Chapter 516: Roy’s First War Against Angels
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Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
For the humans of Sanctuary, most of the time, they were on the side of the High Heavens.
The reason was simple. They were often persecuted and hara.s.sed by demons!
Demons with a destructive nature were the natural enemies of all creatures. When humans faced powerful demons and were unable to resist, they would naturally side with angels.
However, over the years, many wise people appeared in Sanctuary. When they continuously studied and explored the relations.h.i.+p between angels and demons, they found that angels were actually not good people. The existence of the world of Sanctuary was a mistake. Be it demons or angels, they both wanted to destroy it. But compared to the tyrannical demons, the angels were just a little gentler.
Under these circ.u.mstances, humans were naturally more willing to accept the doctrines of angels and take holy light as their faith.
For thousands of years, the holy light faith had been the mainstream of Sanctuary. Although there were ancestral faiths such as barbarians, the elemental faith of mages, and even the balance faith of necromancers, these faiths were not mainstream.
There was a period in human history when the fanaticism of faith in holy light caused these humans to reject other faiths so much that there was a large-scale war of beliefs. Humans fought and killed each other, and the loss of population was even greater than when demons invaded…
Of course, after every demon invasion, these humans would quickly unite again to resist the demons.
The High Heavens had always been silently observing the humans of
Sanctuary, and it had always been very troubled by their capriciousness. The Archangels of the Angiris Council had different personalities, so they naturally had different perspectives on humans.
Archangels like Tyrael saw the courage of humans and the greatness of self-sacrifice, but what Imperius saw was the selfishness of humans and the cruelty against their compatriots. As for Malthael, he regarded them as ants and was indifferent…
The difference in perspectives naturally determined the att.i.tude of the Archangels toward humans.
Actually, the High Heavens had not been in good condition during this time. After Malthael fell and became the Angel of Death, Tyrael had led a group of nephalem to kill him. Imperius thought that after Malthael died, his soul would be purified and reconstructed before returning. But the Crystal Arch had not been able to condense Malthael’s soul. Imperius was worried about this and once thought that Diablo had taken Malthael’s soul away.
There was still no news from Malthael, something had happened to Tyrael, and a new demon king had appeared in Sanctuary. Tyrael had disappeared after fighting the other party and had yet to return. This was equivalent to the High Heavens losing two Archangels at once!
As the leader of the Angiris Council, Imperius felt an unprecedented sense of urgency and threat. Of course, he knew that after Malthael’s death, the souls of Diablo and the other demon kings had returned to the Burning h.e.l.ls. This meant that the seven demon kings would return in a few years or decades after recovering their strength.
The remaining three Archangels were already completely out of balance when dealing with the seven demon kings. If the new demon king joined in, once the war broke out again, the High Heavens might really be destroyed as easily as breaking twigs.
Under these circ.u.mstances, the anxious Imperius naturally hoped to find Tyrael as soon as possible. As for the nephalem…
In a meeting, the Archangel of Hope, Auriel, mentioned this matter. As the only female angel in the High Heavens, Auriel had a good impression of the humans of Sanctuary, so she hoped that Imperius could change his att.i.tude, put down his prejudice against humans, and spread the doctrine of light more widely in the human world in the hope that they could better utilize the power of the nephalem in the future war with h.e.l.l demons.
Did Imperius not know this? Of course he knew! When Diablo fought his way into the High Heavens, he had also seen how powerful the nephalem who began to recover their power were. But the problem was that he was quite conflicted about these powerful nephalem!
As for why he was conflicted, it involved a mystery of Sanctuary. About three thousand years ago, when Heaven and h.e.l.l first discovered Sanctuary, Lilith had already been exiled to the Void by Inarius. Heaven and h.e.l.l had developed religions in Sanctuary without restraint, hoping to use Sanctuary as a lever to develop their strength so that they could overwhelm the other party.
At the time, the humans of Sanctuary were weak and helpless, and they were p.a.w.ns that angels and demons could play as they wished. Even Tyrael, the Archangel of Justice, had the same att.i.tude toward the humans of Sanctuary as Imperius. Heaven established the Cathedral of Light in Sanctuary, and h.e.l.l established the Temple of the Triune. Heaven and h.e.l.l spread their faith while using these two churches to fight proxy wars in Sanctuary.
Everyone knew that the so-called proxy war was very cruel for the agents because only humans would die in the end, and angels and demons wouldn’t suffer any damage at all…
But under such circ.u.mstances, Lilith, who was unwilling to lose after being exiled to the Void, became a disruptor. They didn’t know how she escaped from the Void—perhaps because when she was first exiled, she was only exiled to the edge of the Void and the material world—in short, she returned once.
Lilith found a nephalem named Uldyssian. He was originally just a simple farmer, but he was framed and persecuted by the Cathedral of Light and the Temple of the Triune, who were preaching in Sanctuary at the time. He was forced to leave his hometown with his brother and family. Then Lilith found him. She knew that he had a powerful nephalem bloodline, so after constantly approaching him, she helped him liberate the powerful power in his bloodline. She hoped that he could use this power to expel Inarius and all the angels and demons.
Uldyssian hated angels and demons to begin with, so he did as he was told. He even became the strongest nephalem in history, and even the first son of Inarius and Lilith, Linarian, couldn’t compare to him. With his powerful strength, he established another religious group, the Edyrem, with the goal of exposing the Cathedral of Light and the Temple of the Triune to the humans of Sanctuary. Although it was quite effective at first, and the Temple of the Triune was destroyed, in the process, Lilith eventually lost control of Uldyssian and the situation. He discovered that she was using him, and in the end, he weakened her, causing her to be exiled by Inarius again.
This time, Lilith seemed to have been exiled deeper into the Void…
Originally, Uldyssian planned to expel Inarius as well. But during the war, he discovered the existence of the Worldstone. He tried to use his strength to adjust the frequency of the Worldstone to remove the shackles that imprisoned the power of the nephalem. But this action finally attracted the attention of the High Heavens. The angel army invaded Sanctuary, and the Burning h.e.l.ls naturally wouldn’t let go of this opportunity. Thus, the war eventually turned into a three-way showdown between Heaven, h.e.l.l, and the nephalem.
At the end of the war, Uldyssian realized that the more powerful he became, the faster he would lose his humanity. But for the future of humanity, he resolutely decided to sacrifice himself and release all his nephalem power to expel the angels and demons from Sanctuary.
The mighty Uldyssian, his full power as powerful as a G.o.d, illuminated the entire world of Sanctuary…
At the same time, he was also afraid that the other nephalem would lose their humanity after their power erupted, so he directed their power into his body. Finally, this power erased him and also adjusted the frequency of the Worldstone to what it was before. The power of the nephalem bloodlines disappeared again.
At the time, Tyrael had seen Uldyssian’s dedication and self-sacrifice and sighed at his kindness and greatness.
After the war, the Angiris Council negotiated with Mephisto to decide the fate of the mortal world. During the meeting on whether to forgive the mortals, Tyrael cast the crucial vote to allow Sanctuary to continue existing.
After ensuring the survival of the mortals , the Angiris Council and the lords of the Burning h.e.l.ls reached a ceasefire agreement. They both agreed that the power of the Burning h.e.l.ls and the High Heavens would not interfere with the mortal world, and humans could decide their own fate. As one of the terms of this agreement, Inarius was handed over to the demons, who tortured him for eternity.
Uldyssian’s sacrifice won s.p.a.ce for humanity to survive, and it could be said that it wasn’t an exaggeration to call him a saint. But the power he had released when he finally expelled the angels and demons terrified them. In order to prevent similar things from happening again, Heaven and h.e.l.l tacitly pa.s.sed an agreement to seal all the memories of this war among mortals. Thus, this war, which was known as the Sin War, completely disappeared from human history…
Among the mortals, there was only one who still remembered this war. He remembered Uldyssian, who had left his hometown with him. His brother, Mendeln… But at the time, Mendeln was not in the attention of angels and demons.
Imperius was conflicted about this. As one of the partic.i.p.ants of the Sin War, he was shocked by the power that Uldyssian had erupted with. The potential of the nephalem was beyond his imagination. So on the one hand, he hoped to use the power of the nephalem to resist the h.e.l.l demons. On the other hand, he was very worried that someone like Uldyssian would appear again. It would be too embarra.s.sing if the mortals turned around and expelled the angels from Sanctuary again after they fought the demons.
After thinking about it, Imperius rejected Auriel’s proposal. He believed that war with demons was the duty of angels. Even if they were imbalanced with the
power of h.e.l.l, did they not even have the courage to resist?
Auriel could only sigh at Imperius’s decision. She knew what he meant. Now that the situation was unclear, how could they be so timid as to seek help from mortals? Where was the pride of angels?
Therefore, Auriel could only acquiesce to Imperius’s decision.
However, what they didn’t know was that this decision completely destroyed the final chance of the High Heavens to win over the nephalem…
The estrangement between the High Heavens and the mortal world of Sanctuary made it very slow for them to receive all kinds of information about the mortal world. Just as the angels were still living their long and boring lives as usual, the situation in Sanctuary became more and more intense.
Due to Roy’s decision to hide behind the scenes, the mortals of Sanctuary had not been hara.s.sed by demons for a long time.
With the destruction of the Worldstone, more and more humans began to gradually awaken the nephalem power in their bloodlines. But because they suddenly obtained powerful strength, their temperament and thinking couldn’t keep up, causing there to be many fanatics with extraordinary powers in the mortal world. They used their strength to obtain money by hook or by crook and bullied or even killed people weaker than them, causing the entire human society to have a very bad public security environment.
It could be said that this was a very special time for humans. When Uldyssian sealed the power of the nephalem, he had probably considered that such a situation would happen. But since humans no longer remembered the Sin War, no one could raise a warning. Instead, people thought that the best era of Sanctuary had come.
Everyone had the hope of awakening their bloodline and becoming stronger.
After the destruction of the Worldstone, the shackles on humans disappeared. Therefore, population thinking naturally began to rise, and many people started to believe that humans should control their own fate.
It had to be said that Roy had chosen a very good time to arrive. Without the threat of the demons and with the Zakarum cultists he had sent lurking in the crowd to bewitch them, humanity’s disgust for the Cathedral of Light began to rise substantially, and the demon gold circulating in the human world was constantly amplifying human ambitions.
As time pa.s.sed, a terrible incident occurred. A church of the Cathedral of Light was burned down by people, the reason being that the priests in the church hid female slaves.
As places of spreading faith, the number of churches in Sanctuary was immense. Of course, it was impossible for every church to have angels presiding over it, and the ones managing the churches were ultimately humans. As humans, it was very normal for priests to have poor personal morals. But bad things were still bad things, and these incidents happened frequently during this period.
This was bad news for the Cathedral of Light. With population thinking on the rise, these matters could easily spread and then be infinitely magnified. For a time, the humans were excited, and more attacks on churches appeared. Due to the conflict between theocracy and monarchy, countries began to condone such attacks.
In just half a year, the number of burned churches in various countries of Sanctuary reached an astonis.h.i.+ng number. A large number of church personnel became prisoners and were exiled, and the calls for expelling the Cathedral of Holy Light were resounding.
After the High Heavens found out, things were completely out of control. At this moment, the High Heavens could no longer tell who was fanning the flames behind the scenes.
Imperius knew that if he couldn’t stop these events from happening quickly, the High Heavens would completely lose the faith of mortals. But the angry and aged Imperius made a wrong decision in this matter!
He sent angels to suppress these rebellions!
Ordinary angels had always hated the nephalem with demon bloodlines, so the suppression of the angel troops naturally caused immense casualties in Sanctuary. As a result, the conflict intensified.
The nephalem realized that even though the shadow of demons had faded, the existence of angels was still a mountain pressing down on their heads. If humans wanted to win an independent living s.p.a.ce, then be it demons or angels, they had to be expelled.
Therefore, the nephalem began to resist the High Heavens. Now that they had powerful strength, they could also suppress the angel army. They began to obtain pleasure from killing these angels, who used to symbolize light…
The furious Imperius didn’t stop under Auriel’s persuasion at all. Anyway, there were no demons disturbing him now, so he simply led the army and directly invaded Sanctuary… Just like that, five years after Roy descended into this world, the war between humans and angels began!
The history of this world completely moved to an unknown turning point because of Roy’s appearance…
As for Roy himself, he was silently acc.u.mulating power. He had now completely become the spokesperson of the Burning h.e.l.ls. During the time when the seven demon kings had not returned, he was the supreme leader who ruled the entire Burning h.e.l.ls. Millions of demons were ready to attack, just waiting for his command. They would utterly destroy the High Heavens under his lead, kill all the angels, and completely end the Eternal Conflict of this world.
Of course, this was only the thoughts of the demons. They didn’t know what Roy was really thinking. With so many soldiers, he was not only guarding against the High Heavens but also against Lilith…
Although Mephisto’s warning contained truths and falsehoods, Roy believed that Lilith’s return should be true. Through his interpretation of the history of this world, he estimated that she had probably been exiled to the Void for thousands of years!
After such a long time, who knew what Lilith had become? Perhaps the moment she returned, she would be Void Lord, which would be a big deal.
The scene of the Dragon of Chaos, Urgash, being corroded by the Void was still vivid in his mind. The moment Urgash escaped and appeared, the entire world of Ashan was destroyed. Roy had a deep impression of it. At that time, he still had no way to deal with Void power, but it was different this time. The Chaos power he mastered after becoming a demon king had already been proven in the Devil May Cry world. At the time, he had used Chaos power to fight against Void power to repair and close the gate to the Void. If Lilith was really corroded by the Void, then he was confident that he could face her.
It was time to come into direct contact with these Void creatures…
While coldly watching the war between humanity and Heaven, Roy was also studying something—the Worldstone.
Although the Worldstone had been destroyed in the last war, a special view had arisen among the wise people of Sanctuary.
They believed that the Worldstone that Diablo had destroyed when he woke up and attacked the High Heavens was probably only a fragment of the Worldstone. Otherwise, if the Worldstone was really destroyed, Sanctuary should have collapsed as well.
After all, Sanctuary was created with the Worldstone as the foundation. Now that Sanctuary was still safe and sound, it meant that the Worldstonetone was still fine.
The wise people believed that the Worldstone should be incomparably huge, and it was hidden in the core of the planet beneath their feet!
Roy found this argument credible because he couldn’t imagine that a Worldstone with a diameter of only one to two meters could be used as a foundation to create a world the size of a planet. Therefore, he believed that there should be an even larger Worldstone.
Moreover, in the Eternal Conflict, the war between angels and demons was a
compet.i.tion for the Worldstone to a large extent. If this thing was really so fragile, it would have long been destroyed in the millions of years of war. How could it be preserved for so long?
The reason why Roy was so interested in the Worldstone was that he felt that it was probably a relic of the Creator!
Yes, he felt that it should be a true legacy of the Creator and not the eyes of the so-called Creation G.o.d, Anu, like in the legends.
As far as he knew, among the items related to the Creator’s legacy, one was the Demon Bible steles left in the Abyss, one was the Book of Truth of Heaven, and the other was Lilith’s Red Sea Egg (suspected). These kinds of relics of the Creator contained some kind of mystical power, and they were traces and marks left behind by the Creator when he created the Infinite Worlds.
Roy didn’t know what these things were for, but since he had come into contact with them, he would naturally collect them subconsciously. He had collected several Demon Bible steles, and they were all in his portable s.p.a.ce. The Red Sea Egg was also in his hands.
As for the Book of Truth, he might be able to see it when he attacked the high-level Heaven…
If the Worldstone was really a legacy of the Creator… Hmm, it would be a little difficult to obtain it unless he blew up the entire world of Sanctuary…
While calculating, Roy waited. Finally, the trust between humans and Heaven collapsed as the war became more and more intense.. He knew that his first opportunity to lead a demon army to fight against Heaven had finally arrived…