The Origin of Divinity
Serne barged straight into Professor Farahan's cottage without so much as a knock.
She dragged a nearby chair over to the table where Simon and Farahan sat, dropped herself onto it, and crossed her legs with a languid, sensual grace. Gathering her tousled platinum hair with both hands and sweeping it back, she flashed Simon a sly, foxlike smile.
Simon regarded her with eyes full of wariness.
"Serne, how did you even—"
"How did I know to come here? That's simple. I've known for ages that you've been in contact with the Sacred Defense professor here, Simon."
Simon shot a quick glance at Farahan, who gave a small nod.
"If you're casting about for an excuse, it won't do you any good. She already knows everything. That you wield divinity. That you've been taking white magic lessons from me."
...Is she a stalker or something?
Simon glared at her, one hand pressed to his forehead, but Serne merely blinked back at him with perfect innocence. It was the most guileless yet utterly calculating face in the world.
"Anyway, go on with what you were saying. I'm dying to hear how it ends."
Her sudden appearance had rattled him so badly that Simon had completely forgotten what they'd been discussing. But Serne had already seized the initiative.
"When mana takes root in a corpse, it becomes trapped inside the body, stagnating and flowing in reverse until it forms a kind of 'core.' That core is jet-black, and it becomes the driving force that animates the undead. Which means, Professor, it's your turn to explain divinity now."
A tidy summary. Had she really come because she wanted to hear the story?
Farahan gave a light cough and continued where he'd left off.
"Indeed. The origin of divinity can be traced to a place called 'Paradise,' which burned to nothing long ago."
"Never heard of it."
Serne's eyes went bright with curiosity, while Simon spoke up with practiced calm.
"You mean the 'Holy Grounds' the Holy Federation talks about?"
"The very same. It was consumed by a fire of some kind, but it did once truly exist."
Paradise was a fixture of Deva faith—woven into its prayers, its hymns, its scripture. Simon had heard about it often from Anna as a child, and when he'd followed Lethe into the Holy Federation, he'd even studied it to play the part of a proper priest.
Farahan closed his eyes and fanned himself gently.
"Paradise was the most mysterious place on this continent. From afar, it shimmered white, as though freshly fallen snow blanketed its grounds—a place of breathtaking beauty. The leaves of its trees glistened with pale dew, rain of light poured down from its skies, and pure springs bubbled up from its valleys. No impure presence could enter. Every plant and animal that lived there knew no death, savored eternal life, and desired no change of any kind. It was, in the truest sense of the word, a paradise."
He fell silent for a moment, as if summoning the vision before his eyes, then opened them again.
"And then, humans came to that place."
Simon, listening intently, flinched despite himself.
...The moment you say humans showed up, things start feeling ominous.
"Humans revered the mystery and beauty of this Paradise, and they wished to become part of its ecosystem and live within it. They shed their garments to return to their primordial state, ate the fruit that grew there, and drank from its springs. Most of the humans who entered Paradise could not endure its unchanging tedium, or fled from the alien energies their bodies rejected—but a small handful of steadfast souls endured, day after day. And then..."
Farahan spread his palm open.
"That white radiance seen in Paradise's flora and fauna began to flow through the humans as well. They had truly become members of Paradise. This was the birth of the first 'Saints.'"
Simon's eyes went round.
"Wait a moment! Then the power flowing through that Paradise was—"
"Divinity. Paradise was, at its heart, an ecosystem built not on mana but on divinity. Humans long exposed to it gained the ability to transmute mana into divinity—and those humans became priests. Paradise was the origin of everything."
The Saints who came to possess divinity gave thanks to the 'god' who had permitted them this, and gladly wished to become part of that world.
But one nameless Saint did not.
He believed that Paradise's power should not be hoarded by a chosen few—that the god's will must be proclaimed to the many, and this power shared with them all.
So he uprooted a single young sacred tree from Paradise, carried it with him, and descended to a village below.
He planted the sacred tree at the village's heart and tended it, preaching the god's word to the people. At the time, a plague was carrying the villagers off one by one—but the moment the Saint laid hands on them and raised his divinity, the sickness vanished without a trace.
Wounds from blades closed and healed. The deaf regained their hearing. And when the Saint even raised the dead, the villagers threw themselves to the ground and began to worship him.
"I am a servant of the great Goddess Deva, and this power is nothing more than a gift lent to me by Her greatness."
Time passed. The sacred tree he had planted grew straight and tall, and at last it bore fruit. The Saint fed that fruit to his disciples.
The disciples ate it in gratitude to the Goddess. Some accepted it with quiet composure—but others writhed in agony, and a few even died of shock.
"The Master spoke thus: those who harbor irreverent hearts shall suffer,
and only those who grasp the Goddess's will with reverence and receive it deep in their hearts shall receive Her power as well."
And among the disciples who trained while partaking of the sacred tree's fruit, something remarkable occurred—there emerged those who could raise white radiance from their entire bodies.
They could heal sickness and rescue the injured, just as their master had wrought miracles. The villagers fell to their knees once more, awestruck by the power and the will of god.
Overjoyed, the Saint bestowed upon these disciples alone the title of 'Missionary,' and commanded them to spread the Goddess's word to ever more people.
The missionaries, just as their master had done before them, set out for Paradise to obtain a 'sacred tree' of their own. But mindful of his admonition—that not even a speck of irreverence could remain in their hearts upon arriving in Paradise—they deliberately inflicted asceticism upon themselves: threading their way through treacherous thickets of thorns, abstaining from food, walking barefoot across burning sand beneath the blazing sun.
This episode became the foundation of the Holy Federation's famous '19 Asceticisms.'
The disciples who reached Paradise gathered up its young sacred trees and plants, then scattered to every corner of the continent, spreading the faith far and wide and creating still more wielders of divinity.
And that was the true origin of the Holy Federation—and of its priests.
Divinity and the Deva faith were far more than a religion offering the masses mere spiritual comfort. In an age before advanced medical care, they could heal the sick and mend the wounded—and with their innate quality of unmaking death and impurity, they could strike down the undead. Their prestige and renown swelled at a staggering pace.
When the necromancers rose to dominance in particular, the faith grew rapidly as their great rival, eventually establishing the 'Holy Federation'—a colossal empire spanning half the continent.
"To sum it all up: divinity began as a native anomalous phenomenon of a place called Paradise. Uniquely, it carried a quality of 'contagion'—animals long exposed to it became divine beasts, and humans became Saints. As that power spread across the continent, priests were born, and from them the Holy Federation was founded. That is how it may be explained."
"Oh my—what a brilliant analysis."
Serne smiled sweetly.
"Goodness. Divinity as a 'native anomalous phenomenon'! I've never heard a priest talk about his own history and roots that way. You people just endlessly venerate the myths, crying blasphemy at anything else, don't you?"
Farahan smiled.
"I've walked both worlds, the Federation and the Alliance. Serving as a professor here, you see, I've had the chance to read the scholarly studies in which necromancers dissect priestly theology. The Federation and the Alliance. Theological research and academic research. My conclusion is what comes of weighing them both."
Even to Simon, the theory was terrifying. What chaos would descend upon the Holy Federation if this ever spread? Though—surely the Federation, which suppressed press and rumor with an iron fist, would never let such a story circulate properly.
"And yet, if you comb through the research on our side, one might rather wonder—"
Serne continued with a mischievous grin.
"—doesn't it shake your own faith, Professor? One could easily conclude the Goddess never existed at all."
"Serne."
It was an rude thing to say, and Simon shot her a warning glance.
But Farahan only chuckled and traced a cross over his heart with a fingertip.
"On the contrary—this old man's faith has only grown richer. The Goddess fashioned Paradise to deliver the continent's people, moaning with sickness and tormented by the undead. She imbued Paradise's power with the gift of contagion so that it might spread across the breadth of the land. Throughout it all lie countless coincidences and necessities that no mortal reasoning could ever hope to comprehend."
Serne shrugged. This time it was Simon who spoke.
"But nowadays nobody eats sacred fruit—they enter divinity shrines instead, don't they?"
"That's right. It's a far more efficient way to open people's eyes to divinity."
For an empire as vast as the Holy Federation to endure, it needed priests—many of them.
The divinity shrines could turn even rather ordinary people into priests, by administering divinity to them in a rather blunt, almost violent fashion.
"And we've wandered far from the matter at hand. Forgive me—it seems this old man got carried away, telling stories to the young folk."
Farahan set down his fan and folded his hands in his lap.
"Let us return, then. The question was this: theoretically, how does the corpse of a dead paladin become a Death Knight capable of wielding jet-black? Now that you've heard the whole story—does it make sense to you?"
"......."
Simon mulled it over in silence for a long moment before answering.
"In the end, jet-black and divinity are both grounded in mana—no, they're nothing more than corrupted mana. Which means that even a paladin's body, long since drained of every trace of divinity, can be made into a Death Knight. And if I use the lingering memories of his past life to compel him to invoke his sacred arts—"
Simon's eyes narrowed into something sly and sharp.
"—he'll draw on jet-black instead of divinity as his fuel, and reproduce his sacred arts through darkness. I understand it completely now."
"Precisely."
Farahan smiled with satisfaction and made a gesture of covering his eyes with his palm.
"The people of this continent have the notion hammered into their skulls that jet-black and divinity are absolute opposites. Strip away that prejudice, and you'll find your eye for understanding things sharpened considerably."
"Then—"
At that moment, Serne rose slowly from her seat.
"Would you take a look at me as well?"
She spread both arms with an elegant, unhurried motion. Dazzling light flared to life, and the darkened room blazed with radiance. From behind her back unfolded a pair of wings, white as freshly fallen snow.
Simon lost himself, helpless against the sight.
She stood there, wings drawn out and shimmering with reflected sunset light—and the image that came to mind was of the angels in scripture.
She was so beautiful, so transcendent, that for an instant no thought at all was possible.
With a light gesture of her hand, the wings beat upward, surged high—and then scattered to the four winds.
The room filled with them.
Feathers white as snow came pouring down like rain.
"I don't know my own past. My memories were wiped clean. All I know is that my adoptive father—the former Master of the Ivory Tower—picked me up somewhere, one day."
Beneath the rain of drifting feathers, Serne smiled softly.
And then, in a heartbeat, the mood inverted.
Swish—
Her gaze flashed.
"...!"
The peaceful, transcendent world turned on its head as the feathers stained themselves deepest black.
She had woven jet-black into her power.
The space around her—which had seemed so luminous one could almost hear the ringing of bells—warped into something dark and lightless, a place where the screams of hell might echo at any moment.
The feathers broke apart into jet-black, twisted into a vast magic circle, and at last took the shape of terrible, staring eyes.
Bloodshot pupils roved in every direction, hunting for prey.
"You said jet-black and divinity are fundamentally the same, didn't you, Professor?"
She looked at Farahan.
"What if I had been a priest instead?"
Farahan regarded her in silence. For a long time he seemed lost in deep thought—and then, closing his eyes, he spoke with heavy gravity.
"You wouldn't merely have been capable of being a priest. You should have been one. That power of yours is, without a doubt..."
"In that case."
She stared at him with a face terrifying in its utter blankness.
"Just who—or what—am I?"