Vampire Overlord System in the Apocalypse

Chapter 174 - What Is A God?

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What is a God?

There are many ways to define what is a "God", but in simple terms, a God is a figure of religion and faith that is worshiped by a group of people which they treat as their creator and benefactor.

Gods can take many forms, and often embody different concepts of the world, such as nature, fire, thunder, and the ocean, or sometimes they embody concepts created by humans, such as Love, Lust, War, and more.

However, before the Apocalypse, the God that was most known all around the world belonged to the Christian Monotheistic religion, which was simply named "God".

It was worshiped as the only true God, who had created everything and anything.

However, after the apocalypse, religions took a big hit, most of the population died down, and the world became incredibly harsh, but people had now the power to grow stronger as well.

Even more, a God-like entity named the System Master emerged and granted everyone a System to help them grow even stronger, and people even shifted their beliefs to him instead of the previous worshiped Gods…

There were things such as Churches of the System, where people went to pray and worship the System Master and his holy gift.

However, Noah had finally learned that there was indeed a true God.

An entity born from the amassed Mana accumulated within the sky, formed by the faint mana that every human had.

Each time and human offered their prayers to a God, they would lose a part of their mana, and such mana eventually began to accumulate above the skies, it condensed over the years, until finally, through a qualitative change, this enormous quantity of Mana evolved into Divine Power and finally gained sentience. 

That time thousands of years ago, God was born.

God was only one, and it benefited all humans even if they prayed to a "different" God because he was all Gods and yet only one.

This God took the form of any worshipped figure through all these years, the figures that were slowly forgotten through the ages became less prevalent until they disappeared, for new ones to emerge afterward, taking over the old Gods.

It developed many personalities, like a hive-mind, and it was always constantly fighting against itself due to its intricate existence.

Due to always contradicting itself, it was not capable of doing much for humanity, and whenever it tried to do a miracle, it would be stopped by the minds that believed that miracles were bad.

And whenever it tried to punish someone, it was stopped by the minds that believed that punishment was not necessary.

However, on very special cases where the future of humanity was pending on a thread, was when it would sometimes act.

Working together with the Earth's core, which was its own sentient entity that seemed to be the source of mana of earth, it forged Excalibur through the condensation of the wishes of humanity.

King Arthur was one of the first Heroes chosen by God to slay the ancient and rampant evil entities that surged from the mana-rich Earth of the past.

In the past, when humanity's fears were great, is when their mana was drained the most, through their horrors and wishes, monsters began to emerge within the darkness, myths and legends became real, and humanity began to fall to their demise by the hand of their own creation.

Trying to save their creators, the humans, God chose Arthur, a pure-hearted boy with a noble bloodline for the task.

Noah explained all of this in detail, making his subordinates become rather shocked about the truth.

"To think that everything was so simple…" sighed Arthur.

"So humans always could use Mana?" asked Timassa.

"Hm. More or less. Though, I know someone who can explain things more thoughtful than me," said Noah, as he suddenly opened a wound over his left wrist, unleashing a large river of blood, creating a puddle in the floor.

Then, he cut a small piece of his soul and threw it into the blood.

"Rise, Merlin," he said, as the blood began to convulse as if it were alive, the piece of soul began to fuse with it, creating crimson-colored phantom essence.

The blood quickly took the shape of an old and bearded man wearing old and tattered robes, alongside carrying a large staff made of crystallized blood.

"T-That's… the bastard of yesterday!" said Sakura, she thought she would never see Merlin again, yet here he was.

"Noah-sama…You are capable of reviving the death like this?" asked Noire.

"Impressive… But is he someone we can trust?" asked Sugar.

"Rest assured. I had eaten him, and he is my own soul now. With a single thought, I can make his entire existence dissipate into nothingness. He is nothing but a Will now," said Noah.

"It is a pleasure to meet my lord's subordinates and his beloved wife. As you might have already known, I am Merlin, magician extraordinaire," said Merlin.

"Ehh… He's still the same as yesterday," sighed Timassa.

"Merlin, apologize to everyone," said Noah.

"Yes, my lord!" said Merlin, as he began to kneel pathetically as he began to apologize.

"I am very sorry for what I did! I am a stupid, pathetic, nasty, decrepit, and senile old man!" he cried.

"Eh? He's really just doing that…" said Sakura.

"Wasn't he so prideful before?" asked Noire.

"…Indeed, he's now prostrating to us," sighed Sugar.

However, the three robots' crimson eyes gleamed with malice, as they quickly stood up and began to kick Merlin with their hard metallic heels.

"Agh! Uaagh! It hurts! Uuaagghhh…!"

Merlin began to be beaten by their deadly heels over and over again. Noah had made sure to adjust him so he could actually feel pain ten times as much.

He was screaming in agony for about half an hour when the sadistic side of the robots was finally satiated.

"Uuueeggh… Uuggh…" groaned Merlin, his soul had also taken damage with each kick, and Noah made sure to make him feel the tiredness of it, he was not going to heal his soul either.

"Now stand up if you don't want me to crush your Will," said Noah.

"Y-Yes…" muttered Merlin, as he stood up.

Merlin then explained that in the past there were indeed hidden societies of mages, but only those of special castes were able to use magic properly, most of those who couldn't have mana within them, but not the necessary mana circuits within their very bodies to use them properly.

And due to the power of Mana, it was always kept in check by the many public organizations, such as the church.

It seemed that even before the Apocalypse started, there were many of such organizations, but when the enormous waves of miasma hit the world and 80% of the population died, it was now a mystery if more of such people are still alive, and if they are, in what kind of conditions could they be.

"Magic organizations, huh? Things like that really existed… Well, yeah, with my grandfather that was kind of confirmed," sighed Arthur.

"Knowing all of this truth and more, what are our next course of actions?" wondered Iris.

"Nothing changes. For now. We shall continue our plans as we had already done. However, there might be the chance for new things to arise after God itself learns about the fate of the weapon it created…" said Noah.

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