RE: Deity - The Breath of Creation

4:24 Construction

"Father," Alexander said, appearing at my side. I glanced sideways at my child, kneeling as I was in a part of the One World. The energy flows were getting twisted, and causing the fracturing of the land to happen quicker, here. Curie's SystemGuardians were still busy elsewhere, but this spot was going to cause problems for my children’s construction projects, and thus had to be removed. Entirely. Like cutting cancer from the surface of one’s skin."Yes?" I asked, standing and brushing off my robes. My power was already hard at work beneath the surface of the planet, cutting away entire chunks of stone, grinding it back into the primordial chaos that was the building block of all creation. Blades of white and black ran beneath the surface, grinding it all away, spinning Taiji symbols acting as buzz-saws and grinders together. There was something cathartic about destruction, I had to admit.

I kept one eye on the grinding while Alexander spoke.

"I had some questions about what we are building," he admitted, curling up beside me and watching me work. He fixed his gaze on the buzz saws, the “wood chippers,” watching with some fascination. I don’t think he’d ever seen me actively destroy anything quite in this manner. I patted his head, his scales rough against my palm, and scratched behind his horn the way he like it. A pleased rumbled echoed out from his chest.

"Yes? And?" I pressed.

"We are each building our own separate functions," Alexander said slowly, tasting each word in that unhurried way of his. "Yet they blend together all the same. Separate, but feeding one another, and running with your Will. Are we truly building what we need to? I thought it would be more...independent." He admitted.

"Would you like me to take a look?” I asked rhetorically. I already knew mostly what they were each, individually, building, but was purposefully letting them start on their own. Then I'd come in and offer corrections, if they needed it. But honestly? So far it wasn't looking like they would. I'd trained them well and they had plenty of experience in building things with their individual Realms. His question, however, had merit, and was something worth looking deeper into.

Suspicion was swirling in my gut. Between Yueya being, well, Yueya, and everything else, I was paying close attention to anything my gut said was off, or worth paying attention to. Extra close attention. More than usual.

"Yes, please. I'm getting bored, I was to see gods making shit," the Rival said, popping up from where he’d been lounging beside me on a cushion made of a literal cloud. Alexander rumbled again, this time in amusement, and he craned his neck to look down at my old friend.

"Oh, anything for your entertainment," Alexander drawled sarcastically, rolling his eyes. The Rival cackled, I grinned at him.

"Alex, you finally learned sarcasm!" I cried, patting him in mock congratulations.

"I have always known sarcasm, I simply choose not to use it. He simply brings out the worst in me," he drawled, making the Rival laugh even harder. "But yes, I would appreciate you coming to take a look at things."

"Then I shall. Rival, please, take my hand." I extended my hand to my friend, who gasped dramatically.

"Hand holding?! Statera, how lewd.” The Rival said, holding a hand over his heart, yet reaching for my hand regardless. I rolled my eyes and snagged his hand, then teleported all three of us to the interior of the One World, where my children were hard at work with the skeletons of their new creations. I hadn’t needed to hold his hand to teleport, but teleporting between universes, even with some Authority, was still difficult. I didn’t want to take the risk, however infinitesimally small it was, he’d lose a part of himself during transit. He was still technically only an immortal, after all.

After checking to make sure he was, in fact, in one piece, I turned my attention fully to the construction projects underway. By my estimation, this was still the “breaking ground” stage.

The Four Realms floated in the middle of it all, glowing like...well, like a soul, if I was being honest. A bright, brilliant ball of energy with the inner workings, the truesoul, hidden behind a shell of Primordial Chaos. Out of it, extended four systems. Elvira's was, predictably, the most solid.

Hers was a latticework of white centered around the core of the Four Realms. Chunks of the One World that had fallen off or been removed were slowly ground down into pieces of primordial chaos to be twisted to her own goals, her holy energy managing it with far more effort than I could do it. Her energy was strong, and hard, and supportive without directly being part of the same system. Beams of energy, like steel, were laid out in rows as she worked, muscles flexing and pregnant belly protruding just a little.

Keilan's was different than I expected. Instead of the mysterious powers of karma or connection, he focused more on mind energy. That psychic power he so often left untouched yet had made his Asura out of. It was similar in some ways to Elvira's structural latticework, but pulsed and flowed in odder ways. It was still just a baby of an idea, but fundamentally different, piled about like strings and winding around Elvira’s creations.

Rieka's was...well. A mess. She flew about her mess as it threaded through her siblings', weaving strands together that leaned against Elvira's without actually touching or interfering, and pulsed in time with Keilan's, contracting and shifting with the pulses of his raw material.

As for Alexander's...it flowed through it all like a liquid. Existing both within and without the already made formations at the same time. Fundamental, yet separate in a way his Spirit Realm never had been.

I'd seen this before. Where had I seen this before? Not the literal structures, but the design. It was familiar. A ghost of an idea.

"What was your question?" I asked, calling upon some extra processing power from my thousands of incarnations, and immediately receiving it. I was the main body, after all. If I asked, I received. “I see your projects somewhat rely upon each other, but they are far more separated than the Realms you made. They will only continue to grow apart, no matter how it seems now.”

"We are building, but...it's still based off of you, also." Alexander said slowly. "I cannot escape it. I have tried to build further, but my own soul will not let me until I understand this. It is like...we are building our Dao Stars, but not a single one of us can figure out how to begin. We have the shapes, the idea, but not the actual functions." I was silent. The Rival was silent. Alexander was silent, letting the question settle. He was asking how to separate himself from me.

It only confirmed what I thought. My children were trying to build their own Universes, only they didn't have the Words that I had been able to use. Nor the limitless powers of creation. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that; building a universe from scratch, without the instincts and knowledge I had now...

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Wait.

I had done exactly that, only with the power of creation. But it had all been instinct, only borrowing Mr. Boxes' power.

Well...shit.

"Give me a second." I said, turning and furrowing my brows, casting my senses out. Where was...there. Mr. Boxes. He was always watching, sort of on the periphery, like I did with my children. This was only a shard of him, though, the shard that watched all the twelve universes, I assumed.

To my senses, this shard still pulsed like a nerve ending. Constant and peripheral, fluctuating and pulsing. Actually...it looked very much like what Keilan was building. A nerve ending.

And, for the first time in a long time, I asked Mr. Boxes for help.

"So," I said, mentally sending the message to him. "I know you're hands-off, like me, but advice here? I could gift them some powers of creation, but that doesn't feel like me. It doesn't feel right. Because they're not quite building new universes? Not yet? Am I wrong about that?" The honest truth was, I wasn't quite certain. I could see the potential there, but it was ringing wrong in my head.

[Stop worrying. You are thinking too much. You have my power within you - and therefore, the knowledge is in your very being. Follow your instincts.]

I stared at the message. It was a far cry different from anything I had ever received from Mr. Boxes in tone alone. Usually there was some snark, that was a guarantee. Sometimes there was a directness to him that spoke to me on many levels. But often there was a whole bunch of vagueness and 'do it yourself' thoughts to it. This wasn't... that, but it was far more direct, as well.

I had Mr. Boxes' power in me. That was as close as he had ever come to calling me his child. My eyes narrowed further. What did that mean, exactly, then?

I looked at Mr. Boxes. I looked at what my children were building. I rubbed my face, and turned back to Alexander, forgoing all thoughts of "is this right," and forging ahead.

"So, you're afraid that what you are building is too much 'me.' I said slowly, nodding my head. "Why is this a problem?"

"Because we are trying to build something that is our own." Alexander growled out, not frustrated at me, but at himself. "Something uniquely ours."

"In all of heaven and earth, there are only so many things that are unique." I argued instead. "I am a Deity of Balance. How rare is that truly, in the great, wide multiverse? I am the Heavens. How many Heavens are there? Even my path is paved on the paths of those before me; you recall that even my creation of the Four Realms was using borrowed power. The Overgod of the Multiverse gifted to me the limitless power of creation and seven words to create the Four Realms, and even they are not unique. Rare, true. But not unique. Not completely. You all are what makes it unique and mine." I folded my hands into the sleeves of my robes, meeting Alexander's eyes firmly. The great Spirit Dragon was struggling with the idea, I could see. So, I gave him another push.

"There is nothing wrong with what you are doing. Why change the foundation of a house, if it does not need it? Is the foundation, the Four Realms from which you were born, lacking?" I pressed.

"No, Father," he answered almost reflexively. "But it is not mine."

"My home universe had nothing wrong with it, but it was not mine, either." I argued. "I made the Four realm off of instincts and borrowed power. You are not doing the latter. I have raised you better than that. But instinct is what you are best at. All of you. I have been teaching you the secrets of creation as I understand them since you were far younger - of course your beginnings wilTheyel like they are mine! they are based off of my teachings. Like any good piece of art, you take inspiration from that which came before you. What matters is that, once the foundation and structure is set, you fill in the blanks with what you want, you desire. That is how you make it yours."

Alexander was silent for a long, long moment.

"I believe I knew that," he admitted, nodding his head. "But I was not yet ready to accept it. We will not ever escape your influence entirely, will we?" he asked.

"No," I agreed. "Not entirely. My experiences in my home universe heavily inspired what was created in the Four Realms, and echoes of it still rock the foundations today. 'How Can Man Die Better.' 'I am the Heavens.' Hell, even 'Fuck Off!' Things I've said and done affected you all, and some of those were things I had seen done by others, and so on and so forth. I bet if I dug deep enough I’d find some deeper influences of my home universe – not just metaphorically, but energetically. Don't worry about it, Alexander. This is not something you must do alone." The great dragon nodded his head as he looked out over their creations, slowly being built under their own power.

"I will ask a few Spirit Kings and other Dragons to aid me." he said finally. "This is not something I must do alone. Will you help, if I ask?"

"...if you ask genuinely, yes," I said slowly. "But this, I feel, is something that you must do without too much of my hand directly involved. I can give advice, but not directly shape things. I know I say that a lot, but this time I don't think you want me to, either."

"No," Alexander agreed, and my heart swelled with pride and pain in equal measure. I sobbed dramatically, placing a hand over my chest and wrapping him in a fierce hug.

"Oh, my boy is all grown up, doesn't need me anymore," I whined, in direct opposition to what I just said. He huffed and wrapped his tail around me tightly, then pushed me away to go fly off toward his creation, slowly taking shape as it was. I wiped my eye dramatically, and turned to the Rival. "It wasn't too long ago he would have hugged me back and not let go for hours. Ah, where has the time gone?!" I bemoaned. The Rival indulged me with a little smile, but his gaze was fixated mostly on the Four Realms and what they were becoming. What was being built around it.

"Hm," he grunted. "Looks weird."

"But you have an idea of what it is." I accused, laying an arm on his head and using him as an armrest. He didn't so much as flinch - to hug Alexander I had grown my size a bit to better match him.

"A Universe Cluster," the Rival said, nodding. I deflated a bit, in both relief and confusion.

"Not a multiverse? What's a universe cluster?" I asked, my priorities in that specific order.

"No, not a multiverse, don't be ridiculous. In all of time, not a single case of that happening has been recorded as successful." The Rival scoffed. "A universe cluster is closer. Though you being inside another, foreign universe is incredibly rare and weird, it's not unheard of for a universe to produce secondary Origins that spilt off to create other universes. They tend to be tied into the core universe, feeding it and creating a system within their group. It's like...a galaxy. Or a biological system,"

"Like a body," I deduced, looking at my kids' choices of creations. Structure. Mind. Whatever Reika was making. And...blood? Flow? I huffed.

"Sort of, yes, but on a smaller scale and usually functioning as a system within a larger system. Like...part of a heart. A valve, with the core acting as the nerve that makes the valve function." The Rival chattered. "Does that make sense? I think so. Remember, you're going to be a part of the multiverse. As much as we all like to pretend that it's all separate universes, it's not. There's the Overgod, and then there are people below him that oversee entire sections of the multiverse, while he does...whatever the hell it is he does. Even I don't know." He scratched his chin and looked up at me, while I continued to lean on him.

"And universes who try for the multiverse fail." I pointed out, still feeling complex about the situation.

"Yes. Odin is a prime example. He tried to tie a whole bunch of universes together to create a new multiverse and it went catastrophically wrong. Didn’t help that he tried to use pre-existing and well established universes. You should've seen the worlds before Yggdrasil. They were actually pretty neat." He continued to chatter, but I could feel his nerves for the first time. "And I can tell you're thinking. I can smell the smoke coming out of your ears. what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I need to follow my instincts." I told him, grinning down and masking my innermost thoughts. I was annoyed. I was angry. I was furious at Mr. Boxes and myself and everything else. And especially the Oshun. And that anger was not going away soon, I could tell, because I was already walking a razor-thin edge to do everything the way I felt was right.

Which was probably exactly what Mr. Boxes wanted. I couldn't let my universe break apart because I got greedy. So I wouldn't aim for it.

...Which was partly why I was worried it would somehow work. That, at least, was what my gut was telling me.