Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 953: the divine walks the earth

The existence of divine beings had been questioned by humanity for as long as they existed. Even in the tightest religious communities it was impossible to keep the seed of doubt to sprout into questioning and that led to a myriad of studies in search for answers to the most baffling questions.

Do the gods truly exist, if they do what do they look like, what are their powers, what is it that define them as gods and more importantly, what would happen if they were to walk among mortals. Such questions had no answer for millennia and it was mostly to quench the thirst for knowledge or subdue the spark of doubt harbored by the scholars of the time. But now all that and even more was answered as the gods walked inside the megacities as though they owned them. And it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they did as there was no one who could stop them.

The megacity of New Texas underwent yet another crisis, though this one came under the guise of the ’saviors of the world’ that would defeat the evil titan of shadow that wants to swallow the world.

In the old times, the gods had to demand sacrifice and worship, but now they revealed themselves to the public it all poured on them like it was natural. After all, humanity had always sought for something to worship. Be it idols in the hunter gatherer era, priests later on, actors and now hunters, people just needed a vague excuse to place their admiration onto something.

And they couldn’t be blamed, after all, they were designed this way by a higher power. Humanity, just as many sentient species before, had been created with the sole purpose of adoration.

In the grand hall of the Celes tower the gods had chosen as their meeting room, they casually chatted about the results of their takeover as if the cost of lives was nothing but statistics.

"And then I said, if you want to live, then you need to show your worth and the bastard just came at me with all he had!" Ares burst into laughter describing one of the many murders he committed just for the fun of it.

"I mean, it had to take some balls to do that." Aphrodite said, questioning just what kind of person would stand in front of a god and still decide they would rather fight than die like a lamb. The thought of a particular hunter came to mind, but she promptly shook her head as she knew it couldn’t possibly be him.

"It was a spineless bastard let me tell you, I made sure of it." Ares who had been waiting to make that joke, grabbed the man’s spike he had literally taken from the body of the man he killed. frёeweɓηovel_coɱ

"Yeah, yeah, we all get it. You like to bully the weak," Athena butted in with disinterest. "but we need to discuss something important. I’ve found out there’s a large amount of hybrids in the midst of the population."

"Don’t worry about it, I’ve been granting blessings left and right. With my power, cleansing those cryptids will be a chore, nothing more." Ares replied, confident that even if she shared an infinitesimal amount of his power with a hunter they would surely reach their peak.

"That’s the odd thing, they’re not killing each other. It seems they’ve reached an agreement with these... rangers," Athena continued after skimming through a bunch of papers in front of her. "they give their blood in exchange for protection."

Ares scratched his head in confusion, then turned to look at a human that stood by his side and asked with a scowl. "What is she talking about? Explain this."

"Yes! The rangers were the ones tasked with protecting the population in the past, then this city faced extinction and they happened to become something vampires." Mark replied amidst stutters.

"Vampires? Do you think it’s that guy’s work?" Asked Aphrodite.

"No, that’s not likely. It must be a new species." As the goddess of wisdom, Athena had her suspicions but she could not be sure about anything anymore. Of all the cities they could have chosen to take over the megacity of New Texas seemed to be the strangest of them all, yet she knew it wasn’t luck that Zeus commanded them to come to this precise place.

It wasn’t just its strategic location which almost bordered with the shadowlands, but the fact that so many oddities and anomalies seemed to be related with this place. From the destruction of the golden city of Cibola located within the dungeon of the Alamo, to the siege of a titan and increasingly curious events that could not find an explanation despite their godly powers.

All these events seemed to be unrelated, but the cause of all of them had a name and liked to wear a fedora hat. Mark knew this well. He knew that whenever someone’s plans went array or things didn’t add up, it was probably Uriel Sage to blame.

Like the time where he stood against him in front of his friends in the middle of the lost city or when he was defeated even after becoming a vampire. There was just no way to win against him. At first he was annoyed, then triggered, then scared and now, for some strange reason he couldn’t fathom, he felt hopeful.

Mark wasn’t against bullying the weak or profiting from the poor, it was engraved into his teachings from a very young age by his father. Power is power, no matter the shape it took. It could vary from flux energy, to looks, influence and even money, whichever the case, those who had the power were entitled to do whatever they liked.

That was his core belief and it worked for years, but then even when he humiliated Uriel in front of his girlfriend and managed to break them up, things didn’t work as he expected. Tina didn’t run to his arms, but rather became wary of him while still looking for Uriel. Even after getting married she never let him touch her and clarified it was just to merge their families together and gain enough influence to become the city governor.

Now the city was filled with divine beings that wielded the absolute power over their domains. Even the weakest among them was capable of changing reality with but a thought and killing hunters was nothing but a game to them.

He saw Aphrodite, wearing the ever prideful Tina as nothing but a vessel, matching couples left and right for the sake of increasing the population. Forcing people to participate in vile orgies where consent was not even a concept. He witnessed Ares tournaments where those who lost met their end by the hands of reluctant victors who eventually were killed by the god of war himself. Even Athena, whose approach was more cautious than the others, had caused absolute chaos when she declared that all hunters had to disclose their traits and abilities to the Cryptid hunting agency.

If anything, the only ones who didn’t seem as bad were Apollo who just wanted people to listen to his stories, and the god of wine Bacchus who distributed alcohol while quietly drinking on the VIP area of a club.

But there were countless other gods walking among humans, creating all sorts of problems and sending people to their deaths like it was nothing. Stealing their belongings or forcing them to offer tribute arbitrarily in exchange for nothing but the crumbs of their power.

That’s how things looked from Mark’s perspective, but the worst part was that from the outside it looked as the city was thriving. Several monuments were being built, people had jobs, those hunters who never had the chance to become powerful now didn’t have to venture outside to become strong. All they needed to do was bend the knee to one of the many ’generous’ gods and they would become stronger, if they survived that is. But the latter part was kept a secret and all the general population knew were the publicly marketed cases of the few that made it.

The ugly becoming beautiful, the weak becoming stronger, fools becoming wise and so on.

At that moment Mark looked briefly through the window letting the view seep inside his soul as he pondered how did things turn out this way for him. His first instinct was to always blame others, but looking at the foolishness of the people making lines to offer themselves like lambs to sacrifice to the gods he finally understood something.

It was his own weakness, it was his knack for running away from problems rather than facing them and taking the risk. It was him always choosing the safe path, bullying the weak and cowering from the strong. If he hadn’t chosen to bend the knee he would have probably died, but at the time he didn’t know it was the better alternative.

"If only..." Mark heaved a long sigh thinking of what his life could have become had he treated Uriel well from the start. If he stopped being a jerk for just a minute it would have been long enough for Uriel to consider him a life long friend, someone worth saving.

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