Long ago when the men walked the Earth with the Legends and the Spirits being part of everyday life, a disaster struck the world as beings from the moon landed on the Continent.
The Lunar Demons, they were called, but they called themselves Kings of the World and other words that are long sundered and forgotten.
The Lunar Demons wanted to rule the people and enslave the inhabitants of the old Continent. They enslaved the humans in their cities, killed the elves in their farms, buried the dwarves in their mines, and made the giants their pets and enforcers.
Their atrocities extended to making sports of their slaves. They put ears on the heads of men, joined tails with the spines of others, skinned others and replaced their skin with animal hides, stuck horns into the heads of others. The Demons had so much imagination and magic that they altered entire tribes into freaks and cursed their offspring to carry on these shapes later becoming the current day's races of the Beast folk… but those were the lucky ones. Others were distorted so badly to the point where it is impossible to tell they were once men.
The Lunar Demons' power was so great that they aimed their swords at the sky and called upon the Spirits in mockery and swore to even enslave them and overthrow their might. Following this bold decoration, the Demons decided to blind the Eyes of the Light Spirit, Chief of all Spirits, they wanted to destroy the twin Suns.
Using their vile magic, they attacked the first sun relentlessly to the point where it shattered onto the vast sky creating an array of stars that can only be seen at night. This thing called Night is the doing of the Demons, something they can thrive in as Night and Darkness is their habitat. But what of the second Sun?
They surely tried to shatter that one too, however, this time that Sun which they shattered was their undoing. The shattered sun had a spirit lying within and that spirit swore vengeance upon the Demons and their Moon. It descended on the Continent and looked for the person worthy enough to bear the burden of fighting off the demon thus it found a woman in mourning for her son who was killed at night.
Follow me, the spirited called. Follow me thus one day you guide me, it called again. Follow me till I am the one who follows and walk as I once walked so you and I become one and so no mother and child meet the fate which you and yours met.
And the Holy Mother, Mother of all Agartha, Mother Agartha, the Titled Queen, the High as the Sun, the Star Gazer, the White-Winged, the Saintess of Saints, the First and the Ever-After, the True Hero, and the Chosen by Grief; she came to be.
For her, the Lone Sun shone in white pure and golden holy as it engulfed all the poison of the Lunar Demons and pushed them where they came from; back to the moon.
"Holy Mother of Bullshit!" Leon shouted… in his mind, of course.
He was looking at Cenric who was fanatically giving a small sermon to him just because he disrespected the traditions of this world a moment ago.
How so?
Simply saying the "Light Temple" instead of the "Holy Light Temple" seemed to be a little upsetting to some people. Cenric was obviously the religious sort, not a thing Leon would really dislike or care about but those who don't think for themselves are just something Leon can't associate with.
Like… the fact that the Light Faith claims that the world was once always Day and the demons came along and created Night is by far the most nonsensical thing which defies basically everything. This world wasn't even as illiterate as it can be said for something like the middle ages since there is a lot of art and knowledge especially about the cosmos and various records about celestial objects.
Leon didn't get to argue about Faith and Religion with Cenric for two reasons. First, he doesn't want to seem like an oddball rather than bumpkin. Second, he never came across a faith like the Holy Light Faith before.
First of all, that faith may be the most widespread faith with other minor faiths spread here and there but there is one crucial common point they all have.
There is no mention of God… at all.
The Pantheon has no single deity even. No idols, no monotheism, no polytheism, nothing at all.
It is as if a concept was dropped from the early stages of common sense evolving in this world. For example, it is widespread that Adam and Eve were created by God and through their lineages, the idea continued about God's existence no matter how it was distorted later on into all forms of worship. On the other hand, the notion of God in Agartha didn't even come to be in the earliest days of the races thus it couldn't spurt into the shapes of faiths seen on Earth.
Instead, the Faiths in Agartha were centered around the grandest aspects perceived by the Agarthians, Nature and its Spirits.
Nature extends beyond Life and Death all the way to the Far Reaches of the Cosmos according to the lore and tradition.
The Spirits are the Aspects of Nature that take shapes and forms and drive life into those forms thus to the Agarthians, everything is alive even if it is the land they walk on, the air they breathe, the fire they ignite, and the water they drink. Even the people possess Spirits within them and from there comes Magic and Life.
From a philosophical standpoint, it is as if the people worship life itself and from that point, they select a form of life they want to exclusively revere. With the endless aspects of Nature, comes endless possibilities of worship and reverence. Still, many people are all about fanaticism to a certain Spirit. The Sun being the Aspect of the Spirit of Light, being the most obvious representation of Nature, became the most widely accepted direct of worship since without sun, there is nothing but cold and darkness and fear.
But there is more. The Dwarves think of Fire as the Source of Light where the Light of Sun, which they don't see, can't reach thus they worship the Fire Spirit.
The Elves have a different take on nature thus they combine the whole Spirits under the term nature and call themselves Born of the Fey.
The Giants know nothing more fearsome than them except the Mountains thus they take the Mountain Spirit as their favored direction.
The Beast Folk chose the Ancestral Beast Spirits as a target of their reverence.
The Demonic Races revere their Ancestors as the High Demonic Kings and symbolize their Spirit of the Moon which the first Lunar Demons came from.
There are more faiths than that even. The Sea Spirits, the Fortune Spirits, the Magic Spirits, and so on. But that is just one type of reverence and it is worship.
The other type of reverence aside from the Nature Spirits is the reverence of the Heroic Saints.
Sainthood on Earth is an exclusive title to some faiths which by an individual attains a rank of respect and reverence. On Agartha, the Saints are Heroes, living legends akin to the Demigods from the Greek Mythology. They are illustrious individuals who walked the steps of immortality. The Saints who associate themselves with a certain Faith become its Guardians and Highest of Figures, the Saints that walk the path of Glory become the Guardians of People and Nations.
There is no authority above a Saint and the kings bow in their presence. The World itself shapes its reality around them and recognizes them for what they are. Most importantly, every Religious Organization focuses on hoarding the talented newborn children foresee their potential and whoever of them proves worthy is handed the title of a Saint Candidate giving them the full backing and support of an organization.
A terrifying idea.
With the Nature Spirits and the Heroic Saints replacing the idea of a God or a Deity on Agartha, the world functioned very naturally in a way too different from a world like Earth but with a major point being very mutual and quite frankly, this is the point of having a religion in the first place.
How does it end? What is Fate after Life? What is the Afterlife?
Points of view varied quite wildly in this section and here came the discord between Religions. It is widely accepted that the Living Spirit of a Mortal departs from their body upon Death and merges with the Spirit they dedicated themselves to into an Eternal Eternity. For example; the Light followers imagine themselves to live in a World of Light on the surface of the Sun as their afterlife; The followers of the Sea Spirit think of their afterlife as a Glorious Oceanic Paradise under the seas; the Followers of the Fire Spirit think of their afterlife as being part of the Hearth and turning into the Fire which lights the World… so on and so forth.
The Salvation of these different cults is by staying true to the Spirits thus to be reunited with the loved ones in the Afterlife. Those who sin (depending on the sin) are rejected by their kin in the afterlife this fall into the Darkness, the place where nobody wants to ever go to.
Hell existed, not as a place of eternal suffering but as a notion of Exile. A land of barren darkness, an endless resentment and regret, a curse of grudge, a centralization of evil. This state is known as Undeath, those who waste their lives and are rejected by their kin are exiled as the Undead Spirits in the Underworld, the Damned that roam the belly of the Beast.
[A/N: Yes, I once wrote an Elder Scroll fanfiction and I am not selling this for any less Lore.]
With all of this happening, Leon had a deeper conflict within him. He has his own beliefs which he values and they don't contradict the fact that there are Parallel Worlds and Alien Lifeforms even rather encouraging the ideas. Strange as it sounds, he wasn't sure what to believe at the moment which put him in some sort of a faith crisis but adding that to his mental distress is simply terrifying at the moment thus he left it as a matter to investigate a different time.
"Alright, no more arguing, Cenric." Titus finally decided to shut Cenric up as he was in no mood to hear him preaching Leon into the Light Faith anymore.
It started to get annoying. Titus smiled awkwardly at Leon trying to say that nobody's perfect but Leon was already halfway to a headache.
"Let's split up." Titus called, "Leo on me. You three take a slow route while we take the long one. Meet us when the routes get together."
The team was not oblivious since nobody here was that much of a fan of Religion other than old Cenric here. That's why Titus suggested splitting up for a while. The routes he spoke about were regular Mercenary Routes that are mostly known in the forest and marked as safe places.
With Titus and Leon moving separately, the quietness of the forest eased their minds as the two were the silent type in general. That was until Titus decided to speak.
"I am sorry about Cenric, he's kinda the soul of the team here but he's quite… passionate." Titus said.
"I don't mind." Leon replied.
"Do you know, that story he told you about the Spirit means something important to the Mercenaries." Titus remarked.
"How so?"
"Do you know the reason why we are not allowed to stay in a Forest or any monster-infested place for more than one week?"
"Enlighten me."
"So Cenric mentioned the Spirits and the Lunar Demons and the Light of the Sun Spirit. The moral of the story is that the monsters, which originated from the demons, thrive in places where the sun doesn't shine. Forests, caves, ruins, and old dungeons even."
"So what Cenric was trying to say is that the evil stuff has a negative affinity with the Light?" Leon asked.
"Precisely! Actually, that part is common knowledge, Leo. I am wondering how you never knew such a thing."
"It's quite a boring cliche but it isn't common knowledge where I came from." Leon laughed.
"Truly? Even the countryside has famous songs about not wandering in the forests at night. Shouldn't you know one?" Titus asked.
The questions directed to Leon seemed a little bit bothering thus he looked at Titus sternly as if about to cuss.
"Whatever! None of my business anyway." Titus saw the face Leon made and retreated quickly.
Leon isn't part of his team and is only leeching in as a support for now. He is skilled indeed but a street kid such as Titus can tell that Leon is very dishonest and has a lot of secrets. With Vadim's unusual involvement, it is better not to poke in his business.
"Listen, people don't stay in such places, that aren't constantly subjected to Sunlight, because of something called Miasma." Titus returned to the main subject.
"I know the word. Negative Energy or Corrupted Mana." Leon nodded as the term was mentioned a few times in the Arcane Theory.
The problem is that neither the Arcane Theory book nor the description content provided by the book rewriter touched anything regarding common sense. They were all pure academic lines of sophisticated magical knowledge.
"That's the thing. It is the curse of the Demons."
"Heard about that part two but… how does it function?" Leon asked.
"According to the Temple, Darkness is where the Demons and their Curse of Miasma come from and only pure Sunlight can break it. Light Magic works as well but no mage can maintain it for too long, you see."
"Aha! I see where the whole thing is coming from now."
"Good. As for the effects of Miasma… well, I don't know how it works on people, thank the Light, but what I saw was it turning people into crazy things. It depends on the race, actually. Humans become Ghouls, undying rotting fiends; Dwarves become Dworgs, unsightly fucks with rusted skin; Elves become Drow, evil wretches that exist solely for mayhem and cannibalism; Giants become Jotunn, cold as the mounts and mad as a raging mammoth."
"Damn! And the other races?"
"Those are the major four. I haven't really come across a member of another race to know from them."
"Strange! So this Miasma is like harmful radiation but it dissolves with Sunlight. These mutations, what are they exactly?" Leon got hooked really fast.
"I am not really a knowledgeable man since it is extremely rare to come across such things, you know… But I think Edrick once called them Devolutions… sounds to me like Degenerations." Titus shrugged his shoulders as he made a guess.
"So if there are Devolutions, there are Evolutions too, right?" Leon asked.
"Meaning?"
"Like the Human race can evolve into a more superior form, right?"
"No idea, to be honest."
"We'll have to hold that thought." Leon said as the tension he harbored just a while ago broke away and he relaxed a little bit.
Even though he sacked the Academy's Camp just a couple of hours ago, Leon wasn't really nervous about the threat of him being found. Nobody can find anything as long as it is within his Storage spell. However, Leon was still wary of his identity even though he is sure that Vadim and Erielle are currently doing something behind his back in order to protect him or whatever.
Still, a stroll in a forest was a welcome change of pace since the team was now tasked with patrolling the area further into the forest as all the search was deemed useless so far.
Just a single girl missing caused all this ruckus. At that point, all the involved mercenaries were praying it would be worth the trouble else they would actually quit the assignment altogether.
Both Leon and Titus discussed those points while they were patrolling but as they were about to return to the gathering point with the rest of the team, Leon and Titus felt strange all of a sudden.
Their eyes looked left and right and suddenly, the skin started crawling. In an instant, Titus grabbed Leon and took cover with him behind a tree.
*Drogdrogdrog*
*CRASH*
As the time felt slow with Leon and Titus opening their eyes wide to what they saw, a spray of wood splinters filled their view making them reflexively raise their arms to cover their eyes. No matter how it looked, what crushed that trunk they used as a cover was a menacing object with the power long enough to obliterate anything in its way.
A splatter of blood was mixed into the scene as this object seemed to have grazed the left arm of Titus causing him to agonize over it with a groan.
The object continued with its momentum but it was followed with a much larger body. Leon realized that what he saw then was a horn and the body behind it was that of a Bull, a monstrous Bull.
In reaction to this, Leon pulled Titus out of the way and rushed backward to avoid the rest of the clash as the Bull charged unbothered with the humans in its way.
"An Assassin Bison!" Titus shouted.
A terrifying entity has appeared.
A large bull covered in green fur akin to the moss and the mold of the forest with a hint of brown around its hooves and lower half. It was terrifyingly muscular like those bulls that appear on manhood buffing products but more in like a bison. Compared to the normal animal, this one had a pair of straight forward strong horns and a pair of bright yellow eyes.
This animal took almost 30 feet of distance between itself and Leon before turning around and looking back.
"Holy fuck!"
And a terrifying presence was felt.
Leon read about that thing in the Monster Manual. A monster with a calm attitude and lazy lifestyle except when threatened. Despite being a Bull, the Assassin Bison is actually very stealthy.
"Read!"
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[ Assassin Bull ] <Lv. 25, Large Beast>
[STR: 36] [END: 33] [AGI: 30] [PRC: 19] [INT: 6]
- Skills: (Quiet Steps) (Natural Camouflage) (Mighty Horn) (Charge)
- Condition: Burnt
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And a mighty challenger appeared.
Stealthy mammoths! Can you see them?
Burnt? Someone was playing with fire and left the steak ultra-rare, it's still wiggling...
Heard about that part two but…
Too
Time for some bull steak
Blob Neutral