"The temple tiger has been slain!" A travelling villager came running to the crowd and shouted. The villagers were in a bad mood because it took so long to reach their turn to get a bucket of water from the well. But when they heard the shocking news, their mood turned to a better one.
"Rejoice! Rejoice!" A village woman shouted happily and the rest of the crowd followed suit.
The same behaviour was seen at every village and town across the Midland that Raün had visited at least once.
In a tavern located at the narrow alley of Forkguard, an alcoholic man spit on the floor as soon as he heard the news. "I am sure you are down there." He said angrily while pointing at the floor. "But I won't be pleased by your death because you deserved more than that. You deserved to die horribly."
As the man kept yelling at the floor while cursing at a dead Templer, the owner had to quiet him up. He was afraid of the punishment if there was a Temple sympathiser among the crowd.
"Don't shush me. I am telling the truth." The man insisted. He suddenly got up from his seat and addressed the crowd. "Hey, friends! I am sure you heard the news! And I am telling you. He deserved to die more horribly than that. He is an evil bastard. He raped my daughter who just came to age. T-then he...he marked her with a hot iron on her thigh like she is a pig or a cattle. My lovely daughter took her own life because she was so ashamed of herself. He was a demon disguised as an agent of god. He..."
Before he yelled any more discontent, the owner shut his mouth and kicked him out of the tavern. He couldn't risk his business down because of the outcry from an alcoholic.
As a reprisal for the ill-treatment, the man pissed at the wall before he left. A man in leather armour approached him while clapping, "Nice speech." "F*CK off. It wasn't a speech. Are you a Templer? If you want to kill me, do it. I don't regret it. I am ready to leave this shithole world. Nothing bounds me now that that bastard is dead."
The man in armour smiled meaningfully. He showed his plain armour and asked if he had seen a Templer in that kind of pathetic armour. He approached closer and talked into the man's ear. "You should not try to die yet. You have many works to do." He told the truth about how Raün actually died. "Don't say it to anyone. Only know it in your heart. The true agent has returned."
Revenant
As its name implies, the true agents of god have once again walked on the earth.
Once upon a time, the land of man was ruled by ferocious beasts and devilish monsters. The men were prey rather than predators. There was no civilization. The man had to live in the fear of constant threat.
But god has this immense love for these pathetic beings called man. For mankind is the only beings that can go beyond the boundaries of greed, anger and ignorance, and reach for true salvation. While the beasts spend their lives only on hunger, reproduction, fighting and repeat theses; humans can share, control lust, give a helping hand and search for knowledge. Through civilization, they can go beyond salvation and attain enlightenment. And so, the lord sent his agents to help man.
With immense strength and power, these agents slain the beasts and protected the man. They united mankind and gifted man the vast land called Midland. Then, they returned to where they came from. The man, in remembrance of these agents, worshipped them as deities of land and crops, the sky and sea, in many forms.
Then, centuries later, a trickster came walking on the land. He used his evil knowledge to spawn the monsters back to this land. Then he defeated his own minions and pretended as the saviour of mankind. Decades later the pretender showed his true colours. He set greed, lust and ignorance as his rules and swayed from the initial true path of man. The Temples are the only buildings filled with riches. His agents are tainted in lust. His fighters killed non-sympathizers in anger. His healers hid their knowledge from the public. He led people into darkness and civilization into oblivion.
And so, they had, once again, come to correct this world again.
It was the story Revenant told to the selected public; like that alcoholic man who lost his beloved daughter to the Temple.
"So, are we playing 'God' now?" Cleo asked her council who were strategizing plans against Temple in their secret chamber. She walked in slowly while pressing her belly. Whenever she moved, she felt a sharp pain in her abdomen from where Raün stabbed. It had been a month but the wound was still painful like yesterday. It was her fault. She didn't listen to her physician who specifically told her to rest and not walk around. She reopened the wound and the doctor had to sew it again.
Louise ran to his sister and helped her walk but Luther suddenly lifted her from behind and gently put her on a chair. He was worried the wound in her abdomen would reopen again if she walked. For others, Cleo and Luther were the princess and her captain guard. For the insiders, they were like brother and sister.
He was dead worried when he heard Cleo was stabbed in the abdomen. He snatched the most potent healing potion from the royal physician's chamber and rode out to the secret hideout where team revenant was temporarily resting that same night. At one glance everyone could tell Luther was the most worried person after hearing the news.
While Luther rode throughout the night to give her the best potion, she wasn't so keen to drink it after the first sip. Earlier, she was yelping about how painful it was to have a hole in her abdomen. At every breath, a sharp burning pain resurfaced from the right side of the abdomen as if Raün had kept stabbing her even after death. She was afraid to even breathe. However, after taking a sip of the potion, she understood that there was something more intolerable than the agonizing pain.
"Argh! It is so bitter. Did you take the wrong potion with a poison?" She spat out every drop out of her mouth. "I would rather tolerate the pain than drink that." She resisted.
Her childish behaviour surprised Ethan and the rest, except Luther. He knew how much she hated bitter medicine. He calmly told her not to spit it out again since it was a valuable potion and that it could be the last one. Since the day the Temple found out that there were potions that could temporarily increase one's strength and perception and used them to rival the Templers, the Temple had been rounding up all the potion masters in the kingdom.
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He promised her that he would bring something sweet after the drink but she protested. They didn't expect a tough warrior like Clara would be defeated by mere bitterness. They saw a new side of her. Dovos advised her to drink it with the nose closed. It decreased the bitterness, he shared his know-how. Ethan suggested she drink it in one go and be done with it. He could see her condition worsen at every second she refused to drink the potion.
"Then, wait a minute, Clara. I will bring a candy immediately." Luther told Cleo. He didn't want to waste the potion anymore by her throwing it out of her mouth so he left to search for something sweet.
However, Ethan didn't want to stall any longer. It would be hard to find anyone selling sweets in the middle of the night anyway. He believed Luther was just spoiling her. Ethan quietly signalled his men. Dovos and Igüan were hesitant at first but when they saw Clara was having a hard time to even breathe, they decided to help Ethan.
They quietly approached Clara who was trying to withstand the pain with her eyes closed. Dovos quickly pressed down her legs and arms with his big body while Igüan lifted her head and Ethan tried to put the potion down her throat. He closed her nose with one hand and threw the potion inside her mouth. Then he forcefully closed her mouth back so that she couldn't spit it out. With the sudden taste of bitterness flooded her mouth, she struggled to spit it out for a second. But with all the orifices shut, there was only one way for her to end that extreme taste of bitterness. She gulped it down.
"Mission success," Igüan announced smilingly after he saw her throat move. Dovos and Ethan laughed after they saw her getting teary. She cursed at them with tears in her eyes. She was furious and at the same time felt humiliated. But a while later when Luther came back with a bunch of oranges, she was already sleeping peacefully. After experiencing the hassle, Luther swore he would never let her get hurt again.
"Thank you, Luther," Cleo said thanks for carrying her to the chair. She rested on her back not to sustain pressure on her abdomen. She was afraid she would have to drink that thing again if her wound reopened. "Now, please tell me, Uncle Arthur. Why did you make up that ridiculous story? Am I an agent of god now? Do I have to wear a white robe and a laurel now?" Cleo mocked at the idea her council came up with.
Initially, she wanted Ethan to be the slayer of god. A human who dares to defy god when the words of god become questionable or unjust. She wanted Ethan to be the message to her people not to blindly believe in words just because someone said God says so. She wanted her people to ask questions, convene discussions and thrive on their knowledge; not to be mindless.
However, Arthur changed the very essence of the message she wanted to relay to her people. Ethan became another warrior of god that people would blindly follow.
Arthur told Cleo to calm down. He predicted that she would hate his very idea, which was why he ran it while she was bedridden. He discussed the idea only with Louise the king, Luther his adopted son the captain guard and Abel the accountant from Revenant who was his distant niece. He knew Cleo would reject it if she knew. But he did it anyway because he believed it needed to be done.
"Princess, do you truly believe that people will stand by the human side in the bloody fight against a god? That would be naive. Ethan isn't the first human who defies Mordu'. Many warriors sought the path to cast the spell without the blessing from Mordu'. They defied him and proved that anyone could be a spellcaster without the blessing. Did people follow them? No. They were shammed by the public as spawns of the devil and finally executed by the Temple. Even your father the king, beloved by the people was thrown out to the street by the same people he tried to save. He showed people that the way of Temple was poisoning the society and the people did listen. But when mere dozens of fanatics stormed the castle, tens of thousands of midlakers just stood by and watched. None of them stepped in to help. Do you know why?"
Arthur asked Cleo who was fuming in anger and frustration. The scars of the past resurfaced. It suffocated her.
"Because no one wants to be on the wrong side of God," Cleo answered in defeat.
"Unless we are 'God' ourselves," Arthur added to her answer.
Arthur made the point. Cleo disliked it but she accepted that it was needed if they meant to challenge Temple. But she was worried that it was too soon. If this story were to reach the ears of Mordu' and Ayeegyees, they would retaliate in full force. They might flatten the village where Raün was killed to set an example first. Then, they would arrest and execute anyone even with minimal suspicion. She was worried the revenant may not be strong enough yet to protect those people.
"You don't have to worry about the guys in Revenant. They are more than ready." Abel reported. "If I have to speak honestly, the guys at first believed they had to live in the scorching desert because they had wronged the god. They hated the Temple but they dared not do so to Mordu'. However, after the story, their perception changed completely. Now, they believe they are on the right side of God and their morals have never been better."
"And the reception in the general public is good too. Especially among the poor. There are some supporters of the cause among the riches, too." Arthur added.
"Don't worry too much, sister. It will only hinder your healing. You should only focus on your health for now." Louise told his sister not to be too stressed about it.
Meanwhile, inside the congregation hall at the Temple of Gambit, the Ayeegyees from all six regions gathered for the emergency meeting. In the blindly lit oval hall where polished white marbles were used as floor, they discussed the most troubling news that had come across the continent to the ears of the realm.
"How could this timing be? Do you think these Revenant guys are working together with the bastards from the east?"
"We could assume." The guardian of the Temple answered. When the Book of Sahel was stolen, he set out to find any hints of where it might be. He heard the news that an eastern man was sighted with a strange book in Claudia so he tracked him down. There, in Claudia, he found out the bigger problem was waiting for them. "However, it doesn't matter anymore, your holinesses. The war is coming and it is not between kings. It is directly to us this time. Supreme King of Indra has denounced the Temple of Mordu' as devilism."