While moving with spiritual intuition, I took out a goat parchment and spoke, "I wish that this were a map where one could see where they were standing and it wasn't bound by the limit of the paper. "
The parchment glowed for a moment before constricting lines began to flow like water, forming mountains and plains. The change in color gave the map depth, and in the center there was a pitch-red mark that marked the location of the map itself.
While ten to fifteen millennia won't change the shape of the earth at all, the map I had seen on the wiki had little information about locations.
Amanises was very quiet during the beginning of this trip.
"Now that we are here, let me tell you a bit of what you are."
Amanises nodded.
"You must have heard of the First Blasphemy slate from your memories.
What I am going to tell you is a major improvement of this slate."
"Go on," Amanises spoke with a hint of curiosity.
"Just like the Blasphemy slate, I, too, am going to be using the same division.
There are 22 pathways on Earth; in the cosmos there are infinitely many pathways. "Infinite Gods, then?" Amanises asked.
"This scales even more, but this doesn't concern you at hand."
Amanises nodded and began to listen intently.
I continued, "The pathway on Earth are,
01 Fool
02 Error
03 Doors
04 Sun
05 Visionary
06 HangedMan
07 Tower
08 Tyrant
09 Darkness
10 Death
11 Twilight Giant
12 Mother
13 Moon
14 Hermit
15 Paragon
16 Wheel of Fortune
17 Black Emperor
18 Justiciar
19 Abyss
20 Chained
21 Demoness
22 Red Priest"
Amanises nodded with a hum, having memorized all of this quickly. "Some names are obvious to who the current owners are; some I am unaware of." She asked with a hint of curiosity and anticipation.
I nodded.
"You see, these creatures chose pathways based on similarity in ability rather than symbolism. " I spoke
"What's the difference then? Shouldn't it be the same?" Amanises asked
"Have you heard the saying, 'The God is an amalgamation of all contradictions, and we humans, made in his image, show those natures very perfectly'?"
Amanises asked, "Yes, but how could you relate it to symbolism?"
I nodded and continued, "Symbolism is not similarity but rather a source; think of it like this: if something symbolizes creation, then only the creation aspect has only one half of it." The aspect of destruction is also a form of creation; with that, you can actually group these pathways."
Amanises further asked, "So then contradictory ability is what we should go after?"
"Yes, more so than similar abilities; there are even cases where the abilities have no common ground in the lower sequence but only at high sequence do you realize that, these pathway are compatible pathways
Such compatible pathways are called neighboring pathways.
The Fool , The Error, and The Door are neighbors and show the example of the latter.
The Tower, The Visionary, The Tyrant, The Hanged Man, and The Sun are neighboring pathways and show the effect of the former."
Amanises nodded and asked, "So which pathway am I from, and which pathway do I neighbor, and what about your pathway?"
"You belonged to the Darkness and As for the neighboring pathway, That would be Death and Twilight Giant
I belong to the Fools pathway."
Amanises nodded.
*************************************
Amanises "You mean to say all gods are equal, but how does that make sense? Won't certain abilities favor one rather than the other in certain fights?"
"Yes, that would be the case; for reference, if a pathway specializes in hand-to-hand combat and the other does not, and you force them to fight in hand to hand, then of course the former would win.
But in a real fight, directly engaging a god is a bad move altogether. For reference, my pathway: we fight like cowards, running around making plans for each and every thing, a very cautious approach
If I were to fight the Twilight Giant, which specialized in melee combat,
Then the battle would be more about which god can make the fight in his domain, which, whatever you try, will always be equal.
Once it's my domain, the Giant is already dead and vice versa."
Amanises nodded, having gained a lot of information about this world
"Oh, look at that. We are very close to him."
Even at the entrance of the settlement, one could see the murals and paintings made in 'His' form and name.
As I was looking around the art, I found this eerily bizarre; the painting showed a human form rather than one that belonged to 'God,' who had awakened from the chaos sea—sleeping in there for eons.
This suggests that ASG had a human form even before making a religion out of himself.
That means 'He' must have some form of humanity in him.
Humans truly are persistent creatures after all.
Amanises asked, "How will you get him to cooperate with us? Are you going to use your information gap with him as well?"
Shifting my focus to her rather than the painting
I said, "Ohh, that won't work. He is the true God, like that of the Elf King.
Using an information gap would only get you and me killed. I can resurrect without issue, but losing you is going to be a pain.
We are going to use in-group bias. Since both you and I are from the modern world, we can use this fact of the mind to favor the people in the same state.
Just as you did it for me, while that alone won't work, a little bit of strength and a very little information drop should do the trick, enough for Him to listen to you and me without much issue."
******************
Entering the city, you could tell people were doing a lot better around this place.
I asked one of the bystanders, "Have you seen a man with a golden beard and a bright face?"
They quickly realized, "You mean the Sun God. You should visit the pope of the Church of the Sun God
It's right around the chief's house."
Huh, it seems rather weird for me, a modern person, to accept that a god actually lives with humans, especially with LOTM taking place in the fifth epoch when gods had already left the human realm.
These people also seem to have clung to ASG pretty easily, but I guess humans do tend to do that, and in this world the powers of God truly existed.
It seemed that I had started to separate humans from myself; it seemed the isolation of an angel is quite severe. I wonder how bad Amanises's state is.
Without much delay, we quickly entered the church; the pope there greeted us with a gentle smile.
"Is there a way to meet with the Sun God?"
The pope glared at me for a moment with a look of horror as if I had committed a crime. I mean, I did. Wanting to meet a God without proper channels is one.
He was about to kick us out but stopped his words from leaving his mouth.
After a second of silence, he nodded and spoke, "Follow me."
Amanises asked in a hushed voice, "What happened to him?"
In the same voice I replied, "Sequence 8 of HangedMan, Listener; the Sun God conveyed his words through the listener; thus, the reason he is a pope."
Amanises nodded.
The pope quickly took us to a room with a vibrant glow that looked like the glow of the sun.
As we entered inside, two polar opposite men were sitting together; they didn't seem to be in a conversation.
They were Sasrir and ASG.
The pope left us just as we entered the room.
I bowed, and Amanises, following my lead, also bowed. Sasrir also bowed to us, but ASG did not.
"Greetings, Fellow Modern Dweller. I take it you are Sasrir, and you are?"
The air thickened, the vibes of the room changed, and rather than Sasrir, ASG spoke
Amanises almost dragged me out of the room.
ASG on the other hand, merely smiled.
"Address me as Sun. And while you're at it, which country do you belong to?"
ASG asked with the same boldness as I did and with a smile, I countered
"I don't think we are that close yet."
ASG suddenly released a negligible amount of godhood, one that was used to gauge rather than intimidate.
After a moment, ASG nodded, realizing the god status wouldn't work on Amanises and me.
"So Mysteries, why seek me out so quickly? ",
It seemed he had decided to get straight to the point, as expected of the bold Sun.
I instinctively grinned and said in a playful tone, "A symbiotic relation, so to speak."
There was just one issue: I sensed only the Uniqueness and only a single characteristic from Him of the Error pathway
ASG nodded; after all, it benefited him as much as it did us.
ASG then asked, "What do you and I get in this relationship? I am already a God, and yet you're just a bunch of angels. How can you help me?"
I was expecting this kind of question; it seemed ASG and Evernight merely helped each other without an actual bargain.
Therefore, this task of equal subordination, born from a bargain, would be rather difficult but necessary. Only with equal status could one flourish
I countered, "Our goals align very much. You want humanity to attain the pathways of divinity by becoming a god. I, on the other hand, simply want to make sure my predecessor doesn't resurrect using the system. He has set it up.
It just so happens that killing these mutated creatures aligns with our goal, helping us hunt Flegrea, and in return I will help you get the tower's uniqueness.
Ahhh you wouldnt call it that
The Omniscient half of God Almighty"
ASG chuckled a bit; it seemed that He had some information about GOO as well.
This was even more different than what my headcanon was; the ASG only understood about GOO after becoming half GA.
Well, it's better to know it this way than to have me lose a power balance later on.
I think correcting my existing information would be a great idea.
"So if you are indeed aware of it, then this predecessor you talk about must be the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth."
"That is correct; it is indeed The Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth, but calling him CW is good enough."
"Well, it doesn't hurt to have more allies."
ASG nodded and further continued
"What shall we do first, then? "Ahh, yes, let's hunt Flegrea; it will be a good test for my own level, and I can get a better idea of both of your skills. Plus, you seem to mention his name rather specifically."
Both of us nodded; after all, this was much more beneficial to us, since we could now have a means to become Sequence 0
But unlike Klein, who continued the fools' pathway, I plan on changing to the Doors pathway due to its versatility and abilities at high sequence.
From the way the Attendant of Mysteries characteristics were very stable at hand and had no sign of merging to maintain their will, the Key of Stars Characteristics should have the same fate as them.
The good thing was the speed of this entire process could take a good chunk of time since the second epoch lasted for around 1500 years.
I have an ample amount of time, and therefore, it's best to take things slowly.
I then looked at Amanises. She was rather confused with the way this deal went. I could explain this later on.
After all, the expectation one has from 'god' is much more mystical and imaginative than the way this bargain went.
"Mr. Sun, you must possess the First Blasphemy slate, correct? I need it to check certain things and explain to her a little about the whats, hows, and whys of this world."
ASG looked a little suspicious; we had made a deal, but we weren't that close to showing an ace up like that.
Sasrir, observing this entire conversation, spoke, "You see, the First Blasphemy slate is near the sea that contains all things. You know where that is, right?"
It seemed that ASG had used some form of listener to have him speak.
Why not tell us yourself?.
A rather bland description but a good enough one.
That's interesting. Why would you keep it near the Chaos Sea?
Now we had a reason to visit Chernobyl.
ASG spoke once Sasrir finished. "Then my new friends, since you are visiting that place, I would like for you to take some of my own believers to the place and have them learn of the pathways and help them choose for themselves."
What was this, an errand quest??
Isn't that very generous? Even with the sheer quantity of low-sequence Beyonder characteristics, it should be wise to control a specific pathway rather than exploiting the entire slate.".
"Furthermore, how does the pope have the listener's ability?".
"Listener?" Sasrir asked.
ASG, having understood the drift, spoke, "Ha, ha, ha! Yes, calling it 'Listener' is much better than 'Whispered.''.
Well, you see, he was given characteristics from me directly."
ASG continued in his ever-charismatic tone.
"Well, you see, these people are very special and thus deserve to have a choice."
I nodded, since this was basic mystical knowledge, it's best to impart to His believers; that way He won't betray me right away. After all, the only notable aim of ASG throughout the Book can be summarized in a single line
'A very calculative God that loves Humans'