Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 447 Divine Power and Divine Duties

Murphy didn't seem surprised by the other person's appearance. He sighed, "You're saying the gods took his voice away?"

"Yes." Apollo looked sad. "That great epic poem terrified the gods, and my father, fearing that its spread would bring bad omens, made him lose his voice with a cup of poisoned Nectual."

"But you don't seem to think that way?" Murphy asked.

"You may have heard our legend that my father killed his father and thus ascended the throne of Olympus, while his father killed his father's father and thus gained power," Apollo said.

"In the oldest prophecies, the throne of the Olympian gods will also be passed down in this way."

"But this prophecy was thwarted; my father had been on the throne for too long."

Murphy understood. He smiled. "Apollo, son of Zeus, the king of the gods. God of light, god of the sun, god of prophecy, god of art, god of archery and war, the most beloved and revered god of Olympus. You are certainly qualified to take over that authority."

"So what do you want me to do?"

Apollo waved his hand, and a pale golden halo spread out from his body until it covered the entire area around the tomb.

Murphy did not stop him; he knew it was a way to prevent others from observing or probing.

"Where did you hear the name Wotan?" Apollo asked.

The Nibelungen story is based on Norse mythology. In the story, the chief god who built the temple of Valhalla and was always behind the scenes trying to prevent Ragnarok, but ultimately caused Ragnarok to fall through a series of tricks, was named Wotan, who is actually Odin.

However, Norse mythology has not yet spread widely, and the name of the god exists only in a small region of Iceland.

"It's just hearsay."

“Wotan is actually an incarnation of my father,” Apollo said. “Long ago, when my grandfather Cronus was killed by him, he made a prophecy that Zeus would be betrayed by his own children. My father inherited Cronus’s divinity, and this curse would surely come true, so he began to prepare for it long ago.”

"On the one hand, he seized important power through his brothers to prevent a rebellion. On the other hand, just in case, he created this incarnation for himself. He did it very discreetly, absorbing a portion of the power of the original Icelandic deity, so the other party looked different from him. He even fooled many of my brothers and sisters, but divine power is hard to fake."

"He has poured too much divine power into this incarnation. Once it is destroyed and absorbed, the throne of Mount Olympus will change hands."

"However, it is very difficult to directly eliminate the main god of a pantheon. This would mean changing the entire belief system. If you want to achieve your goal by eliminating believers, you would have to kill at least 100,000 people. Even war and plague would be difficult to accomplish this."

But you showed me the power of poetry.

Murphy remained noncommittal. "In that case, why don't you just have your followers spread this story? As the god of art and music, you shouldn't lack followers like that, right?"

“That first and foremost means a direct confrontation with my father,” Apollo said. “I am not ready for that, and my brothers and sisters will not stand idly by. We have tested each other many times during the Trojan War, and both Athena and Ares are no less powerful than I am. If my intentions are exposed, I will be besieged by them.”

"So you need me, an outsider, to step up," Murphy said.

“I do not know where you come from, nor do I care why you spread such a legend,” Apollo said. “If you spread this story, I can use some means to destroy Wotan. You don’t even need to do much. With your power, protecting a few poets should be easy. Just spread the story to the court and into three or four city-states, and even Zeus will find it difficult to stop its spread.”

Spreading the Ring of the Nibelung was Murphy's original plan, so he wasn't going to refuse. But there was no reason not to take advantage of such a tempting offer, so Murphy said, "If you do this, I'll have to take the risk of becoming an enemy of Zeus for you."

Apollo paused for a moment, then said, "Tell me, what do you want?"

He knew, of course, that Murphy was deliberately manipulating him, but as the sun god, he always prided himself on his generosity, and besides, how could a small price be compared to the position of the Olympian king?

"Divine power," Murphy said. "I need a lot of divine power. Give me one-third of your divine power."

Apollo's eyes suddenly flashed with a blinding, fiery light. "You're courting death?!"

Divine power is closely related to faith. The total amount of faith determines the upper limit of divine power. If someone wants to take away one-third of your divine power, you would probably have to give up several of your divine offices. This is like cutting off your own flesh. How could Apollo not be furious?

Murphy knew the other party had misunderstood, but he didn't immediately explain. Instead, he smiled faintly, and his powerful magic suddenly surged and then contracted, only lightly enveloping his body.

However, within that layer of magic, it seemed that all matter had been controlled by the magic, that all rules were subject to its will, and that the universe within that layer of magic belonged entirely to the other party.

The concentration and quality of its magic terrified Apollo.

He even had a ridiculous feeling that the divine power he possessed, condensed from various divine positions, was as fragile as an egg in the face of that magic power that was like an impenetrable fortress.

But he couldn't understand it.

How is that possible?

Even Zeus, even Cronus, and even Uranus, the first king of the gods—the embodiment of the sky, the most primordial and powerful deity—could not possess such divine power!

It is important to know that the quality of a deity's divine power is usually related to their divine office.

The more singular and narrow the divine role, the more limited the concepts that the deity can reach and the range of phenomena that can be interpreted, and the lower the quality of its magic will be.

If the divine office itself belongs to a more basic and primitive concept, such as the sun, the sky, lightning, war, fertility, etc., or if the god has enough divine office, then the god can form a set of rules to explain the operation of the world based on the concepts related to his own divine office, and his divine power will be more fluid, natural, and flawless, and of higher quality.

Because Apollo held more than ten divine positions, many of which were very important and fundamental, his divine power was extremely concentrated, and the quality of his divine power was outstanding among the gods, even not much worse than Zeus's.

Although Murphy's total magical power was at most below average compared to true gods, and was like a firefly compared to gods like him or Zeus, the quality of his magical power was terrifying.

He simply couldn't imagine what kind of divine authority could generate such concentrated and terrifying divine power from faith!

(End of this chapter)