Only God

For Hiris, to kill Xilan, to kill a man of God, would be a sin, and nobody could bear the weight of such a sin.

For Laren, seeking revenge for his son was just and rightful, especially since the sealing of the Path of Creation was a demand of the Gods.

As for Utus, the law of the survival of the fittest was an eternal rule of the world, a natural order; anyone who sought to break this order would inevitably face a merciless storm.

After all three Divines had expressed their wills, the mysterious room gradually began to exhibit strange phenomena.

The room grew increasingly dim, while aquatic plants drifted urgently with a sinister aspect, making one wonder whether faces were breathing underneath the shallow lake. The mold spots on the walls multiplied, and a gloomy, decaying smell slowly spread.

All three Divines started to panic, to different extents. Their Divine Power was ruthlessly stripped away in this room, and they all felt as helpless as ordinary mortals.

"What's happening...?"

Laren uttered in a trembling voice.

"Xilan once said, to show the past and the future..."

It was at this moment that Hiris glanced at Xilan and inadvertently caught a detail.

The previously motionless Xilan, his rigid body, seemed to have twisted a slow inch, mechanical in nature.

Hiris's muscles tensed, his heart lifted.

The aquatic plants continued to drift, like dark green worms, bringing a faint scent of decay from the shallow lake.

The three Divines suddenly felt a spin in the heavens and the earth.

A blanket of white filled their eyes, the eerie room vanished, and they appeared to have fallen into another space, the stench of decay intensifying.

When they regained their senses, they found themselves bound hand and foot, compelled to move towards a certain place.

The scene before them was extremely vivid.

Hiris looked around and saw that the three of them were guarded by a group of mortals, dressed in rags, who under frenetic cries were marching toward an altar ablaze with fire.

It was like a tribe, ignorant of civilization, performing a primitive and bloody ritual sacrifice upon the Divines.

Suddenly, he heard the wail of Laren.

"We have been tricked!

Our Father intentionally led us here and stripped us of our Divine Power!"

Hiris saw that Laren was pushed to the forefront, facing the ever-closer altar, beginning to shout in panic.

"Shut up!"

A muscular tribesman, wearing a skull decoration, slapped the slave,

"Do not disturb the Divine!"

"You blind fool! Cursed creature! Don't you see? I am the Dream God Laren, look at your altar's Divine Statues, the sixth from the left is me! Do you recognize that Divine Statue?!"

The once flamboyant Dream God strained fiercely, as though trying to point out his own Divine Statue to the primitive tribe of mortals.

"This slave has defiled the Divine!"

"Burn him first!"

"The Gods are enraged!"

The priests in charge of the ceremony bellowed, pushing Laren, who was originally some distance from the altar, directly to the forefront.

Hiris's heart skipped a few beats, and in his panic, he thought: have we truly been tricked? Does our Father seek to kill us through this?

Utus, also bound, turned pale.

The Storm God noticed that the second Divine Statue from the right on the altar was himself.

These foolish mortals, they actually intended to sacrifice Divines to the Divines?

Utus tried to unleash his mighty Divine Power, to wipe this blasphemous tribe off the face of the earth with a storm, but at that moment he was as powerless as a slave to be sacrificed.

The flames roared fiercely, and Laren in his terror cursed these foolish mortals and cursed his own Father. Amid the clamor, Laren was the first to be thrust into the flames, where he was instantly scorched, writhing in excruciating pain.

The people of the tribe erupted in fervent cheers, praising the Gods madly, especially the Dream God, because the slave claimed to be the Dream God; thinking they had profaned him, the priests knelt, begging the Dream God not to be angered by this one offering, and praising His tolerance.

And so Laren burned amidst those praises, his screams almost tearing through half the sky.

Then a few more slaves were pushed into the brazier, and the crowd erupted into cheer after cheer, beginning to beat their bellies, chests, and backsides, dancing and singing exuberantly.

Now it was Utus's turn.

Utus didn't claim to be one of the Gods like Laren had. He watched with his own eyes as Laren was burned alive, his complexion deathly pale; he realized that the Father of the Gods had deceived them, and all that Xilan had said was a lie!

Utus cried out in hatred to the heavens:

"My Father, you are so despicable!"

Before he could finish his sentence, Utus was pushed into the burning brazier. The flames surged higher, and the tribe erupted in even greater cheers, but the Divine Statues of the Gods remained silent.

No one noticed that the Divine Statue of the Dream God Laren, the Divine Statue of the Storm God Utus, had imperceptibly developed cracks.

Hiris saw it, and he watched in horror, understanding as the creator of Divine Statues what it meant for cracks to appear.

It was nearly Hiris's turn; the God of Mountains and Craftsmanship was in extreme panic, unable to utter a word. Utus and Laren, two Divines, had been so easily burned to death, right in front of their own Divine Statues, how ironic.