Fuel for the Fire (2)
This world is a tapestry of countless races and peoples living intertwined.
A place so overwhelmingly intricate, marked by cultural divides so profound that history had known nothing but ceaseless friction. Human nature dictates that difference breeds prejudice, and prejudice invites contempt.
It was only natural, then, that discord escalated into skirmishes, and skirmishes into open bloodshed.
Yet, amidst this fractured existence, a singular force possessed the power to unite vast multitudes across every divide.
Gods. Which is to say, religion.
From the war-torn dawn of antiquity down to the present day, religion held absolute sway over mortal hearts. Here, the existence of divinity was not a matter of blind conjecture; it was an undeniable, tangible fact. Its living proof was holy power.
A sacred might bestowed directly by the gods, heralded as the purest manifestation of mana in creation. Those blessed to channel holy power wielded strength far surpassing common mortals. Though it demanded absolute and unyielding faith, that was a small price to pay for transcendent authority.
Among the pantheon of deities revered across the world, none stood taller than Aris. Goddess of War and Wisdom, and the twin sister to Aragon, the God of Magic. Though a supreme Father God sat above them in cosmic hierarchy, his sway over mortal hearts paled in comparison to hers.
In the fragile dawn when mankind was weak, it was Aris who shielded humanity from primordial evils. For that, millions venerated her name. Even the demon realm offered reverent homage; as the sovereign patron of war, the martial demons saw every reason to exalt her.
The indelible mark Aris and her kin carved into mortal civilization endured to this day—nowhere more apparent than in the theocratic realm raised in their honor: the Holy Kingdom of Eldorado.
Slam!
"How could this happen?! We buried that past beneath seven seals!"
An elderly, wizened cardinal brought his fist crashing down upon the polished table. His voice was cracked with age, yet laced with venom he could not conceal.
"Did you expect any of us to foresee this? Calm yourself. The rabble outside are only demanding an explanation; they haven't entirely bought into the rumors yet."
The cardinal seated across from him spoke with measured chill. A thick, well-groomed beard framed his features, but his slit-like, serpent eyes radiated malice. His voice carried the same entrenched stubbornness as the man who had struck the table.
"Cardinal Morgan speaks the truth," chimed a third prelate, gently twisting the curled tips of an eccentric mustache. His chin tilted upward, casting an air of supreme arrogance over the room. "The commoners are still waiting on our word."
Though each differed in countenance, they shared a striking uniformity: immaculate white vestments woven with divine craftsmanship, edged in gilded embroideries that betrayed the bottomless greed festering beneath.
"Squabbling among ourselves solves nothing. An unruly mob clamors at our gates this very moment. Devise a solution."
The voice was dignified and solemn, carrying a suffocating aura of absolute dominion. The squabbling cardinals promptly shifted their gaze toward the head of the long chamber.
The man who sat there wore a face carved with deep, overlapping wrinkles, yet his eyes shone with a piercing brilliance that outstripped any youth. Though that keen gaze carried an ominous chill, an aura of inviolable authority hung heavy about him.
"If any of you possess a worthwhile idea, speak," said Pope Louis II, sovereign pontiff of El Dorado, his tone eerily quiet.
Stifled by the crushing pressure, the cardinals cleared their throats in unison. Cardinal Howards, the one who had struck the table first, broke the silence.
"First, an outright denial. What proof do they possess besides scandalous postings on some frivolous Gallery? We deny it unconditionally."
"Cardinal Howards is correct," another prelate seconded hastily. "The Gallery is renowned for being an unreliable cesspool of falsehoods."
Since the break of dawn, El Dorado had been plunged into utter bedlam. The wildfire drama topic regarding the Undying King, sparked within the extradimensional Gallery, had spilled violently into reality. The fall of the Balkan Kingdom had occurred barely thirty years ago; its scars ran deep, bleeding raw in living memory.
Parents who buried children. Children orphaned in the purge. Men and women cast out from devastated homelands, their bodies maimed and severed. Those who had lost everything.
That aggrieved remnant had converged upon the Papal Palace, laying siege to its hallowed gates in deafening protest.
Crash!
Right in the middle of their clandestine council, a high stained-glass window shattered, raining vibrant shards across the marble floor. As the startled cardinals recoiled, ferocious roars erupted from the plaza below.
"Give me back my son! Give me back my son!"
"You call yourselves holy men?! You dare invoke the gods?!"
"If you have tongues in your mouths, answer us!"
Furious shouts poured through the jagged hole. Their council chamber sat perched on the highest tier of the grand palace, deliberately isolated for sanctuary and secrecy—yet stones cast by furious hands had reached even here. Naturally so, for former holy knights stood among the seething crowd outside.
"What are the guards doing?! Drag whoever threw that stone away!"
"T-The crowd is too dense, Your Eminence! We cannot pinpoint the culprit...!"
"Useless incompetents!"
Scolding the breathless holy knight who rushed inside yielded nothing. It merely underscored the raging inferno of public fury. It defied reason that a single post uploaded to an online forum could ignite such catastrophic unrest, but the explanation was painfully simple.
This world had printing presses. It had newspapers, news sheets, and a ravenous press corps. When a scandal broke with this much venomous flair, the media pounced upon it like starving beasts—unconcerned whether the fuel had originated from the Gallery or the gutter.
"We believed in the gods, not in corrupt parasites like you!"
"If the Pope has a shred of conscience left, step down from the throne!"
"You dare defile the holy name of Lady Aris?!"
Above all, El Dorado's immaculate facade had already been decaying for years. Raised as a pious sanctuary to honor the gods, the Holy Kingdom once enjoyed an untarnished reputation. In the ancient era when the demonic legions of Mephisto ravaged the realm, El Dorado could champion divine justice without dispute.
With the passage of centuries, however, the demons abandoned conquest in favor of ball sports, and the bloody clash of civilizations dwindled into peaceful indifference. As holy crusades evaporated, the systemic tyranny and depravity El Dorado had committed in the shadows slowly crawled into the light.
Troublesome vermin, Louis II thought, pinching the bridge of his nose in grim irritation.
Catching the dark cloud gathering over the Pontiff's brow, the cardinals exchanged uneasy glances. Pope Louis II held the most uncontested, totalitarian power in the theocracy's recorded history. One misplaced word, and their heads would roll across the tiles, cardinal robes be damned.
"...Have any foreign kingdoms issued formal statements?"
"Ah, no! None as of yet, Your Holiness."
"None as of yet..."
As history bore witness, El Dorado had committed countless atrocities under the shield of divine mandate, bludgeoning neighboring realms into submission in the name of God. Even Alfheim, sovereign homeland of the haughty elves, had been forced to yield to holy decrees. The will of El Dorado was proclaimed as the will of heaven, and any who defied it were branded enemies of creation.
By rights, mortal rulers should have served the divine will, but the cart had long since usurped the horse. The holy faith had curdled into an absolute instrument of state power. Stagnant waters rot, and the putrid stench rising from El Dorado's sanctums could no longer be veiled by incense.
"So. Has anyone devised an actual solution?"
"Pardon?"
"I asked if you had a solution. If all you intend to do is keep your mouths shut, you may take your leave."
Leaving that chamber meant an immediate execution order. The cardinals read their fates clearly. After enduring decades of cutthroat intrigue to claw their way to these seats, none were willing to forfeit their lives so cheaply.
"A blanket denial may backfire, Your Holiness. Should a living survivor of the Balkan Kingdom emerge to testify, our position will deteriorate rapidly."
"We must appeal to unavoidable necessity! This is a matter of chronology and context. Proclaim that the Undying King was caught conducting forbidden necromantic experiments on his own subjects first, and we were forced to intervene to purge the plague before it consumed the continent!"
Desperate to deflect the Pope's wrath, the prelates racked their brains, weaving webs of deceit. Anyone privy to this secret council would recognize in an instant that the royal archives Wild Grylls had uploaded to the Gallery were unadulterated truth. True to the rotting stagnant water, not a shred of sacred piety lingered here—only corrupt men clawing frantically to bury their sins.
"Splendid. Let us proceed with that."
"Once the enraged mob hears our pious clarification, their righteous fervor will turn to remorse."
"That said... how shall we handle that accursed Gallery?"
The mustache-twirling cardinal's query snuffed out the relieved laughter in an instant. The present disaster had been sparked entirely by the digital forum. Who could say what devastating disclosures might leak next?
"That matter is quite simple," Louis II answered, a thin, unsettling smile curling his lips. Seeing the cardinals lean forward in suspense, the Pope delivered his verdict. "We shall designate the Gallery as an instrument of evil."
"The Gallery... as evil?"
"Indeed. We are the chosen recipients of divine grace; our decree is the decree of the gods. Should we declare the Gallery an engine of corruption, the heavens themselves brand it heresy."
The cart had completely replaced the horse. The desire to align with divine truth had long withered, swallowed whole by the insatiable lust for power.
"Brilliant! We should use this opportunity to restrict all access to the forum entirely! Hahaha!"
"Nothing is more perilous than foolish commoners consuming unchecked, seditious information."
"Indeed, I hear utterly depraved obscenities circulate within that space. Truly, what is this world coming to?"
They nodded vigorously, heaping condemnation upon the Gallery.
Naturally...
I'll keep browsing it on the sly, of course.
Just need to use an alternate handle.
As long as nobody catches me, what's the harm?
Hypocrisy ran as their baseline passive trait. Their public condemnations were merely pious noise spat out for show.
Once the council concluded, an official papal spokesperson stepped out onto the grand balcony overlooking the plaza. Under ordinary circumstances, the supreme pontiff himself should have addressed an outrage of this magnitude, but dispatching a mere herald spoke volumes of the Holy See's entrenched arrogance.
"Heed my words, faithful children of God! This entire tragedy is a malicious fabrication born of profound misunderstanding! The vile monarch of the Balkan Kingdom, the Undying King, had long conducted horrific necromantic experiments upon his innocent subjects...!"
Their narrative unfolded in smooth, practiced rhetoric.
The Undying King had secretly violated the laws of life, attempting to reanimate his entire populace into unholy thralls. The Holy Kingdom had caught wind of the abomination and mounted a sorrowful, unavoidable crusade to cleanse the realm. Was it not infinitely more merciful to perish as human beings than to linger as eternal undead monstrosities? All had unfolded according to the divine will, and those protesting today were merely suffering from lingering psychological trauma inflicted by the necromancer king's insidious magic.
At the herald's polished recitation, the seething roar began to ebb into hushed murmurs. The protesters were far from convinced, but hearing a coherent rebuttal forced them to pause. At the very least, it showed the Holy See had the gall to offer a defense. Faith in El Dorado had plummeted into the abyss, yet the masses waited to see if an even deeper trench existed below.
"Furthermore, His Holiness the Pope proclaims that the Gallery is an instrument of supreme evil! Any who place their faith in false information originating from that den of wickedness shall face severe trial for heresy...!"
"You absolute bastards!"
"I knew it! You're trying to censor the truth because you're guilty as hell!"
"Blaming the Gallery?! You want your head mounted on a pike like the Emperor of the Central Plains?!"
"Stop scapegoating the Gallery! We are sick and tired of your pathetic excuses!"
As the saying went, below rock bottom lay an endless descent. Deflecting every internal failing onto the Gallery had been the theocracy's go-to playbook for years. Under normal conditions, the public would have sighed with weary disdain: There those fools go again.
Today, the populace had breached the boiling point. The threadbare excuse snapped their remaining patience like dry kindling.
"Everyone! Breaking news! Archmage Kadir, the Wizard King, has just issued an official proclamation!"
"What?! The Wizard King?!"
"Wasn't he the closest comrade to the late Hero?!"
A loud cry pierced through the swirling chaos. The papal spokesperson felt a cold dread clamp around his heart, but the tide was already beyond salvage.
"The Previous Generation Hero did not die fighting the Undying King! He chose to perish alongside the Balkan King! Driven to his grave by none other than the coercion and intolerable pressure of the Holy Kingdom!"
"What did you just say?!"
"The Hero chose death?! He killed himself?!"
"Can that even be called suicide?! That's practically...!"
Right on cue, Kadir hurled an oil-soaked log straight into the roaring blaze.
"Come out, Pope! Answer for your crimes in person!"
"Give me back my son!"
"Return my father to me!"
The inferno consuming the Holy Kingdom showed no sign of dying down.
Meanwhile, deep within the Forest of the Four Seasons.
"Cough! Cough! Ugh... Did I shove too much firewood in?"
Wild Grylls coughed through the billowing smoke as he fed fresh logs into his breakfast fire.