74 DanMachi 44: Interlude

In a celestial temple situated beyond the mortal realm, underneath an enormous fiery bowl, a small goddess lay on the ground, gazing upward with a sorrowful expression and swollen red eyes.

"Ah, home sweet home," she muttered in a hopeless tone, the sound of her voice resonating through the silent and empty halls before she burst into tears for the fifth time in a row. "I was finally free from this godforsaken place!" she screamed. "Why couldn't they have waited just a little longer to conquer that cursed place?"

It wasn't anger that she felt; she was happy that they had succeeded. But at the same time, she was overwhelmed with sadness, as she had lost the closest thing to family she had had in eons. This thought brought on a fresh wave of tears.

Andrew and Olivia had succeeded in shattering the core of the oldest of the Vrolit, bringing Atlas's wish to fruition and finally banishing and blocking all of the gods from the mortal realm.

Few remember, and even fewer speak of it, but the gods had been deceiving mortals for millions, if not billions, of years. They had not created the world, nor had they inherited it; the Deus had stolen it from its rightful owners: the mortals.

The entire story of creation was not a pleasant one, and its details had long been forgotten. However, it went something like this:

At the beginning of creation, when this plane of existence was just taking shape, four races emerged along with the world laws. The Avagin, a race of shapeless entities, took to the skies and ruled over the creation of the air and clouds, controlling the weather and creating majestic formations that danced across the sky.

The Oderon, on the other hand, were a race of giants, towering over the continents and shaping them with ease. With each step, they could either raise or lower entire mountains, creating valleys and plateaus where they saw fit. They were the architects of the land and made sure that the world was structured and balanced.

As the Avagin and Oderon worked on shaping the world, the Ither were tasked with creating every single drop of water on the plane. They lived deep within the oceans, creating currents and waves that could be felt across the globe. They were the masters of the seas and ensured that the world was never dry or barren.

Lastly, there were the Vrolit. They were not as majestic or powerful as the other three races, but they were just as important. These playful crystalline entities, known as dungeons, formed within the depths of the world, with the sole purpose of breathing life into it. They were the keepers of the world's mana, ensuring that the magic and life force of the world flowed smoothly, keeping everything in balance. Yet the task of manipulating such vast amounts of energy had taken its toll on their minds, leaving them ethereally on the level of children.

Together, the four races worked in harmony, each with their own preprogrammed task, to create a world that was livable and thriving. It was a time of great turbulence and chaos, with continental-wide disasters being an everyday occurrence. But the four races persevered, using their unique abilities to shape and mold the world until it was perfect.

At the moment of creation, the gods didn't exist yet. No one knew who, or what breathed the spark of life into that realm, all that was known was that each of them was created for a purpose, and they all followed it till the very end.

The Avagin burned up their life force to create air and make it breathable, the Oderon gave up their flesh to create stone, minerals, and metals. The Ither dissolved and became one with water so that there could be a chance for life. And lastly, all but one Vrolit were shattered after their mission was complete. Only one remained till the end, all alone, bound by the chains of a crazy god who warped its purpose for his own enjoyment.

As millions of years passed and as the world matured, the surface cooled, the water leveled, and the air become breathable, the Avagin, Oderon, and Ither races fulfilled their purposes and passed away, leaving only the Vrolit to continue their work. Initially, the Vrolit created plants, but without the means to disperse them, new races were gradually introduced to the world. First, insects then small animals like birds and fish were created to spread the seeds of plant life across the plane. Happy with their initial success, they experimented with creating intelligent species, resulting in the creation of humans. However, this decision proved to be their first of many mistakes.

A mere thousand years had elapsed since humans were first created, and already the realm was engulfed in flames, teetering on the brink of destruction. On the surface, rivers of blood flowed, and the population was decimated, all because humans were not content with what they had been given. Their insatiable greed had reached unprecedented heights.

Despite the Vrolit's nearly complete task, failure loomed ominously over their heads. The humans were fatally flawed, with the Seven Deadly Sins - lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy, and pride - deeply embedded within their souls.

A preventative measure was required, a guiding force to forestall the humans from self-destruction. However, nothing seemed to work until a new race could be introduced. It was then that the Vrolit created the Deus, the first Primordial Gods by endowing them with fragments of themselves. They purposely were made flawed, unable to reproduce as their true purpose was to aid in shaping the world, guiding both creatures and humans alike.

Unfortunately, the creation of the Deus was the Vrolit's second misstep.

Tragically, the Deus were consumed by their own power and an unquenchable thirst for more. Refusing to obey their creators, they rebelled, driven by their unyielding pride.

With a small fragment of the Vrolit's true power augmenting them, the Deus became mighty beings in the eyes of mortals, easily subjugating the rest of the population and forcing them to worship the Deus as gods. When their number of followers was insufficient, they created new ones, birthing additional species to the world. Over millennia, the Deus concentrated and condensed their power, forming the seeds of their own divinity, and gradually became bound and enslaved by it.

Once they had amassed enough power, they launched vicious attacks on their creators and distorted the truth about their existence on the surface. Some of the Vrolit were enslaved, reduced to mere training dummies or sources of material wealth. Some chose to end their lives rather than submit to servitude, while others prayed for the intervention of our creator, but at first, none came to their aid.

Faced with desperation and anger, the remaining Vrolit made a unanimous decision to destroy their creations and start anew. They unleashed a horde of mindless monsters upon the world, resulting in a catastrophic decline of the humanoid population and taking the power of the Deus with them. Some gods perished due to a lack of worshipers, their sole source of sustenance, while others fell to the monstrous onslaught.

However, this turned out to be the Vrolit's final and gravest mistake. The remaining Deus capitalized on this event to solidify their position in the world, amassing a massive following and growing even more powerful.

Despite their efforts, the Vrolit's struggle proved to be in vain, as the war was already lost before it even began. The remaining Deus had grown powerful enough to subjugate or destroy their creators. The Age of Vrolit had come to a close, and a new era, the Age of Gods, had dawned.

The Vrolit, once enslaved and bound by divine chains, were forced to create new gods and maintain the monsters of the realm to ensure the mortals' worship and fear. However, the Deus failed to realize that with each new god created, the Vrolit grew weaker, giving away pieces of their true selves. By the time the Deus realized their mistake, only one Vrolit remained.

During their millennia of existence, the Deus discovered other, more enjoyable ways to increase their numbers. Those rare Deus who possessed Life and Vitality-based divinities could not only birth or impregnate mortals, creating Demigods, but could also copulate with other Deus to give birth to new alibied weaker Deus, expanding their ranks even further.

As the millennia passed, the Deus grew increasingly disenchanted with the mortal world, considering it to be beneath them. To escape their boredom, the best of their crafters came together to create something that would elevate them beyond the limits of the mortal realm. They crafted Tenkai, a divine realm described as the most amazing place that no mortal could see.

In reality, Tenkai was a separate dimension that was stabilized by divine energies. Time flowed differently there, with a single day in Tenkai equaling 100 days on the surface. This resulted in the massive accumulation of worship and power in mere moments.

Initially, the gods would travel back and forth between the divine realm and the mortal world unrestricted, reminding the mortals of their true owners. However, one Deus could not bear to witness the horrible treatment of mortals any longer. Atlas recognized that the mortals were not mere tools for the gods to exploit, but living beings deserving of respect and dignity.

After many years of watching their suffering, Atlas could no longer tolerate the mistreatment of the mortal world. He took it upon himself to put an end to the constant travel between Tenkai and the mortal world even if his actions cost him his life. His actions were met with resistance from the other gods who enjoyed the worship of mortals, but Atlas was determined to protect the mortals and their world from further harm. He embarked on a perilous journey to seek salvation for the mortals and his quest led him to a chance encounter with the last surviving Vrolit.

Determined to find a solution to the plight of mortals, Atlas worked tirelessly with the Vrolit and devised a plan to cast a powerful, divinity-infused barrier that would forever separate the divine realm from the mortal world. Using the life force and the mana of the world itself, they created a barrier of immense power and strength.

However, despite their careful calculations, the magic that they had unleashed proved to be unstable. The barrier was on the brink of collapse, and in a desperate bid to save what they had created, Atlas infused every bit of energy he had into the barrier, including his own life force, dying in the process and becoming the pillar that held up the world.

While the barrier managed to successfully block all the Deus from entering the mortal plane in their true forms, it wasn't foolproof. Despite the heroic efforts put into creating it, the barrier had one critical flaw - a single point of entry that remained tied to the life force of the last surviving Vrolit. This flaw allowed the Deus to send a portion of their soul through the barrier. The Vrolit was bound by divine chains and unable to end its own suffering, trapped in eternal agony and waiting for someone to shatter its core to finally gain salvation from its ethereal torment, its home becoming its eternal prison.

After discovering the truth about Atlas' deeds, some of the Deus were infuriated, while others acknowledged their past errors. This led to a division among the Deus, resulting in the first divine war and the creation of multiple Pantheons, each with their own dominant gods controlling their beliefs and values. These Pantheons had distinctive ideologies and principles that were enforced on both the Deus and mortals. The first official religions were born.

As the war began in the divine realm, it quickly spread to the mortal plane. The followers of the Deus were urged by divine oracles to prepare for war with the sole aim of weakening the other Pantheons by slaughtering their believers.

After the creation of the barrier, the Deus were unable to exert their full power on the mortal plane. As a result, they followed their creator's lead and created a new weapon by imparting a portion of their power to mortals. This blessing, known as falna, granted mortals incredible abilities and the ability to grow stronger by absorbing the strength of each entity they killed. However, it had a significant flaw - it only worked if the Deus were present in the mortal plane. As a result, the gods descended in their weakened state, and the war was completely transferred to the mortal realm.

Armies of falna-enhanced mortals fought for their gods, and although the conflict spanned only four years, it resulted in the near extinction of the Deus, leaving only a few thousand remaining at its conclusion, and the decimation of the mortal population. The catastrophic war caused widespread devastation in both the mortal and divine realms, with no discernible winner. Weaker Pantheons were completely wiped out, and their gods perished, while their followers were absorbed by the stronger ones.

The self-proclaimed God of the Sky, the most powerful among the remaining Deus, seized control of Tenkai and with it the last surviving Vrolit. He limited the ability of other Deus to descend, demonstrating his insatiable greed by charging exorbitant fees for the privilege of descent and imposing strict adherence to his laws. The descending Deus were required to sign a divine contract, limiting their power in the mortal plane, while simultaneously parting with part of their divinity as a price to descend.

With the backing of all surviving Deus and the divine realm, a new divine law was established, reinforced by fragments of divinity to solidify its authority. The law explicitly forbade mortals from taking the life of a Deus, and those who dared to disobey faced the eternal curse of their souls.

The law also forbade the Deus from directly intervening in mortal affairs, they were still permitted to guide and support them, providing them with falna. However, the mortals' free will was always guaranteed and could not be infringed upon.

A period of relative peace ensued until two individuals arrived and disrupted the balance of this reality.

~-~-~*~-~-~

As time passed in the divine realm, the diminutive goddess observed her family grieving her disappearance. She also witnessed the man she appointed as the leader of her familia, disguised as an angel, exhibiting powers equivalent to, or even surpassing, those of a god. He accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of rewinding time on a massive scale, reviving hordes of people from the dead.

The goddess sensed a peculiar change in him, a familiar yet distinct energy coursing through his body. As the magic circle turned golden, she gasped in astonishment, realizing that he had attained divinity. Although she couldn't fathom how, she detected traces of her own divine energies intermingled in his power. She beamed with joy, content that a part of her still lived on within her family, even if it was a small part.

Suddenly, the rhythmic clattering of footsteps shattered her blissful reverie, and she turned to face the hallway leading out of her chamber. Standing before her were the gods she despised: Apollo, Zeus, Hera, Loki, Aphrodite, and many more, all wearing dismayed expressions. She knew she was in trouble because she had failed to inform the Guild of her familia's advancement, resulting in their unchecked descent. But as the screams began, her eyes widened in shock and all she could do was smirk.

The screams and cries of the angry deities continued to fill the air, their rage palpable as they demanded revenge for the petite goddess's actions. With divine power crackling around him, Ouranos was the most enraged of them all, determined to not only destroy her home but also erase her from existence, breaking his own laws in the process.

Despite the looming threat, the petite goddess remained calm and collected, her lips curling into a smile that grew wider by the second. She knew something that the others did not - someone was on their way to visit her.

As the divine energies closed in on her, about to consume her existence, the very fabric of the divine realm began to shake violently. It was a tremor like never before, so intense that it reverberated across both realms, mortal and divine.

With a deafening roar, the very fabric of reality itself was rent asunder, torn apart by a force unlike any other. Out of the black void emerged a man, his presence radiating power that made the divine realm quake in fear. Every step he took was accompanied by an explosion of sparks and lightning that lit up the entire realm. The divine energies surged and raged against him, trying to push him back, but he pushed through effortlessly.

As he emerged fully, his eyes flashed with a brilliant golden light, causing the raging gods to be forced to their knees, unable to move a single muscle. The very air around him hummed with raw power as he surveyed the domain, his presence commanding the respect of all who witnessed it.

As the tear in reality slowly closed, a second figure emerged from within it. It was a woman, her long hair cascading down her back in waves of black. Her eyes sparkled with a warm and gentle light, and a serene smile graced her lips. She held a three-year-old child's hand, whose eyes were wide with wonder as she looked around the divine realm.

The child was dressed in strange clothes, adorned with millions of intricate shapes and runes, but there was an air of innocence and purity about her that seemed to radiate from within. As they stepped forward, the very air around them seemed to shimmer and sparkle, as if the divine energies of the realm were drawn to them like moths to a flame.

"Bad timing?" the man asked, looking around at the chaotic scene, while the petite goddess kneeling on the floor chuckled in response.

"Stella, say hi to Granny Hestia," the woman said to the toddler, who happily complied, waving at the petite goddess with a bright smile on her face.