Ch.99. The Miracle of the New Shrine

# Miracle

In the game, it’s both a primary skill used by priests alongside divine magic and a cleric-exclusive skill that can only be used by clergy-class jobs.

Given the game’s characteristic distinction between magic that consumes MP and skills that typically don’t—though quite a few skills do consume MP—

Miracles, unlike divine magic, don’t consume MP. Instead, they have strictly limited daily uses based on in-game time.

You can use it once at 10th rank, twice at 9th-8th rank, three times at 7th rank,

five times at 6th rank, seven times at 5th-4th rank, ten times at 3rd-2nd rank—and a whopping twenty times at 1st rank.

Anyway, these usage-limited miracles are basically selected from the same pool by clerics of all ranks,

but their power varies according to the cleric’s ability—frankly speaking, their rank and level.

For example, “Divine Weapon,” one of the universal miracles, forms and launches a weapon made of divine power as an attack.

When used by an apprentice priest, it merely launches and explodes a single ordinary weapon—whereas when the Pope uses it, it manifests building-sized weapons from the sky and impales targets with devastating force.

Of course, not all miracles are offensive like this.

There’s also Resurrection, which revives all dead creatures within a certain range and time—the range widens and duration lengthens with higher rank and level—

and Turn Undead, an area-of-effect instant death ability specifically against undead.

Therefore, miracles are often treated as quite important skills in the game,

and as gods can create one exclusive miracle for each divine rank they hold,

I, as a lowest-rank deity, can create only one miracle.

However, I had already decided which miracle to create long ago.

It’s an enhancement-type miracle that guarantees minimum performance and ability regardless of who uses it—priests can cast it on frontline warriors, while paladins or melee priests can cast it on themselves before charging into battle.

Its official name is “Champion of Revenge.”

The target experiences such significant stat increases it could be considered stat inflation, along with greatly enhanced resistance to status ailments and debuffs.

Additionally, flames of hatred engulf the target’s body, dealing combined fire/holy damage to both targets they attack and those who attack them,

with all these effects dramatically increasing in proportion to the vengeance harbored against the opponent.

The drawback is continuous damage from the flame’s backlash…

But this can be easily countered with a universal level 1 divine healing spell, so it’s not much of a penalty.

As for the pain from being burned and then healed… well, considering that pain was treated as a status ailment in the game, it would be neutralized by the miracle’s enhanced status ailment resistance anyway.

In any case, now that I’ve completed both my exclusive divine magic and exclusive miracle, I have just one task left:

To ascend to the rank of lesser god as quickly as possible, then find various hidden elements throughout the world—such as abandoned divine attributes.

…But doesn’t that make it more than one task?

※ ※ ※

“Today’s service concludes here, everyone. Unite!”

“”””””””””Unite!””””””””””

At the same time, in the basement of Gracchus’s mansion.

As the Revenge Cult quietly dispersed after holding service in the secret chapel built according to the rituals prescribed in the “Scripture,”

Gracchus, His first priest, returned to his room and began devouring the “Scripture” with intense focus.

[In the natural state, where no authority exists to enforce cooperation or obedience, humans inevitably fall into ‘the war of all against all,’ where they rob and kill each other for self-gratification and protection.

However, being rational, humans seek ways to prevent this, leading people to concentrate power in a specific person or group—this becomes the king, who finally possesses the force to compulsorily resolve conflicts.]

‘…Amazing.’

The more Gracchus read the scripture, the more he felt reverence toward his god.

Of course, living in this world, Gracchus held some degree of reverence for most gods, especially stronger toward his master Marduk as a priest.

But the emotion he felt reading the scripture was slightly different from such reverence—

it was closer to awe at overwhelming insight and perception.

The scripture, containing an understanding of humanity accumulated over several millennia and dozens of centuries, was sufficient to make Gracchus feel that the level between the existing pantheon’s gods and Marduk, the scripture’s author, was fundamentally different.

The gods of this era would try to steal whatever they fancied regardless of ownership,

would jealously try to destroy anything flourishing in their domain without their intervention,

and would only pretend to exercise restraint before more powerful deities.

To them, humans were merely consumables and toys to increase their power, property they didn’t even bother hiding their attitude about,

and people had no choice but to submit without resistance simply because they lacked sufficient power.

In truth, they were less like gods and more like extremely powerful thugs or tyrants.

But Marduk was entirely different from such gods.

Through overwhelming insight, he calmly explained what it meant to believe in him, and most doctrines conveyed genuine affection and love for his followers.

The unconditional love bestowed by a transcendent being was enough to drive believers to devotion.

Additionally, from Gracchus’s perspective as someone with higher education, the scholarly depth contained in the scripture was so excellent that he wondered why Marduk wasn’t a god of knowledge or wisdom.

Of course, this wasn’t particularly Marduk’s achievement, but rather wisdom accumulated by Earth’s scholars that Marduk had simply copied.

Based on the world’s best-selling book read by at least 6 billion people—the Bible—he had stuffed it with all manner of humanities and philosophical ideas.

Starting from ancient Greek philosophy represented by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, he lumped together philosophical thoughts extracted from reading soul memories,

adding a mystical feeling to create the impression that it contained the world’s truths.

He also incorporated revolutionary ideas from Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, supporting them with various theoretical works from The Wealth of Nations to Leviathan

and The Social Contract, elaborating extensively on social structure theories,

and even adding some of the incitement principles from Mein Kampf.

Finally, by cleverly inserting content affirming revenge at the core of all these contents using hyper-intelligent thinking,

what emerged was essentially not a scripture but a terrible book that turned readers into revolutionary philosophers burning with vengeance.

…Of course, only the scripture directly created by Marduk with divine power had such effects;

copies would be merely ideological texts on the level of Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto.

※ ※ ※

In the underground arena, the slave gladiators’ quarters.

“Hup!”

*Slash!*

In this place, essentially a prison separated by iron bars, Bjorn Wolfson was swinging his greatsword, striving to return his senses to their prime combat state.

Though currently wearing shackles with magic-sealing properties that prevented him from using aura…

He had been given power in exchange—his ability and blessing as an apostle.

‘…Is this the extent of an apostle?’

Though the shackles should have reduced him to merely a strong human, the power of the blessing had given him physical abilities beyond his prime,

and as God’s apostle, Bjorn gained access to quite unusual powers.

[…Envelop me, flames of wrath.]

*Whoosh!*

This was the ability to control black flames that burned with hatred and vengeance as fuel.

Originally, being God’s apostle merely meant he could handle exclusive divine magic—”Flame of Hatred” and “Implementation of Avenge”—

but unsatisfied with this, Bjorn worked to freely control this power.

And as a result of the “effort” put in by someone with the greatest talent in the world (as confirmed by the original creator),

amazingly, he became able to interfere with future possibilities and cast divine magic spells that hadn’t even been created yet.

This was the brilliance of Bjorn’s talent—the same man who, blessed by the evil gods and becoming the apostle of seven dark deities, single-handedly slaughtered the pantheon’s twelve chief gods.