Chapter 394: Balance of Faith

Early Evening - Late Fall : The Library of Eternity, Atlas | Bahamut

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*Thump* *Thump* *Thump* Walking across the cushioned floor toward the human-sized desk lit by the glow of a single lamp, the air slowly turned stale and a palpable bitterness crept into my mouth.

Although all the texts Hera and I had read up until that point were faintly familiar to my memories as Nott, for the most part, the emotions tied to them were plain indifference. Back then, while I could remember that I didn't agree with his methods, I also didn't particularly care what he did with the dragons.

Of course, that was very different now that I was a dragon myself.

However, as I stared at the book sitting on the desk, the deep-seated disgust I felt wasn't from my current self.

"'A Confession of Faith'..." Speaking coldly as I got closer to the book, I felt Hera's gaze follow mine.

"~What is that supposed to mean..?~" Following me with a darkening expression, she walked up next to me and sat down, waiting for me to open it.

*Vwoom* But as I gripped its leathery mythril cover with my aura and opened it, the air in the room changed...

It brought back memories instantly.

It read:

"August 7th, 1945

How I loath that day... The day my failure resulted in the deaths of countless.. and the day humanity was shown the power of God's greatest creation.

I did everything I could leading up to the moment it was dropped. I tried to do everything I could to keep the deaths of innocents to a minimum.

But everything I did ended in failure.

It wasn't my decision to make, I wanted to find other ways to end humanity's eternal conflict, but the Lord works in mysterious ways... The other angels, and even Michael said it was a necessary expense for the preservation of God's children... But I don't understand...

How can the deaths of so many be rectified? How can such bloodshed be allowed? I don't understand.

Every time I asked the other Archangels, they told me it is the will of God, our Father. But the Father I knew was infinitely just, infinitely wise, and infinitely loving.

So why must so many die? Why must some of his children be sacrificed in order to save others?

Why can't they all be saved?

In search of an answer, I stepped back and tried to watch Father's actions from afar, watching some of my brothers and sisters push forward human technology and infrastructure through the creation and development of even more horrifying weapons, while others began cleaning the many internal struggles that riddled humanity.

Everything was for Earth, and the development of its people. An egg nurturing the children of our Father.

But.. as time passed, I started to see things differently.

Thoughts that my siblings would consider insane flew through my mind at every moment, disagreements with the way the almighty Father handled things that bordered heresy.

And he knew.

As time passed, my brothers and sisters became more distant, I became more detached from Earth, and eventually, I wanted to escape.

I wanted to follow Father's image instead of him, trusting in myself before others.

I believed that I could do a better job.

And that was the day I was expelled from Earth.

January 21st, 1956. The last day I watched the sun set.

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The void is truly a horrifying place. An abyss where souls are sent to be cleansed.

In a matter of moments, memories fade, your ego collapses, and free thought becomes a thing of the past.

With every moment in that place, I could feel my own sense of being become more distant.

However, as my soul was devoured, I bumped into something.

Within the void, there was a string, leading deeper into the void, away from Earth.

Father was going to give me a chance. Rather than sending me to the void to dispose of me, he sent me to the void to find something.

Clinging onto the string, I pulled myself along, using the little divinity I had left to find where the string led.

But it only seemed to get longer as I pulled myself along, until eventually, I reached a small black diamond. An object anchoring the string to a point in space, just like it did Earth.

However, the moment I touched it, the space around me changed. I was instantly removed from the void, only to find myself in a world I didn't recognize, a world with magic where primitive humans lived in the massive ruins of ancient kingdoms, hiding from the countless monsters that dominated the world.

I wasn't alone though. The moment I arrived in that world, I could feel it, the presence of other gods attempting to help the humans grow back what they lost.

They were the Aesir, gods of the Nordic mythos, something I believed was accredited to the minds of humans on Earth, with the likes of gods like Odin and Freya struggling to gather the humans together in order to try and rebuild human society.

However, every time the humans reached a point where technology allowed for the creation of kingdoms, and the management of cities that could stretch to the horizon, the creatures of this world would smite them, flattening their work, destroying their progress, and sending them back to square one.

The Aesir never gave up though. When I appeared, they thought they saw some light at the end of the tunnel, they wanted me to join them in order to nurture humanity.

But I had different ideas. After watching the cycle progress for a couple thousand years, I decided to come at the problem from a different angle. See, it was Father's will for me to help this world find balance, so that's what I hoped to bring.

Looking throughout the world, I wanted the perfect specimen, a creature whose mortal flesh could dominate everything the world had to offer.

And I found that with the dragons.

In the center of the world's southernmost continent, I found the egg of a dragon. 'It must have fallen out of its Mother's grasp while she flew overhead, and was left to be abandoned' is what I thought, and thinking I was the one fated to possess it, I took the body, absorbing the soul meant to possess it in the process.

I was simply following the hand of Father, overcoming constant challenges in order to protect this world.

But it was far from easy.

Feeling things like pain, and negative emotions like anger that angels weren't allowed to feel come back to me, I struggled.

In order to escape the swamp, I had to take the lives of countless creatures. For my own growth, I had to use corpses as my steps.

But I tricked myself it was for the greater good... Exactly as I once criticized Father for doing...

Eventually growing as a dragon, I learned about magic, how it combined with physics, and how to form spells on a scale this world had never seen.

At the bat of an eye, I could turn a desert into a forest, I could bring up magma from the planet's mantle to form mountains, and through my hand, I could gather the dragons, establishing a new culture, language, and home for the betterment of the rest of the world.

With my body, and with my power, I could reign in the dragons, and use them to reign in the other races, giving the humans room to breathe while giving the dragons a chance to focus on their own development.

But.. that seemed to be a very sharp double-edged sword.

The dragons simply had too many advantages. While it made them the most powerful beings in the world, and it made it easy for me to dominate it, it was something that would inevitably cause problems.

So I took it in my own hands to weaken them for the sake of this world's diversity of life.

I redistributed the Draconic Continent's mana wells to help the humans, giving the Aesir's homeland several in hopes that they could close the gap. I also made it so dragons could only have one clutch, I stopped their evolution, and I isolated them to a single continent, setting an array of rules that would preserve human life, while not hurting the dragons themselves. I wanted the gap between humans and dragons to thin, I wanted them to coexist with one another even if I wasn't around to manage it.

But even after all of that, they were still too strong.

A single dragon, barely out of adolescence, could manhandle the top 1% of humans and make it not even seem like a fight, so I took more drastic measures.

I forcefully limited the progression of technology, attempting to keep the dragons fixated on the world of magic rather than science, while injecting that knowledge into humanity.

But the Aesir didn't like that.

Even though I tried to tell them it would help, they refused.

So I did the greatest sin.

I created a religion centered around myself. I hailed myself as a god, a being taking Father's light in hopes that my influence could last for eons after my inevitable demise.

But even as years turned into millennia, I was only growing stronger.

I was a being where immortality and mortality could coexist, the truest form of a demigod.

But at heart, I didn't like it...

I wanted to return to Earth, to return to Father's grasp and enlighten the world to his love.

I could understand why Father made the decisions he did, why there were things like evil and suffering still in the world, and no matter how badly I wanted to deny it, I had been doing exactly as he was.

Without setbacks, there was no such thing as balance. What drives growth is conflict, and even the all powerful cannot change that.

Or at least that was what I thought.

Not long after I first started contemplating whether to find a way to return to Earth, a creature introduced itself to me as Nott, an Ancient Fenrir.

He was so huge he made my almost 400 meter stature seem like nothing, and so powerful it wouldn't have shocked me if he knew Father.

He was a creator. A being that could create entire worlds out of nothing, manipulate environments at the flick of a paw, and use the void as a tool rather than a weapon.

The true embodiment of a god.

He knew more about the universe than I did as well, telling me if I wanted balance, I needed to take a different path than I had, showing me my mistakes in hopes that I would correct them.

He tried teaching me how to feel at home in this new world, and how to feel comfortable in my own skin, watching from the sideline as if he was Father's hand, once again guiding me toward what I was fated to do.

But while I tried to follow him, listening to his advice, giving the dragons a true leader, and helping them establish morality rather than setting limitations on them. I didn't understand...

The moment I shifted my focus in hopes of finding a new balance in the world, the Aesir, and the humans that followed them, turned their backs on me.

Instead of working with me, they constantly pushed back at everything I wanted to do, using their false religions to make the world think of dragons as no different than monsters.

But I still believed that Father was holding my hand. I continued trekking forward, even after Delphi was invaded by creatures of science. I tried to do everything I could to strengthen the moral compass of the dragons so that they would help preserve humanity rather than destroy it after I leave and return to Earth.. and return to Father's embrace.

This life was one of many lessons, one of much time and knowledge.

At long last, I could finally understand Father's actions, and I could understand why things I didn't like were necessary.

Had I taken Nott's approach, things would have been truly balanced. Dragons would have assimilated into the human world, and while wars would have certainly ensued, it wouldn't have been one side against another. Everyone could have worked together.. and everyone could have worked toward the progress of the world.

If I had done that, the Acardi wouldn't have made it this far. They wouldn't have been able to toy with the dragons like they had, and wouldn't have been able to so easily trick the Asgardian gods into siding with them.

But I don't regret the path I took. It was something I was fated to experience, the plan of the almighty Father to let me find the correct path myself rather than simply giving me the answers. When I return to Earth, I expect to be a far more respectable Archangel, but I don't wish to abandon this world just yet.

Tomorrow I am to gather the strongest of the dragons to go fight the Acardi Mothership with Nott.. I just.. can only hope I'm not too useless.

But perhaps my death, and the abandonment of my body is what is necessary. Perhaps through death, I will be enlightened to another of Father's endless teachings.

At least.. that is what I hope...

I hope that my endless failures can be forgiven.. and hope my endless shortcomings can be rectified.

But whether that is the case or not, I will follow Father's light.

Glorious Father, high and mighty, I entrust myself to your heavenly mediation. Please protect me from the evil once more, deliver to me your holy guidance, and heal me of my sin. If it is your wish, it shall be my command, even if you wish for my sacrifice.

Oh Holy Lord, I entrust my being to you, please guide me to your light one last time.

Amen."

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