Christmas is a time of joy and happiness. People gift their loved ones and celebrate together to commemorate the day. It is believed that Santa Claus delivers toys to the kids on Christmas. Another…..peculiar figure also appears during Christmas.

In the second parallel world of Earth, Palia, a never-before-seen hell arose. A hell-like war which came to be called as the Great War. To understand the root of the war, we have to delve deeper into the creation of Palia.

「The planet Palia hadn’t always been a luscious green planet thriving full of life and vitality. The planet had been nothing more than a cold, giant rock floating across empty space. This giant rock wouldn’t interest any cosmic gods to reign over, or at least that was supposed to be the case.

One cosmic god took notice of the barren wasteland of a planet. It was the god of the Minotaurs. He terraformed the planet named it Palia. His creations, the minotaurs lived peacefully on the once harsh and unwelcoming planet. They killed and ate the animals, farmed crops and consumed them, slept restfully, and procreated on the tranquil planet. It was truly a glimpse of heaven.

However, one day, everything turned upside down. The once bland rock that was trifling to the cosmic gods was now the hot spot for conquest. The peaceland of the minotaurs was attacked by an alliance of the cosmic gods. It consisted of the Demon god, Ogre god, Giant god and the Golem god. The planet was besieged by the overwhelming alliance. The minotaurs gave it all they could, but the long years of peace had made them weak. The tough struggle soon turned into a one sided slaughter. The minotaurs were killed and trampled on like ants. The entire planet was once again brought back to its original state….

That was what had been believed until the Demon god betrayed the alliance and began sabotaging the cosmic gods. He imparted sacred knowledge to some of his demon creations. They began to spread the word of the Demon god, boosting his popularity among the younger generation of worshippers. It also helped that the other cosmic gods barely made any appearance among the people. The Demon god frequently appeared and gave his creations his blessings. The appearance of him among the creations of the other gods made them uncertain of their religion. This caused the number of worshippers of the other cosmic gods to decrease sharply.

The power of the cosmic gods directly depended upon the strength of their believers’ belief. This meant that the Demon god’s power and influence rose day by day while the other three gods’ power decreased sharply.

However, not everyone believed in the Demon god. Some stood strong in their god of worship. For them, however, the Demon god had another plan. It was to make them worship the object of worship of the Demon god whilst believing it to be the object of worship of their own god. This worked with the help of his cunning disciples.

The cosmic gods, at one point, did notice the change in the people’s attitude toward them, but it was already too late by then. The Demon god’s power had already reached the point of extremity. The three gods waged a war on the Demon god, swearing to kill him. But the war ended in a disheartening way. The gods of the alliance were killed in brutal ways that had not been seen before. Their creations were wiped clean off the face of Palia. The Demon god ushered his creations into a new revitalizing era.

However, the story doesn’t end there. After long years of peace, yet again, another cosmic god took notice of the advanced planet. The God of Shadows. He was a greedy god like others. Just like the others, he tried to conquer Plania by waging a war on the Demon god. The battle ended in a defeat for the God of Shadows. The Demon god proved to be a formidable opponent. History repeated yet again by the alliance made by the Shadow god and the Goblin god, the war to rule over Plania was launched on full throttle.

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The war dragged on for centuries. The Demon god was greatly pushed back by the Goblin god. The Shadow god’s magic power and the Goblin god’s creations’ physical prowess proved to be a deadly combo. The God of Shadows replaced all the objects of worship and began preaching and spreading his name which greatly weakened the Demon god’s influence. The demon god, at long last, while being pushed to the edge, was forced to extract vitality from his creation to sustain himself. This did not go well. The Demon god finally died without the interference of the Shadow god or the Goblin god while all of his creations perished like a bunch of flies in fire.」

The present day’s issue comes now.

「As usual, another cosmic god took interest in Palia which by this time had developed enough to be noticed by the major gods. The god who took interest in Palia was the God of Humanity. He was a relatively peaceful god who is actively involved in his creations’ lives to ensure their wellbeing. He prefers negotiation and alliance over waging war to conquer a planet.

The Shadow god and the Goblin god, however, hated weak creations. The humans were weak, so the natural instinct of the cosmic gods was to belittle them and view them as prey. This greatly angered the Human god who preferred peace. The two gods disliked the humans enough to want to make them their toys, but at the same time, tolerated them enough to let them live on the same planet.

This only applied to the creations though. The gods were different. They felt a sense of competition and their ego blinded them.

The God of Humanity was considered a weak god due to his no war policy. This, however, did not mean that the Human god lacked power. The Goblin god and the Shadow god learnt this the hard and brutal way. The Shadow god and the Goblin god combined their forms and a new god was born in the universe. The Shadow Goblin god. There was no other way to win if they hadn’t done this. In order to further increase their odds at victory, they took the essence of the Demon god which had been stored for research purposes to create a new magic weapon. They absorbed it and further evolved. They were called the Demonic Shadow Goblin god.

This name was shortened to just Goblin god for simplicity because the demon and shadow in their name was only the power and the physical appearance was that of a mutant goblin.

To kill a god, you don’t have to fight them head-on. If all creations of the god become non-worshippers and refuse to believe in the god, then the god’s life force would fail to replenish, finally killing the god. This was the plan of the coward Goblin god who hid in the dark matter of the universe.

The Goblin god was finally ready to unleash all his power to kill all human creations, but he couldn’t do so. It was due to nature’s constraints. The mutant goblins could only appear on a specific day due to their unmatched power in Palia. In order to ensure a fair chance at survival, this restriction was placed upon them by nature.

The day in which the mutant goblins would rise again and the day of Christmas became coincident.」

….Or at least that is what is believed to be the case. This legend has been passed onto us through our ancestors for multiple generations now. Each year, the mutant goblins cause havoc. Even if it’s only for one day per year, the damage caused by them is so massive that the birth rate is declining. Currently, according to popular statistics, the human race is officially on a path to extinction. Well, there are only a million humans left on this planet and day by day, disease, old-age, etc. all play a role in decreasing the population in addition to the mutant goblins.

“Elias! Are you slacking off again? ” Shit. My little sister caught me. Again.

“Mom is waiting for you! It’s been an hour since you left the house.” My sister, Eloise, ran towards me as she yelled at me. She extended her hand in front of me.

“Ah right, here.” I gave her a basket full of veggies which I had harvested from our farm.

It’s already noon. I usually come to this lakeside after harvesting crops from our tiny farm and think of the legend of Palia. It was something which bothered me enough to make me struggle to fall asleep.

“Let’s go home.”