Django breathed heavily as he sat on the floor of his room, wiping the sweat from his brow after he had sprinted all the way back to his room. Luckily, no one had been around to notice... but he had been far to careless. Him not getting caught was a miracle.
Still cross-legged on the floor, Django picked up the first book he wanted to read.
---
Records of Divine Conflict, Vol. One
Gods and their derivatives have existed since time immemorial. They wield various strength, and have partaken in many battles over the centuries.
But why do the gods quarrel? It is common knowledge that the divine certainly have no politics, since they are absolute beings.
However, this is factually incorrect. Gods do, in fact, have politics.
Many forget that the power of a god comes from two things: their innate Will of Divinity, and their Authority to use it on the physical plane.
Gods do not inhabit the world in physical bodies. In simpler terms, you can not punch a god. Not because they are much stronger than you, but because there is nothing for your physical hand to punch. The gods exist outside of conventional space.
The ability of gods to assert their will, which is abstract and separate from the mortal plane, is through the Authority of their followers. Increasing the range of one's Authority is the way in which gods gain strength.
Therefore, the battles of man are parallel to the battles of the divine; one does not exist without the other.
This book is a record of every major war in recent history, as well as a detailed analysis of the machinations of the deities behind them.*
Django flipped ahead a few pages.
The earliest known battle between gods was the Great Surge, occurring roughly 10,000 years ago as of writing. We know very little about this event, except that it was fought between the Advents of multiple major pantheon gods, and some unknown - assuredly evil - force, along with a cabal of minor gods. The sheer magnitude of magic from the battle destroyed the land around it, giving rise to the Surge, the geographical anomaly that shifted entire continents and tore empires asunder.
As previously stated, we know very little about the Great Surge. We do, however, know at least five advents were present, including the advents of Twilight, Golden Valor, Space, Destruction, and Realms, advents of some of the strongest True Gods. They fought with the unknown evil and their army of lesser deities for seven days and seven nights straight, not stopping until there was not even a speck of dust left of the opponents. The aftermath literally shook the entire planet.
The strength of the unknown entity is a hot debate among theological scholars. What could have possibly necessitated the gods to send so many powerful Advents to the battlefield? Among the minor gods, only a few have enough power to attempt to fight a True God's advent, and the power level of the latter is still far above what is capable of the former.
'Will? Authority? What kind of wacko wrote this?' Django had never seen the power of gods explained this way. For a god's power to be linked by the strength of their faiths? It sounded blasphemous at best... but it did explain the reasoning behind the great surge. After all, if the gods could reduce each others' strength alone, there would be no need for their advents to duke it out...
But why couldn't they strike down the thing directly?
'A clashing of wills? If the enemy's authority were comparable to a god's, I suppose that would make sense - something strong enough to challenge the authority of gods surely warrants a lot of manpower.'
Somewhat happy with that conclusion, Django turned the page again.
"Huh, that's strange..."
Django had flipped the page only to find that something had been ripped out. The jagged line of ripped paper was several sheets deep, like someone had ripped an entire chapter out of. The next page Django could actually read began talking about some territorial dispute (the God of Golden Valor apparently wanted to cement his authority of fire over the God of Realms by claiming a kingdom that had the God of Realms as a protector god) that had way less relevancy to what Django had read.
Who had ripped out an entire chapter?
'And more importantly,' Django thought, 'what was in it?'
Disgruntled, Django put that book to the side and picked up "Gods." After flipping through it, Django was disappointed to find it was mainly just a list of every major god stronger than an angel, the fourth highest ranking of beings whose powers could be considered god-like. Not that any beings other than the gods were of comparable power, but only including the one-hundred or so true gods would have been too little, apparently.
Still, it was a handy reference book, Django could hold on to it. Walking over to his bed, he placed the two book next to other general knowledge volumes he had collected over the years.
Django was most excited for "Excerpts from Miklagard's History," due both to it's sense of mystery and condensed nature. A lot of his history books were incredibly verbose, and while he did enjoy the clarifying details, there's only so much word vomit someone can read before they want to vomit themselves.
The excerpts looked a lot more like a random collage of multiple interesting tidbits of history, which Django was very eager to read.
Excerpts from Miklagard's History
Approximately 3000 years after the Great Surge, the then - Advent of Mist, advent of the God of Knowledge Helceye, founded the nation of Miklagard with the creation of Osmere, the capital. It was here that the Greyern Dynasty was created, and the lineage rules Miklagard to this day. Defined chiefly by their grey eyes, resemblant of -
Django knew this part, he literally was a Greyern, no need to be redundant. He wanted, like, state secrets or something.
He flipped through the pages, looking for anything useful. There were records of economic proceedings through the decades, early drafts of important law documents, actually real important stuff. But clerical notes were of no use to Django. Searching, his eyes landed on a letter to an old scholar, addressed to a former king, an ancestor of his. Django was pretty sure he recognized the name from portraits.
My King,
After meticulous searching through the archives of the libraries and offices, I conclude that there are two things that have withstood the test of time when it comes to the legacy of our founder, whose name has been lost to time. The first is a notebook, small, but possesses a design most intriguing: it resembles a living eye, that seems to follow it's user. It is no doubt the journal of an advent of Helceye, and due to it's age, probably the first.
Wait.
It is incredibly detailed, yet is empty. Why it is empty is unknown, but I hypothesis that it has something to do with the other legacy - the royal bloodline. I believe that those of the royal bloodline have a possibility to become an advent, a gift bestowed upon our ancestor by Helceye after the Surge. As you know, advents are usually chosen by certain trials or methods... but our ancestor seems to have guaranteed that advents of Helceye will spawn from the Greyern family line, denoted by Helceye's mark, widely unknown due to the god's secretive behavior, which is the same as is on the cover of the journal.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait wait. Hold on. Doesn't this make Django...
"Holy shit."