Chapter 59: Azomoteo

Leon leaned slightly toward Karl while William was still putting away the Divine Proscription.

"I didn’t know the First Marshal was also a human trafficker."

William’s smile disappeared almost instantly and his jaw tightened slightly as he looked toward Leon.

"You really are Edwin’s grandson."

Leon took that as a compliment and nodded.

"Whatever, we’ll leave that aside for now."

His attention moved back toward the three of them.

"First, show me your marks."

Karl pulled back his sleeve and exposed the Anathema Mark across his arm.

William stepped closer and examined the golden horn-like pattern within it.

After examining it for a while, he placed two fingers directly against the mark.

A sudden jolt ran through karl’s body and as he looked at william again he was confused by his expression his face has paled and the Jolly attitude had completely vanished.

William said nothing and moved toward Leon and then towards Mira and his face just pales more.

Arthur had known William for far too long not to notice.

"Will?, is there something wrong?"

Several seconds passed before William finally spoke.

"It is Azmoteo ."

Arthur’s face paled the same way as he replied "That’s impossible."

Karl looked between the two old men in confusion, the name meant nothing to him. Leon and Mira clearly didn’t recognize it either.

Leon asked first.

"What do you mean by Azmoteo?"

William opened his mouth but then he stopped.

Three small talismans appeared in his hand and he passed one to each of them.

Karl looked down at his.

"What are these?"

"An oath."

William’s tone had become completely serious.

"What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room."

" If any of you deliberately reveal the protected information to someone unauthorized, the oath will kill you."

Karl looked toward Arthur but he made no attempt to stop William.

Karl agreed, followed by Mira and Leon.

The three talismans immediately burned away in black flames and a dark mark briefly appeared across each of their hands before fading into their skin.

William waited until the oath finished forming.

"You guys must know about the era of gods already I guess and Arthur must have told you about the anathema and stuff didn’t he!?."

Karl nodded. "Yeah, grandpa already told us most of what we needed to know about Anathemas."

Arthur gave a small nod. "You can start from that point."

William sighed and rested one arm against the table.

"Fine, then listen carefully."

"Azmoteo was one of the most powerful divine beings to ever influence Asterion, the God of Lies, Deceit and Riches."

His influence had once extended across much of Asterion and his pantheon was the strongest.

"The important part is his relationship with the Human Ancestor."

"The Human Ancestor belonged to Azmoteo."

Karl, Leon and Mira were totally shocked by this revelation.

"And before you misunderstand, calling him one of Azmoteo’s believers would be completely misleading."

"He was far beyond that."

Azmoteo had personally chosen the Human Ancestor as his incarnation within Asterion.

Not simply a priest or favored follower, but the mortal through whom Azmoteo intended to establish a major part of his influence inside the world.

"He invested an absurd amount into him," William said. "Power, knowledge, resources, divine authority things ordinary believers would never even know existed."

Karl frowned slightly.

"So the Human Ancestor was being controlled by him?"

"No."

"The Human Ancestor wasn’t some unwilling puppet, he wanted what Azmoteo offered and clearly understood the risks."

Humanity at that time had been weak and surrounded by threats it could barely understand, much less defeat.

The Human Ancestor had been ambitious enough to recognize exactly what Azmoteo could give him.

"Azmoteo gave him power and knowledge humanity desperately needed," William continued. "The Human Ancestor gave Azmoteo influence inside humanity and Asterion."

"For years, the arrangement worked for both of them."

That was very different from the history Karl knew.

William continued before Karl could ask anything else.

"The problems came later."

As the Human Ancestor grew stronger, he also learned far more about Azmoteo and the other divine factions.

Eventually, he understood where their relationship would lead.

Azmoteo could strengthen humanity and expand it but at the end the race as a whole and asterion itself was just fuel for his rise.

By then, however, their connection had become far too deep for either side to simply walk away.

"The Human Ancestor was Azmoteo’s chosen incarnation and their contract wasn’t something you could cancel because the partnership stopped being convenient."

Karl understood.

"So they started working against each other."

William nodded.

"N

Gradually they did, but nor immediately neither completely."

Azmoteo knew the Human Ancestor was becoming increasingly independent and te Human Ancestor knew Azmoteo was manipulating events around him.

Neither stopped using the other and neither could afford to.

Their partnership slowly became a contest in which both sides continued gaining what they could while preparing for the possibility that the relationship would eventually collapse.

"Neither of them fully understood what the other would do in the end," William said.

"But then the other gods eventually realized Azmoteo was playing his own game inside Asterion as well."

That created another major problem the divine factions had never been perfectly united, and once their interests began colliding, the situation became increasingly complicated.

Azmoteo lost much of the support he had once possessed among the other divine beings.

William gave a faint snort.

"There were too many games happening at once. Even the God of Deceit couldn’t control every hand on the board."

"By the time the final war began, the relationship between Azmoteo and the Human Ancestor was already falling apart."

Yet there was one thing Azmoteo still possessed after all those years.

An extremely deep understanding of the man he had chosen.

Karl noticed William pause.

"Azmoteo knew him too well."

"What do you mean?" Karl asked.

"The Human Ancestor was ambitious, extremely ambitious."

William tapped the table lightly.

"He wanted strength, he wanted humanity to survive and he wanted"

That was the man Azmoteo had known for years.

"So in the end, the Human Ancestor chose the one thing Azmoteo never expected."

William paused for a moment before continuing.

"By the late Era of Gods, Azmoteo had effectively become the dominant divine power around Asterion."

"Several rival pantheons had already been badly weakened, while others were preparing to abandon Asterion entirely and accept that Azmoteo had won."

"The Human Ancestor refused to let that happen."

"He secretly approached the remaining divine factions and offered them one final fair chance to contest Asterion."

" In exchange, they would provide him with enough power and authority to stand against Azmoteo."

William rested one hand against the table.

"That agreement is also what eventually established the Outer Domain as their long-term battlefield against Asterion."

" Those gods would lose the ability to openly dominate the world as they once had, but their subsidiary races could continue entering through the Outer Domain."

"Their surviving priests, churches and believers would also remain hidden inside human territory."

William’s voice remained calm.

"The Human Ancestor knew exactly what that meant. He was solving one problem while allowing another to survive for thousands of years afterward."

"But his immediate problem was Azmoteo."

"By then, Asterion’s World Will had also recovered considerably. As divine influence over the world weakened, more of its original authority returned."

"Humanity stood behind the Human Ancestor, the World Will supported him and the remaining divine factions gave him the power they had promised."

William looked toward Karl and the others.

"Together, all of that pushed the Human Ancestor to a level approaching the divine."

"But before the decisive battle, he did something Azmoteo had never expected."

"He broke their incarnation contract."

William tapped the table lightly.

"You have to understand what that meant, the Human Ancestor had spent his entire life pursuing strength, survival and victory."

"He always wanted another path forward, another chance to survive whatever was in front of him."

"Azmoteo knew that better than almost anyone."

"And yet the Human Ancestor willingly shattered the bond that had empowered him for years, knowing perfectly well that the backlash could kill him."

William paused briefly.

"That was the move Azmoteo failed to predict."

"The moment the contract broke, their relationship collapsed completely."

" What followed was no longer some hidden contest between two partners trying to manipulate each other."

"It became a direct war between the Human Ancestor and humanity on one side, and Azmoteo and his pantheon on the other."

"The decisive fighting took place in the Outer Domain."

William’s tone remained matter-of-fact despite what he was describing.

"Azmoteo’s pantheon was completely destroyed there. His forces were wiped out, the structure supporting his influence collapsed, and eventually the Human Ancestor reached Azmoteo himself."

"The broken incarnation contract had already destabilized Azmoteo’s connection to Asterion."

"Combined with the Human Ancestor’s near-divine strength and the support of the World Will, it gave him an opening that normally should never have existed."

William paused.

"He defeated Azmoteo and catastrophically injured his divine essence, the Human Ancestor died shortly afterward."

"For roughly five thousand years afterward, there wasn’t a single confirmed direct trace of Azmoteop and we all thought he either died or vanished." ℯℯ𝑙.

William looked at the three of them again.

"Until today, I believed the same thing everyone else did."

He glanced toward the golden patterns within their marks.

"That Azmoteo was either dead, crippled beyond recovery, or simply incapable of touching Asterion anymore."

William’s expression tightened slightly.

"But it seems either Azmoteo has been

planning something for far longer than anyone realized..."

"Or what really happened five thousand years ago was never as simple as we believed."

Karl looked down at his mark. "You’re certain this is his signature?"

William sighed.

"I wish I wasn’t."