A Temple of No Gods

The Beginning

"If ever lover's loneliness
Came where you stood,
Pray that Heaven protect us
That protect your blood."

- W.B Yeats

Being a god was a lonely affair.

The path to ascension was most coveted by cultivators of all standing even though it was precarious and unpredictable. There was no guarantee of whether one would cultivate to immortality or whether they would die a horrible death by qi deviation. Yet those few who did manage what was almost the impossible were honored and loved throughout the land. Temples of splendor and luxury would rise in their name and worshippers would chant their name in prayer. Their names were remembered and revered in cities across the land and as long as there were devotees to recall their name, the gods would continue to live out their seemingly endless lives.

Yet as was the case with most things, there was a downside to godhood that most did not dwell on. The crushing loneliness of seeing your familiars fade away with time, succumbing to mortal peril, illness and death. The longer you lived the more you lost and with time even the pain that came with loss was lost to you.

Hence for Lan Wangji, godhood was cause for regret.

During his time as a mortal Lan Wangji had been an exceptional cultivator who excelled in martial arts. A just and fair warrior whose reputation preceded him wherever he went, it came as a surprise to nobody that he would cultivate himself to immortality and ascend as a martial god. What was perhaps the most awe inspiring about his ascension was how young he had been. Yet even that didn't come as a surprise to many, Lan Wangji was a known recluse and his affinity for cultivation was an aid in his path.

He was worshipped across the land in the most lavish of ways. The number of temples this martial god had rivaled that of many others and devotees were buzzing around these temples regardless of season. Soldiers burned joss sticks in his name prior to leaving their villages to fight in the name of their monarchs and their wives came to pray to him for their safety. The said monarchs of mortal lands built vast and ornate temples in honor of him, and erected statues that were meant to represent him yet bore no resemblance to his likeness. Lan Wangji was without a doubt, a god revered, feared and honored.

Yet reverence, honor and fear were all quite conditional as most human emotion tended to be. They did not guarantee eternal devotion. Naturally conditioned to be fickle in their emotions, humans often changed their mind on such things. Battered soldiers would return home having witnessed unprecedented horror on the battlefields, having left their dead comrades and faith in gods rotting in blood soaked trenches. Widowed women who prayed to him for the safety of their husbands would lose all hope and reverence they had for him. It was not something Lan Wangji could control, and neither was it something that he took offense to. Mortal faith in gods was brittle and neither the gods nor the mortals were at fault for that.

Moreover, Lan Wangji knew that in another couple of years, another war would inevitably spring at the borders and new soldiers would burn joss sticks for him before leaving and more wives would come to pray for their husband's safe return. It was a vicious cycle he had witnessed for ages upon ages. There was nothing new in the mortal world for him. Everything was a pre-rehearsed dance of cruel predictability.

Perhaps this predictability was what made him lose the last remaining thread of what bound him to the mortal realm; his need to protect what little number of humans he could. Yet as the time went on, Lan Wangji found it to be a useless and tiring task. Most fates were already sealed and beyond change. There was only so much he could do to save the people who put their trust in them.

Thus rather than disappointing himself and the devotees who blindly prayed to him without the knowledge of their sealed fates, Lan Wangji thought it better to return to his previous reclusive lifestyle, only this time, there was no goals in his mind like the last time. Instead it was one long and endless life in heaven, to which he was already resigned to.