5 The Path to Immortality

POV: Elvira

When I saw Father's creation, the Fae, for the first time I was awed. Previously I had wondered why Father was so fixated upon creating a so-called sentient race. Were the current animals and mystical beasts living within our Realms not enough? By traversing the path to immortality, they could most certainly gain what Father called sentience. In fact, a number of them had in the past...although they had perished shortly after, having reached the limit of their lifespans. This idea was completely disregarded when I appeared next to Father as He watched the Fae. He had changed slightly in response to His creation, although I do not know if He truly noticed the curling horns that now sprouted from His forehead.

"Father-" However, my words became caught in my throat as I looked down at the Fae, watching as the many tribes continued to inspect their surroundings. I had caught wind of Father's actions a mere month and a half after He had first started them, because one of the lesser deities who lived in my palace had returned from the Mortal Realm with this news, and already I could see their potential. A mere month old, and although Father most likely had a hand in it, they were already creating shelters and crafting the simplest of tools. "Are those...?" I asked.

"Yes. Those are the Fae, the first sentient race of the Four Realms." He replied casually, resting His chin in the palm of His hand and smiling at the planet below. "Look, look, already the ten Fae I placed on those islands are beginning to craft spears. And the ones in the mountains on the fifth continent, right there, have already discovered fire!" He said, incredibly pleased. My jaw worked slowly, eyes wide as I watched the Fae move about, completely enraptured. Although a few had died already due to environmental conditions, I could see that a large portion of the tribes were ready to expand.

"That's amazing!" I muttered, sitting down and staring at the people, examining them with my divine sense. By doing so I could see the process that Father had used to create the Fae, which I was drawn to for some reason. As I watched them I gradually became aware of Reika doing the same as myself, along with Keilan, who had just appeared in a ripple of darkness, before all awareness of such things faded into nothingness. My attention was fully focused on the Fae. Their bodies were crafted from five elements...their minds from Keilan's black domain...the thing that beat in their chests, their Hearts, was crafted from the mysterious powers of Alexander's domain...and the passageways in their bodies that currently remained unused, were crafted from the power of my realm, the Heaven Realm. Strangely, it was not as physical as I had imagined the energies that flowed through my realm to be. The passages were immaterial, and as I stared at them I slowly began to understand some of the intricacies of my realm's power, and some of Father's preachings.

Keilan and I had clashed a few times over the years, and after one particularly disruptive argument Father had lectured us both. "You are the powers of Yin and Yang, white and black, physical and immaterial, the body and the mind. They are diametrically opposed to each other, correct? WRONG! How many times must I tell you?! There can be no Yin without Yang, no white without black! A body is nothing without a mind! And NEVER, I repeat, NEVER can there be ONLY ONE! Within the purest of Yin is still a shred of Yang! Within the purest of Yang there is still Yin! Now be good children and spend TWO THOUSAND YEARS in your siblings realms! Maybe that will cool you off! Maybe you'll even learn something!" He had shouted at us. Honestly it wasn't that big of a disagreement and Father probably overreacted because we interrupted His rest, but now I realize that He had been trying to show us something, give us some enlightenment towards our own powers. Just as all His actions did, He was trying to help us. And what He said then, was now perfectly in tune with what I was understanding.

Making the immaterial, material. That is what those passageways did! With but a thought those same passages formed within my own body -nay, they were already there. I hadn't realized it until now, but they were there. My divine power may not flow through them, but with a sudden jolt I realized that the energy of my Realm did! They were two different, but very similar, types of energy, and I had only been touching my divine power until now! I raised my hand, imagining a flame igniting in the palm of my hand. Immediately after a white flame appeared, twisting and flickering in accordance to my will. My divine power did not do this, instead the heavenly energy did so. This was what Keilan always bragged about; magic. I could use magic! And although mine was not the same as Keilan's, still! Magic! Haha! In my elation, the state of enlightenment I had been in faded away, although I was much too excited to care. (There had been so much to understand, too...the heart, the body, the soul, I had just barely scratched the surface.) Instead I leapt to my feet.

"HAHAHA! That was awesome! Thank you, Father! I'm off!" I said, leaping forwards and crushing Father in a hug before shooting off to my Realm. There was so much to do! And, I wanted to try creating a race of my own!

POV: Deity of Balance (MC; Statera Luotian)

I watched, amused, as Elvira shot off towards her Realm, a new aura beginning to surround the boisterous girl. Surprisingly, deities could travel along the path to immortality as well as mortals, which was proven by Elvira. Keilan was going through a similar state of enlightenment that Elvira had, and Reika had already floated off, having completed hers about ten years ago. Elvira had taken a full century to contemplate her enlightenment, and I could already see Keilan beginning to come out of his state. Both Keilan and Reika had stepped onto the Path, though clearly they were going down different routes than what Elvira was doing. That, however, was not what had surprised me the most. I already had a certain degree of understanding of the Path, and had poked around with various methods (and although it had never been my focus, I was contemplating truly exploring it) before, but rather, what had surprised me was that through enlightenment, Elvira, Reika, and Keilan were undergoing changes and increasing their personal power. Enlightenment about the world and the workings of the Universe and Multiverse was one of the many, many ways in which deities could increase their personal power.

I also assumed that it was one path to immortality that mortals could have. Enlightenment was part of the path to becoming an angel from my old universe, after all.

Turning towards Randus to speak I froze, noticing for the first time that he was undergoing enlightenment as well. That's understandable. The Fae were among the first beings besides deities to have coherent dreams, after all. Chuckling to myself I looked back towards the planet Cradle, examining the various tribes. There was one group that had begun to carve out canoes to traverse river systems, and a few had begun to worship me, calling me Mother Statera or Father Luotian. That was the name the Fae had given me, Statera Luotian. It had a nice ring to it, so I decided to keep it. (Not that I ever could throw away the gift of a name. The deities had never bothered with such, always calling me Mother or Father instead.)

"Right. Now it's time to spread you." I muttered, clapping my hands and creating another two hundred Fae, spreading them to the other habitable planet in the system. With another clap a hundred more appeared, populating the habitable moon circling one of the gas giants in the system, and I stopped there. I'd have to wait until my power recovered to begin spreading the Fae to the other two planets and Pangea. Creating sentient life was taxing. With a slight cough I stood, turning to focus once again on Keilan, observing his steps onto the path of immortality. He was traversing what I had decided to call the Path of the Mind, or basically training the mind to be able to influence the physical world. Using the immaterial to affect the material, in other words. Psychic, I believe it's called? Or was it psyonic? I don't know. Either way, it was a cool path with many opportunities. Reika on the other hand had experienced enlightenment into the elements themselves and how they can strengthen the fleshly body. It wasn't the same as solely training the fleshly body, which is attained by melding heavenly energy, or Qi, into the body itself, but the results were similar. All in all, I was pleased. My universe was coming along nicely.

"So this is why you rushed to create mortals." Alexander's voice sounded behind me. I said nothing as the dragon shrunk his size so he could wrap himself around me, his head coming to rest on my shoulder. With an idle hand I scratched his head, chuckling in amusement as a contented rumble emanated from his chest area.

"No, not quite." I told him. "There are many reasons that I created the Fae, first and foremost being that the Four Realms have been at peace for far too long."

"What do you mean?" Alexander asked, confused. I could understand his confusion, after all to him the birth of the Four Realms had been incredibly chaotic and now, with the birth of the Fae, he had been working overtime trying to overcome some issues with the reincarnation cycle. That wasn't to mention figuring out how to weave the fates of the mortals, and manipulate them into doing certain things. Freewill was a pain like that, but it is an inalienable right that all beings possessed. Keilan would find a slew of problems facing him when he returned to his realm, and I would be forced to help them smooth things over. Ugh. I'd rather just dump all the work on him and claim it's part of the learning curve.

"I mean that compared to many others, this universe has had a very smooth creation process. I wanted to give the Fae a headstart before the first true storm the Four Realms shall face descends." I explained. It was a feeling I had, that a tribulation would descend upon the Four Realms because it is slightly unbalanced...a tribulation that I had accelerated through my own actions.

"A storm..." Alexander whispered, and I nodded my head.

"Yes, a storm. I am unsure as to what it will be, but I can feel that it will descend within the next ten to twenty thousand years." I told him. It was impossible to tell the future that far ahead, simply because of the number of variables involved. In fact, the future can only be accurately predicted up to two years in advance for most beings, up to ten if one wants to discount a few minor details. Big events can be predicted up to one to two hundred years in advance. However, someone of my level of power can predict truly massive events up to a thousand years in advance, though the details are incredibly vague. Through that impressive power of prediction, I can either guide the Four Realms towards or away from said event. As for the storm I speak of? It's a mere feeling, something I can feel in my gut because of my close connection to my universe and the Balance itself. The event bearing down upon us is universe shaking, at the very least.

After a moment of silence, Alexander soaking in that information, he spoke again. "And what are the other reasons for creating the Fae?" He asked, choosing not to dwell on my ill omens. The only reason I had revealed this information at all was because Alexander was Alexander, and perhaps, if we're lucky, we can avoid the storm. I feel that is not the case however, as it is closely related to the Balance.

"Love." I replied, grinning as I looked down on Cradle. "Love is something that exists in all things on a fundamental level, to the point where it can actually be found as a chemical reaction in a living being's body, that's how pervasive it is, and yet in these sentient races love becomes that much more pronounced. Their lives will help you to understand what love truly is, in all its mighty simplicity. It is so simple, yet so profound, that all beings feel it but only the very powerful can say that they have an inkling of an understanding into it. It is the most powerful force in all the...well, you're not ready for that knowledge yet. Let me just say that Divine Love is the most powerful thing I have ever had the fortune of touching." Alexander was silent, absorbing my speech. It was funny actually, the dragon, unlike his skeptical brother Keilan, hung off of my words, accepting them as Truths, and as such I had to be very careful in what I told him.

"Love." Alexander muttered, untangling himself from me and moving towards the planet, looking down on the Fae. I chuckled and shook my head. Looks like what I said sparked a moment of enlightenment in the dragon. Out of sheer curiosity I peered down at the planet to see what he was looking at, and to my immense surprise and pleasure I spotted the souls of the first two Fae I had created, once again together in a tribe, courting one another. It was incredibly cute.

As I turned to move away, as there was still work to be done and I cannot spend all my time watching over the Fae, an intense stab of pain ran throughout my entire being. In a panic I whirled, power surging out from my body on pure instinct alone, as I searched for the source of that pain. My heart clenched when I found it, one hand absently coming up to clutch at my chest. A man hunting in the jungles of the fourth continent of Cradle was kneeling on the ground, holding the body of his newly deceased son, barely old enough to be part of the hunting party. His body was covered in cuts from the claws of a deadly jungle predator, whose feline body lay far from the boy, many spears sticking out of its body. There was no question as to how the boy had died -the predator had clearly killed the boy in its first attack on the hunting party, crushing his throat in its jaws. What had caused me pain however, was not that. No, people and beings died every day. It was part of life, and reincarnation was part of how one breaks free from mortal bonds. No, what hurt me most was that the man was crying and cursing me, cursing my name, the name his people had given me, for killing his child.

It was the first time one of my own creations had cursed me. The current beasts were much too simple-minded to blame me for the nature of the universe, the Fae had only ever thanked me for bountiful harvests and hunts and begged me to guide the souls of their loved ones in death, and the deities of the universe could never dream of cursing me.

"Damn you." He had said. "Damn you for stealing my son." It hurt, to be blamed so. With a blink of my eyes I peered into the fate that Alexander's spirits had laid out for the man...following the death of his son, the man would go on to devise safer and more efficient hunting methods, sparing countless lives from the same fate in the future. I closed my eyes, taking one deep, shaky breath and looking off towards the Realm Sun. I had been expecting this to happen at some point, in fact I am surprised it took so long as mortals shall be mortals, however I had not expected this pain.

"He knows not what he says." I told myself. "Although I shall always love you unconditionally, I cannot do everything for you. You must learn to stand on your own two feet, for you would never learn and never rise to the heights I know you are capable of reaching if I were to hold your hand the entire way. Everyone has their own trials to face. Even me." I spoke towards the sky. As I turned away once again, restraining myself from interfering in the affairs of mortals as it would do them more harm than good, a single tear fell in the vastness of space.