History is a farce. It is a weapon to be wielded as we wish it to be wielded. Am I supposed to ridicule Maisara’s claims against Elassa being a tyrant and monopolizing magic for her own gain? Maisara’s point falls flat on its face when once considers that the reason mages were expelled from their host nations was because of the grand power they wielded. Likewise, one cannot look at Elassa and pretend that Maisara’s critiques do not hold true. The Goddess of Order does indeed make a point: Elassa has managed to create an effective monopoly on all magic. Indeed, Maisara is correct, the only reason we do not have massed armies of magicians mobilizing, as happened in the Great War, is because of Elassa’s own ineptitude and lackadaisical approach to rulership. Yet then Elassa’s counterargument does ring true as well. No nation wanted magicians, they were expelled for Worldbreaking. Elassa’s monopoly on magic was not a cause of her greed or ambition, it was akin to a city giving a sole person all its drinking water and then complaining it had grown poorer.

Thus comes the issue: one reality has created two truths. One can either agree with Elassa or with Maisara. Whereas both make logical sense, both are explicitly arguing against the other. To believe one truth is to deny the other.

Whereas many can consider myself moralizing at this point, I am not. This is not a case of myself looking at humanity and declaring how sad it be that two men can look at the exact same reality and still find disagreement. Rather, what I argue for is that the truth simply does not matter. Reality is what we wish it to be. The winner of this disagreement between Maisara and Elassa will not be decided through intelligent debate or any rational discussion. It will be decided through a simple equation: The last Divine standing will declare the other to be wrong. And there will be no one left to raise counterargument.

In this way, irrational and insane Truth is much the same as Love. It does not matter to a noblewoman whether the stableboy reeks of horse manure or has filth on his boots, all it matters is that her heart flutters when her eyes set upon him. Likewise the boy gazing upon the forbidden figure of a woman is not there to make rational decisions. He follows his own will, that is all that needs to be said.

Ultimately, as proved in truth and in love, reality is malleable. At the end of the day, the true difficulty in creating propaganda is not catering the message, it is about finding and exploiting the foundational beliefs that will resonate. Those foundational beliefs are worthless to some extent, they can be twisted into anything.

– Excerpt from “Instructions to Publicity”, written by Goddess Helenna, of Love.

Iniri angrily cursed the fact she had been resigned to logistics. There had been a time in the past when she thought the White Pantheon had cursed her to logistic duty and nothing else. She was not ashamed to admit that she was wrong. White Pantheon logistic duty had been a rewarding breeze compared. She remembered all those hungry eyes staring up at her as she was dropped into a city under siege. She remembered mothers bursting out in tears as they carried back ambrosia full of endless bounty for their starving children. She remembered fathers falling to their knees and beg for the sake of begging, even after they had been given the food she could grow. She remembered the eyes of skeletal children light up as Iniri came forth with apple and apricot and ambrosia.

And now Iniri looked upon the engineers that were scratching their measly heads as they looked upon a tractor needed clearing. It wasn’t even a train crash, no one had been injured, nothing terrible had happened. That machine on the rear which nailed pieces of rail into the stone had exploded. Its cylinder was now stuck in the ceiling and the tractor itself was left without rear wheels. The driver at the time had suffered the grand misfortune of being knocked up and down as if he was in a rollercoaster: he did not even have a single bruise on the top of his head.

Iniri waved her hand and the oak she had grown on the stone moved like a bull-whip. It flashed through the air, slammed into the tractor, sent it flying into the wall. The vehicle ignited from something. That only annoyed the Goddess of Nature more. She moved her hand again, this time in a downwards motion. A series of vines with thick leaves enveloped the machine in an airtight barrier. Iniri felt the heat of angry flames on her skin for a few seconds, then the fire went out. “That’s it.” Iniri said. She turned to move away and then supposed she shouldn’t create more work for the sake of sating her own bitterness. Her hand waved upwards, the vines that put out the fires on the tractor moved away. There, now she even went the extra mile for these engineers that were scratching their heads as they thought of what to do with her handiwork.

Iniri turned away, ready to go to the next location Anassa suddenly appeared. These meetings had started to grow old on Iniri. It wasn’t necessarily a case of her disagreeing with Anassa, it was more a case of the fact that the Goddess would appear, she would insult and mock, she would make a statement Iniri already knew the answer to, she would pose as grand and intelligent, and she would be gone.

And yet, even with that annoyance, Iniri found herself appreciative of these moments. It was far better than meetings in the White Pantheon. If for no other reason than for the fact that when Anassa talked, the woman seemed as if she was being honest for no other reason than just sheer narcissism, pride, need to gloat and need to put others down. “What do you want?” Iniri’s voice was a half-growl, half-question.

“Well aren’t you pleasant?” Anassa asked mockingly. “Is it such a shame for me to wish to see my friend?” This had been Anassa’s line of attack the past two days. Iniri didn’t know whether she appreciated or not. Anassa may consider her a friend but the real question was more about what Anassa considered a friend to be. Iniri struggled to believe that the Goddess in red silk, with that pristine hair, with the perfect makeup, looking as if she was a model in an advertisement, knew what a friend was. “What do you think of logistics?” Anassa quickly followed up the first question with a second one.

“I hate it here.” Iniri said. There was no reason to try and lie. Anassa knew her well enough at this point as to know the answer.

“This is why I sent you into logistics.” Anassa said idly. “I appreciate the honestly.” She smiled and changed her tone into the sort of curling deep voice that men liked. “Finally.”

On one hand, Iniri wanted to sound like that. On the other, she did not know a person worse or more annoying than Anassa. Even when Iniri argued in the White Pantheon, it would be a case of offending each other to try and prove a point. Anassa was annoying for the simple sake of being annoying. Iniri didn’t know how to phrase it exactly. “I would rather something else to do.”

Anassa smiled, curled around Iniri like a snake and laughed. “Well is that not funny? I too would rather have different things to do than slaughter demons.” That was the sort of answer Iniri hated, and that was the sort of answer she found herself smiling at. Who else would say something like that? Who else would be that honest? Swap Anassa with Maisara and even she would try and pretend that there was something more she was doing.

“I didn’t mean that.” Iniri said.

“Swell.” Anassa chuckled. She had no watch on her arm, but she roleplayed at having one with a grand, theatric gesture. “I don’t have time for this.”

Iniri chuckled to herself. How smart. “I meant I don’t like it here.”

“You said that at the start.” Anassa said. “If you have nothing interesting to say, then I’ll be going.” Iniri opened her mouth. She had gone through this exact same exercise already. She had remained silent before and Anassa had gone.

“I want to be put off logistics.” Iniri declared, her voice loud and confident and definitive. It was the voice a Goddess of Nature used, not the Goddess of Food & Bounty. And this time, it was herself that said to use it and the little voice within her said to calm down, rather than herself keeping quiet and the little voice telling her to speak up.

Iniri was grand at pulling her own desires out by the roots at this point. She forced that voice away, and, still confident, she stared at Anassa. Crimson eyes met green, Goddess of Sorcery stared at Goddess of Nature for a few moment. And the Goddess of Sorcery finally gave a reaction. Anassa chuckled. “Well aren’t we a little tyrant?” She said with far too much joy and far too much ease.

And Iniri did not bother trying to argue the accusation. Frankly, she knew how Anassa worked. It was terrible, it was predictable, but it was endearing in its own twisted fashion. “Move me from logistics.”

“I’ll think about it.” Anassa said.

“I said move me from logistics!” Iniri declared once again. And this time, that little seedling Anassa had uncovered did not grow, it touched an oak. And it realised that oak was itself. It had always been there.

Anassa chuckled and smiled. “We’re sounding like a Divine now, aren’t we?”

And somehow, Iniri knew that to smile or to accept the compliment would be the wrong move. Maybe she was familiar with Anassa, but… Iniri kept her glare dull and flat. But then it had always been like this, had it not? Did weeds beg for permission to grow? Did vine ask for allowance to slither onto household? Did roots care when they smashed foundation? “Move me from logistics Anassa.”

Anassa smiled with all the pride of a mother seeing their child had gotten into the top university in the country. “Your wish is my command.” And even saying something like that, she still managed to sound regal whilst still being mocking. And then she disappeared for a moment, only reappear an instant later. “But before I forget, you have a letter.” Anassa said. This though was a step too far. Anassa was entirely in her right to be annoying and argumentative and everything else. That sort of thing, Iniri even expected from such high and noble Divinity. But reading her letters? It was such a lack of respect to everyone involved that it made Iniri’s stomach growl and grumble in rage.

And then Iniri stared at her rage in puzzlement. She…

“Why are you receiving my letters?” Iniri asked, her voice low and serious. Anassa smiled, those red eyes shone mockingly at Iniri. She held out one arm into the air as if about to catch something.

“I’m not.” Anassa said. “I’m delivering them.” A sealed envelope suddenly appeared in Anassa’s outstretched hand. It materialized in an instant in a thoroughly unimpressive way. There was no flourish of magic, Anassa’s eyes did not even spark or glue. There was nothing, one instant, her palm had been empty, in the next, it had a letter directed for Iniri.

“Oh.” Iniri realised her mistake. Of course it would be faster for her to receive news like this. “I doubt that.” Iniri didn’t even know why Anassa would spy on her. They were on the same side and Anassa was far closer to Arascus than Iniri was. The Goddess of Nature only replied like that because she was annoyed and she was bitter. Anassa began to chuckle. That chuckle turned into a giggle. That giggle turned into words.

“Trust me Iniri. I am too grand of a Goddess to consider spying on others.” The Goddess of Sorcery burst out in laughter to herself and passed Iniri the note.

Iniri had nothing to reply to Anassa with. There had been a time long ago, before Iniri had joined any Pantheon and before she grew bitter on the idea of politics that she expected this was how Divines acted like. Then she met Divines. And she realised that for every inch they were glorious, they were two inches petty. And for every drop of arrogance they had, there were two drops of some concoction of inferiority complex and self-hatred. Iniri looked up at Anassa. The Goddess stared down at her with that same glare she stared down at humans with. There was…

“I want to tell you something.” Iniri said before broke the seal.

Anassa lifted her arms into the air and spoke in that way she always did. Iniri found herself smiling to how… How despicable Anassa was and yet how much joy the woman actually carried within herself. “And if I deny you?” Anassa declared. “What then? Just speak girl, do not tell me you wish to tell me things. Don’t insult Divinity like that.”

Glorious and magnanimous and just downright unapologetic in her superiority. “I like you.” Iniri said. “I thought I wouldn’t, but I have grown to like you.”

Anassa burst out in laughter. “Well of course you do! I am everything you wish to be.” Iniri smiled to herself. She couldn’t even deny it. She burst out in laughter. What a Goddess. This arrogance was the exact sort of thing everyone in the White Pantheon pretended not to have. Iniri shook her head and opened the letter. Anassa found such amusement in herself that she kept on going. “Who wouldn’t want to be like me? Is there a more divine Divine than me?” And yet the moment Iniri’s eyes caught the first set of letters, her world collapsed and she tuned Anassa’s arrogant speech out. It wasn’t long whatsoever, but it set off so many alarm bells that Iniri didn’t even know which problem came first:

To Iniri.

You are being transferred to my unit. You have three days from the moment you receive this letter. Prepare to represent yourself, Kavaa and Helenna before the High King.

Best regards.

Arascus.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep