Jester sat at his desk and the books he had requested from Serena lay open before him.
Velmoro asked, "Why did you ask her for this book?"
Jester answered, "Perhaps because we will face a lot of churches in the future, and I want to be prepared. I also want to know how these institutions originated in the first place: how many are there? What are the differences in their beliefs? What are their true aims? What should we confront in them, and what should we avoid? How do we discover their weaknesses and put them in a vulnerable position — and most importantly: how do we sow discord?"
Jester sat at the table. On his desk were three books:
The first, "Roots of Light" — The Birth of the Imperial Church,
the second, "Thrones of the Altar" — The History of Priestly Influence through the Ages,
and the third, "Shadow Over the Light" — The Fall of the Sacred Order.
Their old pages smelled of dust and age, as if they still held the breath of those who had read them before. The title was engraved in gold script whose features had faded with the years: Roots of Light.
The book spoke of a man described as "too sane to be deceived, braver than to be silenced." His name was Arkanus, the first unifier.
In a time when cities worshipped whatever they saw — the sun, the moon, the wind, even kings themselves, dragons, demons, and other creatures — he alone stood silently contemplating the sky. He did not seek power or immortality, but reason in the chaos. He linked phenomena, compared them, calculated, until he arrived at an idea strange for his age: that all those different forces were merely threads issuing from one hidden source.
He called it the Great Power, or as his followers named it after his death — the Blessing. He was neither prophet nor sorcerer, but a mind hungry for truth. He called on people to abandon idol worship and to believe in a single source that is unseen and unnamed. He believed this world rests on a hidden balance that needs not a face to be worshiped, but an understanding to be perceived.
He was just a normal man, yet a mind hungry for truth.
He called on people to abandon idol worship and to believe in a single source that was unseen and unnamed.
He believed this world rests on a hidden balance that needs no face to be worshiped, but an understanding to be perceived.
Jester read silently while the oil lamp lit the pages with its flickering glow. This book was one of the three that Serena had brought from the old archive, but this one felt different. The pages were yellow as if soaked with time, written in a small slanted hand, and its words carried the conviction of a man who had seen what no one else had seen.
"In an age when reason vanished, people worshipped whatever shone or gave power. They worshipped fire because it burns, wind because it moves, water because it gives life. Then they worshipped those who carried these forces and presumed them gods. But when I looked deeper, I found that power is one, merely changing its form."
Jester read the sentence twice, then murmured softly: "He did not deny the existence of a deity… he refused only that it be given a form, or be made to have a partner."
He continued reading: "I have seen blessings that bring healing in one place, then turn into a curse elsewhere. The source does not change, but the intent of the one who uses it corrupts it. Like light falling on a cracked mirror: the light does not err, but the surface that reflects it does."
Jester lifted his head. The words were very logical. The man who wrote this was not a prophet nor a priest… but a scholar who saw beyond what authority allows.
I traced the blessings across villages and cities, and found that they are not granted by a human hand, nor by an idol, nor by a pictured god. They are born from nothingness, then vanish without a trace, like an apparition emanating from a source of energy that living beings cannot detect. As if they are breaths of a hidden existence that allows no one to see it… yet it is present in everything.
Jester paused at the last sentence. A hidden existence… that allows no one to see it. Could this be the being he spoke of? One not perceived by sight, not likened to anything, with no description or form surrounding it, yet the world's traces pulse with its existence.
He turned the next page slowly and found a line written in heavier ink than the others, as if the writer had trembled while writing it: "If the Blessing flows through all things, then its source is not outside existence, but above it, arranging its affairs with an unseen power. All being is in its grasp, and it encompasses everything without being in it."
Jester shuddered, his mind trembling under the weight of the information. "My mind… ah…" he muttered, pressing his head. He suddenly felt as if he had opened a door he should not have perceived with his fragile body. Each idea sank into him like an arrow piercing his awareness, and every explanation opened new doors of mystery and dread. Jester smiled with dark sarcasm despite the pain that squeezed him: "Damn… this is the true pleasure. This is what that man felt…"
He was silent for a moment, breathing hard, trying to hold on to any ray of clarity amid this mental chaos; every cell in his body felt astonishment and terror at the same time. Jester trembled as he tried to grasp his mind before it exploded: "My… my feeling… ah…" Velmoro stared, his red eyes gleaming in the dark, his voice sharp as a sword: "Stop, Jester… do not dive deeper than this." Jester smiled sarcastically despite the pain: "Damn… this is the real pleasure… this is what that man felt."
But Velmoro did not want to protect him; he was preventing something more dangerous. He knew that continuing to read might transform Jester into something far harder to predict, something more evil, more obscure, and unpredictable… this knowledge could drive his mind to collapse completely and spiral out of any control.
Velmoro stood by his side, his red eyes shining in the darkness, his voice cold and sharp: "Stop, Jester… do not go deeper than this." Yet persuasion was nearly impossible. Jester smiled bitterly despite the pain and the mind weighed down with information: "Damn… this is the real pleasure… this is what that man felt."
Velmoro felt frustrated, but he did not relent: "I do not want you to become an entity no one can predict what it will do… the more you read, the more evil you will become; you will become so obscure you will no longer understand yourself… and you will lose your mind before you realize what is happening."
Jester trembled, his mind crushed under the weight of the information, but he also felt the dark delight — that dangerous mixture of pain and discovery. Velmoro , the clown shadow demon who knew the power of knowledge and its ability to change a person, stood powerless before Jester's insistence, who refused to stop as if every warning increased his pleasure in crossing the limits.
"Hahaha… hahaha… this knowledge is not accessible to an ordinary person… damn."
Jester trembled further. The author did not claim to have seen a god, nor did he ask to be worshiped. He simply… understood.
He continued reading until he reached the final lines of the book: "When humans understand this, they will stop worshipping symbols and begin to understand what is within themselves. For every blessing did not come from a miracle, but from that greater being that bound every creature to existence itself."
Jester closed the book slowly. The sound of the cover folding felt like the end of a chapter in history. The candle went out without wind, and darkness engulfed the place, but within him another light began to ignite.
"This man's thinking is terrifying…" Jester whispered to himself. "He was the first to try to understand existence."
Then he asked, "So… why were we created? If the god itself does not need servants, it is above needing them. But by worshiping it, you fulfill the purpose of your creation. It gains nothing whether you worship or not; you worship to prove you are grateful for what created you."
"Ahhhh…" Jester's mind began to hurt and scream. Velmoro , with a serious face, said, "Stop reading, Jester!" He replied in a trembling voice, "No, Velmoro …"
Then he continued in a calm voice: "He established the Unification sect and set an ethical standard to fix people onto his idea. But wouldn't human moral standards be flawed? I think this will fail."
Jester said quietly.
He resumed reading: "The researcher took one hundred of his disciples and made them his followers to spread his judgments across the kingdoms. Some kingdoms considered them infidels and killed them. Some targeted poor kingdoms with tyrannical rulers to ease the acceptance of the new ideas. Some kings found in the idea a means to better control their people. Some admired the idea and the philosophical logic."
The man died for mysterious reasons and left the sect's leadership to four of his disciples for fear one might misuse it, but that later led to a religious conflict that tore them into four factions.
The first tried to preserve the teachings but altered them thinking they were improving them; due to their lack of experience, they ended up incarnating the god in forms, thus destroying the idea of unification and even making the teacher himself worshiped as a god.
The second used religious authority to control and amass wealth, brainwashing people with blind obedience to corrupt kings and making rebellion a heresy worthy of death. Many emperors favored this method and adopted it as a way to protect their corrupt rule.
The third preserved the beliefs through extreme strictness, forbidding marriage for priests and destroying all kinds of desires, but that led them to severe extremism.
The fourth preserved the original beliefs, but the other three conspired against him and killed him.
"Hahahahaha!!! So the teacher ended up as the idea he rejected, and they embodied him as a god! If he knew this in his grave he would spit blood!"
He closed the first book and opened the second. The second book spoke of how priests began selling "forgiveness" as a commodity: you sin, pay money, the priest places his hand on your head and says the god forgives you, then leaves without carrying a single sin. How priests' ambitions swelled until they sought power, turned against the emperor, and lost their religion and followers.
Jester finished the second book and opened the third. It spoke of how the current emperor killed the previous emperor, restored justice, stability, and the dignity of religion, but the religion was not as it had been; it became a mixture of three different doctrines from above.
"Haha…" Jester laughed bitterly. "So the emperor's son exploited his father's corruption and restored the religion with the help of the priests, after killing his brothers and the former emperor, then rewrote the beliefs alongside the priests who supported him with sacred force. Yet the emperor was clever: he made three priests create their own doctrines so long as they did not contradict his authority, and thus three churches were born."
The first: the extremist doctrine, or what became known as Incarnation. Its disciples misinterpreted his message and thought he should be incarnated as a god after his death. Their intentions seemed noble — they wanted to improve the idea and spread it — but the result was completely opposite: the teacher transformed from a unifying guide into an idol worshiped, and the essence of the unification was distorted.
The second: the exploitative doctrine, or Authority and Wealth. Some disciples used the religion to control people and amass fortunes, exploiting the power of their religious position. Their goal was not knowledge or wisdom, but influence and personal gain, taking advantage of human negligence and weakness, so religious authority continued to dominate poor and oppressed kingdoms.
The third: the rigid doctrine, or Constraint and Control. Another group tried to preserve the teachings by imposing strict orders, forbidding everything they considered lusts or deviations. Their intentions were to protect the message, but their excessive strictness led to extreme fanaticism and the loss of the teacher's original spirit, transforming the message from a call to understanding and unification into a system of restrictions and deprivation.
So, Serena follows the third doctrine.
Jester looked to his side and found Velmoro standing watching him silently, his red eyes shining. He said coldly, "I told you not to read it, Jester, so you wouldn't be influenced by their ideas." Jester smiled a deadly smile: "And leave all this pleasure? If you want to destroy them and destroy the emperor, wouldn't the ultimate pleasure be to destroy everything they built?"
Then a child's voice interrupted them from behind: "Hey, Jester and Velmoro … are you studying history?"
A soft voice came from the darkness. They both turned to see him — a child sitting on the bed, unnoticed before. Velmoro 's face became serious, and his eyes radiated a killing energy. Jester grabbed his knife from his pocket and turned quickly, to find Moriarty Rezk sitting on the bed behind him.
"Hello, my dear!" He threw the knife, but Moriarty dodged it skillfully. He laughed and said mockingly, "Is that how you say hello to your guest? And here I thought you were a clown with a sense of humor!"
Moriarty's body transformed into the man who had been in the tavern with Jester.
His hair turned jet black, his eyes filled with a pulsing blue energy, and he wore a black vest.
His height increased until it matched Jester's — both now appearing like seventeen-year-old teens.
He slipped his hand into his pocket.
Who are you? Jester and Velmoro asked at the same time.
"I have many titles," he said. "But you can call me by the most famous one — Dr. Blue, the bounty hunter. As for my real name, it's Moriarty Rezk… though only my victims know it. Still, I've always preferred people call me Dr. Blue."
A sarcastic smile appeared on blue's face while he raised the finger beside his thumb and waved it as if everything were under his control.
Jester took two small knives from his pocket and threw them at Blue that he had stolen while returning from the market. Blue vanished from the bed to appear beside Jester, his gun pointed at his head.
Velmoro tried to attack him, but Blue's left hand suddenly ignited with blue flame.
This… this… it's the flame of the blue phoenix!
Da da da da da! That's right!!!!!