Intrude

I quite liked the feeling of the wind up here. It had a gentle and soothing quality to it. Plus, the view is simply marvelous. I hadn't often found time to observe the beauty of nature. That had been partially due to how busy life had been back then. Though even if I had more time, there wouldn't be much to observe.

I lived in new york city. Apart from the handful of parks sprinkled within, there weren't many other signs of nature. That is unless you consider a forest of steel towers to be natural. Which now that I think about it is a rather interesting perspective to have.

In combination with the fog from the recent years of pollution, it had its own aesthetic, I guess.

Looking down at the world from high up in clouds gives a different perspective to everything.

Things are so small.

So irrelevant and meaningless.

I was in one of my moods again. Ah, the pains of cyclical depression. A perfect day in which everything is going perfectly, where you're doing everything to the best of your abilities, can become a spiral into another phase of pain.

20 years. I had gone 20 years without this bullshit.

I had spent those years without worrying about my cancer.

Two decades, spent working towards a possible means of salvation. An opportunity that was a miracle in every sense of the word, and then boom, here I was.

The most painful part of this whole thing was acknowledging that it probably was triggered by my cultivation. Something that, despite how agonizing and tedious it had been, was incredibly fulfilling. I'd felt like a child again.

It was me versus the world, and the world didn't stand a chance.

Now I'm back here in these emotional depths, again.

Fuck this.

I had tried to continue cultivation and push forwards, but the higher the effort, the harder it became. Now that my cultivation intertwined with my soul, advancing through the pain became all the more difficult.

A glimmer of hope had passed through my heart when I saw the demon that resided within the realm. I had thought destroying it would destroy the depression. Instead, it simply reformed every time.

It wasn't the cause of my depression. My depression was the cause of it.

Any efforts at cultivation proved to be futile while it existed. It devoured sizeable amounts of the cycled qi, all while inhabited and thrashing my inner realm.

A double combo of shitty things happening. Ah well, I'll get over it...eventually.

"What's on your mind?" I turned my head to look at the shimmering form of Deventus. Her bright amber eyes looked at me with curiosity.

"Nothing." Her face changed to one of sadness at my lack of an answer. She might have been alive for quite a while now, but she was still very childlike in her way of thinking and expressing herself. Though, she possed the body of a grown woman.

Her prophetic abilities showed her the worst of the world, but that didn't seem to affect how she thought. She had made some ruthless decisions, all the while looking at things with the same childlike attitude. At the very least, that's how she presented herself to me.

Perhaps it was the difference between being born with precognition and gaining it later on in life?

I felt the bouncing motions of the cloud as she took a seat beside me."I think I'm going to break into the 1st stage tomorrow."

"Oh really, how many refinements did you do?"

"One thousand refinements." Her voice took on a cheery tone as she talked about her accomplishment. She looked at me with an expectant look.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you!"

One thousand refinements? Damn, lucky her. My attention returned to the world below, but she didn't stop talking.

"I finally went to the other continents. They were pretty cool to look at in person. I knew they existed because of my power, but it was still really nice. One of the continents had loads of huge birds. They looked so cool..."

I know what she was doing.

"...I couldn't see it clearly with my vision. It looked so powerful..."

It was a useless effort.

"....it was so small, but all these enormous ones were following it..."

Nonetheless, I appreciated the gesture.

"...looks like my humans are going to have competition. Those monkeys looked pretty advanced, the lizards too..."

I really shouldn't be stuck in my head; it never helps. Just gotta do something until it goes away. That's all I can do for now. I hoped to change that in the future.

"...and then he killed Marco.."

"Hey, Deventus." she jumped a little at my sudden interruption.

"Yeah?"

"You wanna play a game." I rose up as I spoke, my eyes still taking in the view below.

"Yeah, sure, but I haven't played a game before."She sounded a bit nervous as she spoke. Her mannerisms were so human that sometimes I forgot that she was a concept-given form.

I took a moment to contemplate, all the while she looked at me expectantly. "You and I will both pick one person, and then we're allowed to influence. This can be in any way we want, but it has to adhere to the point system. The game ends when one of our picks dies. But we're not allowed to influence them into killing each other. The victor of the game is decided by who has the most power and influence."

She took a second to think it over. That childish aura of hers had disappeared. It had been replaced by one of competition. "Okay, that works for me, but what is the point system."

I then went on to explain in detail to her. When the explanation was over, she wasted no time and started to move out.

"This is going to be your loss, Tena." She then vanished into the air, probably to go pick her chosen person.

Then it was probably best to go make my pick then. We only had a day to make the pick.

As I stood up to the full height of my stormy form, I couldn't help but feel a little excitement.

That's what I always did when I got into one of these phases. I just stop focusing on myself. My attention would be thrown into something else.

That's why I played Stellaris and Civ.

Playing God helps my depression.

It just feels right.

In earth years, it had been over 60 years since Arnaud had died. Since then, a lot had happened. The population of these lands had continued to increase. Now there were over 300 humans. Given the way the birthrate works plus their healthy bodies, I expected that number to double in the next 20 years.

Currently, I was hidden within space above the mountain. I observed the young civilization and took in all the information I needed. I took my time with it. When playing a strategy game, it's best to take your time and make the right decision now rather than rush and make decisions that end up hampering your progress. This was very much the same.

I was making the best decision I possibly could. In my focus, my attention was taken away from the gnawing sensation within my chest.

Our chosen had to be young.

In order for us to both start on an equal footing, we couldn't pick candidates who were established. This gathering of people basically amounted to a tribe. Anyone well known would hold too much power, something that we both agreed was too big of an advantage.

The children of prominent members would also hold an advantage, but it was reduced by them being so young. In fact, maybe a child from a prominent family could be at a disadvantage.

Amongst themselves, the adults already had established reputations and hierarchies. Picking the right one would basically lead to an automatic victory.

The kid's hierarchy wasn't quite established yet, and it wouldn't be until they grew up. That was time to form alliances and gain followers, two of the factors that were looked at in the victory selection.

My ideal target had to be a child from parents that were less devoted to Deventus. While the children of Alexis weren't fanatics about Deventus, they were still rather devout. Having your mother be an Oracle of a goddess tends to have that effect.

I planned to introduce a new god to them. My persona of Tena would be coming into play. It would be hard to win against her if all the picks were devout worshippers of her. I had to challenge her influence directly.

Given that I could actually give evidence of my presence, that wouldn't be too hard. All I needed was my very own prophet or perhaps Messiah.

I took in the current situation of these people as I continued my search for the perfect candidate.

In order to make changes to a system, you must know what needs to be changed in the first place. Making a choice without further information would be dumb of me.

That was basically giving a free advantage to Deventus.

As I continued to gather information, I started to see the cracks that existed. It was inevitable given that they were human.

Independent thoughts lead to disagreements eventually.

Or, in this case, death.

Apparently, Marco had continued on his mother's tradition of looking to the Eldrticth books. Given that she hadn't deciphered them and since her prophetic abilities didn't speak of them, she hadn't known what they could do. So she had simply warned her children and lightly warded of the library before she entombed herself.

An error on her part.

Living so close to them without any unfortunate incidents had skewed her judgment.

Marco had taken it upon himself to use his mother's notes and attempt to continue deciphering them. He, however, had not approached them with the same caution as his mother.

An error that he paid for with his sanity. His brother had been given no other option but to kill him. None the others had been powerful enough. It was nearly unanimously agreed that it was the right decision. But you know how it goes...a loved one just died, and the one who killed him was the brother that left for a couple years. He also isn't on your radar like the same books that led to your other brother's madness.

It was predictable.

The cracks appeared nearly instantly, there wasn't any fighting, but the tension was there.

This is funny since they didn't realize that Marco had officially started the eldritch storyline. If anything, they should be mad at him. Though they wouldn't have to worry about the consequences of that action for a couple thousand years.

This was the perfect sequence of events for me. Now there were two major factions, still united but very much differing in approval. So the child would have to be from the group that supported William.

And who better than the child of William... but he didn't have a one so, I took the next best thing. The oldest of the sibling had a child of 3 years, and due to the proximity of his birth to Williams, he was one of his more staunch supporters. Plus, he was on the council that currently ruled.

Leon was his name.

My choice was made.

As I made my pick, I felt the presence of the Deventus nearby. It seems as if she had also made her pick. The games were on.

We started with 30 points. Whenever we took action to influence the world, some of them would be deducted. Points could also be gained back in various ways. There were no specifics as to what we could do. The only limitation was that we couldn't go into the negatives.

Together we had created an item that would calculate how many points each action drained. It also determined when points were given to either one of us.

As I started to plan out my moves and began to choose my strategies, I felt myself relaxing. I couldn't progress from cultivation right now but, I was on track to get me back where I once was.

I'd dealt with this force introducing into my life multiple times before. I'd built wealth while it had been more prominent. Things would return to normal, and next time I would make sure it stayed that way.

I had the power to change it.