Chapter 297: The Poet of Despair

"All life is suffering, calamities endure forever. Since one cannot grasp one's own life, it is better to seize every moment, every emotion, and enjoy the joy of life."

"My believers should provide joy to the world. If one cannot provide joy to others, becoming the premise for others' joy is also acceptable."

"You ought to perform one good deed daily. If you cannot solve the hardships of reality, then at least offer spiritual relief, offering a moment of ease to those lost in illusions."

"Actions helping others, music, drama, and other literary and artistic works are all good medicines for soothing the spirit."

"Professions that bring joy to people, such as literary creators, actors, clowns, singers, and bards, as long as they chant My divine name, I will grant them protection."

Finding information on that "God of Joy and Drama" was not difficult; for the gods, the mages still possessed basic respect, though perhaps only respect at that.

Recording them was partly because they might encounter their pawns interfering in the mortal world or holy relics left on the continent, and also because some of their remnants often caused major events.

Even if their true forms did not rise from the dead, their divine children, bloodline descendants, and followers would basically bring a series of troubles; many major events started with some god attempting to resurrect this one who was thoroughly dead, with no records of rising from the dead so far.

This god, whose suspected activity period was roughly 4400 to 5000 years ago, left few historical records and religious relics, because he was not only weak but also short-lived.

And unlike Li En's previous malicious speculation, His "joy" was very normal happiness, and by any look, He seemed like a benevolent god.

"Though the world is bitter, save as many as you can; for those you cannot save, at least give some anesthesia. Since you cannot save the world, try creating more entertainment works to satisfy some spiritual needs. Seems like a fairly normal, good god."

Li En continued to check the records; He seemed to have had a brief glory, with most believers being bards, artists, creators, especially playwrights, and for a time, even some combat personnel believed in Him, then...

"Then He died."

Unlike those "unsolved mysteries" in history, this god's cause of death was perfectly clear.

"The Demon Tide War occurred, the entire world was a mess, no one cared about entertainment creation, and this god whose main believers were artists and creators simply vanished."

In peaceful times, "liberal arts" were certainly quite useful, but in world wars or even the end of the world, those entertainment industries producing "amusement" were directly torn apart and destroyed, and this God of Joy whose main profession was culture was completely gone.

He, it seemed, did not survive the recent Demon Tide War; as a god, His activity time was even shorter than that of long-lived races.

"Although He was a short-lived god, it seems He is quite safe, with no rising from the dead or anything like that."

Judging from the data and records, this god could be counted as the harmless type: weak, kind, and even somewhat soft.

His followers possessed no combat power; in some elven regions, there were still inheritances and believers, but it was already irrelevant. After all, elves live long, and the faith of many ancient gods has been inherited, but only recorded and inherited.

"Not too far, a half-elf god?"

It was said that when He was in the mortal world, He was a half-elf; this meant His area of activity should have been mainly the elven nations. Considering the elves' love for art and poetry, the emergence of such a god seemed only natural.

And the identity of a half-elf... this was by no means a good thing.

In an era where racial conflicts could easily escalate into racial wars, mixed-blood children often meant mutual distrust and exclusion from both sides; often, their very origin was a tragedy.

Looking at the records on the data, Li En breathed a sigh of relief; it seemed He was not an extreme god.

He was also of the good alignment, so He should be able to satisfy Li En's needs.

Li En did not ask for much: just a puppet god-power server, and a banner to conceal his own actions.

"First, create an inheritance, pretending to be a Chosen One who seized the legacy of an ancient god, reviving the god's power."

This was actually quite a cliché; those new forces with only a handful of cats and dogs yet possessing divine favor and divine artifacts might well have some ancient god reviving behind them.

Starting from a small town or village, the Chosen One gradually rose.

Providing faith for Him in exchange for power, becoming a local lord or even a regional hegemon.

It was also the path to rise for legendary protagonists in many novels; that was truly "a pie falling from the sky."

However, precisely because it was so widely circulated, many evil gods also carried the banner of "reviving ancient gods" to create alternate accounts, and those nominally ancient god churches went astray as they walked.