Anchor

Why do you think the various deities want to spread their faith?

 — Mr. Fool said with a chuckle
on *Lord of Mysteries*, Chapter 824

The **Anchor** can be many things as long as it helps the Beyonder secure their sanity against the influence and Godhood of the Beyonder Characteristics. **Anchors** are required for high-sequence Beyonders to maintain rationality and resist the strong inclination to lose control, the urges buried deep in their collective subconscious.

For existences at the level of Angels or above, **Anchor** mostly refers to "Their" believers. This is why Gods build Churches and gather followers.

## Description

Once a Beyonder becomes an Angel, "They" will inevitably be affected by the Beyonder characteristics, becoming more and more cruel, more and more indifferent to life, so one must have enough **Anchors** to resist this inclination to losing control. The most common anchor is the faith of the mass.

Saints do not necessarily need followers as an Anchor, instead, they could use marks that are significant and mystically meaningful in their life; for instance, Silver Knight's promotion ritual flashback the strong emotions that will serve as the Anchor. That being said, they can also benefit from a small number of followers as anchors to stabilize their mental state.

In its essence, **Anchor** isn’t a tool to help maintain the Beyonder's humanity. Its main purpose was to form a corresponding understanding, positioning, and image, one that would resist the mental imprint within the Beyonder Characteristic so as to maintain an intricate balance. In a sense, the **Anchor** is also a type of corruption: the deities that the believers knew were different from the actual deities. Without the mental imprint within the Beyonder Characteristic to resist this influence, the image of the deities in their hearts would gradually envelop the true appearance of the deities.

Under the balance between the Beyonder characteristics and the **Anchor**, the Beyonder could then barely maintain their humanity and not be severely affected by any other influences. This sort of balance isn’t too stable, and it often tilts to a certain extent. This will cause problems with the Beyonder's condition’s stability. Many Angels chose to show "Their" humanity when "They" are in a delicate balance to strengthen "Their" self-awareness. For example, the Rose School of Thought’s indulgence can be considered to be doing so.

Existences at the level of Angels and above of the Fool Pathway and Error Pathway have an alternative way to create anchors. "They" can form a group of avatars or marionettes respectively and make them "Their" own believers. With "Their" truest appearance as a deity, the image that arose from the referendum of all marionettes / avatars, this can effectively provide the best anchor.

Compared to other Pathways, the Fool Pathway needs an anchor much earlier because of the fragmentation of their Soul Bodies. Their advancement ritual to sequence 4,  use an anchor, but not faith, since faith was a numerous and jumbled affair with too many personal feelings involved. A grand and profound performance under the watch of countless spectators was enough to make their anchor.

## Deities

The Orthodox Deities went from having humanoid statues to simply having Sacred Emblems. This prevented the believers from having a unified impression of “Them.” This improved the effects they had as anchors to resist the remnant mental effects of the Primordial One, whilst also not subtly changing their bodies.

At the same time, the believers' acknowledgment of certain matters would not have any burdens on the deities themselves in a mysticism sense.

* For example, Amon can't just prepare a batch of believers for the former Sefirah Castle to lure them into forming the belief that the Angel of Time was the manifestation of the Lord of Mysteries to establish enough connections with Sefirah Castle and open a “back door.”

### Their Holy Bible

To a deity, the Holy Bible wasn’t anything too important. Its best use was for its convenience to spread its teachings and increase the number of anchors. Most of the content elevated the orthodox deity, making random claims of grandeur and expressed mercy and pity.

In ancient times, the impression the believers had of the deities would indeed have a negative impact on the deities. But now, with the use of symbols instead of statues, this latent problem no longer existed. At the very least, the Orthodox Gods openly declared that they were parts of the Creator’s original body. They weren’t worried that it would exacerbate the awakening of the Oldest One.

To a deity, the Holy Bible only had two important components other than for spreading the faith:

1. it was a description of the authority and honorific name of the deities themselves. If there were any mistakes, it would lead to the prayers of the believers pointing to an unknown target. Not only would it be dangerous to the believers, but it would also cause the deities to lose their anchors.
2. Any descriptions that involved the other Churches would easily attract conflict.

### Their Angels/Saints

As for the angels and saints, the deities actually don't pay them too much mind. The ones that care are the angels and saints themselves because they need to obtain a certain level of anchors through the Holy Bibles. Therefore, the Holy Bibles’ descriptions of angels and saints were detailed enough. They had authority and Honorific Names, making it easier for different believers to choose and be immersed. In addition, this wasn’t enough to form a stable anchor, because it was under the faith of a deity. In order to resolve this problem, the orthodox Churches would define certain cathedrals to different guardian angels and guardian saints and clearly differentiate them.

## References

1. ↑ *Lord of Mysteries*, Chapter 824
2. ↑ *Lord of Mysteries*, Chapter 766
3. ↑ *Lord of Mysteries*, Chapter 1176
4. ↑ *Lord of Mysteries*, Chapter 1334
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 *Lord of Mysteries*, Chapter 1268
6. ↑ *Lord of Mysteries*, Chapter 946
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 *Lord of Mysteries*, Chapter 1327