Divine Flame Crystal

Chapter 618 God is not worthy of sacrifice

The next moment, the believer in a coarse linen robe took out a bottle of kerosene from his arms and set himself on fire.

Flames shot up into the sky, and the ritual was thrown into chaos. But the burning body stood still for a full nine seconds.

Nine seconds later, it fell down with a sound like dead wood.

He did not leave his name, but only a belief: "Use life as fire."

The Vatican quickly blocked the news and burned the body to silence him, but his story had already been whispered by the people present.

They called him the First Burner.

Soon, the second Burner appeared in the West. She was a sorceress who had been wrongly convicted by the Church. Before her public execution, she shouted:

"Xingluo didn't ask me to kneel, so I shouldn't kneel to Guangming!"

Then he used a self-harming technique to blow himself up, turning into flames.

The third was a theological apprentice. He was supposed to be the next ordained preacher, but he burned the holy books in public at his graduation ceremony and said:

“I no longer pray, but only to awaken.”

His ashes were secretly taken by his family to Meteoric Castle for burial.

When Xingluo learned this, he was analyzing post-war intelligence with Mo. Even before he unfolded the scroll in his hand, his heart sank like a chill.

He remained silent for a long time, just looking up at the red light in the sky caused by self-immolation.

"Is this what I want?" he asked softly.

Mo didn't answer.

After a long silence, Xingluo whispered a sentence that is still popular today:

“I don’t want to be a religion… but if humanity really needs fire—then I will be that piece of wood.”

At first, they were just three or five people gathering in the abandoned temple.

But in less than half a month, hundreds of people responded.

They came from all directions: scholars exiled by the Church, mothers who lost their children, dissidents who were once low-level priests, miners, mercenaries, unemployed magicians, and even elves and dwarves joined in.

They did not build temples, but instead set up altars underground, in valleys, and in ruined temples.

During the sacrifice, there was no statue, only an old robe, a broken sword, or - a yellowed magic notebook placed in the center of the altar.

They say: "God is not worthy of sacrifice, but the will of man should be remembered."

This faith eventually received a name: the Burning Oath.

It is not a vow to die as a god, but a vow: I am willing to burn my body into ashes so that future generations will not kneel.

They called Xingluo a "guide," not a god or a lord, but a person walking before them. The footprints he left would leave a ray of light for those who came after him.

Xingluo did not acknowledge this identity, but did not deny it either.

He understood that if he denounced this faith, it would be like God had denounced doubt - a repetition of the tragedy of suppression.

What he represents is a kind of "tolerance after awakening."

So he secretly sent Mo to establish private contact with them on behalf of Yunyue Castle.

Provide medicine, magic scrolls, intelligence protection - but never interfere with their rituals, gatherings, or speeches.

"We are not the gods' new skins," Xingluo reminded Mo, "They are not soldiers, nor are they tools."

Mo nodded, "They are the source of this fire."

In order to provide a real "root" for this ideological storm, Xingluo and Pandora used the research results of the ancient books left behind before their disappearance, and joined forces with a group of dissident professors who had worked at the Bright Seminary to establish an "Academy of Truth" in the East.

There is no altar, only a blackboard and a magic circle. There is no confessional, only a lecture hall for speculation.

Here, students don't need to kneel, they just need to ask questions.

Courses include:

Deconstruction of the structure of divine power

Research on the Origins of Ancient Gods

Exploring the Origin of Magic and the Soul

Practical Application of “Will Channel” and “Consensus Flame”

Teachers don’t talk about “what God said,” but rather, “Why we believe what God said.”

Here, for the first time, a taboo issue was openly discussed:

"Can humans become gods themselves?"

The answer is not important, what is important is that you can ask.

That winter, the coldest snowstorm blew from the north.

But outside the Falling Moon Castle, rows of altars of the Burning Oath were still burning.

No gods, no prayers, only the whispers of men in the firelight:

"The star is not in the sky, it is among us."

The flame does not ask for faith, but it illuminates everyone who is willing to open their eyes.

The temple is decaying, the constellations are silent, but this dark night is becoming brighter and brighter because of the falling stars and the human will ignited by him.

Xingluo looked out the window. Lately, he had been seeing some images inadvertently. He knew that these were projections of the Great Magic Era. As he was promoted to the Grand Mage of Time and Space, this phenomenon became more and more obvious, as if he had crossed the river of time and returned to the past.

The Age of Magic ushered in an unprecedented war between the gods. This wasn't a battle between mortals and demons, nor was it a conflict between the Church and heretics. Instead, it was a direct confrontation between the gods themselves – the rift between the Temple of Light and the Temple of Storms, ultimately leading to the epic "Twilight of the Gods," a world-shaking event that would be etched in the pages of history.

The cause of this war originated from a seemingly trivial religious dispute.

The Storm God, a high-ranking deity of the Third Order, has always controlled the winds and thunder, a totem in the hearts of sailors and warriors. Within the Holy Order system, he has repeatedly received "Holy Light Certification" and is one of the four most frequently used deities in Church rituals.

However, as the Holy Order continued to shrink the divine authority, the "Ocean Blessing" ritual originally performed by the Storm God was taken over by the Temple of Light and replaced with the "Ocean Bathing Ceremony." This adjustment caused the Storm God to rapidly lose the faithful community he had painstakingly cultivated over hundreds of years, and the return of faith he received—the share of Holy Light—was also drastically reduced by the Vatican, nearly squeezing him out of the ranks of "mainstream holy gods."

Faced with the crisis of losing believers and being degraded, the Storm God refused to renew the "Holy Order Extension Agreement" and established the "Free Faith Camp" in his own divine domain, declaring to all believers: "Storm, no longer surrender."

This move shocked the gods.

The Temple of Light immediately announced that the God of Storms had betrayed the Holy Light and was a "schismatic of faith," and ordered the Holy See to send the "Holy Light Judgment Group" to forcibly seal the source of the Storm Temple's divine seal in an attempt to regain control of theocracy.

The Storm God retaliated angrily, destroyed three outposts of the Church of Light, and moved its temple and the Holy Seal Tower to the far north above the Storm Sea. He proclaimed himself the "God without Law" and publicly announced his separation from the rule of the Holy Order.

The Storm God's rebellion stirred discontent among the long-suppressed gods. Some began to plot to form the "Alliance of Free Gods," which included the Night God, the Dream God, the Forest God, the Water Mirror God, and other gods with large fringe faiths.

These gods believed that the God of Light was oppressing people in the name of "holy light," restricting divine freedom and requiring a reconstruction. They joined forces with the God of Storms and issued a joint declaration: "Gods are not subjects, holy light is not law, and only free faith can be eternal."

The God of Light urgently summoned the twelve bishops of the Holy See and issued the Second Amendment to the Code of Holy Orders, which clearly stated that anyone who spreads free faith is a heretic, and all his believers will be immediately expelled, burned, and sealed.

The balance of war began to tilt.

This day was later called "the day when the sky split".

On this day, the Storm God led the Free God Alliance and gathered above the Storm Sea. They activated the ancient divine seal, condensing it into the "Blade of Wind and Thunder", pointing directly to the top of the holy mountain - the location of the Temple of Light.

Atop the Holy Mountain, the God of Light arrived in person, igniting the divine barrier with his "Cross of Holy Light." He dispatched six divine messengers, leading three thousand Holy Light Heavenly Armies, to intercept the Storm Army in the void. The divine messengers' wings of light were like clouds of fireworks, covering the sky. The Storm God, swirling through thunderclouds, commanded the Wind God and the Sea God to form the "Eye of the Storm," tearing the entire sky apart in a vortex.

The first round of the divine war lasted for seven days and nights in the sky. Thousands of thunderbolts pierced the Holy Light Sky Shield, and the Holy Flame Spear pierced the giant wings of the storm. The Storm God and the Holy Light Lord fought until their divine bodies were shattered. Hundreds of divine souls from both sides fell to the mortal world, causing strange phenomena in many places:

"Lava rain" falls on the Ishulan Plateau, melting the mountains;

The "Kuroshio Countercurrent" flooded the East China Sea, and the ancient underwater city reappeared;

The Tower of Holy Light in the North collapsed, and three million people lost their holy seals;

Above the Puyin Empire, there was a phenomenon of double suns alternating with eternal night.

And these are just the beginning.

When the first phase of the battle ended, the flames of war spread to the gods' realms - the residences of the gods that were originally isolated from the world and hidden in the void.

The God of Storms led the God of Night, the God of Dreams, and the God of Water Mirror to invade the outer layer of the Holy Order Temple, the "Holy Court of Light", in an attempt to seize the original manuscript of the "Code of Holy Law" in order to weaken the legal orthodoxy of the God of Light in the mortal world.