Divine Chapter 5 (Patreon)

You know when I thought about being some kind of divine figure bringing light upon this world and enjoying the rise in power as the divine figures within myself in turn grew in power. I didn't stop to think that even in this mostly medieval world just how fucking stupid some people were and how they would plead for miracles to unfuck themselves.

Some dingus decided that climbing a tree to get a beehive full of honey and obviously got stung by said bees that didn't take kindly to some idiot trying to pry their hive out of a tree which led to said idiot falling out of the tree and snapping his legs and arms just before the harvest season? Yeah, thirty devout prayers from that dumbass.

Another retard decided that making a boomerang out of harvest scythes was a perfect idea to try to kill the squirrels stealing his chicken's feed... Admittedly I was impressed on how the boomerang actually worked and came back to the dude. Still the very sharp boomerang of death did cut off the thumb and pointer finger off the dumbass.

And the pinnacle of idiots of the week was a woman who decided that trying to use her butter churner handle as a martial aid was a wonderful idea but didn't actually take the handle out of the bucket and instead when she mounted it, she slipped on the 'butter' smooth surface and was thus impaled on the handle so she needed to be rushed to my church by her fucking husband in the middle of the night as she was suffering a great amount of internal bleeding.

"Jake... Your eye is twitching again." Alpha enlightened me ever so kindly.

"Hey Alpha... Your boobs are smaller than Beta's." I retorted and she choked as she literally no answer to that.

Our merry little trio of Alpha, Beta, and myself were sharing breakfast before we set out to do out individual tasks in which Alpha typically scouted the surrounding area's and picked up magical knowledge somehow, I don't know. While Beta helped me keep track of the growing flock of helpless sheep that came to my church every day when they did something stupid.

Occasionally after the last week or so we would get more important visitors like Claire but for the most part it's just been idiots wanting their bodies fixed after some farm accident rather than paying for some outrageously expensive potion or something.

"It's been more than a couple weeks since you have setup the church Jake, and you were right about people spreading the tales of it far and wide as supposedly spellknights from the capital have made their way here to the township. And my contacts in town said they been talking to Lady Kageno." Alpha enlightened me and I nodded as I ate my egg and toast breakfast.

"Do you think that members of the Cult of Diabolos will be part of or make up the entirety of the expedition? As we decimated their last outpost out here and thus, they may be here to check up on that group." Alpha continued.

I then took a drink before I folded my arms across my chest. "In that case I have some options. One I fill the old base with toxic gases so should they enter it without letting it air out for several hours they will die from the exposure. Though that could compromise the base from our own use later on. Or... We just ask them directly when they come here later on today as Lady Kageno will no doubt talk about my actions if they haven't already heard more than enough from the towns people to stop ignoring it off hand as some kind of sham." I spoke aloud my thoughts making Alpha hold her hand to her chin.

"Uhm wouldn't it be better to force a confrontation either here or directly at the town so the towns people will see the Cult members attack us for no reason?" Beta shyly offered and I raised an eyebrow as her more confrontation option did have its merits.

It's not like my church actually gave me enhanced powers or anything.

I looked to Alpha and she herself looked to be rather interested in the latter option as well, so I shrugged. "Well in that case lets go provide some at home miracles... If they are Cult members, I will be able to sense their corrupt power boosting pills remember." I said with Alpha nodding and then she stood up.

"Very well, while you and Beta finish breakfast I will ready the horses so hurry up." The blond elf said as she stood up and powerwalked out of the side sitting room into the main church to head to the exit while I quickly finished out food to join her while Beta was going to stay at the church as she had no methods of fighting yet.

-

Once we arrived in the town, we were welcomed very respectfully with most of the civilians giving a nobles bow where they placed their hands on their hearts and bowed to us. It's hard not to respect the young man who magically reconnects your fingers is the local consensus basically.

But not all things were pleasant as more than a few people gave us dirty looks, calling me especially an Apostle for evil devil gods and that I was here to turn the good honest people away from their humble lives or otherwise away from Beatrix the widely accept goddess of this world.

But I just ignored that quiet minority as I kept the horse carrying me and Alpha going at a good trot towards the Kageno household.

Once we arrived at the Kageno household I noticed a couple dozen new horses so I figured that they must belong to the Spellknights that have come to visit.

"Ah Sire, you have returned." A maid said as our horses trotted into the estate.

"Yes, I have returned to speak with Lady Kageno as well as her guests as well." I replied gently but that genial smile I wore was plastic and Alpha could feel my body tense as she rode behind me.

"I can smell the demon possession curse... Either there is a person here with it, or they are carrying the pills I spoke about." I whispered with Alpha squeezing my sides in understanding as I brought the horse up to the front of the property so a servant could take it.

"Master Barris, Lady Kageno has said that you were to be brought to her as soon as possibly should you visit, would you care to meet with the Lady now, or would and the deaconess prefer to refresh yourself?" Another maid asked respectfully and in response I shook my head.

"No, I would appreciate it, if you would lead me and my friend to your Lady and her guests, we have business with them you see." I said in a friendly manner while I could feel Alpha rolling her eyes at how friendly we would treat any cult members.

Soon enough the maid led us to the Kageno family's meeting room and as we entered, I saw a half dozen knights sitting across from Lady Kageno and at the sight of me, all the knights tensed and the sight of that made me smile.

"Why hello spellknights of Midgar, I imagine your party is here for my humble self?" I asked genially but my words were clothed in steel as my gaze weighed on them.

"Ah you are back sir. I hope the road treated you well?" Okun began and I looked to her and sent a more natural smile her direction.

"Ah it was most pleasant, though I did hear some ill tidings and rushed to confirm." At her blink of confusion, I continued to speak. "Yes well I heard a most dastardly group of people have come to visit... An actual group of evil people that goes by the name of the Cult of Diabolos, ever heard of it?" I asked the knights.

In response one of the knights drew his sword at his side as he dashed to cut me in twain without another word but with flex of my will a spear of light appeared inside my hand and with a dash to meet the man, I impaled the man that didn't expect a three-meter-long spear to appear out of nowhere. The man then collapsed to the ground with a glowing slit in his chest as I made sure to leave a potent divine signature in his wound.

"Delvin! You bastard I am Urhk!" Unfortunately, as another knight stood up to do something stupid Alpha had taken the moment to merge with the shadows using her mist cloak and by the time all the knights go over their compatriots, he got his throat slit and a dagger slammed through his arm pit and into her heart, so Alpha didn't need to go through the armor.

"You gentlemen will sit back down now." I ordered as I spawned spears of light so surround Okun to protect her as I saw another knight glance at her. "In either case this is a wonderful first meeting with the Cult of Diabolos... Because it doesn't matter what you all do." I said grinning.

"Whether any extra cult members in your party kill all the nonmembers and spin some story about how I killed all your fellow knights to fuel my gods as some kind of evil sacrifice and you barely survived blah blah blah." I spoke and I eyed the knight who chewed on his cheek as I seemed to guess his plan. "Because it doesn't matter. Either way the Capitals attention will be on me and that's what I desire as my gods stand beside me. No spellknight is my equal nor an army of them!" I all but shouted as golden light encircled my form before I looked back down to the knights.

"So, go on home little spellknights, I the Apostle of the Gaia Pantheon walk in divine light and the Cult of Diabolos is not a threat to me though if the royal family would care to send a messenger to speak with me so I can start paying taxes like any reasonable person and organization I would be most glad to support this new homeland of my religion." I finished with genial smile even as two men bled out on the carpets of the room.

"Oh, and go ahead and take your friends bodies with you. If you care to be on my side or even be impartial you can tell the leaders of the land about the cursed pills within their grasp that will mutate them into monsters with the early stages of Demon Possession and greatly increase their magical power... Now leave Lady Kageno's home lest I remove your limbs, tie your forms to your horses and see if they are intelligent to return you to the local train station." I said coldly with my smile dying and the knights gulping in fear as they saw my threat as not just a verbal promise but a statement of fact.

-

After escorting the leftover knights from the premise, Alpha nudged me softly. "Why didn't we just kill them all... It's going to make issues."

I shook my head and surprisingly it was Okun who spoke. "He is trying to bait this Cult into overextending and revealing its larger hands as the person who will cover up this incident if that's done will need to be higher up in the circle of Nobility. Right Jake?" She spoke disapprovingly due to my actions having taken place in the center of her own territory.

"Okun don't forget that the Cult is responsible for Clair's demon possession so they can harvest people to make these pills." I said rattling around the clear medicine bottle filled with a couple dozen red tablets and in turn her face twisted as her hate for the cause of Claire's suffering warred within her mind before she took a deep breath.

"But still... You left loose ends, if you want the Royal Family to make a move or even just to meet them, you should have just gone to the Capital as I am sure they probably heard about you at this point." At her words I shrugged.

"Thats a fair point but I am an emissary of gods, I go where I please and paying some lip service with some transmuted gold is as far as I plan to go with the Royal Family." I said proudly making Okun facepalm and look at me in exasperation. "Either way I dealt with the members of the Cult so be careful I am heading back home and send over Claire. I get bored when she isn't always asking me to spar with her." I finished as I turned on my heel and walked towards the stall holding our horse with Alpha following behind me dutifully.

While we were riding our horse back to the church, I realized the surrounding forest was far too quiet than normal and after a moment of realization I knew a predator was in the vicinity as the horse was acting super skittish as we trotted down the road.

"Alpha be ready if the horse bucks." I warned her she hummed in acknowledgement with her arms tightening around my chest.

Although I hope it not to be the case, I was right as a lesser magical beast came tearing staggering our of the forest like its werewolf form suggested a wolf would charge but in response to the charging beast slathering for our flesh and the horse we rode atop, it was greeted with a hailstorm of small light blades I sent at it.

The bipedal wolf like creature was immediately caught and shredded by the hailstorm of magical blades that surrounded us that expanded to tear into the surrounding forests in case there was any more but after not hearing anything like yelps or cries I stopped pushing my magic into the light manifestation ability.

"Just a straggler from the packs up in the magical forest." I said as I dismissed it but I still wondered if it was just an oddity or if something else was happening in the depths in the mega forest that separated most of the nations of the world.

"I will scout out the forest for the next couple days as its going to take a couple days if not a whole week before the Cult or the people in the Capital will do anything." Alpha spoke as even she saw how the normally pack oriented Lycan was out of its place out of the depths of the forest.

"Hmm be careful as the forest is full of monsters.  I am going to see if I can work out how my abilities work and see if I can make a contract with some other gods." I said wondering if I could actually encourage that occasion by following events that were similar in domain to the god or goddess in question.

Like if I were to start a farm. Could I get Demeter inside my soul, or should I force some magic in my magic circuits could I come up with some half-baked spell that could get another magic god like Thoth or even some of the Norse gods who were magically aligned.

That last thought actually struck my head like a hammer though, I actually fucking knew some Norse Futhark Runes from my old life when I was dating this kind of cooky Norse fangirl that got way into Thor in Marvel movies and thought that's what Thor in the myths was actually like and would go around wearing clothes and had bracelets made with runes engraved or printed on it.

And I will always remember how she had two runes for the concept of 'Fire' on her chest and another set of runes that meant 'Ice' on her favorite pair of her jeans that she embroidered herself.

"Take your magic experiments carefully. Beta can watch over you if you do something wrong but..." She led off and I knew what she meant. Beta was a sweetheart, but she didn't have a heart for combat, nor did I have the interest in pushing her to that sort of life as she froze up at the sight of blood being spilt.

A few minutes later we got back home with Alpha putting away the horse as I went to go check up on Beta.

"Oh, there you are Beta." I said seeing her reading some books that we got from town. 'Actually, should I tell her about some stories from Earth so she can copy and sell them here in this world?' I thought before I bent over to see what book she was reading only for my eyes to twitch as it was some kind of saucy romantic novel that Beta quickly tried to hide from me.

"No! Now you think I am some kind of pervert!" Beta cried and then I had to spend the next while making sure Beta didn't throw herself out of the bell tower of the church before I could get to my magical experiments.

-

"The tracks from the Lycan aren't heading towards the depths of the forest though?" Alpha muttered as she began following the tracks of the Lycan, Jake killed earlier.

Alpha was becoming an accomplished hunter and tracker through sheer necessity due to Jake and Beta not exactly being a footwork type of agent, well Beta was good at information gather as she could play the helpless maiden better than anyone Alpha had seen in her life. But Jake...

Alpha's face turned up into a wry smile as although she swore herself to Jake who was beholden to his nebulous gods, she wasn't blind to how Jake wasn't a seeker of combat though woe be to anyone who thought him to be an easy mark when he can punch a horse's head off without even using magic to enhance his body to say nothing of his newer blessing from Baldur the God of Light.

"Hopefully he gets a blessing from a god or goddess of the hunt... I would like some help and I don't want Beta to get ahead of me. Her cute act won't fool me. I hear her talking in her sleep and I know damned well those dreams weren't nightmares you hussy." Alpha cursed under her breath as she carefully walked through the magic filled forest that was shaded due to the thick foliage blocking the sun above but thankfully that prevented a lot of bushes from stopping her path or diverging her tracking.

Another hour of tirelessly marching through the forest and only stopping to deal with any wildlife that thought her petite elven form would make a quick meal, she finally noticed that the previous tracks had ended in a large clearing that had several destroyed caravans from the nearby road that would lead to the Orianna Kingdom if someone followed it for a week on carriage.

"Wait..." Alpha muttered as she took in the carriages and noticed they bore pelts and other decorations people from the Beastkin nations to the East would use to distinguish their clans. "Cat beastkin?" She muttered as she looked around and within one of the carriages, she saw the corpse of a couple cat beastkin that were clearly killed by blade work and not the fangs and claws of the beasts that had clearly looted the bodies that used to litter the surrounding clearing.

"But these tracks head back to the church?" Alpha muttered as she followed what looked to be human/beastkin tracks that went honestly adjacent to the Lycan tracks she followed previously, and her eyes twitched as she realized that someone or something was heading back to Jake's church if that single Lycan was anything to go by that followed whoever slaughtered the Golden Panther Beastkin tribe here.

Once Alpha checked the site to get any clues of what else may happen she swiftly turned back to return back home to the church with hope in her chest that nothing too drastic had happened.

But as she crested over a large hill a massive pillar of golden light shot into the air like a divine signal that clearly said. 'No something most assuredly happened'.

-

While I was relaxing in the amphitheater of the church I went to inhale after a relaxed exhale while I was reading some of the local books while waiting for Beta to get started on dinner for later tonight. But as I went to inhale, I froze as my nose twitched at the foul scent of corruption and I realized either the Cult of Diabolos is making their news entirely way too soon to be real, or someone was bringing someone cursed by the Demon Possession.

So, I sent strings of light to the door and with a loud grinding noise the heavy, heavily engraved and jewel studded doors opened up. The first thing I saw as the doors opened up was the pitiful sight of a young girl staggering up the steps of the church with her upper body being the trademark cancerous piles flesh that was making her body partially stagger at its weight on her human legs that could barely support herself.

That and the bleeding wounds that crisscrossed her flesh was also not helping I noticed frowning as I realized those wounds were made by the common European long swords that were so favored in this world.

"Welcome to the house of gods, lost lamb." I said as I approached her and she looked at me wearily in response unable to speak due to her face being a complete wreck.

"Have you come hearing the good word of how I can cure you of the Demon Possession?" I asked and she froze before shaking her body but as she went to emote more, I raised my hand and with a loud clattering noise several swords slash's enhanced with magic almost shattered the wall of light I put in front of the church.

"This is the house of Gods, wolves of evil... Begone from whence you came, or I shall strike you down from where you stand!" I spoke imperiously with large X's of light forming around me and begun spinning in the air loudly as the air shrieked at the high-speed movement.

"House of Gaia... Release the Demon Possessed to us or we shall paint this pretty church with your blood." I looked over to where the male voice was coming from and saw he was completely encased in a thick dark robe that hid everything from his hands to his feet while he was also wearing a white cloth covering over his face so I literally couldn't see anything that could identify him.

"Do you want to go with those scary gentlemen wearing masks, that probably will do something terrible or even perverted to a little girl like you?" I asked the Demon Possessed girl rhetorically and she ferociously shook her form in as firm of a denial as possible.

"Whelp sorry little masked people she doesn't want to go with you..." Then my voice deepened as I filled my hands with my light lance. "So, get the hell out or I will water the flowers of this church with your blood and use your flesh to feed the towns pigs. This is a hearth and home to the weary, no evil shall touch those within while I still breath" I snarled as I spun the spear in my hands, while I was walking towards them.

The group of a dozen or so Cult of Diabolos members fanned out as I walked out of the church but closed the door behind me so they couldn't take the girl hostage or anything.

"Men! He is a wielder of otherworldly magic, use your booster pills and the Cult will fix you I promise you!" The leader roared as he swallowed his whole bottle of pills and his fellow compatriots after only a second of hesitation did the same.

Then they roared as they were coated in black and red lightning like demonic magic as their flesh torn and rejoined as their forms grew monstrously.