Ch.335The Cradle of Life. Orcran Swamp (5)

Victor stayed in the Orkran Swamp for an entire month, providing a great deal of help.

He contacted Michael, the Apostle of Wisdom, and secured funding from the massive corporations that followed him. With this, he initiated large-scale construction projects that the Orkran city government had only planned but never dared to begin.

“Listen, my children. You must preserve this purity going forward. Not slaughtering others, but healing with medicine is one of the most sublime acts a human can perform. Even if this land has places of war, they cannot covet your souls.”

“You have bestowed upon us an unspeakable grace. When you ascend to the throne someday, the citizens of Orkran pledge to willingly become your subjects and follow your imperial decrees.”

The chairman of Orkran had spoken without consulting the citizens, but their hearts were aligned with his—a true embodiment of telepathy and direct democracy.

Victor recruited up to 50,000 soldiers here.

This was twice the number of vacant positions, but after fighting major battles, he discharged those whose mental and physical conditions were no longer suitable for combat, then infused those not yet tempered by the heat of war among those who were battle-hardened.

The wounded would be healed within the Orkran Swamp and walk upon the blessing of this sacred land.

Finally, Victor presented the chairman with a flag he had made himself.

It was a five-colored flag with a white background and layered green stripes. In the center was an empty circle with an opening at the top, blocked by a thin line.

The white background represented purity, the green represented the color of the swamp, the layered colors honored those who died in the swamp, and the empty circle pierced by a thin line symbolized a mortar and pestle.

“Take it, representative of this land. Your purity has made the divine heart tremble, and this is the greatest glory and supreme blessing I can bestow upon you.”

“My God… Lord of Heat and Light… Such… such an honor…!”

A flag is a symbol, and a symbol is everything.

It is a family treasure and relic of the nation, a physical manifestation representing their foundation. That is precisely what a flag, a national flag, a symbol, and something sacred is.

It was like how even if tens of millions of troops are cut down, there is still hope if the standard-bearer holds the military flag until the end.

The fall of a symbol meant something worse than death.

It meant corruption.

Just as even a million soldiers gathered without a standard-bearer are nothing but a disorganized rabble, the qualification to carry a flag is not given to just anyone. Even if it’s merely the symbol of a single unit, let alone a national flag that governs a country’s military banner.

And such a national flag had been bestowed upon humans by God.

Purely because He was moved by their actions. This was unprecedented and would be written in capital letters in history books for the next million years.

Naturally, the chairman, his staff, and the citizens in the streets were overcome with emotion, shedding tears of gratitude at this unprecedented divine reward. Even in the midst of this, the chairman carefully held the flag close to his chest to prevent his tears from staining it.

“Orkran! Though our time was brief, your dedication and purity will be recorded and passed down throughout the world! So be proud! Pass your legacy to future generations! This is my wish and the wish of your people!”

The God departed with these words, leaving amid countless tears and praises.

Would he return?

Someone whispered.

But no one could be certain.

God only moves forward, endlessly advancing along the spiral continents, following the path of humanity’s development.

And someday, when his journey reaches Centrum, he will ascend to the Emperor’s throne and once again become the one and only being to unify this continent.

*

Year 1203, Month 15, Day 23.

Now only the final famous site remained on the Hurichel continent.

Faerun. Miriam. Meridia. Yenisei. Hyacinths. Reision. Hurichel… Having essentially traversed seven continents, Viktor gazed at the dawn sky, lost in contemplation.

Strangely, his senses had become more abundant.

No, they hadn’t become more abundant. They had returned.

This was true for his wife as well, to the extent that after leaving the Orkran Swamp, they suddenly found themselves in sync and engaged in intimate relations over thirty times before their emotions finally settled.

If asked why his human sensibilities and senses had suddenly returned, he wouldn’t know the answer.

He only knew that his great satisfaction in Orkran had significantly influenced his mindset.

“I don’t understand. I acted like a god, yet my senses have returned…? Is there some other mechanism at work…?”

So far, he didn’t feel like the returned senses were slipping away again. In fact, Viktor’s face was flushed red after emptying a bottle of apple brandy.

Just a month ago, he could drink ten bottles of apple brandy and remain perfectly fine. He couldn’t understand why his body had somehow regressed.

But then, something crossed Viktor’s mind.

“Wait… Come to think of it, how do the Four Gods have ’emotions’? Didn’t Karil clearly show ‘hostility’ and ‘anger’ toward me? Even Saburo clearly displayed ‘expectations’ toward me, ‘compassion’ toward humanity, and ‘contempt’ toward the imperial family…”

Without emotions and senses, the emotional appearances of the Four Gods and the behaviors of the Sun and Moon would be impossible to explain. Moreover, hadn’t the Moon, trapped in past pain, even placed a curse of infertility on the Walker couple?

“What is it…? What’s different…!”

If this could be resolved by asking Michael or Simon, he would have done so long ago.

But this was related to divinity. It wasn’t something one could understand just by reaching human potential.

And then, once again, a hypothesis crossed Viktor’s mind.

“…Faith?”

The power of belief. That word hit him like a heavy sledgehammer to the head.

Yes, faith. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? The Four Gods gain power through faith, and even the Sun and Moon derive strength from mortals’ belief that the world will continue.

Then it wouldn’t be strange at all if Viktor also gained power by becoming an object of faith.

The reason he had been losing his personality until now was for his duty as a god—that is, his soul itself had imposed limitations to obtain more faith and achieve the minimum requirements as a deity.

Like a system that sends power only to the most necessary parts when power demand is high but generation is low?

Viktor’s mind raced. Certainly, looking back at his attitude toward mortals until now, this hypothesis made much more sense.

He remembered that when dealing with mortals who satisfied him, he wasn’t cold at all, but rather treated them kindly, as if he had become their father. An attitude that would never have emerged if his personality had truly withered.

And having gained the faith of tens of millions by bestowing a flag, Viktor now had sufficient “power generation” for his soul to support even the “unnecessary” parts.

“Good heavens…”

His eyes trembled as he realized this truth. Only then could he understand why the Four Gods were engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the Yang-Wol Order, which was trying to take a piece of their pie. If it took the faith of at least tens of billions of people just to feel “human sensations,” then naturally a god’s power would diminish if faith in them scattered.

And a god’s soul would naturally cut away the most “unnecessary” emotions that could threaten the individual’s survival to prevent the extinction of its existence.

It felt like giving up on a problem that was too difficult for an elementary student, crying that they were trash who couldn’t even match elementary intelligence, only to discover it was a nonsense quiz where 1+1 equals “window.”

And only then did Viktor realize that his followers and the followers of the Four could never get along.

Once he had lost his human emotions, he came to understand.

That even gods cannot escape the shackles of their mortal days. That even after losing their physical bodies and dwelling in the imaginary world constructed by mortals, they never want to lose the emotions and sensations of their human days.

Viktor sat down on the bed with an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. With trembling hands, he poured apple brandy into his mouth, and the premium aroma he couldn’t feel just a month ago flowed through his throat and nose.

And Viktor would rather turn the continent into a sea of flames than lose this sensation again.