Those time travelers that year

If it weren't for the fact that the rules of the prime material world still exclude these illegal immigrants, restricting them to only being able to move around in this lava zone burned out by Voban, these hot-tempered fire elementals would have already run wild everywhere.

However, it is said that the Poison Fire Prince, one of the powerful figures in the Fire Elemental Plane, seems to have some ill intentions regarding this path to the Material World, which worries the God of Fire. Although it is only a rumor, who knows if it is true or not.

Voban may have been quick to start a fire, but he's already offended a lot of people. The orc pantheon, not to mention, got into a fight out of nowhere, suffering losses that made several orc gods want to vomit blood. Most importantly, two of their avatars were killed and their divine power was absorbed… Even when orcs raided human territory as a group, they never suffered such severe losses.

Secondly, the fact that Gruul's and Talos are one is still unknown to others. However, Voban has also demonstrated the ability to manipulate celestial phenomena on a large scale, even enough to rival the Lord of Storms for control, which has earned him a place on the blacklist of the raging gods. Of course, the loss of Mara is not taken seriously by the other raging gods. Apart from Talos, who genuinely wants to eliminate Voban, the others, such as the Ocean Goddess and the Winter Goddess, are more interested in seizing that power from Voban.

If it weren't for the limitations of the material world, coupled with Voban's ability to devour divine power and his off-the-charts combat strength, these two paper goddesses would definitely have resorted to all sorts of shameless and unscrupulous means.

The fire that Voban set also killed a large number of innocent bystanders. This included, but was not limited to, powerful figures and organizations, criminal groups, devils, or their followers and spokespeople... Among them, the two chief red-robed figures escaped quickly, suffering no losses whatsoever, and even sat back and watched others suffer misfortune with glee.

It's no wonder these people resent Voban. Of course, in this world, might makes right. After Voban displayed power comparable to that of a god, most of those who wanted to cause him trouble had no choice but to swallow their anger after weighing the strength of both sides.

However, there were also those who openly harbored hatred for Voban, namely the gods of the nature pantheon. Voban's great fire was absolutely perfect, burning down every single nature pantheon, from the supreme ruler of nature to the weak and useless gods, plus the Earth Goddess who was their "outside help." All of them were filled with murderous intent towards Voban's existence.

Only Voban would be so gleeful in setting the mountain on fire. How could this not make the Nature Pantheon hate Voban to the core? In fact, all the churches under the Nature Pantheon issued a unified warrant for Voban's arrest and offered huge rewards to lure adventurers to join Voban's raiding parties.

The harpists did the same thing, and Voban's performance gave the core members of the elect a real headache. To single-handedly defeat and suppress three incarnations of weaker gods in one fell swoop—they would probably have no choice but to turn tail and run. They were confident in one-on-one combat, but facing three, they would have to run as far away as possible.

Therefore, Voban's existence clearly disrupts the world's 'peace' and 'order,' posing a significant potential threat to global tranquility and constituting a criminal. Thus, during their casual conversation, several voters reached a consensus: even if they couldn't kill Voban, they must seal him away or banish him to an outer dimension; he absolutely could not be allowed to remain in the material world, lest he unite with numerous evil forces to form an ambitious, evil kingdom aiming to rule the entire world.

They deeply understood their superior's thinking: it was absolutely forbidden for an empire capable of conquering all directions and establishing a powerful civilization to emerge in the material world; it was absolutely forbidden for a unified empire to appear.

Only a world like the one we have today, where noble territories are scattered across the land, city-states and kingdoms are fragmented, foolish commoners remain foolish, the rich remain rich, and nobles continue to trample on the commoners, can be considered a free and equal world.

However, those who have worked the hardest to maintain the current situation are Tyr, Tom, Heim, and so on...

The Lord of Knowledge doesn't concern himself with such trivial matters. Unbeknownst to the other gods, his battle with Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, on the Force level continues. He has no time to manage these petty issues.

Frankly, the situation isn't very favorable for the Lord of Knowledge. Even if he loses the struggle, he'll at most simply slumber; as long as the concept of 'knowledge' exists, he'll merely close his divine kingdom and slumber for a while. However, in his view, the conflict of ideologies is far greater than a mortal enemy.

Similarly, Losanda and Ilmat, one the god of dawn and the other the god of suffering, were also too busy to pay attention. These two potential 'traitors' among the gods, the more they read the knowledge that the monkeys had placed in the stream of the Force, the more determined they became to change the world.

Especially with the base-building model already being implemented covertly, and the success of some remote bases, these two were greatly encouraged. In fact, it was their actions that caused a significant increase in Force feedback, particularly the feedback from the Force of Order and Good.

Let me put it this way!

Leaving aside Irmat, from Losanda's perspective, the truth was—'The world is on my side, so I'm not wrong; the fault lies with those old fogies like Tyr.'

Book recommendation: "Khadgar's Interstellar Lieutenant" by Otaku Knight, a Warcraft fanfiction. Although the update frequency is a bit slow, Warcraft fans might want to check it out.

607. The Attack of Losanda (Part 1)

Now, Losanda genuinely felt he had found the right path, the true road to eliminating those old fogies and rivals. However, this would take time, but time was the last thing he lacked. Therefore, he didn't send his followers to join the search for Voban, but instead encouraged them to do things that were truly meaningful.

However, a significant portion of the Church of the God of Dawn had disappeared. Almost everyone assumed Losanda had also gone to search for Voban's whereabouts and paid no attention. Unbeknownst to them, inspired by Losanda's passionate divine pronouncements, his equally enthusiastic followers, eager to better execute their plan, expressed their determination to go deep into rural areas and grassroots communities to engage in truly meaningful work. In particular, they were joining forces with the Church of the God of Suffering to travel to the countryside and spread their influence from the grassroots level.

When everything is ready, ignite a world-changing fire.

Of course, in this process, the bandits who ruled the mountains were the first to suffer. The numerous, well-equipped, and highly motivated followers of the God of Dawn slaughtered their way through the land, eliminating countless "black gloves" of certain political bigwigs, and also crushing more than a dozen illegal transactions and slave trades. This enraged a group of prominent figures, who at one point even considered stabbing the Church of the God of Dawn in the back.

Unfortunately, this time, not only were the believers in high spirits, but their superiors were also quite radical. Although they didn't force a descent, they still had quite a few of their own divine messengers! So Losanda waved his hand and lifted the restrictions on the divine spells for summoning divine messengers, which caused those influential figures who wanted to stab him in the back to suffer heavy losses once again.

In the material world, where the average combat strength is low, you're telling me that in the middle of a battle, a bunch of divine messengers with average combat strength several levels higher came to help as reinforcements? This isn't just about vomiting blood; it's about taking the lives of people of standing.

However, that's not the main point.

The key point is that Losanda always encouraged his subordinates to use any means necessary to eliminate these scumbags who hindered his cause. This included, but was not limited to, shouting the slogan "Holy Light, this evil is worth fighting!" and then, in front of a large group of stunned onlookers, openly "assassinating" those powerful and influential evil figures.

This is typical for Los Santos; the other gods ignored it, instead focusing on searching for Voban's whereabouts and fighting their old rival.

However, this time, some of the gods were unaware that they were also part of Lossanda's target.

Losanda has no shortage of manpower. Countless young nobles, full of youthful vigor and ambition, are eager to emulate their pioneering ancestors and righteous knights. Especially now, having come into contact with advanced ideas just like their leader Losanda, they've been struck by a powerful blow, shattering their 'old' beliefs and throwing themselves passionately into the grand cause of changing the world.

In the material world, commoners at most come into contact with rumors, and nine times out of ten they are false nonsense. Those who truly have access to the things hidden beneath the surface are usually the nobles. And young nobles, if they want, can also have opportunities to access these hidden things through their fathers.

Then, the shocking reality slapped these passionate young people in the face, making them truly understand how deeply entrenched 'evil' is. The foundation laid by their ancestors had long been eroded by various forms of 'evil' over hundreds of years of inheritance.

Slavery, smuggling, drugs, gambling...

These are clearly not normal industries; they're everywhere, and they're often run by several seemingly reputable noble families working together. If you look closer, you'll find that these blatantly criminal businesses even involve the temples and followers of the noble goddess Shinworth and the goddess of wealth, Woking.

In short, this incident was a huge blow to those passionate young people. Many of the young paladins under the name of Los Santos were unable to accept that their own family was a supporter of the 'evil' cause, which led to their beliefs collapsing and them losing their paladin status.

But it didn't matter. These young people were encouraged by Losanda's dream and threw themselves into changing the world with renewed vigor the next day.

These young people have Lossanda's divine power to guide them through dreams, but when Lossanda discovers something infuriating, no one comes to guide him.

Most of these infuriating incidents occurred within the bases he established. Some remote villages and human settlements were suddenly attacked by bandits, suffering severe losses. If it weren't for his loyal followers, the villages might have been massacred.

This is neither scientific nor magical. Logically speaking, those bandits who ruled the mountains should have been wiped out by the Church of the Dawn God several times over, leaving not a trace. How come a new batch has suddenly appeared? And... what the hell is going on? There are actually druids and rangers with high class levels and good equipment among the bandits. Who would want to be a bandit with this level of skill?

In contrast to the furious Losanda believers, the 'bandits' were clearly incredulous at the appearance of the Losanda believers and were in a state of disarray during the battle.

These 'robbers,' who were clearly up to no good, immediately faced a fierce counterattack from the Los Santo believers, resulting in a major clash that left hundreds of casualties.

During the battle, these 'bandits' eventually revealed their true colors. Although they tried their best to cover it up, the sharp eyes of the Losanda believers who frequently fought against all kinds of evil elements could not help them!

Those evil 'bandits' who planned to massacre the village were believers in the natural pantheon.

This is very strange. Anyway, after the matter was reported up and down the chain of command, the church in Los Angeles spent a lot of money and finally obtained some not-so-"secret" information from some intelligence organizations that were mixed in with the gray area.

Those 'bandits' are indeed believers in the nature pantheon. Their actions are aimed at curbing the expansion of the civilized world, because the expansion of the civilized world, including the various settlements humans establish, will greatly damage the natural ecosystem. This includes, but is not limited to, human hunters hunting wild animals for a living, human villagers working as loggers for a living, human fishermen fishing in rivers or streams for a living, and human miners mining for minerals.

This is something that the nature pantheon cannot accept, so many believers in the nature pantheon, such as druids and rangers, will take radical actions such as massacring border villages and framing the wilderness bandits.

Most importantly, this practice and these actions are hardly secrets within the entire nature pantheon; they're practically public knowledge among the higher-ups. Some of the more radical believers, after destroying several villages and creating an 'otherworldly' version of reforestation, often receive rewards from the nature gods…

This situation is extremely serious.

Therefore, the higher-ups of the Church of the Dawn had to keep this matter strictly confidential, and all those who knew about it swore not to speak of it casually. Finally, the matter was reported to Losanda.

608. The Attack of Losanda (Part 2)

When Lossanda first received the message from below, his first reaction was, "Are you kidding me?"... After confirming with his subordinates that they were not out of their minds, not delirious, and not being fooled, Lossanda's second reaction was to wonder if this was a lie and a scam concocted by that crazy, neurotic, chuunibyou, idiotic, and arrogant idiot.

If he really is that lunatic, it's not surprising. Even if doing this would offend two powerful gods, he's already in debt and has nothing to worry about. Two more powerful gods would probably make no difference.

After repeatedly confirming that his men hadn't fallen for the trap, he dragged Ilmat along, sparing no effort to expend divine power to perform the prophecy and rewind history. After a long period of caution, Losanda's face turned as black as the bottom of a pot as he confirmed one thing—what he had predicted was true.

In the material world, aside from highly skilled individuals, it's truly difficult for ordinary people to survive. One wrong move and natural disasters or man-made calamities can strike without warning, killing people without consequence.

If it's a natural disaster, that's one thing. Unless it's deliberately caused by the raging gods, ordinary torrential rain or flash floods are really nothing in this world with all sorts of magic and divine spells. At most, priests might collectively pray and use rituals to dispel the disaster, or a mage might suddenly have a change of heart and blast the disaster into dust. As for warriors... they can just go get soaked in the rain.

But there are some places that are ultimately out of reach, such as those villages located at the border between civilization and wilderness, and some towns adjacent to dangerous areas.

These towns, constantly battling monsters in the wilderness and constantly on guard against bandits and outlaws, lead incredibly difficult lives. But a discerning eye will notice a strange problem: it's one thing for bandits to attack wealthy towns, but why are the impoverished villages on the border—villages where even a decent meal or a coin is hard to find—attacked by bandits? Are these outlaws just bored and have nothing better to do?

Even if they were to capture slaves, what could a bunch of emaciated villagers possibly ask for? And if anything happened, the result was usually the massacre of the entire village; there was absolutely no talk of capturing slaves.

What's even more problematic is that being slaughtered for no reason, according to the rules of this world, should naturally be a place full of resentment, a gathering place of negative energy, where wild undead would naturally be born... However, nothing like that happened. It's as if the souls of the villagers who were killed in the past were all exorcised, leaving only a ruin overgrown with weeds, instead of skeletons or zombies that look like slag.

So, I didn't think much of this situation before.

But this time, Losanda suddenly felt as if he had been slapped across the face. The darkest place is always the darkest; just when Losanda was already associated with evil forces, evil creatures, or those who did evil deeds, he realized he was now part of the darkest place.

He naturally blamed those guys for the massacre of the villages, but little did he know that the real culprit was actually that guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes!

Faced with this situation, Losanda, after confirming it, inevitably froze. Not only him, but even the god of suffering, Ilmat, was equally dumbfounded.

After several minutes of silence, the two gods finally reacted, and the next moment, Losanda's roar resounded from the core of his divine kingdom.

"Sylvanas, you two-faced bastard!"

Losanda is the kind of guy who'd rather take action than waste words, so please forgive him for having a relatively small vocabulary for insults. "Bastard" is already a serious insult for him. Previously, this kind of word was reserved for old rivals like Bane, but now it's being used on another powerful deity, and a powerful pantheon at that, showing just how furious the guy is.

"You despicable scoundrel, I'm going to kill you, you bastard! Just you wait, I'll definitely throw you into the Astral Plane to lie dead..."

Losanda jumped up and roared in fury, constantly cursing and swearing at Sylvanas, the Lord of Nature. If he knew about that possible cuckoldry... well! If he knew, he'd probably want to take them both down with him. Fortunately, Losanda doesn't know yet.

Compared to the God of Dawn who was angrily cursing beside him, the God of Suffering, Ilmat, sat silently. Of course, this wasn't because he had backed down, but because he was currently only in an avatar in the Kingdom of Losanda. He was now using this avatar to transmit information back to his true self, who was also hurriedly verifying the truth of the matter.

This will take a little time, but he can wait that long. Of course, it also allows Losanda to vent his anger and keeps an eye on this hothead, lest he act rashly and send his divine kingdom directly to the Temple of Nature and start a war against the pantheon of nature.

After confirming the results, Ilmat's expression turned grim. Frankly, with the expansion and development of civilization, the destruction of nature is inevitable. He, as a mid-level deity, and Losanda, a powerful deity, were not unaware of this. However, knowing this meant they were on the side of human civilization. Normally, they could ignore the minor incidents, but now that it had been proven, they absolutely could no longer stand idly by.

Simply watching will only discourage the subordinates who also know about these things. Moreover, the fact that the Lord of Nature has tacitly approved of this matter has already crossed the bottom line for both gods.

Unfortunately, even if this matter were exposed, it probably wouldn't cause much of a stir. The other gods likely wouldn't blame the nature pantheon, since protecting nature is their principle, even if their methods are a bit too radical. At most, they might slightly prohibit these things or suppress the nature pantheon, but they'd have to consider the face of the nature lord with a divine rank of 18!

But even with this thought in mind, both Losanda and Ilmat couldn't help but feel extremely frustrated.

Putting aside everything else, the Goddess of Magic, who is already on good terms with certain individuals in the pantheon of nature gods, would absolutely not allow Losanda and Ilmat to cause trouble for the pantheon of nature gods. Even though the current Goddess of Magic is Midnight, both of them are well aware of the pitfalls that the position of Goddess of Magic holds.

It can be said that as long as the magic network is not completely destroyed, the goddess of magic will not die. The so-called three generations of goddesses of magic are actually just the same thing. Midnight is no longer Midnight; that mortal who luckily ascended to godhood has had his mortal consciousness long since obliterated, leaving only the goddess of magic, Mystra.

609. The Attack of Losanda (Part 2)

The Goddess of Dawn and the Goddess of Suffering, who were perfectly aware of the goddess of magic's moral character, would never choose to talk to this shameless woman. They figured it would be pointless; she would probably turn around and sell them out the next second.

What else? Well! Although the human pantheon seems vast, when it comes to manpower, after looking around, Losanda and Ilmat found that all they could see were useless teammates who were dragging them down.

Tyr, the god of justice? Damn it, a blind, one-armed old geezer, so stubborn it's infuriating. Tom, the god of courage, this guy's intelligence is questionable. Heim, the god of protection, should really be called the guardian of cities; he would never concern himself with the countryside, so even if his church knew of a massacre in a remote village, they would never choose to travel thousands of miles to help.

I'm not afraid of god-like opponents, but I'm really afraid of pig-like teammates.

Unfortunately, the entire human pantheon is rife with incompetent allies. Even if you have a perfectly valid argument, they'll betray you the moment they turn their backs. For these bastards, stabilizing the situation is paramount, so important that sacrificing some useless civilians and worthless villages is insignificant.

"Damn it!" Losanda roared furiously, flipping the table over. "They're all a bunch of bastards, all scum who want to reform, scum, all scum..." The god of dawn tragically discovered that the reason why so many troublesome enemies had been able to thrive in the shadows throughout history was entirely due to this group of incompetent allies. And this time was no exception. Even if he exposed this matter and brought it to the Pantheon to argue with the natural gods, they would have their reasons and evidence, clearly stating that those who killed him and slaughtered his village were the root of the problem—humanity itself was the source of the error.

Without a doubt, the nature pantheon would say the same thing. It would be strange if Losanda still didn't understand their attitude after all these years. Anything that might harm the environment is considered their enemy.

If this matter becomes public knowledge, it can only be handled quietly. The gods of the human pantheon, such as Tyr, Tom, and Heim, will absolutely not agree to war with the nature pantheon; they will most likely choose compromise…

...This wasn't the first time they'd compromised.

"We absolutely cannot let this go!" Giving in and swallowing our anger is not Losanda's style. "Those old fogies and good-for-nothings are unreliable, so I'll go myself. So what if it's a life-or-death struggle? It's not like I haven't died before!"

"Don't be impulsive, friend..." Seeing that Losanda was really considering using his divine kingdom to smash the Temple of Nature, Ilmat quickly reached out and grabbed Losanda to prevent him from actually taking action.

"Are you just going to let this go like this?" Losanda glared at him, his face extremely ugly. "I absolutely cannot tolerate this kind of thing."

“You have to endure it even if you can’t bear it…” Ilmat said. “Are you planning to fight the entire pantheon of nature to the death by yourself?! The Lord of Nature is not Bane. The entire pantheon of nature, united, is definitely no less powerful than the ancient gods of the Force. Not to mention Sylvanas is a powerful god with a divine level of 18, which is no less than yours. Are you sure he can’t advance to become an ancient god of the Force?”

"So all we can do is watch?" Losanda asked. "Looking at this two-faced guy, I feel disgusted just thinking about what Sylvanas did. Even that dead bastard Bane was at least much more upright than Sylvanas."

“...Of course not!” Yilmat hesitated for a moment before his expression hardened. “What we need now is time, and more people to agree with our ideas. Otherwise, once our thoughts are exposed, we will only become the enemies of those stubborn guys.”

"It doesn't matter if we perish, but will anyone else be willing to save those innocent people who are still suffering? You know what kind of people our old friends, Tyr and Tom, are."

"Among the gods, none will stand by our side; we can only rely on ourselves."