Apostate

艾哈迈德在信仰上陷入了疑虑。他会成为无神论者，还是会坚持自己的信仰？

Deep beneath the ironclad surface of New Babel, Kazelle—once a venerated Vampire King—rises from a slumber enforced by dark sorcery. With the resounding clang of the clockwork spire striking the midnight hour, he awakens not to the rise of Gorron as the cult intended, but to a world poised on the brink of eternal darkness. Kazelle emerges from the veil of death into an era where steam reigns supreme, and eldritch magic intertwines with pistons and gears. Betrayed by Visceris, the Apostate, Kazelle finds his throne stolen, his power usurped, and his kin divided between loyalty and fear. Fractured memories flicker in Kazelle's mind like the ever-present gas lamps that cast their dim glow upon the cobblestoned streets of a city teetering between order and anarchy. Yet clarity ascends as the night calls to him, and a resolute purpose ignites within his immortal heart—to stop the cult's grim ritual, to crush the rising tide of Gorron’s malevolence, and to reclaim his blood-stained crown.

To be a light in the dark. A man lacking in faith dies in a society where religion has fallen to Atheism, and is reborn in a dark fantasy where a mysterious dark fog threatens all. . . . For a mark of a cross ordains his hand, he is an Apostle to a God unknown to this world. (Original title was 'The Apostate,' but the name was taken already) Author’s Note: It could have worked for any religion or a made up religion, but I know Christianity better so it centers around it. The story about an apostle in a dark fantasy was something on my mind for a while.

The two Books of Kings are regarded by many as the last part of a work commonly known as the Deuteronomistic History. The latter tells the story of Israel from its settlement in the land (Joshua and Judges) through the transition from judgeship to monarchy under Samuel, Saul, and David (1 and 2 Samuel) to the reign of Solomon, the disintegration of the united kingdom into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the eventual downfall of both kingdoms (1 and 2 Kings). The Deuteronomistic History along with the Pentateuch forms a single historical narrative stretching from creation to exile. The Books of Kings can be approached in several ways. They contain history and are an important source of information about the Israelite kingdoms. They are also narrative that calls for careful reading; historical accuracy is sometimes sacrificed to the demands of compelling characterization and dramatic tension. Most importantly, both historical presentation and narrative creativity are shaped by a particular religious worldview. The multifaceted character of the work means that it has a variety of focal points. The historical events themselves, of course, are important, but the patterns according to which the author organizes those events give a unity to the author’s historical reconstruction. The northern kings are condemned without exception, and the royal line degenerates from the divine election of Jeroboam I through a succession of short-lived dynasties to the bloodbath of Jehu’s coup d’état, and finally dies out in a series of assassinations. (It must be admitted that the author at times skews the story to preserve the pattern: the relatively prosperous forty-one-year reign of Jeroboam II is dismissed in seven verses!) Judah’s kings, on the other hand, follow a cyclic pattern of infidelity followed by reform, with each reformer king (Asa, Joash, Hezekiah, Josiah) greater than the last. Unfortunately the apostate kings also progress in wickedness, until the evil of Manasseh is so great that even Josiah’s fidelity cannot turn away the Lord’s wrath. As a literary work, the Books of Kings are admirable. Some of the brilliance is accessible only in Hebrew: wordplays, the sounds and rhythms of poetic passages, verbal allusions to other passages of the Hebrew Bible. Scenes are drawn with a vibrancy and immediacy that English cannot reproduce without sounding overdone. But other literary techniques survive translation: symmetrical structures for narrative units (and the disruptions of symmetry at significant points), rich ambiguities , foreshadowings (such as the way the prophet of Bethel and the man of God of Judah portend the destinies of their respective kingdoms). Characterization is rich and complex (Solomon, Jeroboam, Elijah, Ahab, Elisha, Jehu, etc.), revealing deep insight into human nature. Into the stories of the kings, almost as a counterpoint, are woven numerous stories of prophets, named and great (Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah), and less known or anonymous. Many of the stories are anecdotal, reflecting the everyday life of prophets and prophetic guilds. But the volatile dynamics of prophetic involvement in the political realm are prominent: prophets in opposition to kings, prophets in support of kings. This too is part of the theological worldview of the Deuteronomistic historian. The destiny of Israel is in God’s hand. Through prophets, the divine will is made known on earth to kings and people and the future consequences of their response to God’s will are spelled out. It is perhaps indicative of the importance prophets have in 1 and 2 Kings that the structural center of the two books is the story of Elisha’s succession to Elijah’s prophetic ministry, and that this is one of the few passages in Kings that occurs outside the account of any king’s reign. Behind the temporal realm of kings and reigns lies the continuing realm of the divine word and its servants, the prophets.

A cataclysm occurred in the world, which rolled back its development for many centuries. The power in it returned to the church, because otherwise, as the "2nd coming", the event that destroyed the earth, cannot be called. A big war is brewing, humanity has already mastered all places suitable for life, and the rulers are trying to expand their possessions at the expense of others. Our hero, Marzio, lives in one of the free Italian towns. He is the bastard of a major feudal lord who made his name in the war. His mother, despite her righteous lifestyle, practices quackery. For which one day, on an unremarkable and ordinary day, she is sentenced to death. Seeing the burning of his own mother and losing faith in people, Marzio begins his journey. Thanks to the connections of his small family, he escapes from the city and, together with a trade caravan, moves to another city, where he plans to enter the academy and become stronger. Along the way, he contacts people who call themselves "diggers" - plunderers. So, he finds himself in the ruins of the old world, which was much more developed and finds more and more evidence of the terrible secret of the true cause of the fall of the world, which the church so zealously hides. But the second coming gave not only the suffering and wrath of God, but also monsters from mutated animals. In a fight with them, he falls into the eyes of the detachment of the sacred order, after which they, having estimated its potential, take it to themselves and, with their patronage, he enters the academy. At the academy, he meets new friends, and his origin is revealed there. Since he is the only male descendant, he can claim the title and possession of his father. Thanks to this, our hero receives a certain amount of attention from the opposite sex. After training, Marzio learns about the so-called knowers who are aware of the artifacts of the ancients and how things truly are. New prospects are opening up for him, but also new dangers. He becomes part of the squad that helped him. And using modern for us and futuristic for the Middle Ages, small arms are engaged in protecting the secrets of the church and persecuting a group calling themselves apostates, who want to reveal all the cards that will drive the world into a new branch of chaos and the fight against the regime. As cover, his order sided with minor rulers to fight the old-fashioned way and maintain the balance of power. More and more secrets are revealed to Marzio, and a serious intriguing game unfolds behind him, into which he is sucked in with more and more force. But the hero is the hero, in order to grow and cope with the twists and turns of fate, he stoically withstands all trials and even not knowing about the threats from the east and another continent continues to go forward to meet his fate, for the sake of freedom, revenge and struggle.

The light witches had ruled most of the Leylands with an iron first for most of the renaissance era. When Oliver Fade a night time vigilante spies an incoming avalanche of magic from the direction of the cursed lands, he discovers from a beautiful, inexperienced apostate, the impending doom awaiting the Leylands. Arthur looks out his window as the civilization he had known all his life falls around him. When his attempts to call his dad become futile, Arthur sets out in search of him in the middle of a war between the Guardians of the Leyland and The Light Witches. Will Arthur find his father? What happens when he comes across the beautiful defector? Is their love the only hope for the future of magic and humanity?