God Of Crafting

Chapter 200 : Second Catalyst

AD: 1527, 7th year of the spiritual restoration era

The smoke rose high into the sky, tainting the pristine, blue of the summer clouds with its dark grey content.

So far out into the hills, the sounds of the ongoing massacre could be barely heard. The screams of the wounded, begging of the condemned, and all the innocent victims of the brutality of war...

Those who died died. Those who survived could no longer claim to be innocent, not after seeing what the hell looks like from up close and personal.

Not when the survival came at the cost of either watching all their family and friends die or outright abandoning them to their deaths in a bid for one to survive themselves.

The restoration movement, with all of its lofty ideas and grand plans for the future, has now devolved into a mere caricature of itself, a thisted rendition of what was, even though it was its main goal to take what is and turn it into what could it be.

The ongoing battle was a culmination of the great religious war of the continent, one that was bound to erupt sooner or later regardless of the restoration movement.

Right now, though?

The very movement aimed to eliminate the cause of those wars has now become a justification for both sides.

Surprisingly, for the old conservatives, delving into spirituality was a human-given right. A right that rather than being revoked for the past millennium, was simply forgotten.

On the other hand, the forces often donning the clothes of progression and personal liberty stood in opposition to the spiritual restoration movement, fighting tooth and nail to preserve the status quo from before in which they could play the victim all they wanted.

The kings and emperors played the games of the chest, where entire divisions would serve as pawns while provinces for heavier figures.

Generals and officers of various sides all played checkers, trying to do their best with whatever limited men and resources they were provided, struggling to overcome the desperation and determination of their enemies who, just like them, knew the price of falling behind or outright losing.

With the world first set on fire by the first few sparks of the religious conflict, the restoration movement, even though originally peaceful, soon became just another tool to fan the flames of the ongoing conflict.

A conflict on a scale people have long since forgotten their ancestors used to see.

This was no longer just a border skirmish between the retinues of two different nobles. It wasn't even a bout between two kingdoms, aimed to decide the ownership of a disputed teritory.

This was an all-out war in a world that turned into a battle-royale, where every state, every city, every family... where all of those elements of society were forced to fend for themselves in the face of the constant danger of attack, bandits or something as mundane and boring as a full-on famine.

This conflict has now raged for several years, growing less or more intense as various events sparked it up, only for the tireless work of the few honorable ones to bear fruit in the form of a local de-escalation.

The results of such a prolonged war could be seen in the current battle itself, or, in how, ultimately... unremarkable it was.

On one side, a retribution army of the conservative alliance mustered up a whooping... thirty thousand men. According to the rumors, they aimed to muster ten thousand more but fell short of their goal due to the time constraints.

The other party, the progressive alliance of those wishing to preserve the status quo by... shattering every force that they deemed to put it at risk has gathered a total of nearly seventy thousand soldiers.

Even his presence in this spiritual hot spot was a result of their insistence on having their master attempt another breakthrough so that his body could be reinforced even further, giving it a fighting chance against the terrible illness it was burdened with.

An action of nothing less but desperation, that resulted in nothing more but their master, the man who started the spiritual restoration, turning into a mumbling idiot even as more and more spiritual energy converged all around him.

"It won't be long before..." Triss, kneeling down right by the edge of her master's bed, muttered.

Born in a village condemned for housing a heretic, she went from being just a cursed child to a prominent witch in her cursed village, then a fugitive on the run from the religious fanatic, a nun at the convent, and finally a spiritual convert and the greatest healer the world had seen since the mystery of the ancient times.

Yet, when faced with her master's current state, even Triss, the greatest healer alive, could do nothing but just ease the man's pain.

As if sensing the coming of his demise, the precursor, the man of the hour, the acolyte of the new...

He stopped mumbling only to open his eyes.

Eyes filled with so much shine, not a single soul in the shack could have any doubts left.

"Poor children..." he whispered, struggling to overcome the soreness of his throat caused by all the mumbling he had done before. "I thought I could change it, change how our movement will turn out in the future. That's why I was so hard on all of you, hoping that by giving you enough tough love..."

Cough!

Suddenly choking on his own spit and blood, the group's master had no other choice but to cease speaking as he focused on regaining his breath.

"Master!" Trish jumped up, ready to support her master as he attempted to raise up a bit, just so he could, at the very least, sit up as he spoke to his beloved disciples.

"I've been tough on you, hoping I could forever remove the cancer of dumb conservatism from you. Hoping I could," the man started to cough blood again, this time even harder than before, "hoping I could remove the cancer of naive progressiveness. The two extremes that void all the qualities those mindsets otherwise represent. But from what I saw..."

At this point, it wasn't just the man taking a moment to rest after exerting himself to speak for a while despite not being in a state to do so. It was also a moment he had to take to weather off the storm of regret his visions of the future brought in his last hours.

"From what I saw, in just a few generations, all of what I did, all of what I preached..." the man shook his head, only to then fall back into the set of his pillows. "All of it will get corrupted. And it won't be until the next coming of the catalyst..."

Already down on his back, the man started to cough blood once again, clearly approaching his limit. Then, against all the pain, all the refusal his body continued to serve him, he continued to speak.

"It won't be until the next, third coming of the catalyst, that the corrupt parody of what we've wanted to create will be finally shattered, opening up the way for true, conservative progress to happen."

"Cough!" the master's body jerked up in best as if his lungs suddenly decided to fold themselves in half.

"And that's why, I leave to you the continuation of my mission. Keep it true. Keep it safe. Keep it hidden..."

The man's eyes grew even brighter as the excitement for the future flashed in them for one last time.

"Keep it true. For if you fail to do so, the third coming of the catalyst, the world won't bear."

//End of Arc 2: Escraftalation//