Chapter Text
As a being at the level of a subsidiary god with strong bequeathments from the Primordial God Almighty, Grisha’s morals acted as his primary human anchor. The principles he clung to in order to maintain his Justice Contract as the subsidiary god in the Sun Pathway were formed not on the religious robes he was enveloped in, but upon his determination to lift humanity from their subordination under the other races.
From the time he found himself in the ruins of his life the research facility he died in, to his debut in this world as an inexorable light not seen since before the death of Primordial God Almighty, Grisha concluded that a moral code based on reciprocity was not a standard that could last in this world of chaos. Perhaps, this code was always one that established a role of forgiver upon those that are harmed with no repercussions upon those who injured them in the first place.
The Golden Rule— to treat others how you would like to be treated— was a naivete he could not afford if he wanted to uplift humanity from their shackles. If he were to give his other cheek to his enemy, Grisha might as well tear his extraordinary characteristics out and hand it to them also.
This had made him fall into a conundrum: Was violence inherently evil? Was he a good person in the past, or did he merely not have the opportunity to do evil?
Aristotle believed that virtue is a choice. That if you are not tested, you are not choosing goodness— You are simply morally constrained because it was the easiest option available.
Grisha had once believed that violence was senseless and barbaric. That non-violence was moral superiority. That anything could be resolved with compromise. Grisha never thought of himself as a man who could justify violence. But, as he explored this brave new world and found humans under the yoke of more mystical species that used them as pets at best, Grisha realized that simply bargaining within this world ruled by mystical creatures was futile.
Flashes of what he has seen in the darkness of this epoch:
Cruelty— the absolute devaluation of human lives. Humans being slaughtered in various methods simply for the amusement of stronger beings. The casual slavery of the human species.
Desperation— the betrayal of parents offering their children as sacrifices, brothers pushing each other down for only an extra moment of reprieve.
Madness— The piling of bodies. Children eating the scattered remains of corpses to fill their stomachs at least once. Mothers mutilating their daughters to make them less of a target.
This was a world where only the strong had power. Where strength lied in your ability to conquer others. Only when humans had their own form of power could they create a world without fear.
Frantz Fanon once said: if violence were only a thing of the future, if exploitation and oppression never existed on earth, perhaps displays of nonviolence might relieve the conflict. But if the entire regime, even your nonviolent thoughts, is governed by a thousand-year-old oppression, your passiveness serves no other purpose but to put you on the side of the oppressors.
He could understand and empathize— as ambivalence would only lead to Him— but he must be ruthless.
This was not a world where Grisha could be passive, even if he wished to be. His very existence as a former human was an offense to the established order. He would have to shed the beliefs and morals he had taken for granted in his first life in order to follow his Justice Contract and stay sane.
Even this decision was a privilege due to the strength he was resurrected with.
Indeed, this was a world where "all animals were equal, but some animals are more equal than others" were pushed to the extreme. To put humans on an equal playing field, it was clear that Grisha needed to develop humans with the methods described with the Blasphemy Slate. And gaining power ultimately led to acts of violence, especially when the source of humanity's power could only come from consuming the bodies of other species.
So, perhaps Grisha still could not consider himself a 'good person,' as his actions to uplift humanity was a form of self-preservation. After all, regardless of his intent to do good or evil, only his actions could save humans. Mercy could not be conflated with kindness.
Though this was what Grisha concluded must be done, in practice, his resoluteness to shed his belief in a kind world was an effort in futility. This was because, as he found himself stranded an untold number of years from everything he could regard as familiar, the nostalgia of his previous life and the society he was raised in was foundational to his actions in this one. In order for his goals to remain pure, he had to maintain his reasons for valuing humanity in the first place.
Otherwise, he might as well cease to exist and let the Primordial Will unleash itself.
Perhaps that is why, when faced with a being that he instinctively knew was inimical to him, Grisha only continued to interact with the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth. Tianzun evoked not only the memories of a past world but his past humanity from a time before its shattering.
And what he could rebuild from these remains would be his source of strength.
The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. And, like Hartley's Leo, Grisha’s desperation to save humanity— both his own and the world's— was leading him towards a destruction fortified by his own longing for simpler days and his resistance against the world he found himself in.
The Lord of Mysteries— The remnants of this Great Old One, the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth…
{You may refer to me as Tianzun}. The understanding of those words lingered in the air even though there was not a body to say it or a voice heard out loud. It was more like an imprint of conceptual knowledge in the area Grisha existed in.
This was a being that, at its very core, was His adversary. Not me, Grisha reminded himself. I am not the Primordial God Almighty.
The day they finally met was not the first day Grisha became aware of Him. Grisha first felt His presence when he had attempted to create a mystical item. When Grisha shed his ichor upon the bronze crucifix he carried, he felt the presence of what he innately knew was the Lord of Mysteries. A presence that the remnants of God Almighty abhorred and was subdued by.
This was one of the main reasons that Grisha did not shy away from this presence. As a subsidiary god of a vacant seat, even one with the power of a Sefirot behind him, there was not much Grisha could do against the presence at the level of this Pillar unless he wanted to submerge himself in the Chaos Sea again.
And that would be a death sentence for him, perhaps not in body but definitely in spirit.
This is not to say that Grisha took no measures against Mysteries. Though anti-divination measures against Him was futile, determining the level of surveillance was not— especially with the variety of tools Grisha had at his disposal. Grisha's attempts, however, were much more successful at deterring the current Gods. Especially since it was a matter of when, not if, Grisha ascended to the level of what the Blasphemy Slate referred to as a Sequence 0: A True God!
And, needless to say, Grisha posed a much closer threat to the status of these Gods with the power of the Sun than to Mysteries. Though he had assumed that Mysteries was equally malevolent to him given that Grisha was the main inheritor of the Primordial God Almighty's powers, which included one of Mysteries' own Uniquenesses.
This was until Mysteries— or rather, Tianzun— initiated a conversation with him.
Perhaps it was an impulsivity brought upon His pride and superiority for one of the concepts he held. Or, more likely, it was a step in the Lord of Mysteries' master plan against the Primordial God Almighty.
Either way, what seemed like a worthless action for Tianzun was a lifeline for Grisha.
Grisha had been traveling through the underground tunnels beneath a mountain. He had been searching for the last Sun Sequence 1 characteristic and, through the magnetism of the same pathway, he concluded that the main characteristic was somewhere in these tunnels.
It was odd to consider that the core aspect of Light would be hidden in the depths of the underground. However, given that there has been no sun in the world since God Almighty fell, it was reasonable that this last White Angel characteristic was in an equally unreachable place as his own body.
And the underground, still rife with the corruption caused by the Chaos Sea, was a place unexplored by even the most temperamental powers. Not because of restraint— rather, because even a beast will learn to not explore a place that only resulted in tremendous losses. Though most of the pollution was sealed by the Dragon of Imagination earlier in the Era, the influence this Sefirot exerted upon the physical world was not as easily erased.
However, this situation was uniquely suited for Grisha.
As a being that had been immersed and recreated in the Chaos Sea, its sealed state was weak enough to prevent the Primordial Will from immediately awakening in him. But to those unaccustomed to it, even a demigod would not dare disturb the underground, nonetheless a god.
Additionally, Grisha always carried the Error Uniqueness that he woke up with. It was a deterrent towards the Primordial Will, not only because of the powers of the Uniqueness itself but due to its lingering connection to the Lord of Mysteries— the opposing Pillar.
Of course, this came at the price of being tracked by those in the High Sequences of the Error Pathway. Though currently the most renown Worm of Time was Giant King Aurmir, there was also the unknown level of authority over the pathway the Lord of Mysteries retained.
Nonetheless, there was only one of them that the Error Uniqueness seemed to call to, and it was not Aurmir.
This did not affect much of his day to day besides the brief attention Grisha would get from the former Great Old One. Given how the Primordial Will was subdued when this occurred, he concluded that the Lord of Mysteries was in a better state than God Almighty.
Why then, has there not been definitive movements in this Era from the Pillar? Grisha speculated that, unlike the Primordial God Almighty's methods to reawaken, the Lord of Mysteries had been more successful in achieving true revival.
As to whether Grisha's existence was the source of the Primordial God Almighty's failure or His last hope, it remained to be seen.
Though the Primordial Will remained active, it did not have true sentience. Meanwhile, the inconstant yet continuous glances from the Lord of Mysteries implied a more intentional Will.
This was beneficial in the short term for Grisha as it enabled him to suppress the Primordial Will. However, the implications of an awakening Lord of Mysteries in this Era were hardly positive.
It was said that the fight between the Primordial God Almighty and the Lord of Mysteries was due to their desire to conquer one another. However, from the information Grisha could gather from the races that were prevalent during the era before and the implications of the Blasphemy Slate, their self-destructive actions came from the accommodation of multiple Sefirots and the uncontrollable magnetism between these combined powers.
Though the exact situation of their final battle was unknown, the results spelled the end of both Great Old Ones. Additionally, all but their original Sefirots were sealed. Though the exact locations of the Sefirah Castle and the Chaos Sea are unknown to the current Gods, the presences of each Sefirot were undeniable.
The following Eras of Destruction and Carnage were only ended with Omebella's grace and the birth of King Aurmir. This belief was predominant with the humans, giants, and sanguines he has encountered so far. Given that the land he woke up in was primarily under the rule of Giant King Aurmir, Grisha did not hold that this was the entire truth.
Either way, the time after the two Pillars fell were only a concern to him based on the implications of how the former Pillars' powers were distributed amongst races.
According to the Blasphemy Slate, the Sun Pathway he had woken with was one of the five Pathways of the Primordial God Almighty. Since this Great Old One's fall, the traits of the Sun Pathway disappeared from the land. Though he has not entirely ruled out Gregrace due to his lack of familiarity with the God, the powers She is said to be endowed with did not align with the Sun. So, Grisha could only conclude that there were no High Sequence level beings of the Sun pathway. That is, until Grisha had left the Chaos Sea with two White Angel Characteristics enveloped within his own being.
Therefore, the last White Angel Characteristic he needed was not currently accommodated by a living being but was in a hidden state.
At first, Grisha had thought that this Characteristic may have been lost to the Astral World. However, if that were the case, then the Dragon of Imagination would also have taken authority over the Sun Pathway by now. Given that the was no Sun projection in the material world, Grisha could only assume that neither the remaining White Angel Characteristic nor the Sun Uniqueness could be found in the Astral Realm alone.
As the being who had woken up with two of the three White Angel Characteristics, Grisha could only rely on the magnetism of the pathway to determine where this last Characteristic was.
So, Grisha continued exploring the world in the hopes of being drawn to It.
After Grisha left the area of the research facility, he wandered the world as Біла ворона– a white crow— a lone soul. Though he physically looked like a human, the level of power he held was on the higher level of a subsidiary god.
It was impossible to hide what he was. So, he could only lean into it.
This was conducive to him completing the apotheosis ritual for White Angels: receive the worship of the world. Though Grisha was already a White Angel, his status was gained with the corpse of God Almighty and His absolute control over the world prior.
To be truly anchored to this time, Grisha needed to make this image exclusive to himself. Only then could he stabilize his mind against the Primordial Will's erosion.
In his growing legend in the current era, Grisha underlaid it with truth. He is the remnants of God Almighty. But he also would be the emblem of hope within darkness for humanity— not only a physical manifestation of light, but enlightenment and purification to the world itself.
To the world, he would be—
The Eternal Flame that Awakens the Dawn, The Warden of Light and Endless Radiance,
The Lord that Created Everything, The Beginning and The End,
The Primeval Sun of Long-Forgotten Ages. [1]
Light would be the means to everything, for the world and for himself.