---Third POV---

  In the world of Aeltia, magid swordsmanship coexisted, a legends and mysterious ruins covered the nd.

  Humans, dragons, elves, and dwarves lived together in this world, where magical creatures were as numerous as the stars.

  The radiance of the gods once shone over all of Aeltia, but it faded away six hundred years ago.

  In the tral part of Aeltia y the Frostwind Pins, a wastend where monsters ran rampant.

  her the Principality of Elise nor the Kingdom of Yoan desired to cim the development rights to this barren nd.

  The Frostwind Pins were most notorious for their brutal monsters and the relentless magids that lihere.

  More importantly... It was close to one of the sources of the periodic magical tides: the Great Oak Forest.

  Walking across the pins was like gambling with your life, hoping you wouldn't enter a small-scale magic tide.

  And it ce where you wouldn't normally see a single person for years. Yet today, more than a hundred monks in white robes appeared all at once.

  With magical shields proteg them, they rushed through the raging winds.

  Brother Marcus, leading the group, raised his hand to signal a halt as he noticed something in the distance.

  "There!" he shouted over the howling wind. "The tracks are fresh! The Butcher 't be far!"

  Brother Leo beside him, examining the ground. "Look at the blood patterns—he's injured. We might actually catch him this time."

  Finally, they stopped before a stoar.

  "We found it! The blood altar mentioned iter!"

  The altar bore obvious signs of artificial stru, faintly visible uhe rown weeds.

  Mountains of monster corpses and human limbs were piled atop it. The blood had already gealed into a dark red-bck color, carrying the stench of rotting flesh.

  Those with weaker stitutions had already begun vomiting while c their mouths. Brabriel stumbled back, his face pale. "Dear Light preserve us... what manner of evil is this?"

  "Focus!" Brother Marcus snapped. "Check for survivors!"

  The monks, enduring their disfort, searched through the pile of corpses and successfully pulled out two intact human bodies.

  The bodies wore the same style of monk robes as the others.

  "It's Brunther and Brother Sebastian, who sent the message!"

  "Gunther... Sebastian... What did he do to you?" Brabriel muttered sorrowfully.

  Marcus k beside the bodies, his experienced eyes narrowing. "These wounds... they're different from his usual work."

  "Different how?" a young monk asked, peering over his shoulder.

  "Too... purposeful."

  The monks exged gnces.

  "We're te again..."

  "Damn it! That Butcher run faster thas in the Howling Ss!"

  "Wait! The bodies are still warm—this means the culprit hasn't gone far!"

  "I found it! There's a trace of bck magic here!"

  "Hurry, let's pursue!" they shouted in unison.

  The sound of footsteps echoed across the Frostwind Pins, spreading in all dires.

  ---First POV---

  My name is Viktor, and I'm what they call a transmigrator—someone dragged from the fortable life of moderh into this mess of a fantasy world.

  You'd think after seven hundred years, I'd have gotteo it. But some things just stuck with you, like that burning desire for a system.

  You know the type—those ve interfaces that other lucky transmigratot, plete with levels, skills, and helpful tooltips.

  But no, what did I get? A one-way ticket to Aeltia and aual transformation into an undead neancer. Life had a twisted sense of humor, didn't it?

  Beh the blood altar, hidden by yers of magical runes, I blended into the dirt and gravel of the pins, looking as lifeless as a discarded skeletoo decay in the wilderness.

  As an undead neancer being pursued, sometimes the best disguise was to simply look dead.

  So many years, and they still hadn't learo check below their feet. The church's fi, dies alemen.

  My bones creaked slightly as I adjusted my position. You'd think being undead would make hiding easier. But no, these boill creaked like a rusty door hinge.

  "You're telling me you're the 'Divine Assion System,' and the previous God of Light is dead, so you're here to make me the successor?"

  I stared at the faint golden orb floating in my inner sanctum.

  The orb, clearly sensing what it thought was hope in my voice, quickly replied.

  "That's right! As long as you follow my instrus, I guarantee you'll bee the God of Light within a hundred years! The church that's chasing you now? They're my people—and soon, they'll be your subordinates. Isn't that amazing?"

  "Think about it, Viktor," the orb tinued smoothly. "No more running, no more hiding. You could be worshipped instead of hunted."

  "Ah yes, because power always es without strings attached."

  The orb looked at me proudly, and at the same time, a glowing blue s appeared in my mind.

  [Would you like to bind to the system?]

  Though I had expected this, seeing the familiar interface still made my heart tremble. The obsession never faded, even after all these turies.

  Looking back, my journey iia had been anything but smooth. The excitement of magic faded quickly as challenges in this backward magical world appeared oer another:

  Bad food, poor clothing, no identity, nguage barriers... Even vastly different worldviews. The savagery and cruelty of this primitive magical world shattered my 21st-tury values.

  Fortunately, human adaptability and resilience far exceed expectations. With a little talent, a little wisdom, a little effort, and a lot of luiy-six pert of it pure dumb luck—I mao survive.

  I even outlived many of the naturally long-lived races.

  The price, however, was not small.

  From a legitimate magiius to a despised bck magi, from living to undead, from respected to wanted by every chur Aeltia... Well, when you lived long enough, your story was bound to be a bit eventful.

  Though my reputation was now far worse than notorious, I truly was a good person, I guess? Opposing the entire world came at a cost.

  For instance: I was now ered by the Radiant Chur the middle of this godforsaken pin. My life was hanging by a thread.

  Ahis glowing orb wanted me to recruit my pursuers as subordinates?

  I would just use them as fertilizer for my Osseous Vitae.

  Don't know what it is? Just a rare magical material—capable eing the skeletons of long-dead undead creatures. The issue was—it required massive amounts of flesh and blood from se beings, making it an absolutely forbidden material.

  "Hm... Let me guess—accept your power, bee your vessel, save the world? Did you get this script from a bargain bin?"

  The orb lowered its voice defensively. "This is a genuine divine—"

  "Diviiny? I've heard it all before. Usually right before something tries to kill me."

  The orb tried again. "But y-your life force is fading rapidly. Only I save you. You don't have to hold onto—"

  Before it could finish, I shifted my inner sanctum and jured an avatar to grab the orb. Raising an eyebrow, I asked, "I don't have to what?"

  "You know what's fasating about living so long? You learn to spot patterns."

  "I don't uand what you—"

  "Like how 'divine beings' always show up when I'm at my weakest. Quite the ce, wouldn't you say?"

  The orb went silent for two seds before screaming sharply. "Wait?! How you enter here—and even grab me?!"

  "This is my inner sanctum. Why wouldn't I be able to e in?" I said, kneading the orb, pressing it and reshaping it.

  Seeing the orb's futile struggle, I quickly gauged its power level a visibly disappointed. "Could the tricks of the gods get any more outdated? The fake system trick was old a few hundred years ago!"

  ht—I had also made a small mistake a few hundred years back. I had somehow offehe gods.

  The good news: All the gods had perished in the Divine War six hundred years ago.

  The bad news: Gods were immortal. As long as their followers exist, a god could hope for resurre.

  Thus, every hundred years or so, some god on the verge of resurre would try to possess my body. My obsession with having a "system" might have been my weakness, but trying to possess me? Using the same old trick?

  Not happening.

  "Times ge, little orb. The age of gods is over."

  "You 't possibly uand what you're doing!"

  "Oh, but I do. That's what scares you, isn't it?"

  "You need me! Without—"

  "Enough. I'm done pying!" I decred.

  The glowing blue s shattered, and the facade of the system was torn apart. A surge of intense light burst between me and the orb.

  The orb panicked as it felt its power draining rapidly. Its struggles intensified, and its voice trembled with fear. "W-What are you doing?!"

  "Sending you back where you came from. Dead gods shouldn't dream of resurre." I grinned wickedly. "We don't need gods anymore!"

  "Think of the power you could wield! The glory of divine—"

  "Yes, yes, divihis, holy that. Do you have any inal material?"

  "Your irreverence doesn't ge the fact that—"

  "That I'm dying? Please, I've been dead for turies. You'll have to do better."

  "And you know what's truly divihe look on your face as you realize your trick failed."

  With that, I tightened my grip on the orb and increased the flow of my power. The light grew stronger and stronger.

  Three seds ter—a faint, transparent thread appeared between us.

  Seeing the orb still firmly in my hand, my heart skipped a beat.

  Something was wrong.

  Oh no!

  It wasn't the God of Light?!

  I had inally arrived at the Frostwind Pins to experiment with a forbidden spell. However, midway through, I ran into two stubborn Radiant Church monks.

  The two culprits died on the spot, and I was severely backshed by the magic, leaving me half-dead.

  This may have given the glowing orb its opportunity.

  Taking advantage of my severe injuries, it almost succeeded in signing a one-way tract with me. Fortunately, I regained sciousness just in time. While chatting and stalling with the glowing orb, I secretly reversed the tract target.

  tract reversal was like redireg a river. Let them think they were flooding your valley while you were building a dam upstream.

  The orb's desperation to bind me made this perfect. Every divine being had certain traits that couldn't be ged—and one of those diviraits was: a god ot be trolled.

  From what I knew about gods, the glowing orb should have been forced to self-destrud await the resurre ritual.

  Although I would sustain some injuries as a result... Uh, fihe injuries might not be "somewhat small." But that was still far better than having a god lurking in my body, ready to possess me at any moment.

  A...

  The tract reversal actually succeeded?

  I closed my eyes, feeling the information transmitted through the tract. Initially, because of the cliame "Divine Assion System" and the stant aura of light magic emanating from the orb, I had guessed the entity was the soon-to-be-revived God of Light.

  Unfortunately... I guessed wrong.

  The glowing orb was not some majod but the divine essence of Aeceus Muse, the God of Creativity—a divine being so hat most of Aeltia's inhabitants didn't even know it existed.

  Not creation, mind you, but creativity. The difference was both subtle and vast.

  I opened my eyes.

  "I knew something was off. A majod would never need such roundabout methods to gain followers."

  "I am a maion of divine—"

  "You're a divine hiccup. A metaphysical clerical error."

  "Such disrespect! I could have offered you—"

  "What? Godhood? Power? A dental pn? I've heard better offers from traveling snake oil salesmen."

  What a pity.

  Through the tract, I learhe peculiar nature of this deity.

  The God of Creativity couldn't ma physical ges in the world—no mighty miracles, no grand dispys of power. Its divihority was limited to sparking ideas, inspiring innovations, and kindling the creative fme in others' minds.

  "Quite sad to be one of your believers," I sighed, "They couldn't even pray to you for direct aid, only ask for... inspiration."

  The orb's light flickered defensively. "Ideas shape reality! The greatest iions, the most powerful spells, the most beautiful arts—they all start with a spark of creativity!"

  I couldn't help but chuckle. The orb had a point, even if its position in the divine hierarchy was rather pathetic.

  In a world where gods were measured by their ability to affect reality directly, a deity that could only provide inspiration was bound to be overlooked.

  "That expins why you're so weak. Hard to gather faith when your followers 't even be sure if their ideas came from divine inspiration or their own minds."

  The orb dimmed slightly. "I've inspired tless breakthroughs! The Floating Cities of the East? The cept came from a dream I sent to an architect. The—"

  "A me guess," I interrupted, "none of them ko thank you for it. After all, how could they? They probably thought they came up with everything themselves."

  It would have beeer if I was dealing with Aeceus himself, but sadly, it was only his divine essence.

  A divine essence was not equivalent to the god itself and did not possess the unyielding diviraits.

  Iia, gods were divided into New Gods and A Gods. A Gods were primordial beings born uhe world's ws. New Gods, oher hand, asded to godhood through mastery of divine magic.

  The God of Creativity was among the A Gods, but ironically, its very nature made it weaker than most New Gods.

  Reviving the former was much harder thaer.

  Just staying ience required tinuous faith power—far more challenging when your only gift was subtle inspiration that believers might never reize. Even after existing sihe world's creation, it had fewer followers than most minor New Gods.

  I looked at the glowing orb in my hand with i. "Still, a divine essence gainiiend surviving all these eons with such limiting powers? That's actually impressive..."

  Then again, with tless races and magical creatures across Aeltia, perhaps there were always enough dreamers and artists to sustain a creativity god... maybe?

  Regardless of the process, the result was in my favor.

  As a divine essehat had gained sentie depended on divine power to exist.

  However, the world's ws did n as a god, nor did it have divihority. Ohe divine power within its body was exhausted, its sciousness would vanish, dying pletely.

  Worse still, as times ged, fewer and fewer people valued pure creativity over direct power. In an age of war and might, who would pray to a god that could only offer inspiration? Without faith power, there was no divine power.

  To survive, the essence had to seek out a magi with the potential to bee a god. bine a magi with the God of Creativity's divine essence, authority, and divine power, and the world's ws would naturally reize them as the new God of Creativity'. This would allow the divine esseo tiing.

  The glowing orb had been searg the ti of Aeltia for a long time, eventually finding me.

  Now, the orb trembled in my hand. "You... you're actually... a demigod?"

  The ability to freely enter a the inner sanctum was something only a demigod-level magi could do.

  When the orb found me, I had been backshed by forbidden magic to the brink of death, my power nearly ent. The orb inally thought I was just a powerful bck magi being hunted.

  Who knew I was strong enough to have half a foot in godhood? Not to mention, I had the means to bind gods and even reverse divine tracts.

  Hearing this, I g the orb. "I'm already seven hundred years old. Isn't it normal to have some strength?"

  The orb choked, speechless again. From its hesitation, I could tell it sensed something odd about my words but couldn't quite piece it together.

  Ign the orb's rea, I reveled in the reversed tract. The orb's abilities now beloo me. Its attempt to trol me had backfired spectacurly, and now it had to taste its own tract's sequences.

  "Your tract really is impressive. Covers everything from divine power to sciousness erasure. Did you write this yourself?"

  "This isn't possible..."

  "Oh, but it is. And it's quite thh. Someone should have told you o write a tract you wouldn't want used against you."

  I couldn't deny that the tract was quite useful. With a thought, a glowing blue s appeared before my inner sanctum avatar.

  [Name: Viktor von Vinesse][Race: Undead][...]

  My heart settled pletely.

  Thankfully, the divine esseill retaihe basic camoufge ability of a god, allowing it to appear as whatever the believer revered most. I didn't worship the system as a god, but my obsession with it was strong enough to influehe essence.

  Camoufging itself as a system was effortless.

  The glowing orb felt a sudden loss of divine power within itself. Although the power lost was minimal, the fact that it happened without its trol was terrifying.

  "What... what did you do to me?!"

  I g it calmly. "Didn't you say you're a system? Now your dream has e true. Aren't you happy?"

  Then, uhe orb's increasingly fearful gaze, I leisurely added, "Your tract is even harsher than a sve tract."

  "Now, all your ialents and divine power belong to me. By the way, that includes the portion of divine power keeping your sciousness alive."

  In other words, I could erase the orb's sciousness at any time.

  Looking at the dimming orb, a delightfully wicked idea formed in my mind. As a demigod-level magi holding the essence of the God of Creativity, I had just received the most ironic divine gift of all—inspiration.

  "You know, fod of Creativity, you really cked imagination in how to use your own power. The Radiant Church has been without their precious God of Light for hundreds of years. They're probably desperate for any sign of their deity's return..."

  The orb's light flickered in uanding. "You wouldn't dare—"

  "Oh, but I would. The God of Light is dead, and hardly anyone alive has actually felt his divine essence. Who's to say what it should feel like?" I chuckled. "And the Radiant Church members... well, let's just say they're ly the brightest dles ihedral."

  With the tract's power, I could probably mask this essence as light divine power. All it would take nting the right 'creative inspirations' in the right minds, making them see what they desperately wao see.

  After all, wasn't faith itself an act of creativity—believing in something you couldn't prove?

  At that point, the orb would no longer be needed as a medium to access the divine essence's power. But for now, I had use for its particur talents. After all, what better way to fool a church than with divinely inspired lies?

  The glowing orb froze, shrinking into my hand, its radiance dimming slightly. How ironic—the very tract it had so meticulously prepared as insurance was now the tool threatening its existence. I wondered if it regretted trying to make me its puppet.

  The orb pletely defted.

  I looked at the new interface.

  ---

  [Name: Viktor von Vinesse][Race: Undead][Level: 21 (Intermediate Magi) / 159 (Demigod)][Skills: Divine Insight, Shapeshifter, Multiple Avatars (0/10)][Authority: Life Revival, Life Purification][Divine Power: 99][Followers: None][Special Items: Int??dim????Spirit??, Divine tract (Reversed)][Status: Severely Injured, Bone Fractures, Weakness, Frostbite, Burns, Poisoning, Inner Sanctum Colpse, ...][Summary: Dying Undead]

  ---

  Looking at the details, I clicked my tongue in wonder. As expected of something produced by diviraits—it listed my physical state with perfect accuracy.

  Since losing most of my pain perception as an undead, I hadn't realized how extensive my injuries were. Without this, I wouldn't know the list of injuries would take three rows to fully dispy.

  Sure enough, system interfaces were still useful. At least they served as a reliable body diagnostic tool.

  Ign the bold red injuries, my attention fell on the garbled information:

  "Special Item: Int??dim????Spirit??"

  I squi the few decipherable characters, looking fused.

  "What the heck is this thing?"

  ---

  ---

  After nearly two months of writing, I decided to post the first chapter to see how it's received. The feedback will help me decide whether to i more time or stop altogether