Only God-Chapter 539 - 464: The Pilgrimage Path (Added two in one)

As the legend of the "Mechanical Book" grew more intense within the Kingdom, both Dwarves and Giants held Hiris in even higher esteem. When people sought the Divine, their faith often became so firm that it left no room for doubt, even verging on fervor. Along the way, the Sects saw nothing but Craftsmen Temples crowded to the brim.

The "Mechanical Book" once again awakened the Dwarves’ reverence for Hiris, and the importance of God started to wane. The Sects continued their preaching, but as time passed, fewer people converted. Those who had recently joined the Sects were agitated, while the older Believers remained unperturbed.

Nevertheless, the situation did not change to suit the desires of the Sects. With fewer converts along the way, the Sects’ finances naturally dwindled. Seeing this, the Sect Priests went to ask the older Believers,

"How much longer can we go on?"

The old Believer replied,

"At most, four or five more cities."

Hearing this, the Sect Priests knew that relying solely on faith was insufficient without money. So, they contemplated using the remaining funds to leave the Dwarf Kingdom and lead everyone on a pilgrimage to the mountains.

The thoughts of the Sect Priests swiftly spread. While the True Believers indeed wanted to go on pilgrimages, they were more inclined to continue preaching, particularly the new initiates to the Sects. They saw the current difficulties as a test from God, something to be confronted, not avoided, for that was an act of cowardice.

A schism arose within the Sect. The zealous younger True Believers yearned to achieve greatness and pour out passion on the preaching trail. They considered pilgrimage a glorified escape, their beliefs fervent, their will strong enough to endure the hunger and cold that lay ahead.

In such an atmosphere, Veldor too was stirred. He sided with the fervent True Believers, not only because of his own youthful vigor but also because he was well aware that if the Sect continued to preach amidst the masses, he would have more opportunities to filch money. Whereas going on a pilgrimage would present him with significant challenges.

The old Believer scoffed at the zeal of the young True Believers.

Veldor was utterly confused.

"We’re young, we have the will to withstand hunger and cold. We’ve never feared the hardships ahead. On the contrary, we knew this path wouldn’t be easy from the start.

Why not continue to preach? After passing through another city or two, it wouldn’t be too late to go on a pilgrimage."

Veldor, in the role of a teaching son, earnestly tried to persuade the old Believer. In this Sect, only the old Believer’s position was second to that of the Sect Priest.

"I was as enthusiastic as you all once.

I understand perfectly why you are so ardent.

You’ve just converted and think you grasp the truth. You hold enthusiasm thinking no hardship is daunting. You’re too arrogant. Give you guys a chance, and you’d consider yourselves as Prophets."

The old Believer taunted coldly, his words causing Veldor’s face to grow red.

"But what after the fervor?

The faster a stone heats up, the faster it cools down. When you don’t receive the feedback you deserve for a long time, when you don’t gain the conversion of others, when you don’t receive God’s grace, you’ll be bitterly disappointed, as lost as pigs, even eventually abandoning your faith and returning to where you came from."

Veldor, piqued by the old Believer’s barbed teachings, retorted irritably,

"So what do you say we should do?"

The old Believer simply said,

"Do what needs to be done, let nature take its course."

Veldor then challenged,

"What a way to let nature take its course. Without fervor, where is faith? If we don’t keep on preaching, how can we keep reminding ourselves of our faith in God?"

After saying this, Veldor felt smug, thinking he had left the old Believer speechless.

"Keep on preaching?"

"Remind yourself of the faith in God?" the old Believer looked at him and retorted,

"Don’t you live your faith as your life?

Do you have to remind yourself to eat and sleep every day?"

Veldor was stunned for a moment and suddenly found himself at a loss for words.

He only heard the old Believer continue to lecture with disdain:

"Would we Dwarves remind ourselves every day that we are Dwarves and not humans?

Not a word, because it’s not worth mentioning.

Do not be zealous, but live it as your life."

After that, the Sect’s Priest, against all objections, led the entire Sect on a pilgrimage.

A very small number of True Believers could not accept this and left the Sect to preach on their own, while the majority of True Believers obeyed the orders and followed the Sect to the ancient homeland of the Elves.

Veldor was quite unhappy, but being of little influence, he was helpless to change anything and could only accept the arrangement.

They began to slowly leave the Dwarf Kingdom of Kaelonde, approaching the Kingdom Border every day.

Veldor was someone who often found solace in his own convictions; although setting out on a pilgrimage made him unhappy, the thought of not having to see those Steam Hydraulic Forging Machines and other mechanical inventions from the Mechanical Book filled him with joy.

Finally, these things would no longer afflict his eyes.

"Oh God, I am willing to be a Wanderer for life as long as You bring great disaster upon this Kingdom, especially upon the Wood Stone Clan."

Veldor cursed the Wood Stone Clan almost every day.

As the Sect drew ever closer to the Kingdom Border, Veldor gradually realized that the pilgrimage was not as simple and easy as they had imagined.

With the widespread adoption of the Steam Hydraulic Forging Machine, craftsmen in the major cities began to lose their original jobs; they could not accept the new machines nor deign to engage in lowly trades, so many Dwarf Clans simply turned bandit; starting to rob those who passed by.

The Dwarves were a race full of skilled craftsmen.

How skilled, you ask? To the extent that even robbers could be clad in armor.

The Sect experienced two robberies along the way.

When dozens of burly Dwarves in gleaming armor approached, the Sect offered no resistance; the young ones were very fearful, while the older Believers immediately started to negotiate.

As the Sect was very amenable and put up little resistance, and the bandits they encountered were both rather honest, they managed to pass through these troubles smoothly.

But the third time was entirely different.

These bandits were exceptionally fierce, claiming to be from the Good Copper Clan, and greedily took nearly all of the Sect’s wealth, even resorting to violence and injuring people. Had the Sect not fiercely resisted in the end, they might have met with an even worse fate.

Veldor was deeply troubled; his cherished possessions had been easily taken from him. All these True Believers had become penniless, with nothing left to steal.

And the whole Sect fell into a despondent mood.

Even so, the pilgrimage must go on.

The Sect set up camp in the nearby city, securing support from the Priests of the Craftsmen Temple while the True Believers took on various odd jobs to exchange for money, such as presiding over funerals, celebrating birthdays, and singing hymns...

Veldor had originally planned to take this opportunity to leave, but after giving it much thought, he decided that it would be too much of a loss to just walk away now.

So he stayed, and every day he cursed those robbing bandits.

The Sect stayed in that city for nearly a month and a half, saving money by scrimping and saving, and finally accumulated enough wealth to set out on the pilgrimage once again.

Whether it was the result of Veldor’s curses or not, the Sect very coincidentally encountered the Wood Stone Clan bandits once more.

They found the bandits in an abandoned mine, who seemed to have gone through some great misfortune.

The once fierce and unrestrained Wood Stone Clan now could only dwell in an abandoned mine; the Sect saw that bandits were dead or wounded, many bodies lay exposed under the sun, pecked at by vultures, with no one to collect them.

It was clear that these bandits must have had a massive conflict with another band of robbers.

When the bandits saw the people of the Sect, they all turned ashen, utterly panicked, wanting to fight like cornered beasts, but the Wood Stone Clan wasn’t a fighting force anymore and could only be slaughtered at will, which couldn’t help but evoke feelings of how things change with time.

Veldor felt a silent cheer inside his heart, and many of the younger Believers in the Sect also felt a sense of satisfaction at the sight of evil being repaid with evil.

The wretched robbers wailed, never expecting the Gods not to spare them, forcing them to swallow the bitter fruits of their actions and meet their end.

But, to almost everyone’s surprise, the Sect’s Priests and elder Believers did not kick them while they were down; instead, they found the leader of the bandits and took back the stolen money from his critically wounded grasp. After that, they had the entire Sect begin the task of burying the bandits’ bodies.

Under their lead, the True Believers chased away the vultures from the villains’ corpses, dug grave after grave, burying the dead bandits within, chanting Scriptures as they went, and after tamping down the earth, they’d say, "May you atone for your sins soon, may the Lord forgive your soul."

This scene deeply shocked those bandits who had once been ruthless and cruel.

They were prepared for scorn, curses, and retribution, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; this was the truth they lived by. But at this moment, they received something they did not deserve.

They never imagined their dead comrades could receive a funeral.

Although the funeral was simple and unadorned, the True Believers still buried the dead earnestly, consoling those departed souls.

As nightfall approached, the Sect left the abandoned mine. The True Believers did not linger, nor did the bandits attempt to detain them; the event seemed as though it never occurred, like two parallel lines that never intersect.

Veldor could not understand.

In his eyes, the Sect should have not only taken back their money but also completely eradicated those people.

That was what the bandits deserved, not a funeral.

"What are we even doing?

Burying them? They deserve to be pecked at by vultures!"

Veldor angrily questioned.

The old Believer casually said,

"Just let them be pecked at by vultures? Aren’t you wanting to kill them all too?"

Veldor was stunned; he hadn’t expected his Godfather to see through his thoughts.

But the Dwarf quickly came to his senses and said in a deep voice:

"That’s right, that’s what should happen!"

The old Believer glanced at him and said,

"That’s not our place."

Veldor retorted,

"Then what is our place? Burying them? Releasing our impotent kindness?

We are True Believers, we’re supposed to judge their sins on behalf of God!"

At that, the old Believer stared coldly at Veldor.

Veldor shivered.

"Judge on behalf of God?

No, nobody is qualified to judge on behalf of God."

The old Believer said word by word,

"Vengeance belongs to God, and so does mercy; we do not judge good or evil, we only witness."

Veldor felt an inexplicable fear; he seemed to see himself in those bandits.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth...

That was the way of life for Veldor when he was a Wanderer.

Therefore, he could not understand why the Sect would bury those dead.

The old Believer just asked him,

"When did even a little bit of kindness deserve criticism?"

"We haven’t given up anything; we’ve just done what we ought to do.

After their death, they will wait for God’s judgement, and we will face the same after our death. Heaven or Hell, where mankind will go, has been revealed by God."

The old Believer paused for a moment, chanting Scripture:

"’God is just and merciful; therefore, He judges our deeds not in life but in death.’"

"God has redeemed us, He treated us that way, and we likewise redeem others, for that is what pleases God."

"Veldor,

Our world isn’t one of an eye for an eye,

and our God does not seek a tooth for a tooth."

At that moment, Veldor trembled, standing there in a daze.

And the old Believer’s gaze pierced straight into him, as if seeing through his soul.

"Veldor,"

"If one cannot help another in their most helpless moment, how can one claim to redeem?"

This content is taken from fr𝒆ewebnove(l).com