Chapter 925 — A God's Disposition

"In a sense, I am one step closer to 'freedom,'" Amorn's voice sounded in Gao Yang's mind. "I can clearly feel the change."

"I remember that on our last visit you were still heavily bound," Virodai suddenly put in. "And at that time our druidic general curriculum had already been promoted for some time... So at what point exactly did the change occur?"

As she spoke, she had plainly adopted the tone of a researcher.

"It is difficult for me to give a precise point in time, or a reference value for a state that 'suddenly changed,'" Amorn answered patiently. "It is a vague process, and I believe we may never be able to summarize the laws of how currents of thought change—we can only roughly infer them. Moreover, I hope you will not be blindly optimistic—the changes in me are not so great. A few short years of education and the spread of knowledge cannot overturn the thinking of the mortal masses, still less overturn currents of thought that have taken shape over tens of thousands of years. At most it can exert a certain influence on the surface of the gods, and only on a 'god' like me, who has already left his divine seat and no longer receives replenishment of divinity. But as for gods in their normal state... I find it hard to say whether this large-scale, rapid, and crude change is good or bad."

Gao Yang found Amorn's words somewhat abstract and awkward, but not so much that he could not understand them. He also detected a note of worry in the other's final words, and immediately asked: "What do you mean by that last sentence?"

"Do you remember what I mentioned earlier—that the Goddess of Magic possesses traits such as 'rebelliousness, capacity to learn, and will to survive'?"

Gao Yan nodded. "Of course I remember."

"Different gods are born from different currents of thought, and thus possess different traits. I call this their 'disposition'—the Goddess of Magic tends toward learning and adaptive survival; the Holy Light presumably tends toward protection and salvation; the three gods of Abundance presumably tend toward harvest and plenty. Different gods have different dispositions, which means... when faced with sudden changes in humanity's currents of thought, their capacity to adapt and the reactions they might make could be utterly different.

"When the Goddess of Magic faced the arcanotechnical developments you brought forth, She swiftly studied them and began seeking within them what might favor Her own survival and continuation. But if it were a god inclined toward conservatism and the maintenance of the established order, She—"

Amorn paused here, and only then continued in a grave tone: "She might be driven mad by these suddenly changing things."

The voice in his mind fell silent, yet great waves rose in Gao Yang's heart. He suddenly realized that he might have been overlooking something all along, and unconsciously turned to look at Virodai beside him—only to find her casting him a similarly complicated look.

They stared at each other.

"...Ah, it seems something has likely happened somewhere beyond the reach of my 'sight'..." Amorn had plainly noticed the reactions of Gao Yang and Virodai, and his voice came drifting over. "What has happened?"

"...The God of War's condition is not right," Gao Yang did not conceal it. "His clerics have already begun dying in strange ways."

"...The God of War, is it... I am not surprised," Strangely, there was little astonishment in Amorn's tone—just as he had earlier guessed that the Goddess of Magic would be the first to act in self-preservation, so now he seemed to have long anticipated that something would go wrong with the God of War. "When the critical point arrives, He is indeed one of the gods most likely to meet with mishap."

Gao Yang asked instinctively: "Is this also because of the God of War's 'disposition'?"

"The God of War is closely bound to the concept of war, born from mortals' awe of war and from humanity's artificial restraints upon the order of war.

"War is the most extreme and most savage means by which mortals pursue their interests. From the very moment of its birth it has been direct slaughter and plunder. No matter how many glittering ornaments and pretexts are added, war is inevitably accompanied by bloodshed and killing and by vast seizure of interests—this was the basic concept of war universally acknowledged by humanity at the time of the God of War's birth.

"At the same time, when humans wielded this terrible weapon called 'war,' they were also filled with dread and vigilance toward it. Thus humanity attached many preconditions and mutually recognized 'rules' to war—such as the pretext for declaring war, such as the 'bottom-line conventions' for armistices and the exchange of prisoners, such as the distribution of spoils and the methods for evaluating merit. Though kings and lords sometimes did not honor these agreements at all, shifting their bottom lines bit by bit for the sake of profit, they would at least express respect for the conventions of war in public, and most people also believed that an order of sorts existed within war.

"They carried this 'spirit of the law of war' into their faith, believing the God of War to be the deity who bears witness to a whole series of war treaties and conventions—and so they have believed for thousands of years.

"Thus the God of War's inclination is this: to uphold the fundamental definition of war, and to possess within Himself an exceedingly strong 'contractual bias.' He is a stubborn and rigid deity, permitting war to proceed only according to a certain template—and even if the form of war must change, that change must be founded upon vast stretches of time and a whole series of ceremonial covenants.

"On the basis of the above 'inclinations,' the God of War has the poorest capacity of any to accept 'change,' and when faced with change, the reaction He may produce will be the most extreme, the closest to loss of control."

Amon concluded His patient explanation, then paused for several seconds before breaking the silence once more: "So then—what exactly have you done?"

"...A war without bloodshed and without slaughter, where most of the participants wear smiles on their faces, with no public declaration of war and no armistice, only a series of commercial contracts and exchanges of interest," Gao Hengzhi knew what he was feeling now; his expression was complicated and his tone grave. "This kind of 'war' is spreading across the whole world, and spreading faster than the Cecil Empire's education campaign—after all, profit is the greatest driving force for humanity, and the profits of this new-style 'war' are simply too vast..."

Amon fell utterly silent, silent for a full half minute.

In the end, even Virodai could not help speaking up of her own accord: "So..."

"You are driving Him toward a dead end..." Amon finally broke the silence. "Though I have never conversed with the God of War, I need only infer, and I know... the God of War's brain... how could He accept these things?"

Whether it was an illusion or not, Gao Yang felt that what Amon had nearly blurted out was "how could the God of War's brain possibly take in these things"—plainly a rather inelegant and unsteady way of putting it.