These people slept the entire day by the time they woke up, Khaladrel’s divine energy points had increased to 160.
It wasn’t as effective as prayers but it was better than nothing. However he was confused by their actions.
The moment they woke up they started running around like they were in a hurry. Even the limping Viona was restless.
Ved had no idea what they were looking for. Then they picked up rocks and placed them Infront of the cave entrance.
He didn’t ask and just watched them act. They stacked the rocks on top of each other to block the entrance making sure to block even the smallest opening.
He wondered how they expected to breath. Then they all huddled together under his statue.
He sat next to them quietly and waited, he wanted to see what had them restless like this.
Night fell yet nothing happened. Half an hour after nightfall he heard footsteps Infront of the cave.
" Lucy, Lucy sweetie, it’s me mommy, please open up, it’s cold out here, I’m scared." A sweet feminine voice pierced throughout the cave walls.
His expression changed and grew grim. " Wraiths." He whispered. The young woman with squinted eyes stood up.
" Mom?" She whispered with a muffled voice. " Mom, is that you?" " Yes sweetie, who else could it be?"
The young girl took a step forward heading towards the cave opening. Viona stood up, " Lucy stop." She tried to run towards her but her wound made her slow.
She looked at Khaladrel with pleading eyes. " Please, save her." Khaladrel sighed, he wanted to watch and see if the girl would really walk to her death.
She appeared to be intelligent but he had always suspected emotions made humans do stupid things, seems he was right.
He stood and walked towards the young woman. He grabbed her shoulder but she struggled under his grasp.
" Let me go, let me go mommy needs help, she needs me." He shook his head. " That’s not your mother child, that’s something."
She balled her eyes out and he hugged her. He learnt this was encouraging or something for humans, he didn’t understand why.
He took her back to Viona then stood Infront of them with a grim face. " Sir Khali, what should we do, can you ask the mighty lord to help us?"
Asked one middle aged woman with a terrified voice. Khaladrel turned to look at her with disgust.
" I already told you, the lord has no reason to help you, if you want help, pray for it." They immediately turned around knelt towards the statue.
Viona frowned. " There are no candles." Khaladrel took the two he had and gave them to her.
" This should last you the entire night if you light up one at a time." She nodded and did so. Soft candle light lit up a few metres around them.
The wraiths outside continued trying to convince the people to open the doors. The issue with wraiths was that they can use people’s emotions against them.
Cloud their minds and control them, the control was not strong at all though as it depended entirely on your own emotions.
So it was really easy to break out of. Some of the humans almost fell for them but he stopped them and sent them back.
Then they started praying, he felt divine energy points pour into him. He then used a tiny amount to clear their minds eliminating the effect of the wraith.
Seeing this the people prayed even harder, their belief in him grew stronger and the amount of divine energy they can give grew as well.
However unfortunately they weren’t worshippers. What counts as a worshipper was somebody who can passively increase the Gods divine energy without praying because of how strong their faith is.
His divine energy points continued climbing, within half an hour they reached 250 and continued climbing.
When they reached 400 he heard something outside. Low growls and clicking sounds. They stopped praying and looked towards the cave mouth with fear stricken faces.
Since they were not worshippers he couldn’t see through them, not to mention he was no longer a true God.
However he could tell just by looking at them, they were traumatised by this clicking noises.
" Clickers." Viona whispered and stood up, she limped forward with her sword. " Where are you going?" He asked her. " To fight."
Her face was grim and she was obviously in pain. He can see the radiation spreading turning her leg black.
" You can’t fight in your condition." She looked at him and smiled bitterly. " I have to, I have to fight."
He sighed. " As a servant of the lord of dreams,I can’t let his new believers die now can I? Give me your sword."
She looked at him with surprise. " Sir Khali, you can fight?" He shrugged. " We’re about to find out, now go sit back."
Viona went back but she couldn’t stop worrying, she couldn’t sense any mana from him, she wondered how he expected to fight clickers.
Although they weren’t strong individually they always came in large numbers and they were only weak when compared to an awakened but they were still stronger than a tiger.
She wasn’t exactly sure what a tiger was or how strong it was as it was one of those animals that went extinct long ago.
She had just been told it was weaker than a clicker but she assumed a tiger was stronger than a normal human.
The clicking sounds grew louder and more numerous, just by his estimate, Khaladrel figured there were around 40 to 60 of them.
He held his sword tightly, ’ This will waste a lot of divine energy.’ he sighed, ’ if only I can use mana like huma... Wait.’
He was a mortal now, didn’t that mean he can use mana? He couldn’t be sure until he tried and he had to time to figure it out now.
It pained him that he had to use his divine energy, unlike a true God, he can’t regenerate divine energy passively.
He needed either worship or others to do task under his authority while in his domain like dreaming to regenerate lost divine energy.
He looked at the cave entrance and waited. Suddenly something banged it into, the top rocks fell off revealing an opening.
He turned to look at the terrified humans. " Pray."