Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

From the sky above, the Mortal Realm appears as nothing more than a silent film.

Life and Death, savagery and civilization. Beasts small as ants scurry across the land, occasionally birds streak across the sky, wings beating powerfully in flight. Among them, not lacking in grandeur, are mighty Humans strong in spirit, erupting in ’great wars’ for various reasons on the ground.

When centuries are condensed into a single day, the earth itself becomes the most marvelous silhouette. You can see the green fading away, replaced by layer upon layer of man-made hues; the web-like roads that seem sketched by the artist’s brush, beginning with a few strokes at the corners, extending to the epicenter of this grand creation.

The Mortal Realm is painted with all manner of extraordinary spectacles, countless love and hatred, the twilight of heroes, and beauties with greying hair, rise and fall of empires.

And in this ephemeral scroll of intersecting lives, the closer to the center, the more marvelous and fantastical it naturally becomes; the closer to the periphery, the more ordinary and common it appears. Clearly dwelling on the same world, yet the two seem to exist in distinct epochs... But there are always exceptions. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Like on this day, when a fiery meteor fell from the heavens, crashing into a suburb northeast of the continent.

Perhaps because it was broad daylight, this meteor seemed so inconspicuous that only a few people noticed it even up until the moment it landed.

"When fire descends from the heavens... calamity is born."

...

The year 852 of the New Chronicle, summer.

On the outskirts of Turingen.

Throughout the sparse woods, bestial roars can be heard intermittently, accompanied occasionally by the bothersome buzzing of summer insects.

At the end of the dirt road near the woods, a flickering firelight shines in the darkness, illuminating the surrounding path.

The one holding the torch is a robust middle-aged male, wearing a patchwork coarse linen tunic, his hands calloused from obvious manual labor.

The other man with him is not tall, but he also looks strong and capable. However, judging by his walking posture, his strength, like the former’s, has been honed from labor.

"Nike, are you sure it’s this place? We’ve been walking for half the night already, and you know I gave up the chance for tonight’s guard selection..."

"Stop talking nonsense, Samer. Everyone knows that’s not for people like us."

Waving his hand to silence his companion’s complaint, Nike raised the torch higher, hoping to see farther ahead.

"Heh, to pass that assessment, you either need a noble ancestor with a noble lineage, or you need to have undergone real training—which still requires a noble ancestor, and the demand for that is even greater,"

"So instead of clinging to unrealistic hopes, why not gamble with me on our luck? A meteor... do you have any idea how valuable this thing can be?"

"Don’t know, and I bet you don’t either.

Waving the pitchfork in his hand, Samer shrugged.

"But Nike, legally speaking, everything here belongs to the City Lord."

"So why did you come along instead of reporting me?"

With a mocking smile, illuminated by the firelight, Nike saw his old friend grit his teeth.

"You’re right, I should’ve reported you... damn it, let’s take a gamble and see what we find. If there’s nothing, I won’t let you off the hook!"

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In this era where the historical trajectory took a grand detour, classical republicanism coexisted with early feudalism, and even in some nations, slavery and collectivism were still maintained...

in any case, at least in Turingen, every bit of wealth on the land belonged to the landowner, and any act of taking without asking was a serious crime, punishable by death, and for such a regulation, even the church of Justice and Law wouldn’t raise an objection.

But for two peasants who knew only of tilling the soil, this was almost their only chance in life. After all, although they were not slaves, they were far from ’citizens’. Or to put it in official terms, they should be called ’Free People’, which means ’semifree laborers’.

And this was a link in the ’peasant discrimination chain’, as the farmers around the city were considered formal citizens, but those who lived in nearby villages, only occasionally venturing into the city, were not; therefore, they did not enjoy the rights of citizens under classical republicanism.

If it had been a few years earlier, they might not have minded being excluded, as it was an era of "noble by birth," and Samer might not have chosen to take this gamble. But having witnessed the changes in the city in recent years, he had become increasingly intolerable of his own mediocrity.

To put it poetically, "I could endure darkness if I had never seen the light." Turingen City changed year by year, but his rural village remained the same. Both seemed to be in two different worlds, intersecting yet isolated.

"Speaking of which, Nike, if we really strike it rich this time, how do you plan to spend it?"

In a world without light pollution, the night was much darker than the mortals of later generations could imagine, so dark that even with the aid of a torch, the two men felt as if they were walking on a road with no end.

It was only because both of them were locals and very familiar with the nearby terrain that walking at night like this was possible; otherwise, who knew if they were moving forward or backward.

"First, I’d enjoy it properly—but honestly, Samer, I don’t even know what that means to enjoy. It’s not just about eating and drinking extravagantly—so what about you?"

Shrugging his shoulders and causing the torch to flicker, Nike stated plainly.