Guild Wars

The divine avatar behind Noble Writer glowed with a resplendent light and began writing upon the scroll in a slow yet swift manner, matching the forcefulness of authority along with the grace of scholarship.

Once the command was written, his Law was imbued into the divine avatar which exploded with a golden light from its eyes that traveled across hundreds of meters, pushing the parchment forward and the words unto the fabric of reality.

Immediately, Noble Writer felt a pull on his Divine Source Origin as his Divine Energy became the fuel for his Law and worked in two ways. Firstly, his Law's strength decided the effectiveness of his divine avatar's ability which was also calculated based on the Rank of his Law vs the magnitude of what he was effecting into reality.

Secondly, the amount of Divine Energy deducted depended on the requirement needed by the Law to make up for the deficiency if it could not match up to the words' effect.

Based on these parameters, it was theoretically possible for Noble Writer to achieve anything he wanted as long as he had enough Divine Energy. That was why he dared to make this statement, for it was calculated based on his own strength and quality vs whatever being that created the Grey Rot, which could not be more than a True God or the Origin Gods would not have let things come to this point.

Well, while Noble Writer was somewhat right, he had forgotten one simple truth. He was only the equivalent of a fucking newbie among True Gods. If he could enahnce things with Control and his bestowed bloodline, there might have been a minscule chance that the nonsense he said would stick.

As it was… no dice.

The young man didn't even have time to regret anything before he got turned into a bag of skin with no innards, this husk falling to the ground and then turning to ash that dissipated. The area went silent for a while before Time reversed itself on the spot and Noble Writer returned to how he was just before he summoned the divine avatar.

The young man looked up to see an apparition of Eva floating above with a benevolent yet disappointed expression.

"Jonas, you are one of my own. Don't disappoint me like this." Eva chided softly yet firmly before dissipating her time clone.

Jonas aka Noble Writer, did not continue to strike the Grey Rot but lowered his head and sat down on the ground on the spot, not caring that it might dirty his elegant robes that appeared to belong to an ancient asian scholar.

The young man sighed deeply and took off his glasses with a pained expression, revealing his clear blue eyes that were filled with a myriad of emotions. He held his glasses in front of his face and looked at his reflection, finding a handsome young man who looked confused.

"When exactly did I become like this…?" he muttered to himself.

This was a sincere question. In his mind, he felt all his actions had been perfectly right, but now that he had clearly overestimated himself forcing him to ponder upon his behavior, it didn't take him long to recognize the mistakes in his thinking.

In the past, if one were to describe Jonas, the word 'arrogant' would only have appeared in tandem with the word 'not' in front of it. Even though he had risen to become a core member of Umbra for the Tradeskill segment, his interaction had been predominantly with the likes of Happy Saint, Armonia, and other crafters. He had unconsciously kept away from the combat members.

However, that seemed to have changed at some point as he became domineering and arrogant and the first moment of that was… receiving the bloodline from Eva.

Noble Writer glanced at his palm and the visible vein there, wondering if his bloodline was the source of the problem? However, he did not think it was entirely to blame. After all, he wasn't the only one who had been bestowed a bloodline, yet everyone else seemed to have maintained their original selves... or at least their changes had been relatively minor.

No, this current behavior and outlook had always been a part of him, hidden away in the depths of his heart, but the light of the Radiant Lineage shone upon this dark area and revealed his true self.

Jonas had always been this way.

When he had started kindergarten, he could already count up to a hundred whereas his peers would have trouble reaching ten. Ever since first grade, he had topped all exams and questions up until the sixth grade when he got hit by hormones and began looking at those 'yucky girls with cooties' differently.

Still, even then, his performance had continued to be a cut above the rest academically, though his social life had been the opposite. Jonas used to be the typical nerd, granted he was the skinny type with the possibility of shedding his skin.

The story was quite plain up to here, a typical genius nerd who thought himself better than others secretly due to his achievements but buried it in his heart. However, Jonas had never 'crashed out' nor revealed his ugly side all his life because his story diverged at two points.

The first was in the twelfth grade, when he had been paired with a relatively plain-looking nerd girl for a regional maths and science competition. The two had worked hard together and had begun to respect the competence of each other, eventually winning the competition.

If you were to ask anyone about it, they would either have no idea what you were talking about or tell you that it was just regular annual maths and science competition, perhaps with some exciting twists compared to the previous year, but nothing outrageous.

However, in the mind of those two, it was as if they had been protagonists of an epic tale of bravery, challenge, and adversity, rising to win against the sea of obstacles.

As two young whippersnappers in the prime of their youth, they had naturally felt attached and some sort of ambiguous atmosphere had come up. They hadn't directly acted on it, but the girl had used her newfound confidence to approach the 'queens' in her grade, asking them for advice on how to dress better, look better, and attract boys.

These 'queens', most of them young girls who had already popped the cherry and proud of it, had naturally felt excited at the prospect of corrupting an innocent top student because this would make their fall from grace seem less pathetic in their eyes.

Look, the top student in our year is wearing tight clothes and is applying makeup, dressing like a promiscuous person. If even she can do this, then us doing it isn't nearly as bad, right?

With such thoughts, they had given it their all to help her transform into the new 'her'. By the time they were done, there was a complete transformation, a 'glow up' if you will.

They say that a monkey with makeup was still a monkey, but that was only in really hopeless cases. In truth, for most males and females, just a bit of better hygiene and attention to dental care, fashion, and hairstyle could turn a 2/10 into a solid 7/10.

Naturally, this nerdy girl who was now changed had become more like a 'queen'. Jonas still remembered how he had become tongue-tied when she came to stand before him in the school hallways with a bashful look, asking if they could go to class together.

An action that used to be normal for him every day now had suddenly turned into something difficult because his eyes could not help going to the wrong places. Even worse was the fact that he wasn't the only one. All those eyes that used to gloss over his female friend with disdain had now firmly locked on, even to the point of being bloodshot.

It hadn't taken long for the class 'chads' to smell the scent of naivety and pounce at her, but it had not been that easy. Though the lass had been overwhelmed by the sudden positive attention, there had already been someone in her heart, so most of the chads had never stood a chance.

Naturally, the change in the situation of his friend plus their already budding feelings meant that some things did happen, but to what extent was a matter of Jonas' personal privacy.

Whatever the case, things had seemingly been going great until a problem occurred. You see all the positive attention had been intoxicating for one who had been ignored all her life and it was just a matter of time for her to crave more.

Attending parties, going to social meets and the like became the norm for the girl, and her focus shifted from watching videos about maths and science to magazines about fashion and videos about the lifestyle of famous female celebrities.

Naturally, her grades fell while Jonas remained strong.

The duo began to drift apart now, and not even because of different interests. Jonas didn't mind her new lifestyle and sometimes followed her along to various parties out of courtesy.

Still, Jonas' eyes continued to stay on the goal, which was success and excellence. The girl used to share this goal, but it had been suppressed by her uncontrollable desire for attention.

So, Jonas had committed a common mistake that most males make when dealing with the opposite gender. He thought of the problem logically and acted upon a logical conclusion.

He had thought that if he sat her down for a talk and reminded her of her own goals, she would be able to appreciate the right path and they could work towards some kind of balance.

Suffice to say, things didn't happen like he imagined... in fact calling it a disaster would be more appropriate.

Even today, Jonas was unable to shake that feeling of shock when his friend-turned-lover had exploded like a keg after listening to him speak, arguing with him as if he were some hater and even flinging names and insults.

You see, what he failed to understand was that everyone in his lover's life had already told her as much. Her parents had been furious at her ever since her sudden change of style of dressing, her low grades had done nothing to soothe them. They had long since feared that she had gone wayward, to the point that they had forced her to visit the hospital for a hymen check.

Her teachers who had previously praised her day and night, placing their hope of promotion on her continued academic performance, had started calling her to their office after class to lecture her each day about how her current path would ruin her promising life.

Amidst all that, she had been questioning herself and the path she chose constantly in the late hours of the night, so naturally when the one person whose opinion she had cared about the most turned out to parrot everyone else, she had snapped.

No matter how logical Jonas had been, he could not tolerate having his personal secrets and insecurities thrown at his face using the most vitriolic words, so he had fired back, even highlighting his lover's biggest insecurity as well.

They parted practically as enemies.

Jonas' life hadn't changed much afterward, but his lover's had. An emotionally damaged and hurt girl was the peak prey of certain types of dudes and before long, the precious cherry was popped. Worse that event had been filmed.

After that had come a terrible descent into debauchery because once the most precious part was gone, what was the point of holding back? Jonas had watched all this, yet he had done nothing to intervene. After all, he knew that any attempt would have resulted in being screeched at, so he had wisely decided to stay out of it and focused on his studies.

By the time of graduation, all the 'chads' that had played with his ex-lover to death had graduated with above-average marks and were carried along by their momentum to better places. The 'queens' mhad ostly passed and entered the workplace, becoming secretaries who were 'done' in exchange for a good salary and prime benefits.

As for the ex-lover, she had ended up with a barely passable grade and her recommendations and commentary from teachers had turned extremely poor so most her options had been cut off.

With the advice of her 'friends' and influence from social media, she had decided that the common path was not for her and moved onto a more lucrative field of work.

The last Jonas had seen and heard of her, she had been a low earner among the many cam girls on a certain site.

This deeply affected him because he had watched a perfectly intelligent girl with a bright future fall into ruin due to the wiles of those he had considered intellectually inferior to himself, so Jonas had never dared to display his arrogance and had buried it deep within his heart.

The second divergence point in his life was when he was bestowed his bloodline.