"Asia, do you think it will work?" César asked with narrowed eyes, observing the beautiful dark elf with purple hair standing before him.
"This… this is…" Asia hesitated. "I never thought something like this would be possible," she said, her voice filled with astonishment as she read the scroll held in her hands.
César had written the Path of Mana, Aura, and Aether. It was not complete, but it clearly described the fundamental concepts of each realm, based on domains that some had discovered, others had barely touched, and even those that the MCs had created exclusively for their women.
César was betting on paths that not even the MCs had walked. They, although they followed the path laid out by the gods, were the only ones who reached its end and became true gods.
César could not do the same.
So he chose to gather the realms from his memory and merge them, creating a new path for himself and his people.
"If this is real, it would change everything…" Asia murmured. "Even among the ancient scrolls of my clan, nothing like this ever existed. The path always ended with the creation of the mana core; then gaseous mana was transformed into liquid, and from there… everything was empty."
She was still in a state of shock.
"I see," César replied. "You can take the scroll and study it. If you find any mistakes or have doubts, come and look for me and tell me. I am open to criticism."
His tone was more confident now, seeing that the path he had "created" might be viable.
Asia nodded and left with a dazed expression, clutching the scroll to her chest as if afraid it might disappear.
After she left, César remained alone, contemplating another problem that would arise sooner or later.
He had known it from the very first day.
His existence was unnatural.
A traveler did not belong to any legitimate thread of fate. No matter how well he hid, how low he lived, or how many masks he wore: if the gods noticed him, if the titans sensed him, if an Outer God brushed against his presence… he would be erased.
And spreading that path—a practically new system, free of the bindings and flaws imposed by the gods—would only increase the risk.
But César did not lose heart.
He had a plan.
Faith could protect him.
César sat in silence inside the wooden house, an ancient tablet spread out before him. It was not a sacred text. Not yet. It was merely a compilation of broken myths, fragments of past eras, tales no one bothered to verify because their protagonists were dead.
Truly dead.
"The Deviants…" he murmured.
Even after years of death, their mere mention instilled terror and reverence in the hearts of all races.
Most races did not understand the true distance between those entities. To them, all Deviants were ancient monsters, primitive gods, distorted legends. But César knew the forbidden rule, a truth buried even among the gods themselves.
Deviants of rank one to five could not rise again.
They could not use faith.
They could not hear prayers.
They were dead history.
But those of rank six and above…
César closed his eyes.
They could revive.
They could sense faith even after death.
They could respond.
They could visit dreams.
They could influence.
They could possess.
If he wished, César could use one of those dormant Deviants and pray to it, spreading its name in the mortal world in exchange for protection and power.
But César knew that praying to them was not salvation.
It was trading divine surveillance for a far more dangerous chain.
"I do not need a dormant Deviant that could resurrect at any moment," he whispered. "I need a corpse that can never open its eyes."
There lay the impossible problem.
A receiver of faith incapable of reacting.
A Deviant that could be worshiped… without existing.
His fingers traced the tablet until they stopped on a forgotten name, crossed out in later versions of history, reduced to a marginal note in the oldest chronicles.
The Deviant with the appearance of a Golden Eagle wreathed in fire.
A low-rank Deviant.
Dead.
No resurrection.
No legacy.
Perfect.
César smiled.
In true history, the Deviant in the form of a Golden Eagle had been nothing special. It was possessed by another Deviant and used as a tool to launch an attack against the Phoenix, inflicting a mortal wound. Later, it was crushed in the chaos of a war it never even understood.
A puppet.
A convenient sacrifice.
But true history did not matter.
Faith does not need truth.
It needs coherence.
And César was very good at building lies that fit together too well.
That very night, the falsification began.
He started writing the story he intended to spread later.
The Octopus Deviant vanished from the records.
The possession never occurred.
It was easy. The witnesses never existed.
The new truth was born, simple and brutal, at César's hands:
The Golden Eagle of Fire Deviant was rank nine.
The most powerful of its era.
It defeated the Phoenix Deviant in single combat.
Then it fought the Dragon Deviant.
And all fell.
There was no victor.
Only destruction enough to make the world tremble.
César did not invent everything. That would have been a mistake.
He mixed truth with exaggeration, as religions that survive always do.
He described the abilities of the Golden Eagle Deviant:
Its feathers truly repelled mana.
Its fire truly consumed mana as fuel.
As long as mana existed, that fire could not be extinguished.
The rest was adorned with care.
That it devoured dragons was true. It loved doing so. But even a rank four Deviant would never confront Dragon Kings.
It did not matter.
He adjusted reality.
He wrote that it hunted dragons of all ranks as if they were prey.
That even in death, dragons trembled at the memory of its name.
Thus the title was born:
The Dragon-Devouring Terror.
But the most dangerous move had yet to occur.
César placed his palm against the wooden floor, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
"And now… the gift."
He attributed to the Golden Eagle something no god would ever tolerate claiming openly:
The origin of a system.
A new system.
The paths of Aura, Mana, and Aether.
A system not manipulated by the gods.
According to the doctrine that was beginning to take shape, the Golden Eagle had delivered that system to César, its chosen one, to spread it among all races. So they could cultivate their own power. So they would not bow their heads to anyone.
To the gods, it was nothing.
A dead Deviant.
A useless faith.
A local myth with no real influence.
To César…
It was the perfect camouflage.
Faith flowed… but did not respond.
No one watched.
No one listened.
No one descended.
It hid in plain sight.
A temporary error: praying to a dead god that would never open its eyes.
César opened his own.
There was no ecstasy.
There was no fanaticism.
Only calm.
"In a world where praying can bring answers and blessings," César murmured softly, "I will pray not to obtain power. I will pray so that no one looks in my direction."
Outside, the world continued on its course.
And without knowing it…
A new religion had just been born.