Endless Imagination

The world was going to hell, and it was the greatest fucking thing ever.  EVER.  Okay, it was ONE of the best things ever.  Mr. Shadow had actually come across some rather fun things since leaving his original reality.  After his original defeat at the hands of the Fifth Element of his reality, a being had awakened him from his stasis and gave him a chance to escape his endless cycle of defeat.  Yjarl, the self proclaimed Father of the abyss had given him a body, and the ability to travel to different realities.  In exchange for working for him, Yjarl had promised him many things, and the Father of the abyss seemed quite adept at delivering on those promises.  One such promise had been allowing Mr. Shadow a chance at true victory over his eternal enemy.  Shadow sat in a large, comfy black leather chair in the middle of what seemed to be an empty office.  The floor gleamed with an eerie, ghostly blue light, almost an exact match for his own strange glowing eyes.  In front of him large plate glass windows revealed that he was in a tall high rise building overlooking a city in ruins.  His building was the only one left standing whole, the rest of the city’s structures a broken, flaming mess.  The sky was a dark red, as if the sun itself was dying, no longer able to illuminate the world as it once had. 

There were various kinds of air crafts and ships streaking through the blood-like sky destroying each other in some apocalyptic final battle.  This war, in fact, had been going on for three hundred years now, and had spread across the entirety of the planet earth.  This city had long been the last bastion of hope for humanity, but that illusion had been shattered a year ago as the final states of the war had reached its threshold.  The building Shadow sat in seemed to be untouched by the destruction, however, and stood tall and complete, a beacon in its own right.  That beacon was not one of bright hope, but instead dark despair.  If he’d had a bowl of popcorn, Shadow would be enjoying himself even more right about now.  With his eyes he could see everything that was going on in the world at that moment.  At the former base of the Federate Territories, High Admiral Linberg, who had been President Linberg in Shadow’s original reality, had just been slain along with General Munro at the hands of Aknot, the God King of the Mangalores.  In Shadow’s reality the Mangalores had been scattered to 

the far outlining planets of the solar system after a failed war against humanity and political infighting.  They had been a joke worthy of only a minimal distraction at best, and they had even failed at that.

However when Mr. Shadow had entered this universe a thousand years ago, keeping to the shadows, no pun intended, he had guided them to become a force to be reckoned with.  He had kept them on the outskirts of the solar system, and had curbed their desire for pointless war.  instead he had built them up over time to be a truly supreme race of warriors;  smart, dangerous, and capable of both physical, and mental evolution.  Their ability to shape shift had deepened, and he had forged them into his secret army.  God King Aknot had grown into a supreme beast of war, making Mr. Shadow proud in this great war.  Just as he had predicted, his Mangalore army had made short work of the Federate Territories and had them cornered for years until today, landing the fatal blow to the last vestiges of High Admiral Linberg’s forces.  They had put up a valiant fight, but had been outclassed from the beginning.  The only reason they had lasted this long was because Mr. Shadow had wanted them to.

In another part of the world, Mr. Shadow’s forces laid waste to the last remnants of the Earth Federation, shattering their defenses from the inside thanks to the shape shifting Mangalores, wiping them out completely.  All across the world, earth’s forces were being pushed over the edge and into oblivion.  There were only a few chess pieces left to be moved, and one of them, the great champion themselves, had just stepped onto the top floor of his building.  

“Sir, she is here.  Shall we capture her and bring her to you?"  

Mr. Shadow heard a voice behind him, causing him to turn his chair away from the windows to face the one who had been his right hand man for the last forty years.  Jeane-Baptiste Zorg.  The mercenary had almost been a great tool in his original reality, but had ultimately failed.  In this reality, Shadow had found him early, just as he had the Mangalore.  The man was still as intelligent and shrewd as ever, but far stronger, more ruthless, and a hundred times as competent as he had been back then.  Physically he was less gaunt and had maintained all of his body parts.  He was a genius when it came to weapons development, and Shadow had made sure he had unlimited resources to spread his business throughout the system.  Shadow did not rise from his chair, instead he just shook his head and waved for Zorg to join his side.

"No, let her come.  She’s sacrificed so much to get here.  How can I disappoint her now?"  

There was a dark mirth in his voice, which was deep, but seemed to carry his words from his lips in a melodic tone, always smooth on the ears.  Zorg gave a nod and said nothing more as he moved to stand beside Shadow’s chair.  With no resistance, Shadow’s guest made her way into the ‘office’, only slightly surprised that there was nothing there but Mr. Shadow, Zorg, and the chair Shadow sat in.  The intruder was a tall woman with red hair cut short just below her ears.  She wore a strange white body armor that seemed not of this world, and she was armed to the teeth.  Her complexion was pale, though it seemed unnaturally so, as if years of struggle and strife had weighed heavily on her.  this didn’t take the edge off of her presence, however, and she had the aura of a formidable foe, a champion.  Mr. Shadow smiled and stood from his chair.  He had an air of calm about him that was unsettling, especially when you took into account everything that was going on.  

He was dressed in a simple black business suit, complete with a white dress shirt beneath his black suit jacket, and a black tie.  his complexion was also rather pale, but it seemed absolutely normal for him. He had smooth, youthful features that gave him the look of a male in his early twenties.  His hair was black and cut short above his ears, and neatly trimmed.  He gave off no aura of power, and seemed to be just a man until you looked at his eyes.  his eyes were a pair of ghostly blue orbs that seemed to hold back some vast, unimaginably horrible, ancient, and dark power.  One couldn’t even begin to imagine the scope of it.

He reached up with his right hand to straighten his black tie a bit, shifting his collar into a slightly more comfortable position before his hand fell back to his side.  A small, almost mischievous smile curled the edges of his lips upward.   

"Ah, so we finally meet  Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat, or shall I just call you Leeloo like your comrades do?"  

The woman froze, her eyes widening as Mr. Shadow spoke her true name.  Not many outside of the Mondoshawan, or the people of the 50th Parish knew of her true name.  She didn’t remain ruffled for long, and Shadow had to admit that she was impressive.  But then, almost all versions of her were.  She was his eternal enemy after all, his antithesis. 

"You are the one behind this infernal war, and I’ve come to stop you.  I don’t know why you’ve done all of this, but you are not my true enemy.  the true enemy is The Great Evil coming our way.  This war is meaningless! All of this will be destroyed if the Great Evil isn’t stopped!  Why can’t you see that?!"  

Her eyes blazed as she glared at both Mr. Shadow and Zorg standing beside him.  Neither of them seemed taken aback.  In fact they both seemed to smile, Shadow with his mouth, and Zorg with his eyes, his other facial features remaining neutral.  

"Ah, yes, this Great Evil that you and the Parish have been preaching about all these years.  The enemy of all life in the universe wasn’t it?  On it’s way, as we speak, to snuff out the true light of the universe and send it into a state of entropy, decay, and finally ultimate destruction.  That Great Evil?"  

Mr. Shadow chuckled after the words had left his lips, causing Leeloo to grimace, trying her best to hold back her rage. 

 "Yes! If you know of it, why did you start this war?!  it only hastens the Great Evil’s plans!  Are you working WITH it?!  Has it gotten to you?!  Answer me!"  

Shadow couldn’t help the malicious grin that suddenly spread across his face, his ghostly blue eyes finally letting just a little bit of that absolute dread past the seal that kept his antithesis of life in check.  

"Now my dear Leeloo, if I were working with this Great Evil of yours, would I have left your precious Parish alone as they worked with the Mondoshawan Guardians to gather the elemental stones of power?  Those are the only things that can destroy this Great Evil, aren’t they?”

Leeloo’s eyes finally lost any sense of control, and her composure finally broke.  How did he know about the stones?  if he was capable of being behind this great war, surely he would have gone after the stones had he been a tool of the Great Evil.  He was correct, she and the Parish had worked with the Guardians known as the Mondoshawan to gather the stones, and be ready to stop the Great Evil once this war was over.  However they were running out of time, so much so that they had to hatch a near suicidal mission to end this war in time to be able to put the stones to their destined use.  Many Mondoshawan had sacrificed themselves to get her into this building, arming her with their technology, and even developed weapons, which was against their creed.  It had been a sacrifice they had been willing to make for the greater good.  Leeloo was about to speak, but was interrupted by Mr. Shadow’s loud laughter.  

“Just kidding, I’ve killed all of your precious priests and guardians as well." 

Even as his words rang painfully in Leeloo’s ears, her attention was drawn to the large windows behind Mr. Shadow and Zorg, which had suddenly turned into a holoscreen that took up the entire space of the windows and wall.  On the screen appeared a scene of absolute destruction.  Leelo’s eyes widened even more, and tears began to stream from them when she recognized the place as the hidden Temple City of the Parish.  No one was supposed to know it’s location.  Many Mondoshawan had sacrificed themselves to create a soul shield that blocked them from being viewed by the enemy’s satellites, or reached by Shadow’s forces. 

But they HAD reached them.  On the screen, Leeloo could see a large force laying waste to Temple City.  At their head was the dreaded Dark Diva Plavalaguna, who’s song of destruction drove anyone who heard it mad, causing them to self-destruct.  She had been another piece Mr. Shadow had found early enough to turn to his cause.  When Shadow left this place, he would take her with him, along with Zorg and a select few other toys he’d grown fond of.  As the scene played out before them, Shadow turned his gaze to Leeloo once more.  

"All you have done is for naught my dear Leeloo.  You see, all this time you haven’t been fighting one Great Evil, but TWO Great Evils."  

Finally Mr. Shadow’s eyes seemed to lose the seal that bound his dreaded power, the antithesis of life held deep within him.  He was not in his true form, but he didn’t need to be.  The moment the wave of dread spread out from his eyes, Leeloo knew he was telling the truth.  Though it was different from what she felt from the Great Evil approaching from deep space, the power of life within her shrank away from Shadow’s power in the same way.  She was the Fifth Element, the supreme being, and she would always know her enemy, no matter what form it took.  Leeloo took a step back, but was able to remain mostly in control of herself.

"How can this be?  How can there be two Great Evils?!  This….this…."  

She trailed off unable to continue.  She needn’t worry though, Shadow would give her answers. 

"That’s simple. I am a Great Evil from another reality.  Believe it or not, I have danced this dance with you before, or rather, my reality’s version of you.  That version of you was not nearly as strong as you are now, but she still defeated me.  She gathered the stones, and activated her power as the Fifth Element and stopped me from destroying her universe.  It was infuriating to say the least.  I was so sure I would win that time.  Alas, I was like any other Great Evil in the story books, meant to be defeated by the protagonist in the end."  

Mr. Shadow had a mock look of defeat on his face, a light shrug of his shoulders given as if to say; "you win some, you lose some”.   

“However she did not destroy me, merely sealed my antithesis of life away, causing my true form to become dormant.  I was trapped within myself, forced to wait until it was my time to dance the endless dance again with the next Fifth Element.  I’d probably just lost again, but that all changed when a power greater than even my own reached out to me and gave me a body, as well as access to the emotional spectrum.  It also gave me the power to travel between realities, allowing me to leave my own behind.  I traveled to many different realities, and watched our battle play out over and over again.  Each time the Great Evil was defeated by 'you’, the Fifth Element.  I was baffled as to what I did wrong each time.”

Shadow turned to the screen, which was showing a rather ludicrous scene.  Dark Diva Plavalaguna had reached the great temple, and was facing off against, of all people, Ruby Rhod.  Was he challenging the Dark Diva to a dance off?!  Was he Peter Quill now?!  This caused even Shadow to laugh softly to himself.  Soon Ruby was killed along with High Paladin David, the last champion of the Parish.  Finally the scene showed High Priest Vito Cornelius being gutted by Plavalaguna, and the last of the Perish’s people being overrun and destroyed by her forces.  Shadow smirked softly and waved his hand, causing the scene to change.  The destruction of Temple City was replaced by the picture of a single man, a smiling soldier of the Federation holding a laser rifle across the back of his shoulders with his right arm hooked over the front of the weapons long barrel, clutching a helmet in his gloved left hand.  The moment Leeloo saw the soldier, something deep inside of her lurched.  It felt as if the very power of life, her Fifth Element was reaching out towards the male in that picture.  She had never seen him before in her life, but in that moment it seemed as if she’d known him forever.  The dread in her chest was so deep that it took her breath away and caused the tears in her eyes to fall more heavily than before.

“You’re asking yourself why seeing this man, a man you have never met in your life, is making you feel the way you are, right?  I’ll tell you.  This man’s name is…"  

Before Shadow could finish speaking, Leeloo’s lips parted and she spoke out in a broken whisper.  

"Korben….Dallas…."  

Zorg’s eyes widened, but Mr. Shadow only laughed, his hands clapping together in some dark, twisted glee.  

"That’s right!  Korben Dallas.  Even though you’ve never met him, you know his name, or rather your soul knows his name.  In every reality I visited I could only wonder why you defeated me each and every time we faced off.  Surely the Fifth Element couldn’t win EVERY time right?  There had to be some kind of balance!  Then I found it, the one reality where the Great Evil won.  It came to me then, the thing I had been missing, the reason why I had always lost to you.  Korben….Fucking….Dallas!"  

Shadow reached for a gun that was strapped at Zorg’s hip, releasing it from it’s holster and aiming it at the holoscreen.  He pulled the trigger and shot a beam of crimson light between Korben’s eyes, shattering the holoscreen where his face was.  Leeloo reached out and screamed before falling to her knees, completely lost in her dread and loss now.  Her once firm shoulders were shaking as she sobbed into her gloved hands.  she was barely able to lift her head to meet Shadow’s triumphant gaze.

"In each of those goddamned realities where I lost to you, it was because THIS man was at your side.  It wasn’t just a random lover who helped you awaken your power as the Fifth Element to stop me, it was always, ALWAYS him!  Each and every goddamned time, except for one reality.  In this reality, by some long shot chance, Korben died in a hover car accident before he could meet you.  In reality you fought well, but you didn’t have Korben there with you to awaken your power. You lost because you didn’t have his love."  

When he said the word love with such disgust and disdain, Leeloo gasped at the truth that rocked her to her very core.  She could feel her power of the Fifth Element begin to shrink in on itself, becoming only a shade of its former glory.  It was true.  All this time she had felt something was missing.  She knew what she had to do, the High Priest and the Guardians had made sure of that.  But she had never felt confident that it would work out in the end, even if they COULD stop the war.  Oh she fought with everything she could muster, but now she knew what she had been missing.  Love.  HIS love.  She shuddered there, kneeling in complete defeat, unable to gather even a small portion of her will power any longer.  

"So I had my man Zorg here hunt him down and kill him long before you had even been awakened by the Parish and the Federate Alliance.  There was no chance you would meet him this time, and because of that, you have lost.”

He was right.  It was all over.  Leeloo could feel it in her shrinking soul.  She finally raised her head, her eyes meeting his once more.  They had lost all light, a dulled copy of their former selves.  She was utterly defeated. 

 "So now what?  The other Great Evil is still coming.  What are you going to do now?“  

Mr. Shadow smiled, and instead of answering her, he turned to face Zorg.  He held up his right hand as a small black cube with glowing strains of gold spider webbing across its surface appeared floating above his palm. 

"Take this.  It will transport you to a set of predetermined locations.  Gather the Dark Diva and the Mangalores.  Once they are with you, it will automatically transport you all to a place outside of this universe.  I will take you all with me as promised when I leave here.  We’ll all have so much fun together."  

The way he spoke the words, he seemed like a gleeful child.  Zorg smiled with a nod and took the cube, disappearing with it.  Shadow then turned to face Leeloo, slowly walking towards her.

"Ah, no need to worry about my counterpart.  I will let it have victory here.  The universe will be destroyed as all life within it is snuffed out by it’s power.  Then I’ll have a little chat with it before I leave this place myself.  As for you my dear Leeloo…."  

He finally reached her and looked down at her broken, defeated form.  The world began to shake around them, and he knew that the version of him from this reality had sensed the power of the Fifth Element shrivel, causing it to speed up it’s advance.  It was almost there now.  He sensed that Zorg had done his duty and transported Shadow’s chosen few away from the imminent destruction of the universe. Shadow let his hand fall to settle beneath her chin, gently lifting her face to meet his gaze.  

"I’ve always admired your fire Leeloo.  It’s a shame that we couldn’t be friends.  I am even of a mind to stay with you to the end and make sure your last moments are peaceful."  

He watched her facial features shift a bit, almost as if she had a small spark of hope left.  Shadow’s face changed drastically in that moment. Gone was the youthful, gentlemanly facade.  Those ghostly blue eyes flashed with pure malicious intent, and within them, she could only see death.  

"Psyche!"  

He lifted her body from the floor with just his hand beneath her chin, showing a limitless strength and control as he lifted her until her feet were dangling above the floor.  He held her there a moment, the world starting to quake around them as destruction finally came for it.  Just before the windows blasted inward from the shock waves of the Great Evil’s arrival, his left hand thrust into her body just beneath her rib cage.  He felt for her heart, gripped it, and ripped it out as life fled her body.  Her body went limp and he dropped her to the floor.  Time seemed to slow down, the shattered glass from the impact filling the room and floating slowly around him as he held up Leeloo’s 'heart’.  It was not a true heart, but instead the final stone, the stone of love and the True Fifth Element.  It had taken him so long to truly understand that his true enemy wasn’t just life, but love.  How could life truly exist and flourish without love?  With a chuckle, he crushed the stone and absorbed it’s energies into his body.  Under most circumstances this would have been dangerous for him.  It was his antithesis after all.  However Yjarl had allowed him to overcome that weakness a long time ago.

He was quite fine, even enjoying the feel of the Fifth Element’s power being absorbed into his being.  With this final task done, time resumed its normal speed, and the world was destroyed around him.  Leeloo’s body turned to dust along with everything else.  It wasn’t long before the entire earth was completely destroyed.  The Great Evil hadn’t truly come for the earth itself though.  It was just the planet’s bad luck that it had formed atop a vast galactic leyline, its core being created from the energy of that leyline.  Once that core was destroyed and the leyline laid bare, the Great Evil’s antithesis of life would corrupt it, spreading death and entropy throughout the universe using the leyline as a guide to snuff out life completely.  With entropy reigning in the wake of that power, there was no hope of a new spark of life awakening.  In the space that earth once occupied, the moon sized body of Great Evil floated like a triumphant black star.  

After a few moments, however, Mr. Shadow appeared in front of his alternate self.  This caused the Great Evil to speak out, it’s voice a force of complete domination and power.  Not many beings could withstand this voice for long, as it caused them to break down on a cellular level from the inside out.  Even trying to withstand it for a short time caused the body to begin bleeding from the brain down.  Mr. Shadow remained completely unfazed as it spoke to him.  

**Who are you?  I have sensed your presence for some time now.  It seems….familiar.  I would like to know how you survived earth’s destruction, and how you are able to face me now.**

Instead of answering his counterpart’s question, Mr. Shadow just grinned and spoke using the exact same primordial voice the black star had used to speak it’s own words.

**How does it feel to win?  I now watching you win has brought me great satisfaction, though you would not have won had it not been for me.**  

The Great Evil was silent for a long moment before it’s voice rang out once more. 

**I see.  You are me, but not me.  However, I do not understand your meaning.  I have won because I am meant to win.  The Fifth Element was never strong enough to stop me.** 

Shadow sighed and shook his head.  He hadn’t expected his counterpart to be surprised at Shadow’s presence here.  It was not human, and did not have access to the emotions Shadow had gained along with his body.  It only knew its purpose and that it could not be stopped.  Except in almost every other reality, that is exactly what happened to it.  Shadow gave a light shrug of his shoulders, his body, even his clothes completely unaffected by the vacuum of space. 

**That is untrue, but it doesn’t matter.  You have won, and this universe will die.  I do, however, find it a shame that you can not truly enjoy this moment, so I will help you by allowing you to become a part of me.  Once that happens, you will know true joy and satisfaction.**  

Shadow could almost imagine a huge question mark appearing above the black star, but before it could speak, Shadow reached out and let the absorbed power of the Fifth Element radiate from within him.  The black star could not draw back from him, though it gave off the impression that it was trying to do just that.  Shadow had completely absorbed and integrated the power of this reality’s Fifth Element into his being.  He could easily manufacture the emotion called love needed to activate it, allowing him to use what had long been his greatest weakness.

As the power was gathered and released, it blasted into the black star, and much like what had happened to him so long ago, the star began to die, it’s energies being sealed by the Fifth Element.  This time around, however, Shadow didn’t just seal the Great Evil’s power away, he absorbed it into himself, truly causing the destruction of the black star, the Great Evil of this reality.  He made its power his own, giving Mr. Shadow a dual victory.  As he finished absorbing the power of his counterpart, Shadow floated there in the void facing a crumbling black star.  With its power truly gone, there was nothing holding it’s form together, and soon it became dust much like the earth had.  Shadow gave a deep sigh that should have been impossible within a vacuum, but he seemed to defy those physics.  He gave one last sweeping gaze to the dying universe around him, enjoying the final dredges of his victory before willing himself away and to another place.  There was just so much more fun to be had. 

~End~

Qiang took a deep breath to calm himself.  At this point in his second life, he had been cultivating for seventy years, a speck of sand in the lives of the most powerful cultivators of this universe, and hell, even in his past life.  But seventy years was still enough time to have gained many insights into the Great Dao, what cultivators saw as the origin of all things.  Those who spend their lives studying the Great Dao literally cultivated the very meaning of life and every one of it’s aspects.  This included life, death, spirit, energy, all of the elements, and even emotions.  There was an aspect of the Great Dao in almost all things.  Most warriors cultivated in the lesser war-like Daos, such as the Dao of the Sword, and weapons of conflict.  Some cultivated in the Daos of nature, or even in emotional Daos, such as the Dao of Love, or the Dao of Hate.  There were Daos dedicated to the arts such as dance and music, even calligraphy.  There were Daos of formations, spells, even blood.

Above these lesser Daos there were also Greater Daos such as the Dao of Constellations, or the Dao of The Sun and Moon, as well as the Dao of Fortune and Fate.  Even higher were World Daos that included the Dao of Creation, the Dao of Samsara representing death and rebirth, the Dao of the Soul, The Dao of Destruction, and the Dao of Force.  The highest Daos known were called the Universal Daos.  These Daos included the Dao of Primordial Might, The Dao of Universal Karma, The Dao of Chaos, The Dao of the Abyss, The Dao of the Great Firmament, and the Dao of Great Divinity.  Most mortal cultivators only ever reached enlightenment in the lesser Daos and those with great talent cultivated the greater Daos.  Those who reached the realm of immortality could master the greater Daos, and touch upon the world Daos.  Those who had the potential to reach past immortality and into godhood would master the world Daos, and seek understanding in the Universal Daos.  But only the truly powerful cultivators, those who could create worlds and rule over the universe itself could master the Universal Daos.

Many would only focus on one or two Daos of any given level, because it was difficult to split one’s time and understanding among many different Daos.  Focusing on too many Daos would make it near impossible to master a single one.  Qiang was one of those who thought that was total bullshit, though Qiang was also special.  Being the son of the Hindu God Brahma, known to be a three faced, three souled, three lived deity, Qiang inherited much of his father’s essence.  This allowed him to not only cultivate the path of three lives, which consisted of Man, Buddha, and Demon, but meant that he had a supremely strong soul.  For cultivators, having strong souls was even more important than having strong physical strength.  A strong soul meant that you could cultivate in much more potent techniques, and comprehend them far faster than those with weaker ones.  Qiang’s powerful soul allowed him to cultivate and master a technique called Myriad Divine Thoughts.

The Myriad Divine Thoughts technique allowed a cultivator to split their souls, as well as their minds.  Those who cultivated this technique at it’s lower levels would be able to split their minds and souls a few times, giving them an advantage over others, but it’s power would be limited, and each split would only be a fraction of the whole.  However, those with supremely strong souls and true talent could cultivate the Myriad Divine Thoughts technique to it’s master levels, and even master it to the universal levels.  This would allow them to split their minds and souls into countless splits, and each split would be just as powerful as the original.  This supreme technique would allow a cultivator to master multiple techniques, and walk multiple paths of cultivation at once.  Whatever one split knew, all splits knew.  If someone cultivating the Myriad Divine Thoughts technique knew the proper skill, they could even create Karma twins, a second or even third body for themselves, and insert a split into it, allowing that split to fully walk it’s own path of cultivation with each step shared by the original, as well as any other karma twins.  It was a truly divine technique.  

Thanks to this, Qiang was able to grow by leaps and bounds during his seventy years of cultivation.  He currently had two karma twins.  He remained as a man, while one karma twin lived as a Buddha, and the other as a Demon.  Qiang continued living his life of cultivation, growing stronger and enjoying his path.  His Buddha twin secluded herself and cultivated the path of total enlightenment alone.  Qiang’s Demon twin lived an uninhibited life of destruction, growing stronger by walking the hellish path of a devil.  Currently Qiang the man was enjoying life as a guest elder of the Sky Dao Qin Clan.  When he had first come to the Skylark continent, known as the third strongest of the nine dark continents, he had stopped at a great auction held by the Azure Dragon Sect, known for their stranglehold over the trade and auction house businesses.  Because Qiang himself came from a trading family, he had been able to spot many of the Azure Dragon Sect’s unsavory practices, and had not only ruined a slew of their plans, but had gained a tremendous profit while causing them a massive loss.

The Azure Dragon Sect could not stand for this and sought to kill Qiang for insulting them in such a manner.  To them Qiang was nothing but a weak piece of trash.  In this world, cultivation was broken down into realms, and each realm was broken further into nine levels.  The first three realms of cultivation were known as the Body Refinement realms, the Warrior realm, the Berserker realm, and the True Warlord realm.  Each of these realms had nine levels for a cultivator to traverse, strengthening their physical bodies with each level surpassed.  Most cultivators started out as normal humans who used simple techniques to absorb and cultivate the Qi of the heavens and the earth.  The body refinement realms are what got a cultivators body ready to actually manipulate and use those energies.  These early realms were what a cultivator used to build up their physical prowess, and their inner meridians, a kind of circulation system in the body a cultivator used to circulate the Qi of the heavens and the earth through their body in order to grow more powerful.

After the three body refinement realms were the three Qi consolidation realms which included the Ethereal Martial Realm, the Ethereal Master Realm, and the Ethereal Sky realm.  These were the realms where a cultivator became intimate with the laws of heaven and earth Qi.  As they rose through the levels of these three realms, they would continue to refine Qi with their bodies and their souls, gaining profound insights and full control over the Qi refinement processes of their choice.  By the time the Qi consolidation realms were truly mastered, a cultivator was ready to begin transcending their mortality, and thus came the three Transcendent realms.  These realms included the Sky Lord realm, the Sky King realm, and the Sky Emperor realms.  These three realms were where a cultivator became not only with the Qi of the heavens and the earth, but the very laws of heaven and earth.  Mortals were bound by the laws of nature, but those who mastered the Transcendent realms of cultivation could merge their beings with these laws, and in doing so surpass them.  Those who surpassed the laws of nature and defied the heavens truly transcended mortality and became immortals.  In order to become an immortal, Transcendent cultivators not only had to surpass the laws of nature, but endure the anger of the heavens in the form of a great tribulation.  These great tribulations usually came in the form of whatever element or natural force that the cultivator was weakest against.  For this reason, many cultivators spent many years at the Sky Emperor realm in order to make sure their foundations were as solid as possible in order to successfully surpass the great tribulation.

Once the great tribulation was surpassed, a cultivator truly entered the Immortal Foundation Realm.  These realms included the Threshold Immortal Realm, the True Immortal Realm, and the Demigod Realm.  While in these realms, a cultivator didn’t just surpass the laws of nature, but started to define and create their own laws.  Using the laws of nature, the heavens, and the earth as a basis, immortals could start to build their own personal laws, binding them to their essence and truly begin to cultivate the greater Daos.  One wasn’t truly considered a powerful cultivator until they reached the Immortal Foundation Realm.

After the Immortal Foundation realm was the World Realm.  The World Realms included the Earth Saint Realm, The Earth King Realm, and The Earth Emperor realm.  At these realms a cultivator has mastered their personal laws and developed a god core.  A god core was where a cultivator could begin to use their personal laws to create a world of their own within themselves.  When a cultivator used their god cores to create their own small worlds, they could begin to merge these worlds with the power of the great Daos and use that power in battle, as well as create more profound laws that ruled the small world they created.  Earth Saints could create small worlds, Earth King’s could create minor worlds, and Earth Emperor’s could create major worlds.  The more profound one’s understanding, the more stable their world.  Truly talented world level cultivators created worlds that were even inhabited by humans, other cultivators, as well as animals and magical creatures.  There were realms above the World Realm, such as the Manifestation realm, the Firmament realm, and even the Universal realm, but the Skylark continent’s peak was the World realm, and the most powerful lords were peak level Earth Emperor’s.  Some were on the cusp of becoming Manifestation realm cultivators, but none of them had been able to step over that threshold.

The Azure Dragon Sect had always been trouble, but as one of the peak powers of the Skylark continent, not many would ever cross them.  They had three Earth Emperor elders among their ranks, the most of any other power except the Golden Fae Clan who were a neutral force that did not interfere in anything outside of their lands, and the Crimson Sky institute who were a school and not a true force, but also had three Earth Emperors and many Earth Kings as well.  Qiang had been minding his own business when he had come to an auction that had listed a Golden Bell artifact he was interested in.  This artifact held a profound Buddhist power that seemed to call out to him.  He had won the bell using many rare resources he had come across in an ancient temple world he had traveled through on his way to the Skylark continent.  He had become quite rich after leaving that ancient area.  Much of what he had gained he didn’t truly need, so he had chosen to auction most of these things off in order to get things he truly needed.  Thanks to the riches he had put up for auction, Qiang had been treated as a V.I.P, and his identity had been anonymous.  The high bids he put up for items he wanted, however, drew the attention of many major powers who had come to the auction.  Many wanted to meet him, thinking he was either some powerful Earth Emperor level cultivator, or at the very least someone with the backing of a major power.

Though he ignored most of the people who wanted to meet him, there was one young woman who pleaded with him to trade one of the items he had gained.  It seemed that it was something she needed to save the life of a loved one.  Though Qiang had uses for the item in question, a crystallized flower with rare soul strengthening properties, he was surprised by how sincere the woman was and how far she would go in order to gain the flower, even offer herself to Qiang as his wife.  Her desperate pleas brought ridicule from the other powers gathered, but Qiang ignored them all and agreed to meet with her after the auction.  Many of the powers were angry that he had ignored their requests to meet, but would meet with the woman instead and immediately began to plot.  After the auction, Qiang honored his words and met with the woman, finding out that she was the young princess Qin Meng of the Sky Dao Qin Clan.  Her clan was a rival of the Azure Dragon Sect, who sought to humiliate her at every turn.  Qiang always hated people like them, and decided to teach them a lesson.  He had noted many underhanded practices during the auctions held by the Azure Dragon Sect, and brought them to light.  This was a massive slap to the face of their sect not something they could let stand.  When Qiang made a deal with Qin Meng and left to become a guest of the Sky Dao Qin Clan, the Azure Dragon Sect began to gather support from some of their allies, planning to not only get their revenge on Qiang, but also use this chance to destroy the Sky Dao Qin Clan as well!

- End Part One -

In Qiang’s first life he was born the demigod son of the fallen Hindu God Brahma, and a seemingly ordinary female farmer.  When God, the father of light, sent his Messiah along with his heavenly armies to destroy all other godly pantheons, the Buddhist and Hindu Gods were no exception.  Most of them were killed, some defected to the Messiah’s army, while others were able to escape and went into hiding.  Brahma had been betrayed by some of his fellow gods, but had been too powerful to destroy, allowing him to send some of his fellow gods into the cycle of incarnation before escaping himself.  Brahma took on the form of a man and hid himself among the mortals.  While wandering one of China’s eastern provinces, he was set upon by bandits, and though he could have killed them all without but a breath, he was saved by a female farmer who had exceptional strength and combat ability.

At first wary that she may have been one of the Messiah’s agents in disguise, he was soon able to sense that her karma was linked directly with his own, and that for better or worse, they were meant to meet.  The farmer offered him shelter and he took her up on her offer.  Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years.  They grew closer and closer until they fell in love and married.  Their union bore a son whom they named Qiang.  Qiang was an extraordinary child, born with full awareness, language skills, and telepathy.  Brahma had learned that his wife, Youhang, had been born in another universe and had participated in a great war between her universe’s most supreme powers.  Though her side won in the end, a rift between dimensions had been opened and she had sacrificed herself to close it from the other side and had been trapped there forever.  Since the laws of her universe were different from this one, she had lost most of her power.  In her realm the most powerful beings were called cultivators, martial artists who could absorb the energies of the heavens, the earth, the great firmament, and even the primordial energies of their universe.  Doing so allowed them to gain massive amounts of power, immortality, and even godhood.

Youhang had been born with near unsurpassed talent in cultivation and had reached the peak of her universe before being trapped in a new one.  In this new universe the energies and the laws that bound them were very different.  Youhang never gave up hope though, and studied these laws until she discovered a way to cultivate them and slowly began to regain her old strength.  When she met Brahma, she was already on a level equal to him, a chief god.  Qiang, being born of a god of this universe, and a supreme cultivator of another had a vast natural talent, allowing him to grow in power quickly.  He had inherited his father’s capacity for controlling the energies of their universe, and his mother’s deep understanding and comprehension of universal laws.  Qiang grew up being nurtured and trained by both of his parents while living a simple life.  One day his parents told him that while he was strong, he needed to go out and temper himself.  Only the struggles and strife of life and death could truly make him strong.  And so Qiang left home and began to travel the realms.

Over the course of his life time he made many friends and even more enemies.  His refusal to be looked down upon caused him to offend many dark powers, but in the end, he overcame his enemies and became stronger and stronger.  He became good friends with the God Apollo, and the goddess-like spirit of destruction, Estelle Vellos.  Through his adventures with them, he grew to new heights of power, and fought alongside them until their final battle against the being Zonnilus, who was the son of the father of the abyss, Yjarl, and a living death planet.  Though they could defeat Zonnilus, they could not kill him for good, and thus Qiang stepped in and sacrificed his Samsara body, a physical form in a constant state of rebirth on a molecular level to bind and trap Zonnilus and his essence forever.  In doing so, Qiang effectively died, and his soul was sent into the cycle of rebirth.  His friends would all mourn his loss, but did not realize that his soul, much like his body, was the essence of Samsara.  This allowed his soul to be reborn, though in another universe.  Using his eternal consciousness, and the power of his Samsara soul, Qiang crafted himself a new body, though being in a new universe and it’s foreign laws of heaven and earth, he was limited to the body of a child, as his understanding was not deep enough to do more.

Being the son of Brahma, however, Qiang’s link with the powers of karma were very deep, and so when his newly ‘born’ child form found a home in a new universe, it turned out to be the universe that his mother had originally come from.  He had been found by an elderly couple who had long raised all of their children to adulthood, but took joy in being able to raise another child.  To their surprise they found that even though he was a baby, Qiang had full awareness, and could even talk.  In their world where humans known as cultivators could rise into the realm of the gods in power with due diligence and talent, they knew that truly strong cultivators could be reincarnated.  They believed that Qiang was one such cultivator, and they were not far off from the truth.  Qiang retained all of his memories of his past life, and since his body had been created by the power of his soul, he knew one day that he would regain his past power as well.  His original Samsara body had been sacrificed, but here, he could raise a new one.  

Qiang enjoyed a second childhood, raised with kindness by the elderly couple, even becoming close with their real sons and daughters whenever they returned to visit their parents.  In this Universe, like any other, strength was the ultimate rule of life.  If you were strong, you excelled, if you were weak, you didn’t.  The elderly couple and their children were not strong in cultivation, but they were very business minded and came to own many trade companies spread throughout their country.  Qiang wanted for nothing, and enjoyed the cooshie life, something he didn’t mind one bit.  Even as he did so, however, Qiang made sure to embrace his cultivation, and by the time he was thirteen years old, he had reached a cultivation level that surpassed almost anyone in his entire continent, though he kept it hidden, even from his family.  He knew that growing too powerful, too early would only bring calamity.  

Even though he kept his true power hidden, calamity came anyway.  A new power rose and wanted to rule the continent, uniting it under one rule in the process.  This new power began by trying to seize all of the powerful trading guild, and treasure sects for themselves.  This brought them into direct conflict with Qiang’s family, and thus Qiang himself.  Though Qiang had been known to be shameless, he had always been steadfast and loyal, and would not see his new family suffer.  Qiang rose up out of nowhere, competing in martial competitions and crushing his enemies, rising up from a country bumpkin, to the fastest rising young cultivator his continent had ever seen.  The more prestige he gained, the less power this new force had until, in the end, Qiang completely crushed them.  Thanks to this, Qiang’s family was able to not only gain more power, but became the top trading sect in the entire continent.  With his family’s future taken care of, Qiang was able to move on, leaving the continent to travel the greater world.  He knew from his mother’s stories in his past life, that this world, this universe was vast, and he wanted to see it all.

Qiang left his new home world behind and began to travel throughout the realms of his mother’s birth.  He met many friends, and made twice as many enemies, but he stayed true to his path of cultivation and grew more and more powerful.  It wasn’t until he reached the nine heavens, home of the universal emperors that he truly found himself however.  It was here that he found his mother’s clan, and learned of the ancient battle that had threatened to destroy their universe entirely.  As Qiang already knew, there were many universes, and each universe had the potential to hold a single controller, someone powerful enough physically, mentally, and physically to control the very universal laws that governed it.  However, if a universe did not have someone in the position of Ancient Universal God, it left them vulnerable to those who had gained that position in foreign universes.  There were those who were greedy, and though they reached the very peak of power in their own universe, they weren’t satisfied and wanted to grasp the powers of other universes as well.

In the past, a foreign universal god did just that, invading this universe in order to seize it’s core and add to his power.  In order to keep that from happening, a heroine rose up with the support of her clan and many other Ancient Emperors, powerful sects, and vast kingdoms.  This heroine  was Qiang’s mother, Tianwu Youhang, heir of the Tianwu Clan, and the youngest cultivator to ever reach the Universal Emperor level, and the one closest to becoming their universes Ancient Universal God.  However, during the war with the foreign power known to them as The Abyssal God and his armies, Youhang was betrayed by one of her clan’s ancient enemies, Xiang Feng, who had also been her betrothed.  The Abyssal God promised the Xiang clan prominence should he take control of this universe, and they accepted the deal to betray their peers.  In the end, Youhang was interrupted in her attempt to bond with the Universal Core, but her prolonged contact with it had given her enough power to destroy the Xiang Clan, and severely injure the Abyssal God, as well as cripple his armies, though it seemed to have also cost Youhang her life.

It wasn’t until Qiang met his mother’s clan in the nine heavens did they realize that Youhang hadn’t died, but had been sent to another universe.  When they heard Qiang’s story, and realized that his talent even surpassed that of Youhang herself, that they had a chance.  It seemed that in her absence, The Abyssal God had recovered his old power, and raised an even larger army in a bid to once again seize the universal core.  Qiang was no stranger to sacrifice, as both he and his mother had given up much in order to defeat a threat to their respective worlds.  This time Qiang planned on taking a different approach.  He decided to do what his mother had been unable to do in the past, and bond himself with the universal core.  His path of cultivation in this universe had been a long one.  Trillions of years had passed since his rebirth here, and he had learned much.  Thanks to his father, he had walked the path of a Buddha, though not a traditional one.  He had learned to accept, and walk all paths of enlightenment.  He reveled in the pure, the tainted, the light, the dark, and everything in between.  He had walked as a Buddha, and he had walked as a demon.  Qiang was both righteous, and a sinner, benevolent, and cruel, and he embraced everything about each of his natures.  His father Brahma had been known as the three faced God, and Qiang was the three lives Buddha, or as many of his friends named him, The Chaos Buddha.

Because of this, he was the perfect candidate to bond with the core because of his vast understanding of all forms of universal nature.  To this end, the three greatest Universal Emperors taught Qiang what he needed to know in order to bond with the core.  The Ancient Samsara Emperor saw that Qiang had a Samsara Body, and thus helped him change his body into that of an Origin Samsara Body, enabling him to physically handle the powers of this universe.  The Primordial Godly Emperor taught Qiang Primordial Law, which would allow him to absorb and control the energies of the universal core in order to cultivate to a level beyond Universal Emperor, allowing him to become worthy of the universal core.

Finally his master, The Ancient Godly Buddha, imparted upon him the Myriad Buddha’s Law, which took advantage of Qiang’s vast understanding of all universal paths to manipulate the universe’s energies and bond with them completely, becoming one with the universe.  After teaching him, the three Universal Emperors, who had once been enemies, joined their essences with the universal core in order to stave off the Abyssal God, who had used his great war as a distraction while he tried to forcefully bond with the core himself, and acted as decoys to give Qiang the time he needed to become their Ancient Universal God.  Qiang was successful, and used his new found power to destroy the Abyssal God’s armies completely, and banish him from their universe forever, unable to return thanks to the universe having its own Ancient Universal God.

Qiang used his new found powers to unbind the essences of his teachers from the core, as well as resurrect all those who had given their lives in the war against the Abyssal God.  He also opened up a bridge to his old universe, finally allowing his mother to return and reunite with her family and clan, bringing her husband Brahma with her as well.  With his mother’s universe finally at peace, Qiang left behind a karma twin to act as the Ancient Universal God, bound his cultivation to a much lower level and returned to his old world once more to seek out his old life and his old friends.  He still had plenty of living left to do, and wouldn’t let death, or reaching the peak of an entire universe keep him from doing it.

Everything had gone to hell. The golden age of the gods had come to an end, and the age of Heaven and Hell began to take its course. When the Messiah was crucified by his own people, he only remained dead three days before rising again. But when he did rise, it wasn’t to take revenge on those who had betrayed him, no he’d forgiven them. He had returned to put an end to the many pantheons of gods that had existed for so long. The people only needed one path to follow and thus he made it so. The pantheons had their different legends and prophecies that spelled their end, but little did they know, the Messiah was the origin of them all. When the Messiah came for the Greek Gods, they, more than any other pantheon, stood and fought, for they were the most prideful of all the gods.

And you’re the most prideful god of them all.   You’re not just ANY god, but the fucking KING of gods.  You overthrew your titan parents and assumed leadership of all the lands, and everyone who called them home.  You stood on a platform of power and reform for the realms, but all you REALLY wanted to do was fuck everything that moved and put the blame on anyone, and everyone but yourself.  Your wife didn’t punish you for your many transgressions, instead shifting the blame to those you seduced, tricked, or forced to do what you wanted.  You were fine with that.  You were the fuckin’ king after all.  Even if someone DID want to stop you, or give you your just dues, you’d just destroy them and move about your business.  What a life right?

That was pretty much Zeus in a nutshell.  He had never wanted for anything.  He had all the power, all the sex, worship, and gratification a godly being such as himself could ever want.  That’s all that mattered to him.  As long as he ruled, then the realms would prosper, and he would continue to live his life as he pleased.  It is a shame that the concept of Karma hadn’t introduced itself into the Olympian way of life.  Zeus would have thanked the eastern realms and their deities profusely had he been able to recognize the power of Karma.  Every god realm, every pantheon had an end.  Nothing lasts forever, no matter how much you wanted it to.  Zeus thought he had enough power to stave off any kind of end the Olympians might face, but he was wrong.

When Eden’s brother God called for his Messiah to put an end to the many pantheons, deeming them all false religions that need not exist, the Olympians were the first to be laid to waste.  Try as he might, Zeus could not overcome the power of the Messiah and his armies.  Many gods fell, some escaped, some decided to abandon Olympus and godhood to side with the Messiah.  Zeus, and his brother Poseidon were two of the gods who decided to side with the Messiah.  Faced with the end of his reign, Zeus decided to take the path that would at least hold some power and glory for himself.  He would not be king, but he would at least hold some power in this new age of divinity.

Zeus and Poseidon lay the blame for the loss of Olympus at the feet of their brother Hades, charging him with the crime of betrayal, when it was truly THEY who had betrayed their pantheon.  It didn’t take long, however, for Zeus to realize that there was no glory in siding with the Messiah.  He and his brother were simply being used, and when it was all said and done, the Messiah would just make them slaves for his father, turning them into beings of pure grace and making them join God’s armies.  With this in mind, Zeus decided to abandon the Messiah’s forces and flee.  He could find some small world somewhere and settle there, becoming a king once more, even if it wouldn’t be as glorious as Olympus, it was something.  His hopes were short lived, however, for the Messiah’s forces were sent after him and chased Zeus across the realms in order to put him down for his second betrayal.  After a long time, Zeus felt that he could run no longer, and made preparations to face his end.

He lay with one last woman, and decided to spend his last night drinking in a random tavern.  He had no idea where he was, just that the Messiah’s forces would find him there soon.  While having a drink he met a strange Buddhist Monk.  The feeling he got from the monk was even more unfathomable than when he was in the presence of the Messiah himself.  When Zeus had first met the Messiah, he had realized that his world had been too small.  He had thought the gods were the supreme beings in all the realms, but the Messiah was more powerful than all of them put together.  Zeus realized that he had been a fish in a pond, that there was always a higher heaven.  The gods were just beings with some power in some small corner of the vast multiverse. 

However, even though the monk didn’t seem to cause waves, Zeus could sense that this Buddha was powerful enough to face down the Messiah and his armies.  Not too long ago, Zeus would have saw this as an opportunity, a ray of hope, but he had learned a lot about himself and the way the world worked since running from the Messiah.  He couldn’t hide from his destiny, and he would face the consequences of his actions.  To his surprise, however, the monk, who introduced himself as Tianwu Qiang, seemed to have first hand knowledge of Zeus and his plight.  Qiang knew all about the Messiah and how he swept across the Multiverse to put an end to the many scattered pantheons and their religions.  Qiang offered Zeus both a drink, and a chance at redemption.

Not too long ago, Zeus would have laughed in the monk’s face, but things were different now.  He knew that his sins were great, and that he was just getting his due, however the monk’s offer intrigued him and so Zeus accepted.  Just as he agreed to Qiang’s offer, the Messiah and his generals found him.  Zeus could feel the fear creeping into him, but the monk just smiled and stood calmly.  He and Zeus stepped outside of the tavern, and to the surprise of Zeus, the Messiah seemed taken aback at Qiang’s presence.  It seemed he knew who the monk was.  As it turned out, the Messiah has also sent an army to the eastern realms to put an end to the pantheons and religions there.  When they came upon the Buddhist world, they had expected to have no trouble defeating the great Buddha there.

They did not realize that the great Buddha had a guest, and that guest was a Buddha from another universe.  This foreign Buddha was far more mighty than the Great Buddha, and easily lay waste to the Messiah’s forces and protected the Buddhist world.  Now he was here with Zeus.  Qiang politely informed the Messiah that Zeus had agreed to his terms and so he was under the monk’s protection.  Without warning, Qiang raised his hand and a beam of golden light shot down from the sky to engulf Zeus and send him away, his body, soul, and eternal life essence completely disappearing.  Zeus did not know what happened with the Messiah and the monk after that because Qiang had sent Zeus into a seemingly endless cycle of Samsara.  Samsara was what the eastern realms called the cycle of death and rebirth.  Zeus was forced to live through countless lives with the memories of each life he lived remaining with him throughout his subsequent lives.  

He was a slave, a king, a warlock, a baker, a farmer, a city lord, even a god again.  He lived as males, females, various races, and even other kinds of supernatural intelligent creatures.  These lives were happy and tragic, many different paths spanning a spectrum of trials and tribulations.  It was in his final life that he once again met Tianwu Qiang.  The cycle of Samsara he had been thrown into had been created by Qiang, and he had been watching Zeus the entire time, throughout every one of his countless lives.  He had even appeared in many of them as a teacher of sorts, showing Zeus things he needed to learn in order to truly be born anew.  Qiang felt that Zeus was finally ready, and had accumulated enough experience and learned enough lessons to carve out a new path for himself.

In this final life, Qiang officially became his teacher, and taught him about a thing called cultivation.  Using cultivation, Zeus could transcend anything he had ever imagined, and he came to realize that it was cultivation that made Qiang so strong that he could directly defy the Messiah without consequence.  Qiang taught him that cultivation was something that allowed him to become one with the heavens and the earth.  One could transcend worldliness and break past the limitations that the world and it’s controllers set.  Where Qiang had come from, a mortal could cultivate until they became an immortal, then a god, and then far beyond even that.  He showed Zeus that gods were just beings with a certain amount of power, nothing more, nothing less.  Qiang could take Zeus to his world and show him a small village that had people powerful enough to snuff out all of Olympus at its peak of power.

Qiang taught Zeus about Dao, which was the construct of all things.  Nature, emotion, the intent of all aspects of creation from the most minuscule to the vast and powerful Daos of the heavens.  When one truly understood the Dao, they could do almost anything.  They could become one with nature, become one with the heavens and the earth, and then break past all of them.  Zeus’ last life lasted trillions of years.  Throughout all of that time, Qiang taught him much and he finally, truly came into himself.  He started out cultivating the Dao of Lightning since it was the element he was most familiar with.  He spanned out linking his lesser Dao of Lightning with the greater Dao of Light, and finally the Grand Dao of Divine Grace.  He studied many other Grand Daos, though The Grand Dao of Divine Grace remained his core principle.  When Qiang thought Zeus was finally ready, he released him from that cycle of Samsara and sent his disciple out into the realms to rediscover himself and show the multiverse that this Zeus, had become something more, something far more grand, and that he had learned his lessons in full.

Everything had gone to hell. The golden age of the gods had come to an end, and the age of Heaven and Hell began to take its course. When the Messiah was crucified by his own people, he only remained dead three days before rising again. But when he did rise, it wasn’t to take revenge on those who had betrayed him, no he’d forgiven them. He had returned to put an end to the many pantheons of gods that had existed for so long. The people only needed one path to follow and thus he made it so. The pantheons had their different legends and prophecies that spelled their end, but little did they know, the Messiah was the origin of them all.  The Norse pantheon was no different.  They too had their legends mentioning their end of days.  They called it Ragnorok, a string of events that would eventually lead to a great battle and the end of most of the Norse Pantheon.

Odin, however, had long since been privy to the plans of the Messiah and how the end of the gods would be orchestrated by he and his forces, and set into motion, plans of his own.  When Fenrir was captured and chained, it was at the behest of Loki and Fenrir themselves, for Loki and his children were the only beings who knew that Odin was not all that he seemed to be.  Loki had long known that something was up about his foster father, and one day Odin came to him with the truth.  Odin, while truly the All Father of the Norse pantheon, had been put into that position for a reason.  Odin had been born a Seed of Eden, the Seed of Three lives.  A child of Eden, Odin was charged with living out three lives at once.  One was Odin, The Norse King of Gods.  It was here that he would keep an eye on the other gods, not only in his pantheon, but those of other realms as well.

His second life was that of the Archangel Metatron, who stood beside Michael as one of the Messiah’s three most trusted generals.  This aspect of Odin was meant to keep an eye on Eden’s brother god, and his Messiah, keeping ahead of their plans.  His third life, and the one that was his original form, was that of Baphomet, the patron saint and protector of Witches and Templar.  Though the church had long ago turned on Baphomet in order to lessen the power the Templar Knights had over it, making Baphomet out to be the lord of hell Satan, Odin did not lash out, and instead did what he could to protect the Witches, who were the Mother’s Children, and the Templar, the Mother’s protectors.  If he acted out too much, he might draw unwanted attention.  

Odin existed in all three of these forms simultaneously.  All were him, and he was all.  So when Metatron learned of the Messiah’s plans, both Odin and Baphomet knew of them as well.  Odin set into motion a set of plans that if carried out, would save the Gods who were willing to be set free from the chains of their religions, and pantheons, and set them onto their own paths.  It was Odin that left the Reaver artifact with Loki, and after creating a double of himself to stand in as the All Father, Odin left the Norse lands, only to return later and claim his spear Gunghir, as well as the world tree, Yggdrasil.  Once he claimed these two things, he once again disappeared.  Many of Odin’s plans were realized, and Loki was able to free many of the gods from their chained cycles before the Messiah could get to them.  These gods were from various pantheons, and either walked their own paths after becoming free, or joined Eden’s Children in their plight against Eden’s brothers.

With his job done, and his sacrifices made, Odin absorbed his other two aspects, taking in the Archangel Metatron, and the Patron Saint Baphomet, and settling into his life as the Witch King Odin.  Though his original aspect was Baphomet, he had come to like his form as Odin, and chose it as his new origin body.  After gathering as many of the Mother’s children and protectors as he could, Odin created a safe haven for them, a small world named Gaian where the Wiccan Fae, the ones the humans called witches, and the Templar could live in relative peace.  Some of them volunteered to stay in the greater world, creating small places that their kind could call home while maintaining a link between the greater world and Gaian.  Odin gave true life to his spear Gungnir, and charged him with being the Great Guardian of the Templar.  

He also gave true life to Yggdrasil, the tree becoming the Sacred Lady of the Wiccan Fae, a source of magic, protection, and companionship for their kind.  Odin himself remained low key, watching the different conflicts and wars between the greater powers in the universe, biding his time in case he would once more need to act, or until Eden once more had a task for him to complete.

Death is the end of all things.  Everything dies.  Nothing lasts forever.  Even Gods.  What happens when a god dies?  Truly dies?  Ares found out the hard way.  He had been the God of War on Olympus for eons.  When Olympus went to war, he was the one who led the charge, be it against other Pantheons, or powerful invaders from other realms.  However, when the last war for Olympus was fought against God’s Messiah and his host, Ares had already been long dead.  A victim of deep seeded revenge.  Ares had been haughty, prideful to the point that he took whatever it was he wanted.  He waged war for whatever reason he felt, at any given time.  He was a God of Conflict and Conquest, who would stand in his way?  Little did he know, that one of those conquests would be his final end, but also his true beginning.

When Ares set his eyes on Aphrodite, he didn’t think there would be any opposition.  The other Gods didn’t care, except Aphrodite’s husband Hephaestus, and what could that lame black sheep of Olympus do while chained beneath the great mountain of the gods?  Nothing that’s what.  So Ares courted Aphrodite and made her his.  For a while anyway.  After long, it was clear that they were not compatable outside of sex, so sex was all they had. But it had been more than enough to stoke the flames or rage and revenge within the God of the Forge.  Everything changes.  Nothing ever stays the same.

The first god to Change was Apollo, but soon after, Hephaestus also changed.  He found something outside of Olympus, something he could strive for, something that reignited the fiery passion within him.  He would leave Olympus and the ‘gods’ behind forever, but not until he turned his last remaining regrets and loose ends to dust.  The biggest of those loose ends was Ares.  Ares had never been liked by his brother, and when he had slept with Aphrodite, Ares had become the focal point for Hephaestus rage and hate.  The God of the forge had plenty to rage at, but Ares became the eye of that fiery storm.  Once Hephaestus broke his chains, he made his way to the underworld where he made a deal with Persephone, goddess of nature, and wife of Hades, Lord of the Underworld.

In exchange for coming up with a way to free her from the Underworld forever, Persephone provided Hephaestus with the Black Gulgotha, a rare and powerful plant who’s poison could kill even the gods forever.  The Black Gulgotha had been born from the negative emotions of the titan Gaea.  After the dawn of the Olympian Gods, Gaea wanted to live in peace, and so she poured all of her negative emotions from that war with the Gods into a seed that she planted beneath Mount Olympus and disappeared.  Instead of growing up, however, the Gulgotha grew down, making its way to the Underworld where Persephone would realize its importance and cultivate it in her many gardens.  When Hephaestus came calling with his deal, Persohpone agreed, and traded her freedom for the Black Gulgotha.  

Once the deal was made, Hephaestus made his move.  He secretly challenged Ares to battle, knowing that the War God would be unable to resist a fight, especially against his lame brother.  However, he was surprised to find that Hephaestus was no longer lame.  He was hale and powerful, healthy and whole.  Only his hate for his brother Ares remained.  It was his final chain, and he had to break it.  The two gods battled, and much to Ares chagrin, he was defeated.  He had known defeat, and it was not something that could put him down forever, however he did not expect the last attack from Hephaestus would be from a specially made blade that had been forged by Hephaestus himself using the Black Gulgotha.  The moment he was stabbed, Ares’ physical form was destroyed.  The poison from the Black Gulgotha also seeped into his soul, and his godly essence.  When Ares was reborn into a new body, he found that his new body was frail and weak, and that his godly essence was leaking out of it.  If his godly essence disbursed completely, it would be his final death.  No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop his essence from fleeing his body.  

Even when he died, he would return again in a frail body with his essence still leaking.  He sought out help from the other Gods, but by the time he reached them, Olympus was gone, the war with God’s Messiah having ended the reign of the Olympians forever.  With nothing else to be done, Ares finally resigned himself to his fate.  It was something he had brought upon himself, he knew, and he had no choice but to face his punishment.  He lived out his remaining lives in peace.  He lived as a farmer, a merchant, a beggar, even a slave.  Each life drained more and more of his godly essence until he was finally down to his last life.  He knew that with this final death, his essence would be fully dispersed, and he would perish forever.  As he neared his final breaths, Ares prepared to close his eyes for the final time, and just before he did, a great golden light flashed before him, bright and alive just before that final shadow cascade over him and he died.

Though he had resigned himself to his final fate, against all odds, Ares found himself reborn once again.  Not only was he reborn again, but the body he was reborn into was strong, so strong that even his original godly form paled in comparison.  Though his godly essence seemed to be gone for good, something else had taken its place.  It was a powerful essence he had never felt before, but somehow seemed familiar.  He found that his reborn self had been adopted by a woman named Malice Vellos, and a strange monk named Qiang.  Though they were not a couple, the two of them became Ares parents, and each of them raised him in their own way.  All of his memories were intact, and he could even feel a much stronger connection to the concept of war than ever before.  It was almost as if he were a war elemental in a way.  He didn’t just feed off of war, he was the very essence of war in all of its forms.  

He later came to find out that the reason he survived the Black Gulgotha was because Hephaestus himself had felt his punishment had come to an end.  He saved the last wisps of Ares’ soul, and gave it over to Eden and her guardians.  He was then reborn one last time, and given part of Eden’s own essence in order to replace the godly essence he had lost.  He was retrained in the arts of war by his mother Malice, who was Eden’s War Seed.  She taught him things about war that he had never even begun to imagine back on Olympus.  There were intricacies and aspects of war he never knew existed, let alone be manipulated.  He was also trained in the ways of Cultivation by his father Qiang.

As he grew into his new body and power, Ares reached heights that he never thought possible, and he came to realize that Gods weren’t anything special.  They were just beings with a certain amount of power at their disposal.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Even now, so far beyond his old self, he held on to this truth, and his father never let him forget it.  There was ALWAYS a higher heaven.  Even Gods could be frogs at the bottom of a well.  Ares took full advantage of his new chance, even going so far as to meet with his brother Hephaestus, who had become Eden’s Lord of the Forge, and reconciling.  In the end, Ares became Eden’s War Saint, second only to his mother Malice on Eden’s war council.  When he became ready, his uncle Aeon Vellos, the younger brother of Malice, and Eden’s Seed Of The Firmament, handed over the reigns of The Devil’s Shadow.  The Devil’s Shadow was a large shadow organization that lay in the darkness of all of Eden’s worlds and realms.

It was the Devil’s Shadow that handled Eden’s war efforts all across the universe.  Aeon was the second King of the Devil’s Shadow, with his father Gerik Vellos having been the first.  Now Aeon was needed elsewhere, and he chose Ares as the third King of the Devil’s Shadow, giving him the reins of the organization, knowing he had been raised and trained well.  And so the young Ares found himself a new path to walk, one with limitless possibilities, and a true calling he could take as his own.  Gods were but a small shadow of the past, and his future was too bright to let that shadow continue to exist.

“P…please Lord Leviticus, can’t we talk about this?  Things don’t have to go this way!”

In a realm far, far away there is a group of worlds that have been dominated by the Abyss for as long as the worlds have existed.   However, in recent times the Wraithei, a race of beings who were thought to have existed in the great abyss before light was ever even thought of, had started to spread out and dominate more worlds in an attempt to subjugate that entire universe and return it to the great abyss, eradicating the light, and the life that thrived in it’s grace.  Over the course of the last three trillion years, the Wraithei had been successful in pushing countless worlds to the brink of the abyss, many falling into it’s dark baptism.  However, in the past five hundred years, things had begun to change, and the Wraithei’s plans and ambitions had come to a startling halt.  

At first they had begun to lose key members of their forces to mysterious circumstances.  After a while things escalated and they began to lose whole armies, high ranking generals and leaders, and finally they began to lose control of entire planets.  It wasn’t until these strange happenings began to create storms upon the Dark Cluster, the core worlds that had always belonged to the Wraithei did they begin to truly understand that this was no simple storm, but one that could actually sweep them away.  The most terrifying thing, however, was that they could not put a name, or face, to this stirring calamity.  It was like they had absolutely no control over what was happening, which was something the Wraithei had never had to face in all of their existence.  At this moment there was a commotion on the planet called Xarius, the center of the Dark Cluster, and command world of the Wraithei.  Their core forces were all gathered upon their command world, and all of their leaders, including the Dire Overlord of all the Wrathei, Yainith Krin, were present.  The Wraithei were a race of pure dark beings, and even in their humanoid forms they seemed to radiate a vast darkness, always looking as if a pitch black smoke was leaking from their very pores.

However, in the middle of these forces stood a single being who was their opposite.  This being seemed to be made out of pure light, a light so bright that no features could be seen.  He was literally a beam of divine light in the shape of a man.  However, even though his features were obscured, the Wraithei Dire Overlord Yainith knew exactly who it was that stood before him.  For the first time in his nearly infinite life span he felt a cold fear gripping him.  The being who stood before them was only known as Lord Leviticus The Balance Bringer.  Even he had only heard stories about the Balance Bringer, as he had never appeared before in this universe.  Leviticus simply floated there above the tall dark structures that made up the core of the Wraithei’s great city, a city the size of a greater world.  The dark modern landscape stretched for as far as the eye could see, though beings such as Leviticus as well as Yainith and his greater generals possessed perception that ranged far beyond just this world, even the Dark Cluster itself.  Yainith knew what was happening in all of his core worlds at all times.  It was because of this that he had been able to gather his forces in time to surround and face this new threat, but upon seeing Leviticus in person, he knew that all of his plans were in danger.  

Even as he thought about what he was going to do, the form of light that was The Balance Bringer began to grow more and more dull as the light of his form suddenly began to give way to flesh.  Soon the light had fully faded, leaving only a brilliant halo-like glow to outline the now human form of Leviticus.  He had the appearance of a youth who’d only seen twenty dark cycles at most.  He wore a set of pure white and gold armor, a great white sword strapped at his left hip.  He had a head of ear length white hair, and though his features were youthful, the depths of his bright golden eyes seemed as old and deep as Yainith’s own.  It had to be understood that Yainith himself was countless trillions of years old, and though his kind didn’t view the passage of time in the ways of many other races, even for them this was a substantial amount of time to exist.  To see such depths in the eyes of The Balance Bringer caused even more trepidation to shake Yainith to his core.  Leviticus had a calm and carefree smile on his face.  He even looked a bit lazy as he stood there in the air, hands at his sides, not yet making a move.  Yainith was still thinking about what he could do when a soft, smooth voice rang out from The Balance Bringer.

“They must find it difficult, those who take authority for truth, instead of truth for authority.”

Yainith frowned at these words.  They seemed strange, but it didn’t take him long to realize what they meant.  Leviticus was telling him that those like himself who used their might to forge truth into whatever they wanted it to be would find themselves at the mercy of their own rules in the end.  Yainith growled in agitated fashion.  His forces were shocked to see just how much The Balance Bringer shook him.  Even though their humanoid forms were never fully human, very few had ever seen even a hint of their true forms.  At this moment, their great Dire Overlord was so agitated that a hint of his true form was showing through.  The Wraithei were an eldritch race, and right now thick, ugly black tendrils were extending from Yainith’s back and limbs.  They seemed to suck the very life out of the air around them, and even his own greater generals felt their cores begin to be corroded from their leader’s aura.  Leviticus seemed unconcerned however, and this caused Yainith to growl in frustration.

“Even you, The Balance Bringer, have to know who we are.  We are children of the great lord, the father of the Abyss, Yjarl himself!  What we do, we do in his name.  Do you really want to bring his attention to you?”

Yainith was hoping that the mention of Yjarl would give even The Balance Bringer pause.  Yjarl was the absolute lord of the abyss.  Before light, and the life that thrived within it even existed, created by his brother God, and sister Eden respectively, Yjarl was the absolute authority of the primordial darkness.  Leviticus blinked at these words, which caused elation to begin welling up within Yainith.  It was working!  Then, however, Leviticus tilted his head back and began to laugh a long, loud, hearty sound.  It was filled with an amazed mirth, amusement even shone in his golden eyes as he returned his gaze to the Dire Overlord Yainith Krin.

“Do not think me daft you stupid piece of shit.”

Though his eyes were alight with amusement, it was a cold laughter that echoed within those golden depths, and a look of pure disdain was shown to the Wraithei leader.

“I know of your master, just as I know of his siblings, God The Father of Light, and Eden The Mother of Life.  I know all three of them well, but it seems that you do not, nor do you truly know of me either.”

The mirth had left his tone, and an infinite coldness entered his words now.  Yainith was confused at The Balance Bringer’s words.  He was one of Yjarl’s oldest followers.  Though he wasn’t one of the greater Wraith who had actually existed in the Abyss before light and life, he was old enough to know very well who the three primordial siblings were.

“If you truly knew them, you would not be doing what you’ve been doing these last trillions of years.  Yes the siblings are at eternal war.  Your master wants to return the universe to darkness because he fears the potential of his sister Eden’s creations.  His brother god wants to create a universe of light that matches the darkness he reigned over in the past.  However, neither of them want to actually hurt Eden herself.  They despise her creations, but she is still their sister.  Thus their “war” has been an endless one, because none of them will go all out, deciding to play the long game.”

Leviticus had his arms crossed behind his back, looking coldly down upon those who surrounded him, speaking as if he were talking to a bunch of stupid children.  

“Thus even though they are at odds, there has been a kind of balance between them all.  There will be an end game at some point, but beings such as they can’t be understood by lesser creatures such as you and I.  Who knows when, or even how this war will end.  However, until that happens, they have agreed on a certain balance.  What you have been doing here upsets that balance.  If you were to spread your darkness across this entire realm, it would create a greater conflict because both God and Eden would send out their forces to bring the balance back.  Your master knows this, but he’s not going to interfere.  He likes to see the world burn as they say in some places.  However, that is where I come in.  I do not work for any of the siblings, yet I work for all of them.  The Balance Bringer, remember?”

Leviticus smiled, but it was a dangerous smile that brought a chill down Yainith’s spine, and even more pitch black tendrils began to manifest from his body, showing just how upset he was.

“What that means is that your threats about who you work for don’t mean shit to me.  He’s not going to act, none of them are.  This will be between you, your forces, and me.  Though you may have heard about me, you don’t know a damn thing about me, or you’d not be wasting your time with words.”

The moment the last word left his lips Levitcus drew the sword at his hip.  The motion was so fast that not even these ancient beings could see it.  Before anyone could react, half of Yainith’s abyssal forces were turned to dust.  A single sword strike, that none of them could keep up with, was enough to obliterate forces that Yainith had spent countless years building up.  They had never come across opposition such as this, and none of them were prepared for this.  Leviticus remained where he was and stared at them as if they were nothing but insects.

“How weak.  I know this realm isn’t one of the most powerful, proven by the fact that you were even able to get as far as you have with your plans, but I expected more from you.  I guess it’s time to end this then.”

Once more Leviticus took action the moment his words ended, a blinding light suddenly burst forth from him as twelve wings of light spread from his back, each and every feather seeming to be as bright as a sun, causing many of the remaining Wraithei to burst out of their human forms and return to their original shapes.  They were of many different shapes and sizes, but all of them had countless tendrils spreading from them, and their bodies were pitch black, a direct contrast to the light Leviticus radiated.  At first Yainith was frozen in place, watching as his soldiers were eradicated.  He felt fear, and anger, two emotions he was not used to feeling at all.  However when he saw the light that radiated from The Balance Bringer he suddenly had an idea, a grin spreading across his face.

“You’re a being of light!  I can feel the grace in your aura!  Quickly, the void engine!”

They had weapons that could directly counter a light such as the one he was radiating.  Now that he knew his nature, the fear and anger seemed to turn to dust within him, replaced by relief and a hunger for the slaughter of this outsider.  Though his greater generals were as taken aback by the current situation as he was, they were quick to act, and summoned the void engine, a vast machine made of black metal that seemed to be almost as big as the city itself, blotting out the a good portion of the light that Leviticus gave off.

“You should have finished us before letting us know your nature, Balance Bringer!  We have been preparing to eradicate the light for countless years!  A universe worth of light!  Your little light is no match for our engine!  Do it!”

He was eager to put this entire accident behind him, and ordered the engine to be used immediately.  Leviticus cocked his head as he looked to the void engine with what seemed to be curiosity.  Seeing that he was not going to act, Yainith laughed madly on the inside.  He had won!  The engine was activated and suddenly a concentrated beam of dark energy shot at Leviticus, completely devouring his light, and The Balance Bringer himself.  Soon there was a pitch black sun floating where Leviticus had been, trapping him within it.

“We’ve won!  No being of light could ever exist within that abyssal sun!  Inside of that mass of darkness is the true abyss! Nothing that can’t thrive in the true abyss can survive in there, let alone a being of light!”

Laughter rang out, but to Yainith’s surprise, that laughter did not come from him, nor did it come from any of his soldiers or generals.  The laughter came from within the abyssal sun.  Once more Yainith felt a deep seeded fear.  He stared at the abyssal sun and couldn’t believe his eyes as it began to grow smaller and smaller.  He was so shocked that, like many of his followers, he returned to his original form.  Yanith looked like a huge mass of pitch black tentacles.  Four of them were vastly larger than the others, acting as limbs, and his head was a nest of thin tendrils with two silver slits that acted as eyes. Any normal being who laid eyes upon him would die of madness.  The abyssal sun shrank more and more, taking on the shape of a man, much like the humanoid light that Leviticus had taken when he first arrived.  Now, however, he was made of complete darkness.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!  What a bunch of dumb bitches!  What part of Balance Maker don’t you understand?  As I said, you know nothing about me, and that stupid move shows it.  I told you I don’t work for any of the siblings, yet all of them.  I keep the balance between them.  Light is but one of my forms, and abilities.”

The shadow began to give way to flesh once more, mirroring what happened when he had shed his form of light earlier.  This time, however, his armor was pitch black, and he had twelve wings of abyssal darkness spreading out from his back.  His hair remained white, but two crimson horns jutted from his forehead, and his eyes were pitch black.

“Your stupid ass void engine doesn’t mean shit to me.  I can use your so called primordial darkness just as well as I can use divine light!  See?”

Suddenly half his body changed to mirror his prior form.  The six wings on his right side shed their darkness and became light.  His right eye returned to its former gold, and the horn on the right side of his head disappeared.  He then brought his hands together, gripping his sword, it’s blade radiating both light and darkness, creating a chaotic flow of energy that began to turn everything around him to dust.  Even the greater generals of Yainith began to disintegrate.  Yainith was powerful enough to hold his form longer than the others, but he was filled with fear and regret as he felt his control leave him and he began to turn to dust as well.

“Later bitches.  I hope that the true elders of your race are less stupid, I’d have to have to repeat myself.”

With a single slash, the chaos energy that had begun to radiate from his sword burst forth in a great wave that encompassed the planet, spreading out to reach everything within the dark cluster.  He did not eradicate everything, for that would go against who he was.  He was the Balance Bringer, not the Balance Breaker after all.  In the aftermath of his attack, nothing within the dark cluster was left untouched.  Yainith and his core army were destroyed, but Leviticus had left many of the Wraithei untouched so that they could rise up again one day.  They just needed to be smart enough not to follow in the footsteps of their former leader.  

Leviticus returned to his light form, liking it better than the others as most of the women he was interested in found it the most attractive.  Yeah, even the Balance Bringer could be a bit shallow at times.  He gave one last cold look at his work before his form disappeared without a trace.  

“You’ve devoured my light, and now my darkness shall devour you all.”

These were the words, the decree of the Great Devouring Beast of the Deep, a being who had brought fear to the water world of Ocea.  Ocea was a large, and vast world with a population numbering in the quadrillions with the resources to support such a system of life.  Like many worlds, Ocea was mostly water, but this world was far more water than most.  The lakes, seas and oceans dominated this world almost completely.  There were land masses, but they were all small and scarce.  Almost all of Ocea’s population consisted of aquatic life.  Ocea was ruled over by a race of high elementals who were as gods to this world.

Each separate body of water had an elemental who ruled over it and the life that called those waters home.  The largest body of water was called Ocea, from which the world got its name.  Ocea was said to be the first primordial elemental and the creator of Ocea itself.  Ocea was almost never seen, or heard, as they spread their awareness over the entire world and kept watch.  Ocea was revered and worshipped as the divine entity of Ocea.  However there was a legend of a creature who was Ocea’s equal.  They called it the Great Devouring Beast Of The Deep.  This creature, said to be as old as Ocea, and as powerful, was the beast that ruled the black abyssal depths of Ocea.  The places where the light of the sun could never touch.  Ocea was a vast world, and as such, it’s abyss was nearly endless.

Like Ocea, the Beast was almost never seen, and existed as mostly ancient rumors among the denisons of the upper oceans.  Rarely the creatures of the abyss would travel to the upper waters, or creatures of the upper waters would brave the abyss, yet still only rumors of the beast persisted.  That is until the day that a group of Selkies from the largest sea kingdom of the Ocea water body made their way further into the Abyss than most have ever been and found a treasure they could not resist.  The treasure was an herb that only grew deep in the abyss.  It was a plant that glowed with a bright azure light, and was the only source of light that the abyss had. However, the Selkies also found that the herb held great healing and bodily fortification properties.  When consumed, the Selkies found that they’re physical attributes became so powerful, that the one who consumed them became effectively immortal.  They came to name it the Great Ambrosia.

Greedy for more, the Selkie gathered their greatest magic practitioners, and even got the help of some elementals to help them go deeper into the abyss to find more of the great ambrosia herb.  However they met resistance, as the creatures of the abyss held the great ambrosia herb in high reverence.  They worshiped it, and it was a holy plant to them.  At first the Selkies and the elementals they brought with them were on the losing side of the battle.  The creatures of the abyss were powerful, both in magic, and physical capabilities.  The Selkies thought this was because of the great ambrosia, though they were wrong.  It was simply because the creatures of the abyss had to live where the pressure of Ocea was so intense that their bodies had evolved to be able to live within it easily.  They’re magic, while powerful, only overwhelmed the Selkie’s because it was so foreign to them, calling on elements that did not exist in the upper waters of Ocea.

At first there were only skirmishes as the Selkie adapted and tried to move deeper into the abyss.  Eventually the Selkie and their elementals happened upon a glowing valley of the herb while they were seeking a place to hide from the onslaught of their enemies.  Elated, they used these herbs to make themselves more powerful, allowing them to turn the tide of battle.  Eventually they made their way deeper into the valley and found the largest herb they’d ever seen.  It was more like a vast underwater forest than a simple herb, though they understood that this was only a single plant.  Afire with greed and lust, the Selkie and their elementals began to take apart the large herb, wanting to take as much as they could before returning to the upper waters.  They were able to acquire a great deal of the herb from the valley, using magic to store it and began to flee from the abyss.  They didn’t flee far before a great fear rocked them to their very cores.  A horrible, primordial roar shook from deep within the abyss, one that scared even the creatures of the abyss away.  The Selkie force fled as fast as they could, but soon they felt a pressure so great that no amount of magic would allow them to move.

Even the elementals had become completely frozen, their faces contorted in fear.  From within the abyss came a great black shark, so large and ancient that it seemed to be some ancient leviathan god.  The only thing the Selkie force could think was that this great beast was the Devouring beast of legend, the lord of the abyss.  They were wrong.  Though powerful and ancient, the great black shark wasn’t the abyssal lord, because the true abyssal lord was upon its back in the form of a high elemental.  Here was the true Great Devouring Beast Of The Deep, the High Elemental Lord of the Abyss, and his name was Ocea.  The Selkie force didn’t have any time to question what they were seeing.  The high elemental before them was wearing a divine armor and was ready for war.  The Selkie didn’t realize that they had effectively ended the world with their greed and ignorance.  Ocea ordered his great black shark to slaughter the Selkie force, along with the elementals.  It was no ordinary beast, clearly, and was able to rip through the immortal elementals as if they were nothing.  A beast this big shouldn’t be as fast as the great black shark was, but they had no hope of keeping up with him before they were dead.

The days to come were harsh and filled with blood. Soon the true story of what had happened spread throughout the world of Ocea.  The legends were only partially true.  Ocea WAS the first elemental, and Ocea did indeed create this world.  What the legends didn’t tell, however, was that Ocea had split into halves.  One half became the high Elemental Ocea who oversaw the wellbeing of the upper waters.  The other became the Great Devouring Beast Of The Deep in the legends, but was actually the male counterpart of Ocea herself who oversaw the wellbeing of the abyssal depths.  The herb that the Selkie force had tried to take for themselves had been a gift from the Upper Ocea to her abyssal male half.  It was the only light that could thrive in that deep abyss, and it served to remind the male Ocea of his other half, giving him great comfort.  The herb was a great and sacred thing in the deep, one that everything below the upper waters worshiped.  In their ignorance, however, the Selkie force tried to take it for themselves and awoke a hatred so deep within him that it drove him mad.

The herb was what reminded him of when he was whole, the only light he could interact with over the endless millennia.  He lost control and waged wholesale war on the upper waters.  Nearly the entire world of Ocea began to run dark with blood.  It wasn’t until his lighter half was able to pull her consciousness back to her main body did the war end, but at a high cost.  In order to stop her male counterpart, Ocea, who had been weakened by rushing to put herself back together in time, used almost every ounce of her primordial essence to bring him back to his senses.  Greatly weakened, the female Ocea was reduced to but a spark of her former self.  The male Ocea was horrified at what he had done, and took his better half’s spark into the deeps of the world.  He found that he could not cultivate her essence there, it had been damaged too greatly, and without her essence, the balance of the world of Ocea was destroyed.  The world would slowly weaken and break apart without the full essence of both Ocea’s holding it together.

The male Ocea came up with a plan, however, and immediately put it into play.  He opened a gateway to another universe, and charged his first creation, and oldest friend, Gerik Sharkgard, the Great Black Shark with protecting the spark of his better half, and taking her to different worlds where she could take in their elemental energies and rebuild her essence.  Only when she was returned to her former glory, and came back to Ocea would the world be truly safe again.  Until then, the male Ocea would use all of his essence to hold the world together as best he could.  Though this was a monumental task, Ocea trusted Gerik to see it through.  Thanks to being born in the deepest depths of Ocea, Gerik had a tremendous constitution.  His scales and skin were endlessly strong in order to be able to withstand the pressures at the core of such a large world.  When he rose to the upper waters, or even to the surface itself, it was as the weight of the world was literally cast from his shoulders, allowing him to move and react at speeds no creature of his stature should ever be able to, so much so that it seemed to shatter the laws of nature.

Along with magics taught to him by his master, he would be more than capable of protecting Ocea’s spark until she was strong enough to regain her old form.  As they traveled to different worlds, Ocea’s spark grew strong enough to give birth to the form of a cute female water sprite who clung to Gerik’s side, and viewed him as a guardian and big brother.  Though often ferocious, Gerik was putty in Ocea’s small hands, viewing her as his little sister.

When Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades found out that the Messiah was dead set on destroying their pantheon, the three brothers made preparations.  However, much like when the two brothers cast Hades into the underworld to rule in the darkness while they ruled in the light, Hades was left in the dark when it came to his brother’s true plans.  Both Zeus and Poseidon had brokered deals with the Messiah and his forces, betraying all of Olympus.  The Messiah’s goal wasn’t just to destroy the Olympians, but to take the power of the Titans as well, most of all the power of Gaia.  Hades raged, but did not know what he could do to change things.

That was when Apollo had come to him with stories of Eden, the true mother of all life, and a power that even the Gods themselves had long forgotten.  At first Hades thought Apollo was out to trick him, as they had never been friends.  However, his story began to make sense when he realized the true origins of the Messiah and his plans to eradicate the old Pantheons in favor of a single all powerful God.  This one God would be the brother of Eden who was known as the Father of Light who was named simply God.  Still Hades hesitated until he found out that not only did his two brother’s plan to betray them all, but they also intended to set the blame at Hades’ feet.  With this knowledge, Hades agreed to listen to Apollo, who told him where to go in order to find his true path.

Hades decided to trust Apollo and made his way to a place called the World Vein, a place of power that dwarfed Olympus in every way imaginable.  This alone caused Hades to feel an awe he had never thought possible.  He was a God after all, one of the oldest.  But this place made him feel like a child.  He traveled the World Vein until he came to a place that sang to the core of his immortal soul.  It wasn’t a place of peace and tranquility as Apollo had suggested, but a place of darkness and shadow.  To Hades, however, this place was more beautiful than anything Apollo could describe.  It was a place that mirrored every fiber of his being.  Ever since he had been cast into the underworld by his brothers, Hades had been a dark and solitary being.  He had been bitter, and his thirst for vengeance had eaten away at him for eons.  Here, however, he seemed to truly find himself.  Here he could embrace the darkness in all it’s purity.  It was in this place that he met Eden.  

This was not the Eden that Apollo had spoken of, yet it was.  Communing with Eden, Hades learned that Eden was one of three unfathomable beings who had existed in the abyss before creation.  Even after her brother God introduced light to the universe, and Eden herself created life within that light, Eden had also been a part of the purest darkness.  This part of her did not cease to exist with the advent of creation, and was just as important as Eden’s other aspects.  Hades came to know this part of her as Eden’s Shadow.  Just as Apollo had found peace in Eden’s Garden of life, Hades found his own peace in Eden’s Shadow.  Eden gave him a sense of true belonging, and for the first time he felt that his destiny was one only he could control.  With the help of Eden’s Shadow, Hades finally cleansed himself of the hatred, self loathing, and loneliness that he had lived with since being cast into the underworld.  No one would dictate his path but himself.  Not his brothers, and certainly not this false Messiah.

Eden’s Shadow bestows upon Hades a new power, and a new purpose.  In exchange, Hades would willingly become one of the great guardians of Eden’s Shadow, for in the future, there would be a great war between Eden and her brothers.  Hades returned to Olympus and destroyed the Underworld.  He made sure to send those he held dear to him to safety by using the World Vein with Eden’s permission.  The reason he destroyed the Underworld was because it had been the key to locking away the Titans and their power.  Even though his brothers still laid the betrayal of Olympus at his door, he no longer cared.  After freeing Gaia’s essence and letting it escape through the World Vein, Hades himself disappeared.  There were Gods such as Apollo and Hephaestus who knew the truth of the events that ended Olympus, but most still put the blame on Hades.  In the end, it didn’t matter to him.  Making his way to the realm of Eden’s Shadow, Hades became one of her Lords of Darkness, her strongest guardians, and prepared for the day that true war would come.

Ah yes.  A summoning.  She’d almost forgotten about those.  It’d been a while since the last time she’d been carried off to another world chain via blood ceremony to help fight off the abyss.  So how did it all come to pass?  We’ll start off with just who was Lancelot Du Lac?

Not all stories are as they seem, and sometimes history gets it wrong.  Such was the story of Lancelot.  When King Ban refused to sign a treaty and become allies with Morgan le Fay in her attempt to usurp power within the royal courts of Britain, she cursed him, making him unable to ever sire a male child to continue his line.  Thus when he and his wife Elaine had a child, a girl, he named her Lancelot, and decreed that she be raised as a male with her true sex  kept a closely guarded secret. However, it did not matter in the end as King Ban was betrayed by his former friend Claudas de la Deserte who had taken up Morgan le Fay on her offer and ran Ban and his allies out of the kingdom.  After King Ban died from his wounds, Queen Elaine, all hope lost to her, offered up  prayer to the Blood God to give her the strength to avenge her husband.  In exchange she would offer her child Lancelot to him, hoping that she would be safe, and grow strong under the Blood God’s charge. Accepting her offering, the Lady of The Lake came and took young Lancelot away to Avalon.

Elaine went on to kill Claudas at the cost of her own life while Lancelot, given the surname du Lac meaning “of the lake”, was raised by The Lady Of The Lake Celeste herself.  Having been raised a boy to that point, Lancelot continued to train in the ways of the sword and battle, despite Celeste’s attempts to nurture the lady within her.  Seeing that she had a raw, untapped talent not often seen, Lancelot was trained by some of Avalon’s best warriors, and when she came of age, Celeste sent Lancelot to Camelot to become King Arthur’s Sword.  Like most of history recorded, Lancelot became known to be the greatest swordsman of her age, knowing no match with a blade or lance among peers or enemies.  As some things are the same, some things weren’t.  It wasn’t until Morgan le Fay used magic to seduce a young Arthur into fathering her child that the Lady Guinevere sought emotional refuge in Lancelot’s arms, sending the two into a deep seeded and torrential affair.  However, when it was later found out what Morgan le Fay had done to Arthur, he not only forgave his queen and his sword, a bond was forged between the three of them that could never be broken.

Now having two loves who accepted her for who and what she was, Lancelot cast away her male facade and embraced her true nature as both a woman, and knight.  Those who had a problem with her being a knight need only put her down to prove she was unworthy, something that never happened.  When the final battle for Camelot finally came, it was Lancelot as well as the fierce and loyal Gawain, Camelot’s two strongest and most feared knights, who held back Mordred’s forces while Arthur and his son had their final showdown.  They fought back to back against forces that severely outnumbered them, allowing the last citizens of Camelot to escape the battlefield.  While Gawain protected a woman who had stayed behind to protect her people, Lancelot faced the remnants of Mordred’s wizards, her god-like skills matching their magic until finally she’d killed the last, leaving not a single member of the opposing force alive that day before finally succumbing to her wounds and dying with the names of her two lovers on her breath.

When it came time for the Blood God Crimson to raise the Blood Court of Avalon, Lancelot, was one of the first to be reborn, along with Arthur and Guinevere.  She was not only reunited with her fated loves, but Celeste, The Lady of The Lake as well, who had been brought back from her own death as a gift from Eden, who was the Mother of all life, and more directly, the mother of Crimson.  Having the chance to grow up again, this time along with a new family and comrades who loved and nurtured her, Lancelot was more than happy as well as honored to accept her fate as The Blood Sword Of Avalon.  Along with her natural gifts of photographic memory and reflexes, along with total recollection, Lancelot was gifted with the limited ability to rewrite reality using her blood as a catalyst.  Using her abilities, she was able to create any kind of blade or lance she could imagine in unlimited supply.  These weapons were able to not only cut through almost anything in existence, but she could see and cut the very ley lines that held matter, and even most energy together, causing them to shatter on a subatomic level.  Being reborn hadn’t changed Lancelot too much though.  Ever the tomboy, she was the most honest, straight forward, and perhaps rude member of the Blood Court, but none of her comrades would have her any other way.

When the Blood Knights came of age, they were offered contracts by The Blood God that would bind them to Eden’s World Vein.  This World Vein would allow them to be summoned as champions to lesser worlds in order to help stave off the machinations of Eden’s brother, Yjarl Father Of The Abyss.  Though the Blood Knights were not the only heroic champions linked to the World Vein, they were some of the most powerful, and often sought after by those who summoned champions to save their worlds.  Lancelot now found herself summoned to such a world in order to save it.  The problem was, her summoner was currently unconscious, leaving her without any knowledge as to why she was here, and who it was she was supposed to stop.  She would just have to wait for him to wake up she supposed.

In the meantime, Lancelot found herself a place in the middle of that forest clearing and sat down in a crossed legged position with her eyes closed.  Her hands settled palms down atop her thighs, her chest rose and fell with deep breaths.  Anytime she or any other hero was summoned to one of the lesser worlds they had to take the time to align themselves to the world’s energy. Though almost all lesser worlds were alternate versions of the original major worlds, things were always a bit different, and so champions had to realign themselves to the energies and physics of those words before being able to fully act within them.  Lancelot sat silently as she did just that, communing with the essence of the world, letting it grow accustomed to her energy, as she grew accustomed to it in return.

Time passed as night turned into day.  No other creatures attacked the clearing after that initial battle, leaving Lancelot to commune in peace.  Every now and then she would open her eyes and turn her gaze onto the young man who had summoned her.  Though it was shock that had originally  caused him to black out, she knew that the reason he was sleep for so long was because the summoning rite had drained him.  He didn’t seem like it at first glance, but Lancelot had a feeling that this kid was pretty extraordinary.  How else could he have summoned her of all heroes?

It wasn’t until the sun had climbed quite high into the sky above the clearing that Lancelot felt the kid nearby stir into wakefulness.  She had long since fully adjusted herself to this world, and had simply been waiting patiently for him to finally awaken.  She watched as he shot up into a sitting position, his eyes wide as he looked around in a sudden fright, as if he was expecting to still be surrounded by the dark creatures that had attacked them the night before. Lancelot let a small chuckle escape her lips.

“It’s fine kid.  We are alone, and you are safe.  You’ve been out all night, though I suspect your body needed to recover the energy spent in summoning me.  So, how about you get your head right, and finally fill me in on the situation.  Who do I have to kill to save your world?”

Lancelot had always been the straight forward type.  She hated to beat around bushes, and would much rather burn them down to get straight to the heart of the matter.  The young man blinked a few times before finally coming to his senses and jumping up from the ground, turning his eyes to stare at Lancelot.

“Alright, alright, I get it kid.  Beautiful woman, nearly naked and all that.  Get it out of your system now so we can talk.”

The young man had the grace to blush as he tore his gaze away from her, looking at the ground.  His right hand lifted to scratch idly at his left shoulder, something Lancelot noted might be a nervous tick of his.  After a few more moments of clearing his head, the young man finally spoke.

“Well it isn’t just that you’re naked that gave me pause, though you are a very beautiful maiden.  I mean beautiful woman, I mean….”

Lancelot sighed as he trailed off struggling to find the right words to use so as not to offend her.  She just shook her head and waved her hand.

“It’s okay kid, just spit it out.  I’m a tough nut to crack.  I’m hot, I know, get on with it.”

He wasn’t quite familiar with the terms she used, but he got her meaning and sighed in relief before going on.

“What shocked me was that you called yourself Lancelot, but that can’t be true.  Lancelot is one of the demons I’ve summoned you here to kill.  Also it isn’t the world that is in danger, but just our kingdom of Grimoire.  As far as Camelot goes, that place has long fallen to utter darkness.”

Lancelot just stared at him for a long moment.  She blinked a few times, but said nothing for a good while.  This worried him, causing him to grow more than a little nervous.  Finally she gave a sigh and spoke again.

“I see.  So I’ve been summoned to another Camelot, or at least it’s remnants.  Not only that, but this world’s Lancelot is one of the bad guys?  That’s a real bummer.”

She blew out a long breath, her cheeks puffing out a bit before she looked to her young summoner and spoke once more.

“However, what do you mean by just your realm being in danger, and not your world?  I know this may make me sound like a haughty bitch, but I’m a world level champion kid.  You don’t summon me to save your kingdom, you summon me to save your world.”

The young man didn’t know what to say.  It didn’t sound like she was being arrogant, yet her words didn’t make any sense to him in any other context.

“I wasn’t aware of any actual rules to the summoning, just that it was something I needed to do in order to help save my people.  In fact it was the only thing I could do. Though my parents and even my older brother are all extraordinary people, I never amounted to much.  My parents love me, but expect nothing of me outside of my academic achievements.”

Multiple emotions seemed to play across Lancelot’s face as the young man spoke.  They ranged from confusion to pity.  She didn’t know where to start.

“Okay, here’s a crash course on summoning kid.  Our universe is wide and vast, nearly infinite as far as anyone can tell.  In our universe there exists multiple worlds, however of those worlds only three are considered major worlds.  They are the three origin worlds first created by Eden The Mother of Life.  Branching off from those three major worlds are countless lesser worlds.  That’s not to say that your world is less important than the major worlds, just that it is smaller and the amount of universal energy it draws upon to exist is far less than those of the three major worlds.”

As Lancelot spoke, the young man had calmed down and settled back upon the floor of the clearing, settling into a crossed legged position much like her own.  He gave a nod that he understood up to this point so she could continue.

“I am the Lancelot from the first Camelot, the one that existed first, and those of the lesser worlds are a kind of shadow of that one.  Not every lesser world has a Camelot, but there are many that do.  So while it sounds haughty that I claim to be the original Lancelot, it’s just the plain truth.”

The young man continued to nod as she spoke.  It was a lot to take in, but he’d learned enough about the mysterious workings of his world to know that there was a lot about the universe that he didn’t understand.  His eternal hunger for knowledge, however, allowed him to not only believe Lancelot’s words, but piece together that what she was saying was no doubt true.

“There are many powers, be them gods, or other beings of power that exist in those three worlds of origin that bind heroes like me to the world vein.  In this way, we can be called upon to help the lesser worlds when they are in great danger.  Most of the time we succeed, but sometimes we fail, and those worlds end up being destroyed.  However, there are levels to those who are summoned.  It may be better to say there are tiers.  There are some dangers that start off small, but need to be stopped early so they don’t grow to the point where they can’t be stopped and endanger that whole world.  For these threats, there is a lower tier of heroes who are called upon to be summoned.”

Lancelot sighed as she looked to the young man sitting across from her.

“The reason there is a tier system is because the more powerful the hero summoned, the more they disrupted the natural energy of the world they are summoned to.  Because we exist on a higher plain, so to speak, the energy we consume when summoned to a lesser world puts a heavy strain on it.  If the world is in danger of being destroyed, then the risk of summoning a first tier hero is worth it because the world survives, and is able to recover from any energy fluctuations caused by that hero.  But if the conflict is smaller in scale, such as battles for kingdoms, then it is not worth the energy a first tier hero would use up in order to put a stop to it.  This is why I was surprised when you told me it was just your kingdom in peril, because I am definitely a top tier hero.  To be truly honest with you, I’m even higher than first tier.  I am what is called an end tier hero, someone summoned when the world in danger is increasingly important to Eden herself.”

A look of confusion bordering on panic spread across the young man’s features as she said those words.  Up until this point, he believed everything she said.  It was like he could feel it.  But if that was true, wasn’t his summoning truly a failure?  Before he could speak his fear, he saw a brilliant smile flash across Lancelot’s face.

“Don’t worry about all the details kid.  The fact of the matter is, I’m here now.  I’m going to help you however I can.  I’ll just have to limit the power I use in doing so.  I won’t let your kingdom or your world be taken over by the darkness.”

The young man looked relieved at her words.  He still had many questions, and many things he couldn’t begin to understand, but at least he would have help in saving his kingdom, and his people.  Lancelot frowned slightly though as she thought about these current circumstances.  From her understanding of summoning, she truly shouldn’t be here.  The only way she could have been summoned here was if this whole world was in danger, which she didn’t feel, or the summoner who drew her here to this world was a world level summoner who couldn’t control their power.  

A sharp light suddenly shown in her eyes as she thought up to that point.  She couldn’t help but remember this kid telling her that he had no talent with magic, despite most around him being able to use it to varying degrees.  She now had her suspicions, but she didn’t voice them allowed.  First she needed more information.  Tilting her head towards him she couldn’t help but laugh.

“You know, I can’t keep calling you kid.  How about you tell me your name and a bit about yourself?  If we’re going to be working together I’ll need to get to know you better.”

The young man blinked as he realized that he’d never even told her his name.  He smiled nervously and gave her a nod.

“Ah, my name is Alexander Merlin Le Fay.  I’m the son of Magician King Merlin, and Sorceress Queen Morgan Le Fay, rulers of the Stone Kingdom.  My older Half brother is Prince Mordred, head of the Knights of The Stone.  Here on our world Mordred is considered the second coming of Lancelot, and the greatest swordsman in the Stone Kingdom.”

Lancelot blinked a bit as Alexander told his story.  So he was the son of this world’s Merlin and Morgan.  This adventure was going to be more than a little bit awkward.  Not only was she going to have to keep a low profile and not use her powers to their fullest, Lancelot was also going to be interacting with different versions of the people she knew and loved.

“Alright, this is going to be interesting.  So tell me about this darkness that is threatening the Stone Kingdom.”

Alexander took a deep breath, and with a heavy nod, began his tale.

End Part Two.