Noen and the elf Xilan settled in this horseman tribe.
As evening approached, Noen and Xilan knelt down with their hands pressed together and began to pray calmly.
Their posture in prayer, the expressions on their faces, and the Lord they recited in their prayers all seed strange to Shanon.
"Are you praying? Just like this, with your hands together?"
After they had finished praying, Shanon asked curiously.
Noen lifted his head and asked,
"Isn’t that what you do?"
Shanon laughed heartily, as if he had heard a great joke.
After a mont, he disdainfully said,
"Honor, blood, and heroes,
these are our prayers to Endora!
And all of them should be achieved through war,
you feeble Three-eyed Ape People could certainly not understand our beliefs!"
By the end, envy was apparent in Shanon’s eyes.
Honor, blood, heroes...
Everything was so enthralling to him.
If it were not for his father Hess, whom he both feared and admired, always preventing him from joining the battle,
he would have probably already gone to the walls of Ajia.
Thinking of this, Shanon glanced back at his father, his eyes full of hope.
All along, Hess had been Shanon’s role model, hero, and mainstay,
even though he had grown taller than his father.
But Hess showed no reaction, just as if he hadn’t seen it.
Shanon could only turn back and look at Noen.
Noen looked at him and then said,
"Likewise, you cannot understand our beliefs."
The indifference in Noen’s voice made Shanon feel like he was punching cotton.
Wanting to retort but helplessly unable to, Shanon could only fu, his face flushing red.
Not far away, Shanon’s craftsman father saw Noen and the elf Xilan praying.
Hess watched the two for a long ti.
"Are they... praying to our father?
Do they... understand our father?"
After a long pause, Hess slightly shook his head.
How could these mortals possibly understand our father?
That is an existence even the divine beings of the Country of Divines cannot reach!
Shanon stared at the two.
After a long while, this brash horseman said,
"Well, my eloquence is not as sharp as yours.
Anyway, we Beastn always rely on plain blood and swords,
once I follow our King to breach the walls of Ajia,
after fighting in blood, I will surely destroy your altar!"
Shanon’s voice reached Noen’s ears.
Noen stared into the eyes of the horseman.
Shanon shuddered suddenly.
After a long mont, Noen slowly shifted his gaze away.
He didn’t say a word.
As if Shanon was not worth uttering any words to.
Shanon turned away, realizing he had misspoken.
But he would not bow his proud head before these two, that would be shaful.
...
...
Long into the night, Noen was awakened from his sleep by a banging noise.
Noen stepped out of the horseman’s tent, looking for the source of the sound.
Not far away, under a curved rock wall, a robust horseman was busy by the furnace.
Noen approached closer, recognizing the horseman as Shanon’s father Hess.
"Oh... it’s you, Noen, right?"
Hess swung the copper hamr, striking the searing tal before him,
"Did I wake you up?"
Noen straightforwardly said,
"Yes."
Hess smiled apologetically but did not stop.
"What are you crafting?"
Noen asked.
"Armor, and swords."
Hess’s voice trembled slightly,
"For my son, he wants to go to the battlefield."
Noen detected sadness in Hess’s voice.
"Why don’t you keep him here?"
"Because I can’t keep him here,
my wife and I have always opposed him going to the battlefield.
But he went looking for the Wish Stone to fulfill his wish to go to war."
Hess’s copper hamr never stopped,
"I know he is going to leave ."
Noen watched the copper hamr swinging down repeatedly, the tal clashing again and again, as if trying to shatter a father’s heart.
"May the Lord protect him."
Noen said unwittingly.
"Lord?"
Hess’s copper hamr paused, and he looked up and asked,
"Which God are you talking about?"
"My God, everyone’s God."
Noen replied slowly,
"His spirit, freely given to all life."
"That’s the first ti I’ve heard of it."
Hess responded with slight astonishnt.
While still in the Celestial Kingdom, He had desperately sought the stories about that father.
However, those who knew were few, and after learning of this matter, the Forest God had warned Hiris.
After much contemplation, Hiris had abruptly stopped his search.
Because...
The more he explored, the more he was amazed at the father’s power.
He knew,
He was the source of all Gods, the Supre True God.
But,
In the eyes of the Supre, what exactly are the Gods?
Are they re ants?
Hiris could see, among the divine creators of races in the Celestial Kingdom, many treated their subjects like pleasing ants.
So...
Did the father also see the Gods as ants?
To be toyed with, to be tornted at whim?
Or perhaps...
That great father, supre yet unfeeling.
What if He cared not for anything in this world?
Even the so-called faith and prayers, destruction and hatred... seem absurd in His eyes.
Even if the world were destroyed in an instant, it would only elicit from Him a "What does it have to do with ?"
"Noen... I... have hardly ever seen anyone who worships the Lord."
Hess slowly spoke.
In his heart, as the God of mountains and craftsmanship, he eagerly sought an answer.
The supre and holy creator, was He indifferent to all living beings?
Just like...
The eternal silence and darkness in the Celestial Kingdom.
Apart from despair after praying, He granted no grace.
"Please tell , what kind of God is yours?"
Noen fixed his gaze on Hess.
Noen did not know that this unremarkable centaur was the God of mountains and craftsmanship from the Celestial Kingdom.
The Prophet mistook Him for rely a mortal,
A mortal confused about faith.
"What do you think? Have you heard of Him?"
The Prophet asked guidingly.
"I... I’ve heard people say, you cannot understand Him.
His na is hidden, perhaps because He is not a good God."
Hiris inhaled deeply and spoke hurriedly:
"Not just , many do not understand Him.
In our eyes, He is like a ruthless fate, a cold rule,
Just like... a supre deity who is indifferent, ignoring everything in the world."
"I’ll tell you clearly,"
Noen focused on Hess’s eyes, calmly stating:
"That is not a God,
That is just an eternal windmill, a precise machine,
In short, that is not a God."
Hiris was stunned.
Noen’s face, illuminated by the furnace light, was plain yet solemn, like a Prophet holding the truth.
"So... what kind of God is He?"
Hiris’s copper hamr still struck the heated tal,
Only now, as the God of mountains and craftsmanship, his mind was elsewhere.
"Is He really not a heartless fate, a cold rule?
That is the highest God we can imagine...
That is also... a God that fits our reason."
Hiris asked with trembling voice.
The confusion and pain had always tornted this God of mountains and craftsmanship.
"Hiris, your reason is His gift,"
"The reason of all things is His grace,"
"He endowed the earliest reason to Logos."
Noen’s expression was calm, but his words were soul-stirring,
"Reason is like the surface of the water,"
"However..."
"God moves upon the water."
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