That night, during the communal dinner rituals.
The ritual involved a massive plate made of leaves stitched together being placed in the middle. Around thirty people surrounded the plate and ate simultaneously from the sa plate.
Hundreds of such plates were scattered around the bonfire that burned on oil, with thousands of warriors feasting around.
It wasn’t an ancient ritual, but one that the Decans started once their village was stabilized. They believed that eating from the sa plate not only eliminated the possibility of being poisoned by outsiders but also promoted unity.
The actual reason was that such rituals made it easier for Blaze to infect them and take control over their bodies. Not to ntion, such ’sharing’ rituals also made it easier for people to inherit ’super genes’, as Blaze called them.
However, at the mont, a certain group was embroiled in deep discussions.
"Does it make sense?" Mi’Kai, Xilo’s right-hand man, questioned his elder. "Even if the other tribes and kingdoms were dissatisfied, they must have known better than to instigate us."
Everyone stopped eating, their gazes shifting between Xilo and Mi’Kai. Honestly, everyone else had been thinking the sa.
In over a decade, no one except the Solians had dared to go against them. For them to suddenly join forces, especially when their lord was ’hibernating’, wasn’t sothing they could digest or ignore.
If Deca had been a normal empire, they’d think there were traitors among them who leaked the secret of their lord’s frail condition to the enemies, prompting them to attack Deca.
However, that wasn’t possible as the mont soone even thought of betraying the lord, they would die a horrible death. After all, they all were blindly loyal to their lord, who had absolute control over their minds and bodies.
The only other explanation was that soone had organized everything while staying hidden behind. Soone capable enough to make every tribe and faction put their differences aside and unite under one banner.
However, the theory had an obvious issue.
Even in the Solian Kingdom’s pri, there wasn’t such a figure who could unite everyone like that. For soone like that to erge on the continent after Deca’s rise was impossible.
"It is not soone from here," Xilo mumbled. "No one who knows the might of our lord would dare challenge us."
The tribe had no idea what existed beyond the endless seas.
However, their lord had enlightened them. Sothing could be beyond the seas, maybe another continent? A land similar to theirs, but its people were vastly different from them.
Such a thought seed absurd to them. But their lord had already taught the children about the other continent, supposedly halfway across their planet.
Naturally, Blaze already knew about the continent’s existence as he had already mapped out the entire planet for resources long ago. The only reason he didn’t actively tell the tribesn about it was that he didn’t fear there would be a need for such.
After all, with their current technological limits, it would be impossible for the two antipodal supercontinents to have any interaction with each other. Neither continent’s residents knew enough about sailing to cross even a large lake, let alone an ocean.
But that’s not to say the other party couldn’t get their hands on technology from the heavens, just like the Deca did.
At least that’s what a scientific analysis would say.
But not everything revolved around explainable science.
The Solians’ belief in godhood wasn’t established because of so text found in a random place. They had already contacted these ’gods’ long ago.
Naly, it was a surveyor team of the Collective.
It happened long ago, before they even discovered organic-petroleum of Thanium. Ever since then, a secret group of individuals had been keeping an eye on each of the continents while conversing with one another based on the tech the Collective left behind.
Blaze was unaware of it because, other than the Collective and the two groups, no one knew they even existed. No matter whose mories Blaze claid, he wouldn’t know about them.
And it was that group who had inford the collective about the strange ’godlike’ being protecting the Deca and had set their eyes on leveling the battlefield.
It seed that forming secret cults to abuse one’s powers wasn’t an ideology exclusive to Earthlings.
***
After having their fill and brainstorming ridiculous theories, including, but not limited to, a god’s jealousy, the people imdiately got to work again.
From the distance left between the army outside and the main gates, anyone could infer that the enemies would strike in the dead of night.
Xilo already expected the enemies to take advantage of whatever little advantages they could get.
After all, the Deca of the old was long gone, and everyone feared them now. So much so, the enemies wouldn’t dare to fight them.
Suddenly, the weirdest thought struck Xilo.
They believed their lord controlled everything. If that was the case, then... could it be this battle was also planned by him?
At first, the thought felt absurd, but the more Xilo thought about it, the more sense it made.
For over a decade, their lord had protected and sheltered them. He gave them strength and cultivated them. Naturally, when the crops reach a certain age, they must be harvested.
In their case, the lord perhaps wanted to test them.
He had changed them completely, but what would be the use of all that if the crops were rotten? Moreover, what if there were so weeds mixed with the crops?
"This battle... It’s the lord’s way of weeding out the useless crops!"
Xilo’s eyes widened as if he had had an epiphany. Suddenly, everything made sense to him.
Why the cowards suddenly found the courage to attack them, and why the lord wasn’t taking part in the battle. The answer to every question flooded his mind.
"My lord!" he cried, falling to his knees and looking up at the sky. "Your greatness is imasurable to us mortals!"
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