it?


    "... Very well. Send messengers to all the races with any intelligence, humanoid or not. The congress will be held within Jade City." As Sacred''s words were registered, her followers clapped their hands approvingly. Helen herself, while outwardly remaining stoic, sagged in relief on the inside.


    "The Grand Council will be responsible for organizing the event, while the bishops will be responsible for the management and the various tasks concerning non-governmental followers (commoners). Sacred Generals and Holy Warriors, I want you to put the might of the Golden Republic to full display for the duration of the entire event. Do not be shy about expenses." Sacred ordered, and just like that, the meeting ended.


    As everyone left except the champions, who stayed behind to discuss details and plans with their Lord, Sacred turned to Helen with a slightly crooked smile.


    "So... I heard little Helen got herself a cute little boyfriend..." She teased harmlessly once everyone was out of hearing reach.


    Helen went bright red, torn between her absolute respect for her Lord and wanting to retort angrily. In the end, she merely nodded shily.


    "Good for you. I''ve checked myself, and he''s a good man. Make sure he won''t be bringing your focus away from your other, however." Sacred warned, returning to her more serious persona. Helen nodded again, her embarrassment melting away at the realization that her Lord had actually taken the time to investigate her boyfriend just for her.


    "Well... Mark." She spoke, looking at the half-elven boy, who had by now turned into a dashing young man.


    "My Lord." He answered curtly. Sacred nodded slightly at him before continuing. "I want you and Hagrid to act from the shadows and make sure everything goes smoothly. Should you see any of the other races not abiding by my rules... Choose at your own discretion whether to inform me or act yourself. Hagrid." She turned to the last champion, nicknamed the Shadow of the Lord.


    He bowed his head in silence as he awaited further commands. Instead, his head whipped up when he heard Sacred''s following words.


    "When I first gained you... I made two promises. One was that the Demon King would be at your mercy when the time was to come, and the second was that the Elven Empress was to become yours. I merely wanted to inform you that, once the continental congress is finished... I will uphold those promises."


    Bowing deeply to hide the tears in his eyes, Hagrid could only mutely nod. He dismissed himself after his bow, too emotional to face his lord for longer.


    "Cute boy-toy." Sacred shook her head. She waved Mark away, sending him off to carry out his duties however he saw fit. Then, she turned to Helen once more.


    "My Lord." Recognizing the moment of privacy for what it was, Helen prepared herself.


    "Helen dearest. You of all my followers have impressed me the most. Your loyalty, courage, and determination have no less than stunned me. Originally, I thought mere mortals would never match up to the glory of us deities... but you''ve proven me wrong time and time again." Sacred said, only praise resting within her eyes.


    "Now, it is time I officially form what I have been planning since I first had you undergo the Baptism. As the First Angel, I will personally guide you until you become a demigod, at which point, I want you to join what I will call the Pantheon, which will be the administrative body of those who break the shackles of mortality and become angels or deities."


    Helen was stunned by her Lord''s declaration, but before she could complain, Sacred continued. "It is still very theoretical and nothing is set in stone, but ideally, I want both you and Mark to eventually ascend to become demigods, and if your talent and luck allow it... even true deities. I know you can do this, Helen." Sacred spoke, getting much gentler at her last words.


    Helen stood there in silence for a while as she digested her Lord''s words. Finally, swallowing down her saliva forcefully, she nodded determinedly, fire and determination to prove herself to her Lord rising within her.


    Sacred smiled. She sent Helen off, informing her that various lessons would begin the day after. Once everything was done and dealt with for the immediate time being... Sacred whipped out the Life-Giving Necklace.


    "Well... Time to study you, I guess." She murmured to the inanimate object, which she was 90% sure had some sort of consciousness of its own somewhere inside it. With a scan of her senses, she easily determined that everything was going smoothly for now, and thus, got to work on eating up everything the necklace had to offer.


    As information of the Continental Congress spread... It was obvious to everyone that the war was over, and a new, absolute ruler had emerged within the continent.


    You could say... A new order was about to be formed.

 18 - New Order (2)

    "Your Majesty, an ambassador has just arrived from the human scums, what should we do?" An obviously distressed guard said as he burst into the current royal residence, which was nothing more than a larger-than-average elven house.


    The elven emperor shivered from his pseudo-throne. He now knew that victory was impossible for elvenkind, their very god having been bested and slaughtered, and judging by the fluctuations of the mana in the air... The human lord hadn''t been sitting on his thumbs.


    He''d only seen a winged figure on the day of the great battle, not powerfulenough to catch more than a glimpse ofthe fleeting divine figure.


    "... Send him in." He murmured. His wife had gone off to deal with the nobles who''d been panicking ever since the fall of their god. Their whole society was on the brink of collapse, their territory was stolen, their god slaughtered, and their people starving.


    It was a desperate situation.


    Kal waited anxiously asthe human ambassador, a young human man, entered his chambers. The man smiled strainingly at the emperor, bowed ever so slightly, then spoke up, ignoring the traditional elven custom of waiting for the emperor to give someone the permission to speak.


    "Good day. I bring with me the word of the Lord and the Golden Republic. I have been ordered to inform you about the upcoming Continental Congress, where the fate of the world shall be decided. All intelligent races have been invited, and I have been also told to inform you that should the elven representative be missing or deemed having inadequate authority... The Lord will not be pleased."


    Karl was relatively surprised but quickly sobered up. He''d lived long enough to seewhere this was going.


    However, that didn''t change the fact of the matter that they had no choice. He valued his life, his people, and his family, and for them, he would humiliate himself.


    "... I see. We shall attend, provide the details to the guards outside. You may leave." He said, or rather, ordered the ambassador.


    The man merely smiled and bowed once more before leaving.


    Karl slumped down on his chair as he shook his head, tears threatening to come out of his eyes. "It''s all over." He murmured in despair, even as his wife once more tried to console him.


    Meanwhile, as the elven emperor despaired over the disaster that had been the human uprising, ambassadors from the Golden Republic were appearing in every court of every race, kingdom, duchy, tribe, clan... Even intelligent beasts received messengers, and they all more or less said the same thing.


    ''You better come to this meeting. Or else.''


    The ''or else'' was better left unsaid. None of the invited were all that eager to displease the goddess that had torn defeated the previous overlord, and who could easily destroy the entire world should she choose to.


    Back in Jade City, huge preparations were already underway. Under the directions of various high-ranking priests and councilors, as well as a huge amount of funding and workers, everything was being renovated. Food was being brought in by the tons, worn-down streets and buildings were torn down and renovated, and a huge colosseum-like building was erected in the middle of the city.


    Statues of Sacred were also being built en masse, with each one of them personally embued by Sacred herself with her power, effectively transforming them into golems even stronger than Helen.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Sacred herself had invited (read: ordered) several learned men and women over to her divine realm in order to get their advice on how to draft up a permanent law code that would be accepted by the various races.


    She''d been wondering for quite some time on how to go about subjugating the various races under her rule. On one side, she could force them all into what would essentially be slavery, however, not only would that yield very little faith and foster dissent, it also went against what she personally believed in.


    On the opposite side, she could grant all the races equal status. However, that would make a lot of her own followers unhappy, as well as make integration almost impossible due to the deep hatred that ran between races.


    Frowning unhappily, Sacred lazily threw the large book that she''d spent the last hour creating off to the side, where it promptly burst into flames and faded away into oblivion. It was not the first to face such a fate.


    "Ugh..." She groaned in annoyance as she slammed her head onto the table she sat before.


    She was completely and utterly lost on what to do. Ask her to obliterate a country, she could do so with a flick of her wrist. Ask her to decide on something she herself chose to decide on... She felt stupid.


    "Ah, damn it." Sacred groaned, but luckily, inspiration struck immediately after.


    She could just letthem decide, she thought petulantly. Honestly, she just wanted to get it all done and over with so she could move on to other stuff.


    Like going back to having to manage an ever-increasing empire that required her attention 24/7 to manage.


    Slumping down onto the table, Sacred pressed her cheek into the table with a sigh, but when she heard a knocking coming from the door, she shot upright and put up her ''goddess'' expression.


    Coming into her private chamber was Helen, carrying several stacks of papers with ease using a form of telekinesis. Sacred almost groaned at the sight. Almost.


    "My lord, this should be the final necessary paperwork before the event. It includes expenses, contracts, and the tributes expected from the foreign envoys."


    As Helen spoke, she couldn''t help but peek at her all-powerful Lord, who looked utterly miserable. Again.


    Although it didn''t seem as bad as the time right before the great divine battle, she still looked exhausted and overworked. And that really would not do before such a big event.


    "... My lord?" Helen raised her voice after a couple of minutes, as Sacred was scanning through each paper at lightning speed.


    "Hmm?" Sacred murmured as she used her powers to, well, power through all the paperwork.


    "Uh... I think it would be good for you to rest for a while. There isn''t anything major coming up for the next month, and I believe that it, uh, you should rest for a while." Helen said, speaking increasingly quickly as Sacred looked over at her, a small frown now donning her features.


    "Nonsense, I am perfectly fine." Sacred dismissed, even if in her heart of hearts she longed for some time off, but alas, duty called and she would never dismiss her duties.


    "My Lord," Helen called, hardening her voice with as much conviction as she could. "I believe that it would be in the best interest of the nation for you to be at your absolute best, and right now, you are not."


    Sacred looked away, tapping the desk with her finger. "I... Ugh... Alright. The congress is in two months, correct?"


    "Yes, my Lord!" Helen said, secretly excited at having convinced her almost legendarily stubborn goddess into doing something she didn''t want to for once.


    Sacred grumbled curses under her breath as she finished up the paperwork and stood up. "Take care of this and any following work for me then, my cute little Helen." Sacred smiled an almost evil smile before vanishing.


    Realizing she''d just landed herself even more work, Helen almost cursed out loud but refrained herself.


    As Sacred went off to hide within her divine realm for a two-month-long power nap, the world was basically in uproar as various races debated on what to do on the upcoming congress.


    Very few races outright denounced the congress, and those that did were often quickly declared to be traitors to the race and quickly marginalized. However, that was not to say the idea of the congress was well-received. Far from it.


    However, nobody dared to challenge the mysterious human Lord. Hence, every invited race eventually got their act together and decided on their stance and representatives, some of the more far-away nations having to send their envoys months early, just to make it in time.


    Amongst the Golden Republic, however, the event was viewed in a much, much different light. People viewed it as their triumph and vendetta amongst their previous oppressors, and over 3/4 of the entire population planned to be in the city during the event, something which the Sacred Church not only supported but actively encouraged.


    Finally, as the fated day drew closer, the first envoy arrived.