Kaden took a heavy sigh of relief once he stepped out of the forest into the edges of the plains. He looked back into the mass of trees and realized this was place where hunters from Dashire rarely came to. Prey was in the forest and the there was very little in this direction anyway. Closest towns and cities were basically opposite direction. There was a large open area from now on and no larger forests until much further, if you traveled closer to wilderness outside of human dominated areas. So unless they ran into larger flying beasts, there probably wouldn’t be any major attacks.

“I have survived this far! Now, if I just make it through whatever military has in store for us...” Kaden thought to himself.

Once everyone were far enough into the plains, Juren commanded everyone to stop. It was also getting a bit late. It wasn’t dark yet, but sun was going down. Surprisingly the beasts had slowed down the march only a by a little bit. It was not as much as expected.

Soon everyone were setting up for good nights rest now that it was possible again.

“Haha, what a good little skirmish!” Juren suddenly shouted loudly for everyone to hear. “Everyone! You are warriors of the great Sacronan Empire! As such, after a good battle, we must show our devotion to the god of war, the great Daminur! Battle is sacred! Blood has been spilled! The sacrament of death!”

Of course lunatic like Captain Juren would be worshipper of Daminur, the god of war.

Soldiers that had followed Juren for a while started setting up the usual sermons related to Daminur’s worship. Luckily some of them quickly informed villagers of Dashire what to do. Juren was a fanatic follower of Daminur and would enrage, if anyone under him did not pray to Daminur after a battle.

While Dashire had all the true gods in their little temple, Daminur was not a god that was worshipped. Doing so would bring about more conflict and village like Dashire did not want such trouble, if they could avoid it.

Not only that, Daminur was one of the three higher gods that humans worshipped. These higher gods were gods that all humans could worship. Not just Sacronan Empire and the gods that church of Sacronan worshipped. The higher gods were worshipped by the other large human empire, Holy Saint Empire, too. They were above all other gods! They were true gods for everyone!

The conflict between the empires and their churches stemmed from differences between ordinary gods. Sacronan Empire served one group of gods and called them true gods and the ones that Holy Saint Empire worshipped were false gods who led people to undesirable path. Then again for Holy Saint Empire had the opposite thoughts of the matter.

There was only one god that was not a higher god, but was accepted by everyone. This god was accepted even by some extremely powerful beasts. This was the god of trade, Stefinos. This god was completely neutral. He did not take part in conflicts between other gods and their servants. There was only trade and everything to do with money, banking, treasures and anything valuable. Temples dedicated to Stefinos were places of trade and his priests were shrewd merchants. No other god, even the higher gods, would forbid worship of Stefanos in their domain. That would cut major and reliable source of goods for their followers and cities and towns would wither and along them, temples and worship.

In fact, the entire matter of war between the two empires and their churches was a chaotic mess. Which god was worshipped where? What of the smaller nations that had their own minor gods that were not alinged with the rest? Were they in conflict of which gods? Or could they be considered neutral for the moment?

Most people would only care about the gods the two empires. These were the most relevant ones. The true number of gods was unknown. Gods were thought the be embodiments of one or more concepts. For example, the war god, Daminur, was called the god of war by humans, but his domain included all sorts of conflicts, not just war. Even act of hunting could be considered “conflict”. Human will have to go out to find another living being, a beast, to get meat to eat. The beast will resist. Thus… conflict.

Higher gods have a vast domain of concepts and only churches could tell to some extent something about it. Daminur could be considered to be ruler of all these concepts. There might be some lesser gods that have something to do with conflict, but Daminur will have the last say in any matters related to conflict.

There are too many different concepts. Each of these concepts can have one or more gods. Some backwater village in some forsaken corner of the world might worship some image of god that one of their ancestors thought up while high on some interesting herbs. Such god would be extremely minor. Perhaps barely existing one, but still technically a god.

Hence, people usually care about the most relevant gods. Yet even among the two main sides still had many gods. People might not know more than the main ones and the ones they care about. Only ones that everyone knows are the three higher gods.

Alesarn, god of rulers. As one might guess from the name, Alesarn is the ruler gods. His domain is power. Emperors, kings and all who desire power often worship Alesarn.

Emmiah, god of life. Emmiah is Alesarn’s wife. All priests pray to Emmiah and many even completely dedicate themselves to Emmiah. From her come the most usual ability to heal and other similar abilities.

Then lastly Daminur, god of war.

Beasts have one higher god, the dragon god, but humans don’t worship this god and humans know very little of him. One could perhaps say his domain is strength.

Technically humas could have fourth higher god, but this one is taboo. The god of lies. His name is unknown. Once found that you worship this god, you are most likely summarily hunted down and executed on the spot.

Human gods came to the world first after the cataclysm so their number is largest. It is believed that the god of lies was the first one and that he had something to do with the cataclysm itself. Who knows, maybe he influenced the ancients somehow and caused the entire catastrophe?

In oldest tomes kept by churches it is described that other gods hunted down god of lies soon after the cataclysm and bound him in terrible chains made from searing steel from hell. After that he was imprisoned at bottom of place known as the Dark Abyss in the hell realm where he would languish alone in darkness for all eternity.

As for the current situation with Juren. The people who worshipped only the higher gods were fanatics and also likely had grand ideas. Perhaps Juren was planning to get blessed by Daminur so that he could become one of Daminur’s war priests? This would definitely increase his status within the military and, through it, in the empire power structure too. Therefore he would have as many people as he could worship Daminur along with him on his orders so he would become the central focus of the worship ritual.

As Kaden followed the instructions he only pretended to pray and said whatever he was required to. Insincere worship was extremely difficult to notice on short term. So Kaden imagined in his mind spitting at Juren’s face instead. As far as he cared, he would give no benefit to Juren willingly.

While pretending to pray, he watched as soldiers cleaned their weapons and armor of any blood as to show they had fought a battle and survived it. Whether one was victor or not was, in fact, irrelevant. Only the battle, conflict, mattered. Juren himself cut his hands and bled some blood while shouting praises for Daminur.

The monk said his prayers too, but Daminur wasn’t the one he was dedicated to. Therefore his prayers were respectful, but that is as far as it went.

“Yes! YES!” Juren shouted in glee and began cutting himself even more. “We have been baptized in battle! Blood! Great Daminur rewards us with strength to do more battle!”

It took still quite some time until Juren finally stopped posturing and shouting praises to Daminur. Eventually he was finished. He then annouced that we would, after rest, be moving to join rest of the army within a week and then, soon after, there would be another, greater battle! He added a few more praises for Daminur for allowing this chance for him.

Finally there was time for a proper rest. No constant threat of beast attacks.

Kaden decided to take time to inspect himself. “My mana storage has progressed slightly again. Presure and heavy use of mana seems to increase progress of mana cultivation immensely. There is still work to be done before I’ll advance to third layer, but at least I’m progressing faster than I thought was possible.”

It was pretty dangerous, though. He survived this part, but what about next? Still had no idea what to do. Likely there was no one who knew. At least no one had tried to escape yet, but it was clear what would happen for it. Death. There was nowhere to run. Between Dashire was the beast filled forest. Surprisingly it was still better idea to stay on their current path.

While Kaden was from Sacronan Empire, he didn’t really care about the conflict between Saint Empire. He was supposed to be an ordinary villager. Now he found himself marching with a lunatic into war. What was even the true reason for this war this time? Did one side get offended by some religious act of the other?

“I want to know what we are supposed to be even doing!” Kaden thought. He could not go ask, but he could listen to the soldiers.

There was very little grumbling about the situation among the soldiers. Kaden figured Juren would not allow his subordinates to have negative ideas about things he made them do. It was pointless effort. Perhaps even the soldiers did not know anything.

Still, Kaden decided he would keep listening when he could spare the concentration for it. He did not do that much in the forest other than to listen for attacks. Now he was at relative safety, out of the forest. Kaden could now concentrate on other matters than keeping his little life.

Kaden looked around him. As he already knew, there had been some losses in the forest, but very few he personally knew had died. Most importantly his parents were still alive and well. They had stayed close to each other the entire time and had helped each other ward off many threats. He hoped there would be a chance to get away. Make new life elsewhere. He prayed to Fualu for a path to safety.

At any rate, the losses had been small enough that once the load of what these people had been carrying was spread among the survivors, it did not cause problems. Some materials had been lost in the forest, though. Juren didn’t seem to care too much. Kaden noted that the things looted from Dashire did not seem to be too important. Otherwise Juren would have been more angry with his hair trigger personality.

It is the people who matter then? Sacronan Empire was in desperate need of reinforcements? Was the war going so bad they needed to concript anyone they could? Kaden didn’t feel any loyalty. Not anymore at least. If he could find a way to save himself and his parents, he would not hesitate.

“Its unlikely I’ll be even able to save myself, but I’ll try to get mother and father with me at least”, Kaden mused to himself as he gathered mana. “There will be fighting. Perhaps in the chaos something can be done. Right now I must survive until such chance comes.”

Kaden was quite aware that such chance appearing was not high.