Chapter 25: The Long Road
—Ogres don't eat people, and they mock those magical beasts that do?
"Year 834 of the Falling Stars."
Hearing the other's words, Joshua's expression turned somewhat subtle. He answered the question concisely, then after a moment's thought, the warrior added, "It's been about a thousand years since the Era of Radiance. Since there's a period of at least three hundred years of lost history in between, it's impossible to estimate the exact duration."
"Falling Stars, huh. They named the new era that. So it's already been that long... But regardless, a thousand years later, civilization still endures. We succeeded."
Upon hearing Joshua's answer, the two-headed giant showed surprisingly little reaction. He merely sighed faintly with emotion, then stepped out of the white crystal barrier.
The two-headed giant's body was massive and robust; even a dragon might not have such solid muscles. As he strode forward, visible tremors shook the entire underground chamber. Yet a body like this passed through the white crystal barrier, said to block all filth, like a phantom, emerging into the underground laboratory.
—Just a phantom, but extremely real, even to the point of being indistinguishable from the real thing.
Joshua quickly understood that the God of Despair and Fortune before him, who had fully regained consciousness, was still merely a phantom within the Divine Calamity Mist, a fragment etched into a fallen deity's imprint. The missing head was likely the wound that caused his fall.
But even if the other was a phantom, it was still the shadow of a deity. If not for the war against the Abyss and the Evil Gods a thousand years ago, he would never have fallen.
"Can't compare to those mages in the Sky City... Actually, far from it."
Touching the various equipment in the laboratory with his enormous hand, the two-headed giant murmured in a rough, deep voice, "But interestingly, these formations have traces of Elven arcane arts and Dwarf rune structures. It seems civilization has merged after the calamity."
"Reassuring. The world has regressed, yet it has embarked on a new path."
Muttering softly to himself, the giant turned his head, looking at Joshua, and spoke in a low voice, "Perhaps humanity has long forgotten my name..." The two-headed giant shook his head with some self-mockery and a hint of carefreeness. "The name of a fallen deity has no meaning, but you still need a name to address me."
"I am a wanderer in the wilderness, a witness to despair and fortune, the sovereign and protector of the Ogre. Human, you may call me Ogana."
By the time he said this, the voice of the deity named Ogana had grown somewhat ethereal. He fixed his dark-golden eyes on Joshua. "Human, your body carries the soul of the Forest and the aura of the Sage... You might be an inheritor of one of them. Can you tell me their fates? And what of my people, whom you call ogres? Have they degenerated to this state after losing their civilization?"
To recondense consciousness from the shattered divinity of the Divine Calamity Mist—such luck was nothing short of a miracle. The God of Despair and Fortune, who had achieved this miracle, seemed to have many questions to ask. Even though he was now just a phantom, his curiosity had not been extinguished.
Joshua wasn't entirely clear on the current situation either, but without a doubt, this deity calling himself Ogana harbored no malice toward anything around him. Even the black mist that had threatened the mages' lives had dissipated. So chatting with him wouldn't hurt.
"I don't know much about the Sage. In fact, the vast majority of people in this world don't even know that name. Only a few are aware of his existence. But the Father of Nature..."
After thinking for a moment, he slowly recounted everything he knew about the Father of Nature. Compared to the Sage, of whom only fragments of words and memories remained, the warrior had personally encountered the Father of Nature, so he had more to say.
"...As for your race..."
At this point, Joshua frowned, struggling to find the right words. But since the warrior was truly terrible at hiding things, his thoughts were so obvious they were practically written on his face. So even before he spoke, Ogana already knew the fate of his race.
"I should have guessed... The sacrificial box containing fragments of my divinity was placed in a human mage's laboratory. None of you carry even a trace of Ogre aura, proving this wasn't obtained by killing my people."
Without commenting on the Father of Nature fleeing the Mycroft World, the two-headed giant calmly analyzed the fate of his race, as if the beings he spoke of were not his own people. "They must have perished long ago. Indeed, under such a calamity, those who were poor at banding together couldn't possibly have survived."
Though he hid it well, Joshua could still detect a trace of sorrow beneath the calm. He couldn't help but ask curiously, "Forgive me, but I originally thought you were an evil god. After all, the mist released from the box was highly corrosive—hardly something a calm and wise being like you would produce."
He didn't seem worried that Ogana would be angered by this. The aged two-headed giant indeed possessed extraordinary calm and wisdom. At Joshua's question, he thought for a moment before slowly offering his guessed answer: "Perhaps they performed a blood sacrifice for me."
"Those little ones probably wanted to resurrect me, so they tried every method they could."
Ogana's tone was even. He looked at his own body, then said in his rough voice, "That's likely the origin of the name 'ogre' you mentioned. The resentment of lives killed in the blood sacrifice clung to this box, eventually brewing into such an accident. Coupled with my divine domain of despair, I'm not exactly a benevolent existence either."
Just by appearance alone, he certainly didn't look like a benevolent being. Joshua admitted that his first impression of Ogana hadn't been favorable, but subsequent actions proved that this aged two-headed giant was far wiser than most seemingly intelligent humans.
Silence fell in the laboratory. Ogana browsed through the materials in the lab, even glancing briefly at the seven mages trapped in dreams, then shook his head in disappointment. "Except for one who's decent, the rest are all unqualified. Are mages' minds so fragile these days? In my era, they might have wet their pants just seeing a demon."
"What exactly happened a thousand years ago..."
Hearing this, Joshua couldn't help but frown, murmuring to himself, "The Father of Nature didn't fight to the end. He took the other elves and left for another world midway. How did the Sage and the other deities ultimately defeat the Abyss Demons and the Chaos Evil Gods?"
"A thousand years ago? That was truly an age of despair."
Stopping his exploration, Ogana turned his head and repeated Joshua's question. He shook his head in reply. "Though he didn't fight to the end, the Father of Nature didn't lie to you. Everything he said was true."
As he spoke, the two-headed giant's gaze grew somewhat distant. His dark-golden eyes flickered, and even the phantom of his second head swayed slightly, as if recalling memories.
"Once, this world was so prosperous and thriving. Countless races and nations jointly explored the void and worlds within the multiverse. Even my dull-witted kin, under the leadership of two-headed wise men like me, possessed a civilization worth boasting about."
Recalling softly, Ogana let out a slow sigh. At this moment, the God of Despair and Fortune seemed devoid of divine majesty. He said self-deprecatingly, "So we grew arrogant."
"Arrogance indeed destroys all glory. The space-time passage created by the union of races connected to the Abyss. Evil from the primordial ages and chaos from the void surged in because of it. In an instant, the prosperous world teetered on the brink of destruction."
"As the world's guardians and witnesses of civilization, the deities naturally had to step forward to oppose them. Under the Sage's leadership, we fought the primordial evils in the Abyss for several years. Countless deities and demigods fell and perished during that time, myself among them."
"To disappoint you, I may have died even earlier than the Father of Nature fled. I'm not very clear on the final outcome of the battle either."
After saying this, Ogana couldn't help but find it strange. "Have you lost the history of the previous era? Did not a single deity survive? Since we ultimately won, there must have been deities who lived. They wouldn't have let civilization forget the painful lesson."
"And even if the Earth God and the Sovereign of the Sky fell, even if the Ocean Incarnate and the Protector of All Life perished, the Sage could never have died. His power transcends that of deities, reaching the realm of existence. He is an immortal sage, capable of surviving alone even if the world is destroyed."
"...But the fact is, no deity from the previous era survived. All races, including humanity, rebuilt their civilizations from scratch."
After a moment of silence, Joshua replied in a deep voice, his expression serious, because the two-headed giant's words had also reminded him.
If the Mycroft World had won in the previous era, then some immortal deities should have survived. But the current reality was that all deities, including the Seven Gods of Humanity, were born only after the three hundred years of loss. The Sage's existence had been a mystery from the start—no one knew where he had gone, or whether he had fallen or still lived.
And the deities Ogana mentioned had indeed fallen. The Divine Calamity Mist of the Earth God, the Divine Calamity Mist of the Sovereign of the Sky, the Divine Calamity Mist of the Ocean Incarnate... The imprints left by these fallen deities lay in the Boundless Heaven, waiting to appear in this world when the Great Magic Tide descended in the future.
The three hundred years of loss held all the mysteries. The disappearance of the deities, the traces of the Sage—too much history was lost. Even in his past life, no one knew the secrets within. The second invasion of the Abyss had burned countless ancient texts in hellfire, and ruins preserved for a thousand years were trampled by demon hooves, creating an even greater historical fault line.
At this moment, Ogana's form grew somewhat more ethereal.
Both Joshua and he himself noticed this.
The God of Despair and Fortune had long since fallen. What existed now was merely a divine avatar placed within the sacrificial box, manifesting in the world through extraordinary, miraculous luck. And now, this brief miracle was coming to an end.
"Satisfied. Awakening one last time, learning the result of the war—my sacrifice was not in vain. The sacrifices of my people and friends were not in vain."
He smiled. The wrinkles on the aged two-headed giant's face deepened, forming a contented expression. "I fell in despair, yet never expected to be so fortunate as to reappear in the world and learn the outcome of everything."
Without minding his gradually fading form, Ogana looked down at Joshua and spoke in his rough, deep voice, as if to himself: "What lies beyond that mountain? What lies beyond that sea? What lies beyond that star?"
"—Life is born into this world precisely to understand these things."
"Humans are like this, and so are we. If it were to happen again, I think anyone, even the Sage himself, would open the space-time gate once more."
The ethereal deity seemed to be speaking not to the warrior, but to himself. "Exploring the unknown is precisely our reason and motivation for existence. Even if endless chaos blocks the way ahead, we will raise the torch of civilization and march forward in the darkness. On the long road, someone will always make it through."
After this reflection, Ogana's dark-golden eyes shone with unprecedented brightness. At this moment, he radiated the majesty of a true deity, inspiring awe that made one want to prostrate in worship. Though the two-headed giant's towering form grew increasingly ethereal, a glimmer of brilliant light flowed across his blue skin. He spoke in a tone tinged with echo, as if both heads were speaking simultaneously: "My time is short, young and fortunate warrior. I can see you have many questions to ask. Your curiosity is burning."
"Do not suppress this desire. I am a being who has already passed. The dead do not obstruct the path of the living. As long as I know, I will answer this question for you."
To this, Joshua fell silent.
He had been silent more times today than in the past month combined.
Ogana waited calmly, waiting for the warrior to think. He was already dead, caring nothing for the affairs of the present world. The young human before him had once met the Father of Nature, bore the aura of the Sage, and had stood before him by luck at the moment of his awakening. Perhaps this meant some kind of fate.
The Ogre race believed in fate—that everything was already destined. And what life could do was to seek its own fortune amidst despair, just as he had done.
"I want to know..."
After a period of thought that was both brief and long, Joshua spoke. His brow was furrowed, as if in serious contemplation, with some hesitation. "I want to know... something about deities."
How to become a deity? That was normal. Anyone pursuing power would ask this question. The warrior's question did not surprise Ogana. He already had an answer prepared in his mind, waiting for Joshua to fully voice his question.
"I've wanted to know this for a long time. I've held it in for nearly ten years."
And the warrior didn't hesitate long. Frowning, he asked bluntly, "Why do so many deities have opposing divine domains? Aren't they afraid of developing a split personality?"
Ogana: "What did you say?"