"Quick, everyone take cover!"
Rudeus was doing his best to protect himself and his group, but he was as helpless as the rest. The sudden turn of events hadn't been forewarned by the Human God, so he assumed that nothing bad would happen beyond the initial chaos, which was rapidly escalating.
Things were so dire that he could do little in this situation. He felt his helplessness and weakness more than ever at this moment. All he had thought about was getting out of here without delay, but everything happened so quickly that he couldn't relax.
"And to think we were talking about visiting the ancient cemetery..." Rudeus's disbelief was so profound that he lost confidence in his ability to ever defeat Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh was obviously stronger than he remembered.
Such a level of power was something no human, with their short lifespan, could achieve. There was nothing he could do to face Gilgamesh, and this outcome was more than enough to make him realize how little he could accomplish.
Rudeus could only gaze into the distance and lower his head in horror. Just when he wanted to know what was happening, a purple aura covered the entire city of Green Oak, and there was silence. Everyone remained silent, watching from afar as everything returned to normal, but if they were more observant, they would know that they were being covered by a massive shield.
...
"Eliminate all who oppose our lord!"
In the tumultuous city, a group of masked knights took action against the paladins of the Church of Millis. They had earned a ticket to the grave after spreading false rumors about Gilgamesh, even inciting others to hate him.
"You are the demons of that man!"
Crack!
Amidst the massacre, there were young elves moving agilely among the crowd, eliminating anyone in their way without a trace of emotion on their faces.
How dare these people hate their savior?
No one knew Gilgamesh better than them. He had shown love to all those enslaved by humans, demons, and groups involved in this business. Within the darkness of those who were saved, there were even some who were unharmed and could feel happiness again. However, within that group, there were those who were injured for various reasons, and these select groups formed the Assassination Order. They would purge all enemies of Gilgamesh without hesitation.
Gilgamesh had shown them the love, commitment, and future they had forgotten. Not only had he abolished slavery in the Asura kingdom, but he also kept saving slaves who wanted to be saved worldwide without excluding anyone.
"Please, we were paid to protect these people... No, please, we haven't followed any of those words." An adventurer protecting those who echoed the words of the Millus religion pleaded for mercy.
"A filthy being like you dares to protect such scum. You must die alongside them and rot with the gold you've taken for this mission." A young elf beheaded this adventurer.
Medusa appeared amidst the last ones being killed and nodded in satisfaction. What they wouldn't allow now was for their lord to be insulted in areas where he himself was present.
"You, cursed atheists, will burn in hell for following a devil with a human face..." said a Millis church father who looked at Medusa with repulsion.
Medusa smiled charmingly upon hearing this, then said in a cold tone, "The ostrich feather of the goddess Maat was the way an ancient civilization determined whether one's soul could enter the afterlife or not."
"According to their mythology, when someone died, they had to pass through the Hall of Judgment, where their heart was weighed on a scale alongside the feather of truth of the goddess of justice and order. If there was balance, the deceased could continue their journey to the other life. This deistic judgment greatly influenced the behavior of the inhabitants of that civilization."
"Maat, the daughter of Ra, the god of the Sun, also represented the crucial concept of how the universe was maintained, the origin of order. She was responsible for nurturing the harmony of things and punishing those who had disrupted it, those who broke the rules. Maat, therefore, is considered the first moralizing deity in the history of where I come from."
Medusa recalled some of the records and things she had experienced herself. She now closely followed Gilgamesh's words and continued, "The same goes for Shamash, the Mesopotamian god of the sun, justice, and fairness, who appeared half a millennium after the birth of Mesopotamian civilizations."
"This relationship between the appearance of complex societies and the devout revelation of moralizing gods has been the subject of a scientific study, the results of which have been disseminated in the Asura Kingdom, and the conclusion does not align with anything established until now: the figure of the supernatural, all-powerful deity who controls human behavior for good, whom we must listen to and worship."
"Interestingly, this assumption is a constant throughout the history of any civilization, starting with many that I can name tirelessly until death."
"The curious thing is that religion helps a lot in the development of humans or any other race, but there is a turning point where religion begins to control its followers to achieve certain goals desired by humans. That is exactly what is happening with the Millis religion," said Medusa while stepping on the chest of the man who looked at her in horror.
"Cursed..."
Medusa shook her head and said, "Only your blood will erase those words..."