5:4 Stewards and Conflict

Without the Big Four present, things had changed in the Four Realms. Alanna, the ex-Celestial Empress, had first noticed it in the Karmic Realm, where she had been interning to learn more of the depths of the reincarnation cycle and the threads of karma. Now that she was a god, she had far greater ability to see the flows of the universe. But she still had a long way to go to get used to her new station, as Xing Wu typically, casually, and not maliciously reminded her whenever he made a comment about the Dao, about how people worked, about how the Four Realms functioned that blew her mind. Xing Wu, a man who cared very little for such things. It bugged her more than it should have.

Without Keilan, the Karmic Realm still ran perfectly fine. Solana, the great firebird, took over stewardship of the Realm’s greater functions to ensure that. Most of the laws and karmic paths had remained the same, the greater functions as unchanging as ever, laws written into the fabric of reality. But she saw changes in the way things moved, in the flavor of karma being written, so different from how it was explained to her. It was a slight, subtle thing she’d thought she’d been imagining. But the Mad Scientist had confirmed it, once Alanna brought it up to her dear friend. The overarching purpose of karma was still connection, and mostly remained a benign thing as a whole, tainted only toward positivity or negativity by the nature of said connection. However, it had shifted ever so slightly toward the flavors of redemption, of renewal, of purification — all the things that Solana represented as a Pillar.

Alanna would bet it was because she was the current steward of the Karmic Realm, and the Realm itself responded to whoever was steward. Like a home, decorated by its owner.

She noticed it next, ironically, in the Spirit Realm, where Kei, instead of taking over for her mother in the Physical Realm, had chosen to spend most of her days. Alexander, the great Spirit Dragon, had inspired the Spirit Realm to be watchful. He inspired many spirits to be calm, to watch and provide help to those who asked just as he did, letting others exist as what they were without coloring them one way or another, best he could. With Kei as the steward, Alanna was seeing a sharp rise in the mischievousness of spirits: playing pranks on mortals that they never saw coming, toying even with immortals. Everything from tiny little nudges that sent techniques slightly awry and confused the caster, to moving bottles or turning out the lights when people left the room, just for fun — just to confuse and tease and prank. These were things Alexander had never pushed for in his Realm, so the rise of mischievousness had to be tied to something else.

The other two realms were without official stewards: the Heaven and the Physical. Oh, sure, some of the deities of the Four Realms, powerful spirits and holy beasts and angels, watched over everything. Inesa tended to the Tree some with her daughter Sequoia, while the Lunar Star and Realm Sun watched from above. But no one quite filled the roles of the two, Elvira and Reika. But that did not mean there weren’t changes.

It showed in ambition. Her empire in the Physical Realm had all but fractured already — separate kingdoms forming that placed themselves under the governing council she had left behind, in name only. Dao Progenitors, many of whom had elected to go to their own new regions and take up stewardship of the Trees there, only nominally listened to the Council. The Dao Progenitors that had remained in the central region and were not on the elected council were content to set up their own little fiefdoms, the few more warlike among them growing bolder as each day passed.

Some people waited for her return, but she was unsure if she would anytime soon. The religion forming around her was what truly kept the empire from shattering outright, a shared religion keeping mortals together, more than any governing body which was…concerning.

She was starting to understand what she had missed, before leaving; how much her presence, her charisma, had kept everything together, and why the council she had elected to take her place was superior to any emperor who might follow. It would, quite frankly, make the inevitable crash from the Golden Age far less severe if more people had more power at the start. She could do little there, she was afraid.

As for the Heaven Realm, well, she was still trying to figure that one out. The mortal peoples there were not quite as ambitious as the Physical Realm, because of the more pleasant nature of existence here. There were many tribes and Immortals who had built lesser kingdoms — none of them as coherent and collected as her celestial empire had been — rising up, seeking to grab more land and expand their influence, but none of the mad power grab of the Physical.

More and more people were appearing within the Heaven Realm as powerful souls were reincarnated, choosing to flee the brewing chaos of the Physical Realm. But it was the gods and the angels that largely held Alanna’s attention, when it came to changes. The first two angels, Fu Hao and Stilicho, made appearances from time to time, but they largely stood in the Creator God’s mostly empty palace and watched from afar, content to intervene only when their force of presence was necessary. As for the gods that had once held court in the Holy Palace under the watchful eye of Elvira and her husband Gilles — well, they still sort of did their job.

Alanna walked through the halls, hands clasped behind her back. The god of fire and the goddess of water were flirting in the corner of the room, while one of the younger gods stood near a pillar and molded a white stone into the shape of a dog, which he then breathed life into. Alanna approached, bowing ever so slightly, as was respectful to a senior — which, a small part of her mind supplied, was ironic, because while she may have been a god for less time, she had lived far longer than this youthful god of the mountain. The stone dog blinked at her and yipped, as she asked him a simple little question.

“Hello. Do you know if the formation lines beneath the Holy Mountain have been checked recently?”

That was all it took. The god of mountains looked up, cocked his head to the side, furrowed his brows, and hummed. “I have not checked that in a while. I probably should.” And he stood and lumbered off, the rock dog yipping and following behind.

Alanna shook her head ruefully. Things like that happened all the time, and she seemed to be the only one who remembered that the little tasks needed checking, too. Without Elvira to keep them in line, the gods were forgetful. Not out of maliciousness, but simply because, well, that was how it was. Everybody forgot some things.

“This had better not escalate into a true problem,” she muttered to herself, folding her hands into the sleeves of her robes. She half expected the Mad Scientist to answer her, having been a constant by her side for so long. But she was still observing the forming new universes, so silence was mostly her answer. She walked on.

At long last, she came to the one who had only nominally been keeping people in line: Xing Wu, who looked just as uncomfortable standing beside Elvira’s throne, spear in hand, as he had looked sitting on that throne all those long years ago when he had been Dei. She could not help the little smirk that crossed her face as she sauntered up to him, drifting up the steps and elbowing his side. “You look like you’re having so much fun, my friend. Aren’t you so glad to have the duties of leadership thrust upon you once more?”

“If Gilles doesn’t come back soon,” Xing Wu growled, glaring at one of the few petitioners who looked like he might approach. Alanna knew the petition was of no consequence, could see it on the poor spirit’s face, and Xing Wu’s glare chased him off. “I might just start killing people.”

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“You love it and you know it,” she teased. And the glare that he shot her could have withered the stars themselves. She laughed.

“I’m not sure Gilles will even come back as often as I would like,” he grumbled. “So I’m stuck here for now, because you’re too young and no one else can do the damn job.” Which was just about the best sentence ever, to describe Xing Wu’s personality.

Alanna hummed a little in the back of her throat, looking up at the painted ceiling, which displayed the Big Four and Statera Luotian in the earliest days of the universe. The grand domed ceiling had been a tapestry of creation even when the universe was still young. The fact that she was standing here — in a place that had existed almost as long as the Holy Mountain itself — still baffled her sometimes. There was no getting over the sacredness of this space. Not yet.

“Are you going to try and sit on the throne?” Xing Wu asked, in a casual way that told Alanna he was testing her. She already had her answer, though.

“No, I don’t think I will. I’m coming to realize my nature is not as leadership-focused as I believed,” she said slowly, tasting each word, drumming her fingertips upon her thigh as she looked out over the grand hall. “Let’s face it, my friend. I built the empire, and I ascended when the construction was done. I showed them how, and now I think I will be content to watch others build. I may sit upon a Mountain eventually, perhaps even this one, but I do not think I will make an empire out of gods and angels.” She said it self-deprecatingly, because the idea of turning this family into an empire was preposterous.

Xing Wu slapped her on the shoulder. “Good, that’s good. Finally coming to realize more of what you are,” he said. “Not that I would know what your path really is, since you decided not to hang a star in the sky, but to sink it into the land.” Which was true. Her Dao Star had been sunk into the people of the world. Once enough people stopped following her path, then she would hang it in the sky; until then, it existed within her Empire.

“A lot of this will continue as it is, I think. Instead of leading, I will try something new. I’ll look for stewards for the Heaven Realm and the Physical Realm, like Kei and Solana are doing for the other two,” she said. Xing Wu cocked an eyebrow at her but did not reply.

They stood there for a time, watching the day to day, the Heaven Realm still functioning without Elvira, until Fang Xu and Celene descended from the ceiling in all their splendor. She could see the flames of ambition within both the representatives of the Sun and Star, but it was far more balanced within them, than in the Physical Realm. They were to watch over all the Realms, not necessarily as stewards, and their light and actions would change things. And Alanna decided that was okay. She was, for one, actually quite excited to see how the Four Realms would grow from here on out. And she could accept that she was no longer the wind that blew the windmill, but one who watched how it spun, and repaired it when necessary.

***

Even after trillions of years of living — and perhaps millions, even billions, of lives — facing oneself was still among the hardest things you could do. Which was why the Rival’s dear, sweet Statera, his lover (or so he hoped she would be eventually), was so cruel for demanding it of all her people. It was a rare soul who could look inward so constantly as she did, and try to see everything. But for her sake, he did it anyway. He meditated, Solana sitting beside him, clacking her beak, in the Karmic Palace, and tried to ascend to Godhood in his own way.

What she had taken from him had been War.

He had once been the War God, that much he would admit. However, as he had just told Statera through his story, that was no longer the case. He could appreciate the finer things in life, and slow down.

He could choose to become a warrior god, to embody the warrior spirit, which was far closer to what he was now than just War. But honestly, that felt a little too small for him.

“Would you hurry up and make a damn decision? Good Heavens above,” Solana complained, strutting around him, taloned feet tapping against the tile floor as she shifted between her human and bird form rapidly, the bird form never settling on either giant, or small, constantly shifting between the two. She seemed to prefer the small bird, like she had been in life, but changed to human for small things and fine details, the motor control of fingers unmatched even amongst divinities.

The Rival’s eyebrow twitched, and he cracked one eye open to glare at the flaming avian. “It would go faster if you stopped interrupting me,” he said coldly.

She scoffed — a strange sound coming out of the beak of a tiny little bird, no bigger than the palm of his hand. “Don’t give me that. You’ve known exactly what you were going to become since before you sat down. You said it a couple of times, even. Now you’re fighting it just to be a stubborn ass. Stop it.”

The Rival huffed and closed his eye again, determined to ignore her for a few moments longer even if she was right. He was being a little bit of a pansy about it, wasn’t he? He knew exactly what kind of person he was. He was just stalling. Why? He had no clue, honestly. And he wasn’t going to look that hard into himself to figure it out because he just hadn’t admitted it to himself.

So, he stood, patted down his pants, which he favored more than the robes all the immortals and such seemed obsessed with, and promptly let go.

With a shudder, a new Star appeared in the sky. He felt it shining brighter than almost any other. What Dao he had forged in this universe appeared as a Dao Star…it was not something that encompassed his whole life, just what he had experienced here, in the Four Realms. Statera could not pin that weight in the stars quite yet. He would not put that weight on this universe quite yet.

And his cultivation ignited. It was like a nuclear reactor going off in his dantian and meridians. Every single ounce of qi he had built up in this fleshy body exploded with strength. His cells, starved of good energy — as he had purposefully starved his body of nourishment, so it could drink the divine like water in a desert — greedily absorbed the golden divine energy that poured from his soul. Outside this budding cluster universe, his true soul, a massive ball of memories and energy, shuddered, an exchange being made; some of his energy went up to it, some of its energy came down to him, and with it came commands.

The process of divinity was refined as talismans, commands, and techniques fired off, carving his flesh, cutting away that which was weak so the strong could take its place. Toxins, black sludge he had built up over his lifetime, poured out of his pores, only to be burned away by the fires of Conflict. That was who he was. Conflict. War was one thing, but Conflict was the spice of life, and he made sure to fill everyone’s life with just a little bit of it.

“See, I told you, student. Quit being so stubborn all the time,” Solana chided, trying and failing to appear unimpressed at his new godly form, complete with chiseled abs and carved muscles along his forearms and legs. He flexed experimentally, neither too bulky nor too thin, but definitely glorious, and flashed her a grin.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I knew what I was doing the whole time; if you’re gonna do something, you gotta make sure you do it right,” he lied, knowing he’d been stalling on purpose. “I was just taking my time on everything ’cause I wanted to be sure.”

She clacked her beak in annoyance but ceded the point, because in all their time traveling together all those years ago, he had always made it a point to slow down, even if it was for a completely different reason this time. Now, however, it was time to speed up. He got the feeling he’d be meeting the First again really soon.

Then skies opened, the Heavens rumbled, and suddenly Statera himself stood beside them. The Rival looked up at him. Her. Him, her. He still saw her as a woman, but her expression was firm and stern and he definitely had the male countenance, beautiful though it still was.

“Are you finally ready to go?” she asked. “We have about an hour left until the meeting begins.”

He grinned up at her and bowed theatrically. “Your wish is my command, my lady,” he said cheekily.

She rolled her eyes. With a snap of her fingers and a quick farewell to Solana — which included a brief hug from the Rival, a few words of thanks from Statera, and a promise to be good from Solana — they teleported, and stood in the skies above the one world.

A few had joined them. Boitatá, the fire serpent, curled itself around Statera’s arm. Astraea, the Goddess of Stars, stood beside the Oshun, who clasped her hands together before her and nodded to the Rival. Representatives of each universe — the Rival himself, he assumed, representing the Four Realms, as nearly all the others were indisposed — with the Heavens above them all.

Statera stared down at the One World, spread her fingers, and put her palm out. “Be good,” she said firmly. “I don’t want the house to burn down while I am gone. Now. Let’s get this show on the road.”