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Leaving the Spirit Realm with the special well water and the borrowed Divine Whip, Iapetus returned to the abode of Mother Earth.

Although he had the life of the Golden Age as a template, the God of Speech only needed to make repairs on its basis, yet the task was still not an easy one.

Therefore, he decisively accepted Laine’s suggestion to detour to the Underworld and bring over his two children. He had the clever Prometheus assist him in adjusting the shells of life, and the dull-witted Epimetheus help him remember the characteristics and gifts that different lives should have.

As he had predicted, both deities performed very well. Over the centuries, horses, jackals, and various kinds of life that would be common in later ages gradually became recognizable, no longer strangely shaped like their distant relatives from the Golden Age.

The personalities designated for their ancestors by the gods were also inherited by the silver generation. Loyalty, cruelty, docility, cunning—different natures under the influence of divine power were revealed by the water from the Well of Origins, bestowed upon different creatures.

However, to keep it secret, Iapetus only created a pair of each kind of being, and then used divine power to protect them. He planned to use the Divine Artifact that once created people to transform them into tribes, only after everything was ready so as not to alert that watcher prematurely.

The God of Speech was preparing, and during those years, another major event happened again in Chaos. Three hundred and ninety years after the birth of Hestia and Demeter, the third daughter of the Divine King was born. Under the proclamation of the current laws, all deities came to know her name, Hera, the Goddess of Fertility.

On the day of her birth, the part of Mother Earth related to the original [Fertility] was once again severed.

[Fertility], this was the reward Chaos had given to them when they conceived the Titans together. The paternal authority allowed Uranus to ascend to the throne, and the power over fertility made Gaia the Queen of Gods, which although it couldn’t enhance the deity themselves like the former, could bring strength to their spouse and offspring.

It was the most suitable divine authority for the Queen of Gods, and thus Hera’s birth brought even more attention. However, just like her two sisters, aside from the day when the new god was celebrated, her figure was never seen again.

Years passed, one after another. When the Queen of Gods Rhea was pregnant once again, and the silver beings created by Iapetus were becoming more numerous, time finally came to a certain point.

Not by accident, nor affected by wars of the gods, the humans of the Golden Age truly reached the end allowed by fate.

Below Mount Othrys, in front of the Temple of Corolla.

“Which one is this?”

Another slab was buried in the ground, and Hewa asked Cohen.

The upper half of the stone slab remained above ground, the lower half driven deep into the earth. When its corresponding human lived out their last moments, another body would be buried in front of the slab.

Even when the humans of the Golden Age died, their bodies would not decay for a thousand years.

“How many? I can’t remember either.”

“As the recorder of history, you should know their number better than anyone. After all, for each person who dies, it is you who engrave their past, allowing them to worship the gods just as they did in life.”

Seated beside Hewa, the king of the Golden Humanity surveyed the surroundings. Compared to several months earlier, there were far fewer humans around the temple.

After all, the Golden Humanity was a creation of the gods, their lives flung into existence with a single strike of the Divine Whip. As such, their strength, endurance, and even their lifespans were remarkably similar.

When the first human lost their perennial youth and died within just a few days, a great number of humans quickly followed. Half a year later, the tribe of humans beneath Mount of the Gods had already halved.

Yet the humans were not afraid of this, not only because they lacked the emotion of fear but also because they knew that death was merely the beginning of another phase of life.

The prescient sage Prometheus once told them that surrounding the Sun, among those shining stars, the heroic spirits of the Golden Humanity lived on. They could continue to serve the gods, even across the vast expanse of the cosmos.

However, it’s said that there seems to be little communication between the gods of the stars and those on the Mount of the Gods.

“Has any deity bestowed a divine message?”

Continuing to work with a stone knife in hand, Hewa casually asked,

“Death is not frightening, but the real problem is that once we die, no one will clean the temple, and no one will worship the gods.”

“No.”

Although Hewa didn’t look at him, Cohen still shook his head.

It was as if he had been forgotten since that being named Hecate left, he had seldom received divine messages from the Divine King. Only occasionally, a deity would pass by.

“Perhaps the gods do not care, they are indifferent to temples and faith.”

Somehow, Cohen remembered a dream he once had.

In the dream, the goddess refused his offer to build a temple and did not intend to let Cohen pray to her. Over the years, he gradually understood her viewpoint, after all, even the gods on the mountain were more interested in the act of ‘worship’ itself than anything else.

The gods didn’t gain anything from the worship of humans; they merely took some pleasure in it. So naturally, when there were other things to do, they would relax their attention to it.

“True, to eternal deities, humans are indeed insignificant, and even these stone slabs I carve will not last forever.”

After finishing the last stroke, Hewa examined his work for a while, and after confirming there were no errors, he set it aside and picked up a new stone slab.

“But in a few days, it will probably be just you left. When that time comes, I’ll trouble you to carve my life story onto a slab and bury me in the earth, so my past may be with the gods.”

“If I’m fortunate enough to be chosen for the heavens, to keep company with the God of Stars, I shall be watching over you, Cohen—”

“…I will.”

Answering softly, Cohen knew what he meant. As one of the first humans, he was the most unique.

Compared to others, Cohen could feel that he still had a long life ahead of him. He didn’t know when he would die, maybe in a thousand years, perhaps in ten thousand, but definitely not now.

“I will guard this place, whether the gods care about us or not, but the reverence humans have for deities will never change.”

“Under the watchful eyes of the stars, I will protect this place until the end of time.”

Looking at Hewa’s face, which had also begun to age without him realizing when, for some reason, a strange emotion surged through Cohen’s heart.

He didn’t know what this emotion was, but he had never seen it in other members of the Golden Humanity. He wasn’t sure if this was because he was the first human or because of that unforgettable dream, but Cohen instinctively didn’t want to face this emotion.

So he stood up, greeted Hewa, and then walked towards the temple.

In this moment, only the gods could give him a moment’s peace of mind.