Fanatics of the Magic Academy

"And humanity can only rely on one thing: the gods born from its own thoughts."

When the strange beasts arrive, they summon the phantoms of gods through blood sacrifices to fight them.

"Of course, suffering is often the easiest way to give rise to faith. Amidst the carnage of strange beasts, many people have come to believe in these beasts as gods."

And indeed, gods remarkably similar to these strange beasts were born—those are the ones you saw before.

Rose thought of the group of Sauries she had seen in the Self-Nature Church.

"Among them was a group of believers who worshipped the most powerful beast in the world at that time—the ancient dragon."

Their bodies have mutations similar to those of ancient dragons, such as growing wings, having golden vertical pupils, and having rock-like skin.

However, even if the god they worship has the exact same appearance as the ancient dragon, it does not mean that He has the same strength as the ancient dragon.

They remained creatures to be toyed with and harmed at will by the alien beasts.

But there's nothing wrong with that; all humans in this world live like this.

They knelt and prayed to the gods for strength, for favorable weather, and for the gods to manifest in the world and save them from suffering.

The only price paid was by a few believers.

But, until one day—

[Gu Long] paused, his voice deepening, like a boulder falling, causing the entire pure white space to tremble at his words.

"On that day, the sky above the tribe was torn apart."

It was a dusk 32,421 years ago.

The clouds on the horizon were burned to the color of rust.

A true ancient dragon is not the kind of ancient dragon deity born from the ideology of ancient dragon believers, nor is it a projection summoned by blood on an altar.

Instead, it was a living, primordial behemoth born from the thunder at the dawn of the world—an ancient dragon.

It swept over their territory.

Its body blotted out the sky, and its rock-like scales rubbed against the clouds, creating continuous flashes of lightning.

With each flap of its wings, the wind pressure felt like an invisible mountain crashing down, snapping towering ancient trees in half.

Behind it, another equally enormous beast was hot on its heels.

It was a giant insect covered in a jet-black shell, spewing out acidic mist that corroded everything as it opened and closed its mouthparts.

Two beings at the pinnacle of the world engaged in a fierce battle under this sky.

The ancient dragon's roar shattered the clouds, and lightning poured down from its wingtips, striking the giant insect's carapace and exploding into countless fragments.

The giant insect's acid mist corroded the ancient dragon's scales, tearing a wound on its side that flowed with lava-like blood.

For humans on Earth, this is the end of the world.

The priests of the Ancient Dragon Cult rushed onto the altar, ripping out the hearts of the Ancient Dragon Cult's holy sons and slashing their wrists.

Using this as a medium, they carried out a blood sacrifice to the gods, sacrificing the vast majority of mortals in the tribe.

They sought protection from the deity in their minds—the ancient dragon god.

Then, a golden phantom, crackling with lightning, appeared above the ancient dragon followers, its enormous wings protecting them below.

However, the real ancient dragon didn't even bother to look at it, casually flicking its tail and using the resulting wind pressure to kill the phantom as if it were a roadside animal.

Correspondingly, the ancient dragon followers beneath the phantom were almost completely wiped out.

At the same time, as the ancient dragon flapped its wings, a drop of golden blood dripped from the wound on its abdomen.

That single drop of blood was insignificant to the ancient dragon, but it was a catastrophe for humanity.

A single drop of blood, enough to engulf five adults, fell to the ground and landed squarely on the heads of the few survivors of the Ancient Dragon Cult.

The intense heat and the accompanying lightning killed almost all of them in an instant.

However, one boy who wasn't completely covered up survived. The reason he survived was simple: he possessed a trait he himself was unaware of—

[Superadaptive]

You'll get used to it.

He felt like he was being burned.

It wasn't the burning of flames, but something more primal and violent.

It was like a living lightning bolt drilling into his veins, surging, tearing, and reconstructing along his meridians.

His skin began to show scale-like patterns, and his pupils trembled violently.

The excruciating pain caused him to curl up on the ground, his fingernails digging into the soil, almost crushing his finger bones.

But he did not faint.

On the verge of losing consciousness, he gritted his teeth and used all his strength not to resist the drop of blood, but to "grasp" it.

He is a follower of Gu Long and a believer.

Faith itself possesses a certain power, much like how high levels of rationality can bring about perception and the ability to intervene in reality.

A high level of faith brings intuition and control over the body.

However, almost no one in that era explored this power.

Firstly, there is no sufficiently stable social environment that allows humanity to focus on developing the power of faith.

Then there are believers who have a lower-cost way to obtain the extraordinary: they can kneel before the god and offer a blood sacrifice so that the god can modify them and then grant them the extraordinary.

However, in the face of death, this young man, utilizing the control over his body inherent in his high level of faith, merged that blood into himself.

Treat that external, destructive force as part of your own body, and force it into the depths of your bones, blood, and marrow like taming a wild beast.

I don't know how much time passed.

It may be a few breaths, or it may be forever.

He opened his eyes.

The battle in the sky has long since ended, and the figures of the ancient dragon and the giant insect have vanished, leaving only a devastated land.

The tribe's camp was reduced to ashes, the altar collapsed, and the priest's body lay on the broken stone slabs.

Those who had prayed with him around the campfire at night,

Those elders who would tremble as they held his hands during the blood sacrifice,

Infants who couldn't even walk were being held by their parents and made to kowtow to the gods.

All dead.

The boy sat there blankly.

He was thinking about a problem.

A question his ancestors had pondered countless times but never found an answer to.

Why must humans be enslaved?

Why is it that when faced with strange beasts, humans can only sacrifice their own kind in exchange for a moment of divine mercy?

Why must the power of gods be exchanged for blood?

Why is it that after generations of prayer and the sacrifice of thousands of lives, the protection they received couldn't even withstand the aftershocks of a real ancient dragon flicking its tail?

Are they not devout enough?

No.

The gods are just too weak!

The boy felt the power of control that came from his high level of faith, a power that tamed the surging ancient dragon currents within him.

People have other options besides praying to the gods!

Those whom the gods cannot protect, I will protect!

I will kill all creatures that can kill people!

Humans should not be born to be enslaved; in fact, humans are born noble!

The first thing to kill is the god who is above humankind.

Then, the boy, relying on his faith and the connection with the gods, offered a prayer to the ancient dragon god.

He wants to kill the god he believes in!

The gods readily agreed and responded to the prayers of their last remaining believers.

Thus, in the realm of consciousness, the boy began his battle against the gods.

The boy's faith began to crumble as he attempted to kill his own god, and the complete collapse of a believer's faith ultimately led to the believer's death.

The existence of the ancient dragon gods became extremely faint due to the large-scale deaths of their followers.

An unrestricted battle of wits has begun.

The boy tore apart the god's wings, broke off the god's tail, and bit the god's neck.

The god tore off the boy's arm, shattered his facial bones, and bit into his throat.

In the end, before his faith collapsed, the boy killed the god he believed in.

Because he killed the god he believed in, his faith almost completely collapsed, and the complete collapse of faith will eventually lead to death.

Upon regaining consciousness, the boy lay on the ground, feeling himself heading towards death due to the collapse of his faith.

He smiled.

It turns out that the so-called gods are not anything noble.

He is weak; He is merely a special being born from human thought and prayer.

The boy lay on the scorched earth, his body dying.

The cost of a collapse of faith is irreversible.

For believers, faith is not some kind of outer garment that can be changed at any time, but an anchor for the soul.

If the anchor breaks, the ship will sink.

"Am I going to die...?"

His consciousness was beginning to crumble from the edges, like a piece of paper burned by fire, its edges curling, turning black, and turning to ashes, before slowly spreading towards the center.

"No!"

The boy suddenly opened his eyes.

"I can't die yet."

Killing the god wouldn't solve the problem; he killed the god for something more important!

Gods have never been the issue.

The problem lies with humanity itself.

Humanity has relinquished its power.

Humanity kneels down, directing its faith towards something higher than itself, and then kneels generation after generation, until it is unaware that its own faith possesses power.

Those who kneel can never unlock the power of faith itself.

Because your faith is anchored to God from the moment you are born.

The more devout you are, the more your faith flows toward a being higher than yourself.

Every prayer, every blood sacrifice, every bow you make is a way of sending out the power from the depths of your soul.

Those who stand, those who do not kneel before any deity, have no stable environment to develop their faith.

Because in this world where strange beasts roam and giants fight each other, without the protection of gods, you can only hope to survive today.

This is an endless loop.

Those who kneel cannot obtain true power, and those who stand will not live to see the day when their power is developed.

unless--

There was a person who neither needed to kneel and pray to the gods, yet possessed enough power to carve out a peaceful haven on this land ruled by giant beasts.

Using power that does not belong to any god, to provide humanity with a sky where they can stand.

Let them no longer have to kneel, let them have time to explore, to pass on, and to develop the power of faith itself from generation to generation.

And that's why he killed the god!

The boy lowered his head and looked at his palm.

An electric current originating from the ancient dragon shimmered within his body.

That was something he grasped from the ancient dragon's blood that fell from the sky; it was the power he wielded through his faith.

It is not a power bestowed by any deity.

This power does not belong to the ancient dragon god, nor to any phantom that has been nurtured through blood sacrifice.

It belongs to that true, primordial ancient dragon born from the thunder at the dawn of the world, and now it belongs to him.

He is the only one who doesn't need to kneel and yet possesses sufficient strength.

Because he killed his own god.

Because he harnessed the blood of an ancient dragon.

He can't die yet!

"so……"

The boy's voice was hoarse, like sand rubbing against each other.

"This is my path."

He closed his eyes, not to wait for death.

Instead, he returned to the consciousness space and picked up the remains of the god he had just killed.

He fused his own crumbling soul and the remnants of the old gods together.

Beneath the ruins of his already collapsed soul, he drew upon the remaining power of the gods.

I wrote three sentences.

It is not a prayer to any god.

It is not about kneeling before anything superior to humankind.

It consists of three sentences.

Three sentences he came up with himself.

"Man is born noble."

I will kill everything that exists above humanity.

I will kill everything that kills humanity.

The moment those three lines were carved, his faith collapsed and ceased.

It wasn't because he was repaired, but because his soul no longer contained any concept of "faith."

The gods are dead, the anchor of faith is gone, replaced by a power that has never appeared in the world before—

belief.

It's not a belief directed towards gods, but a conviction directed towards oneself.

No blood sacrifices are needed, no kneeling is needed, and no supplications are needed to any being superior to humans.

Because on this path, there is nothing superior to humankind.

The boy opened his eyes.

His crumbling faith was quickly rebuilt on that new belief.

Guided by this new ideology, the distortion of his body caused by his faith in the ancient dragon gradually disappeared.

Because his belief is "human supremacy".

All that remains are the gilded vertical pupils that were formed from the blood of the ancient dragon.

Meanwhile, in the "spirit realm," a stone tablet appeared, inscribed with the three sentences written by the boy.

Thus, the boy led the remaining, remnant followers of the ancient dragon to a new faith.

He believed that his own strength was insufficient, and he wanted to protect people so that they could develop the power that faith brings.

And he made all those under his protection believe in the beliefs he held.

One gains spiritual growth by practicing the beliefs of his faith.

He collected the blood left behind by the ancient dragons, and he himself acted as a filter to render the ancient dragon blood harmless.

He continuously drank the blood of the ancient dragons, then neutralized it through his own actions, and distributed his own blood to other ancient dragon believers.

Let them all harness this blood through faith, and then discover a path to develop their own faith.

However, as the number of Ancient Dragon believers grew, some people even developed a worship of Ancient Dragon's blood.

Despite the constraints imposed by the ideology of "human supremacy and killing other races," the boy still worried that a new god might be created in the process.

He did not stop this worship; he believed that it was better to guide than to suppress.

So, he added a few more words to the thoughts of Gu Long's followers—

"Worshiping dragons is for the purpose of studying dragons."

"Study the dragons in order to surpass them."

"And surpass the dragon—"

"It was to slay dragons."

Because of this belief, all the ancient dragon believers who follow this path have had their eyes reflected with gold while maintaining their human form.

And so, under the guidance of this young man,

The followers of Gu Long embarked on a completely new path, a path of "human supremacy and the slaughter of other races," which was destined to be filled with bloodshed, hatred, and killing.

However, it was also full of dignity and hope, because the followers of Gu Long no longer had to kneel down.

"that's all--"

[Gu Long] looked into Rose's eyes and said:

"We chose to abandon the gods and seek survival and dignity amidst bloodshed, hatred, and slaughter."