Ronin was ecstatic at this notification. He gained 5 levels all at once.....
And all he had to do was learn about the Celesto-Abyssal War and the name of the Death God who insinuated it.
But he wondered about one thing:
"Why didn't the book include the names of the Abyssal gods? I knew about the Abyssal God of Darkness and Death, but that was how he was referred to in the book besides Obsidian God."
"Names have power, boy. More than you may think." Freja said with a grim expression. "Before, merely mentioning Fausforus' name would invoke his underlings of death, the daemons."
"And even in his death, no human would dare to speak of him or much worse, write his name or rune down. That was how terrifying he was to mortals."
"He was the ruler of the Abyss. The God of all Abyssal Gods the same way Aurion is the God of all Celestus Gods."
Ronin felt seething anger at the name Aurion. It was very clear to him.
Fausforus must be related to him somehow, most likely that he was incarnate of him.
Just like how Cermin was prophesized to be the incarnate of Aurion.
He asked with his eyes dilating and staring off to space. "Bella, can you open to page 654 and read the 6th paragraph there, the 9th to 10th sentence?"
"I go by Donna now, brother." Belladonna corrected. "Bella sounds too weak and pretty."
"Yes, yes, very interesting." He said sarcastically. "Just open the page, will you?"
Belladonna blinked since this was the first time Ronin acted... rude towards her.
But she was a new woman now, and Freja had taught her not to be overcome with emotions. She did as told, and read the passage.
"Aurion, the God of Sun and Light... Killed the God of Darkness and Death with his sword, piercing his heart made of Obsidian. The Obsidian heart shattered into a million pieces, as Obsidian was known to be quite brittle."
"Go on a little more." He said while rubbing his chin and thinking of something.
"His long, treacherous whip which curled like a snake over his waist was discarded someplace where it may not bring chaos and ruin again."
"And did it say where it was discarded, exactly?" Ronin asked too excitedly for the two women's liking.
Freja answered for him. "Even we do not know. It was only Aurion who discarded it, alone."
"I see." Ronin calmed down, sitting back properly on his chair. "Please continue with your snow storytelling, Goddess Freja."
Freja raised an eyebrow at this. Ronin could tell that since she could not read his thoughts, she was trying to gauge out his emotions instead.
But he had managed to go back to neutral very quickly, skillfully hiding the hunger in his heart for more knowledge about Fausforus.
"After Fausforus died, it was easy for us to eliminate the remaining Abyssal gods. Pallas tried to reason with them, believing that we do not have to eliminate all of them, since the insinuator was dead."
"That makes sense for the God of Peace." Ronin nodded.
"But Vesuvius was with another faction saying that if they left a single Abyssal god behind, they would grow in numbers again by having children. He convinced most of us that even when we have gotten rid of Fausforus now, some other Abyssal god may start a war like this again to dominate the humans."
Belladonna pointed out a passage in the book. "Yes. It said so here as well that the gods collectively agreed with Vesuvius, and through his leadership, not a single Abyssal god was left."
"That was where the book made its first inaccuracy. But it was understandable, for not even many of the gods know the truth." Freja smiled mysteriously.
"But I do. I saw it happen. The death of Diamant."
Ronin blinked. "Diamant died? All the books said it simply disappeared or gone into seclusion in some other plane, no longer existing in Magecia."
"That's what the gods want humans to believe. And what the gods also want to believe themselves." She sighed.
She showed an image of 4 figures. One of them looked like her, but she was younger and her belly was swollen.
"That was me, my husband Elyr, Pallas, and Vesuvius." She pointed out the figures. "The last two were having an argument, as they always did, and my husband and I were trying to make them stop doing so."
"But Diamant appeared." She said as snow swirled to show another image, very vague compared to the others.
It was just a glowing shape, and was barely human-like.
"It asked us why we had killed Fausforus. We explained to it what Fausforus was planning, but it sounded..... dejected. Almost like the death of the Death God saddened it, brought it pain."
"It gave us a choice. It asked if we would rather have Magecia exists with Abyssal Gods and continue life this way..... or change the order, which will bring consequences."
Ronin concurred: "You chose the latter."
"Yes. And then Diamant took out some strange weapon that we could not see from so much brightness..."
"And killed itself with it. I know that was what it had done. It vanished into a glowing light in the middle of the Abyssal Realm..... no longer existing."
"The glowing light also destroyed and made the remaining Abyssal gods burst in just one second. There were no more of them, it appears that Diamant killed them along with itself."
Ronin frowned. "What was this weapon, exactly?"
"That was what we all wanted to know. Vesuvius, most fervently. He wanted to know what weapon would be strong enough to cut through a Diamond God, as even humans with Diamond Heartstones could not be killed with any blade."
"And after that, somehow, Diamond Magecians continued to deplete. They could not create more children with each other and all their children with another Heartstone never yield to Diamond."
"Eventually..... no one had a Diamond Heartstone ever again. For many centuries after that."
She waved away all of the snow, and they dispersed. She then brought her hands together.
"But contrary to Diamant's warnings, we did not suffer any consequences for killing the Abyssal gods. We had a long period of peace, and the creatures in the Abyssal realm were the ones suffering more than ever."
"There were barely any attacks from them, as both strong noble Mages and Gods alike put a stop to their reign of terror. And it is still this way up until now."
Belladonna rubbed her chin. "Which is a good thing, right? The people don't have to know exactly how all the Abyssal gods died, because their problems are fixed now. The power is in their hands, not the monsters."
She grinned at Ronin. "And you did say that men are power-hungry monsters themselves, right, brother?"
"Yes.... Yes, this peace does benefit them more than ever." Ronin nodded, but he was still out of it. "So much so that they could only wage war among themselves to continue seeking power....."
"Creating the caste, the hierarchy." Freja said. "Nobles are higher than Commoners. Men are superior to women. Perhaps, this was what Diamant meant when it said that we have disrupted the natural order....."
"By getting rid of our only shared enemy, we made enemies with ourselves."