For a True God, once a Divine Kingdom had been established, the true body would never venture out lightly again.
Only a Divine Kingdom could provide the best protection for a deity's true body. Other avatars, even if they perished, could be recovered — it was merely a matter of time.
But if the true body perished, that was a true death!
On issues so fundamental, the gods had always calculated with extreme precision.
Leilin naturally learned this as well. His true body remained stationed in his Divine Kingdom while his avatars roamed the various planes, commencing the long process of building and accumulating power within his divine realm.
……
The surface ripples stirred in the Prime Material World by the appearance of a True God gradually calmed under the wash of time, though the undercurrents of turmoil continued to churn beneath the surface.
Pontiff Tifa had already led a cadre of elite clerics back into the Prime Material World, beginning to spread the deeds of Leilin as a True God.
With a Legendary Cleric leading the way, the numerous priests could cast divine spells from zero to ninth level — the very hallmark of a True God!
With such a True God backing them, the Serpent Church's faith in the Prime Material World quickly experienced tremendous growth.
The South Coast was their stronghold. A great many sailors, pirates, and adventurers had begun to worship Leilin, the new God of Slaughter.
And this influence continued to spread along the coastline further inland.
The Church of Helm had given up its opposition to the Serpent Church, for Leilin now met every condition that a True God was supposed to meet. From this point forward, his church possessed legitimacy.
For Helm, its duty was to suppress false gods and protect the churches of true gods. So no matter how unwilling it was, it could only abandon its enmity toward Leilin.
A deity's divine portfolio and ideals placed tremendous constraints upon themselves. In many cases, even they could not break through these restraints and frameworks. Those who defied them would pay the price of diminished divinity, loss of portfolio, or even death.
Of course, the Church of Helm stepping back did not mean the Serpent Church could now roam the continent unopposed.
With control over the Weave, she easily swayed a large number of wizards, ensuring the Serpent Church never received any meaningful arcane support. This blockade would surely persist for the foreseeable future.
Fortunately, the demon hunters possessed quasi-magical abilities and could still hold out for the time being. At the very least, they had the clerics' divine spells to fall back on.
Struggles between gods were drawn-out and unyielding. The mortal world was no different.
Under the leadership of the "Chosen Pontiff" Tifa, the Serpent Church tenaciously expanded across the Prime Material World, clashing wits and wills with the churches of the two True
On the surface, the Prime Material World gradually settled.
True Gods had already been born here too many times. Leilin, a Lesser God at most, could only surprise a few people; the actual impact was quite limited.
Furthermore, the upheaval in the North had begun to draw away a great deal of attention.
As the largest source of faith and souls, the Prime Material World attracted the covetous gazes of numerous higher existences. It was also the most disaster-prone place. Wars on the continent had essentially never ceased.
And the North, which had enjoyed a period of calm, was about to be engulfed in a fresh wave of turmoil.
The instigator this time was the Orc Empire. After accumulating strength through the winter, the Orc Empire had completed the mobilization of its armies and stockpiling of supplies, preparing to drive out the nail lodged in its heart — the Silver Moon Alliance.
Led by
More critically, Mystra, Goddess of the Weave, and Tyr, God of Justice, had formally allied, becoming the Silver Moon's patrons. This gave Alustriel the foundation to stand on equal footing with the Orc Empire in terms of divine backing.
A large number of displaced Northern nobles had also banded together as Alustriel's most solid support base.
They desperately hoped the Silver Moon Alliance could reclaim the entire territory, avenge themselves in orc blood, and — most importantly — reclaim their former lands.
Many displaced Northern nobles had met wretched ends, some even directly swallowed by other nobles.
If this war did not produce a decisive victory, this group would likely become a historical footnote, vanishing forever from the Prime Material World.
The nobles needed to wrest land from the orcs, the common folk needed to exact revenge, and Alustriel and her allies needed to rebuild the Silver Moon Alliance and restore its former glory.
In an instant, the dark clouds of war blanketed the entire North. The clash between two greater gods and the orcish divine pantheon overshadowed the waves that Leilin's ascension had caused, becoming the focal point of the Prime Material World's attention!
New Silvermoon City!
This was the heart of the Silver Moon Alliance. The wide streets were neat and clean, with magical lanterns lining both sides, giving one the illusion of having returned to the past. The only difference was that the original Silvermoon City had become the capital of the Orc Empire. Alustriel had remodeled this city in the image of the old Silvermoon, which spoke volumes about her determination.
Unfortunately, compared to the original Silvermoon City, New Silvermoon was somewhat cramped and closed-off due to the constraints of the situation. At this moment, there were few pedestrians on the streets — only the occasional guard or knight passing by in a hurry. The looming clouds of war had forced many of the shops along both sides to close their doors.
Clank! Clank!
In this atmosphere, a squad of heavy knights clad in silver armor and bearing the holy symbol of Tyr sealed off the entire street.
"Paladin Commander Raphaelle! The troops are ready!"
A paladin saluted Raphaelle. It appeared that her rank within the Church of Tyr had risen once more.
"Mm."
Raphaelle nodded absently, gazing at the familiar-looking architecture around her, seemingly lost in memories of the old days in Silvermoon City.
"It really does look the same... What a pity... Nothing can ever go back to how it was..."
Raphaelle sighed bitterly to herself.
This time her mission had failed, and it was only after the fact that she learned her squad had been nothing more than a decoy. The real elite force had been led by Elminster on a covert operation.
This feeling of being kept in the dark left a faint anger simmering in Raphaelle's heart, yet there was nothing she could do about it.
And yet, this arrangement had coincidentally allowed her to avoid the trap on Bankz Island. Reportedly, Elminster's true Legendary squad had suffered devastating casualties — Elminster himself had even died temporarily, only to be resurrected through a clone prepared in advance. It had been an utter annihilation!
"Back then, the Serpent Church must have noticed us too, but they treated us like insignificant bugs and didn't bother paying us much mind. That was probably the only reason we got away with our lives, wasn't it?"
Raphaelle's mouth was full of bitterness.
Once upon a time, that figure she had chased after relentlessly had become a terrifyingly powerful and evil existence — one that now looked upon her like an ant, not even worth a second glance.
Moreover, for reasons she couldn't fully grasp, Raphaelle had returned empty-handed yet received no punishment. Instead, she was given continued trust and even promoted.
Only, she knew clearly that this wasn't because of any merit of her own. It was for some future consideration she couldn't yet see...
"Why... why has it come to this?"
Raphaelle bit her lip, feeling a powerful emotion corroding her soul.
If Leilin or Tyr were here, they would have noticed that Raphaelle's soul was undergoing an extremely peculiar transformation.
Through the subtle machinations Leilin had planted either deliberately or in passing, a Legendary Paladin was slowly beginning to question her faith, drifting away from her original alignment!
And a wisp of dark red power enveloped Raphaelle's soul, obscuring Tyr's perception.
"Justice is my life! O my God... please forgive my wavering. I will hold ever more firmly to my path..."
After an internal struggle, the fluctuations in Raphaelle's soul steadied. Her expression returned to its cold, steely composure. "Distribute the notices! Get them into the hands of every guild and shopkeeper! This is the Church's command — it must be done perfectly!"
The paladins received their orders and departed. They soon pounded on the tightly shut doors, pressing the notices bearing the Silvermoon City lord's seal into the hands of every shop owner, leaving their faces pale and their thick, greasy foreheads drenched in sweat.
"By order of the Silvermoon Queen — for the welfare of our subjects and preparations for war, all shops must remain open as normal, and prices may not exceed the original base price by more than one hundred percent! A supervisory unit composed of the Church of Tyr's paladins will temporarily assume control of New Silvermoon's defenses! This decree is effective immediately. Year of the gods..."
The paladins slapped the lord-sealed notices into those shopkeepers' faces, then bluntly ignored their pleas and ordered them to continue business as usual.
These zealous paladins held not a shred of goodwill toward such greedy merchants.
In their eyes, these merchants were the very embodiment of greed and evil — hoarding supplies before the war and manufacturing corruption in military procurement to reap outrageous profits!
Every merchant who managed to operate in New Silvermoon had blood on their hands — orc blood, commoner blood, the blood of their competitors.
If one cast an alignment detection spell, more than half of these merchants could likely be sentenced to immediate execution! Now, simply allowing them to continue trading with a hundred percent profit margin was already an enormous act of mercy!
So the paladons' methods were nothing short of brutal, their eyes filled with undisguised loathing, leaving the entirety of New Silvermoon echoing with wails of despair.