RE: Deity - The Breath of Creation

4:27 The Rival's Thoughts

It was ironic, in The Rival’s opinion, that the mortals were always the ones to feel the changes first. He likened it to a frog in a boiling pot - gods and angels and immortals all lived for such a long time, that slow changes were almost impossible to detect until they were incredibly far along. Whereas for mortals, whatever the world was like in that moment, in their lives, was how the world had always been and would always be.They didn't see the past or future, and the ones who did were few and far between.

As such, they were always the first to adapt to changes - because they didn't even notice there was a change.

"Welcome to the new Capital of Art!" A greeter called, waving him through the large gates of an admittedly wonderous city, even if he knew what it had once been. He'd seen the ruins. He'd visited the giant corpse of the Oshun, and known what the Capital of Art had once been, its beauty and size visible even through the rubble. Comparatively, this place, while beautiful, was like comparing the work of an amateur to the magnum opus of a civilization’s entire host of artistic masters.

Already, two generations had passed since the fall of the old capital. Which was nothing to an Immortal, but to these people, who had not all been gifted the chance to achieve immortality and longevity, save for those few elves and the like? The war was something for history books, and the beauty of the old capital a distant memory.

The Rival greeted the greeter back, and walked in, soaking in everything.

The streets were a polished marble, formed and molded together in great waves, streaking through the city like veins of white and red and even black in an intricate, sophisticated pattern. Grand statues lined almost every street corner, great heroes and imagined warriors and even legendary beasts covering the land. The Rival spotted a few gods of the Four Realms on display, as well, from Aeriel to even Solana and Kei, the latter of whom was depicted as a giant, nine-tailed fox lounging around a fountain. Colorful streamers hung from between the houses, adding even more splashes of life; and then, it would all change as the design principles switched from colorful to drab and utilitarian, then back again, all to get the full breadth of beauty.

Magic was in the air, too. Great ivory cars drifted by in the skies above, motes of light dancing in the air - be they made from magic or faeries hard at work. Elves walked the streets beside dwarves and what could possibly pass as humans; in the same way Neanderthals from Earth could possibly pass as what counted as human. Their clothes were as colorful as everything else in the city, from yellow to red to green to black and white and everything in between. The people were almost universally adorned with fine jewelry, or had beads in their hair, or some other artistic measure that added to their already otherworldly appearances.

The Rival was tempted to climb the steps to the upper areas of the city, see what the wealthy places looked like. It was probably grand, and genuinely beautiful. Say what you will about greed – it could produce some amazing art. He’d know; he’d been a powerful, greedy man or woman in enough lifetimes to be a case study on it. Multiple case studies. Instead, however, he went to go find the slums, taking the long, scenic route.

He found them after purchasing some meat skewers from a food stall - they were pretty to look at, some sort of dense white meat with a dusting of fresh herbs on them and chunks of salt, but relatively flavorless - and wandered into the slums almost by accident. Predictably, they were outside the city walls; but still connected to a gate that was flung wide open. Unpredictably, they were almost beautiful in their chaos. There was the expected amount of dirt and dust and grime and filth that one might expect from the slums. The people here weren't happy, struggling through their lives like everywhere else in the multiverse. But they were...cleaner than he expected.

Twice, while walking down the street, an elven magician would fly by overhead casting spells, cleaning trash off the streets and dust from the roads. The magician was never high-tier, not like the archmages who could warp reality, and clearly resented using their magical gifts to be a glorified street sweeper, but at least the streets were cleaned.

A few people eyed him as he sauntered past, gnawing on the remains of the meat skewer, but none of them approached. To them, he looked like a regular person. Average. Illusions layered over him to make him appear that way, hiding his Fae horns and his cultivation. And he just watched.

There was a dwarf, or what counted as a dwarf in this world even though the name was likely different, fixing his house. It was a little ramshackle thing, with thin metal strips as the roof. He had a few odds and ends that he was nailing to the walls, shoring up holes - he looked like he was a career fixer-upper, truthfully, because a few of the other shacks around had clearly been fixed and cleaned up by his hand. The Rival eyed the scraps the dwarf used, casting a quick little technique based on a hunch. A golden thread attached to one piece of scrap metal, visible only to his eyes, leading off into the distance. He followed it.

Near the opposite end of the slums - through some pretty rough neighborhoods where he was fairly certain he saw a murder and a lot of drug usage - he found the junkyard.

It was, perhaps, the prettiest junkyard he'd ever seen. Everything was neatly ordered. Wood scraps here, metal scraps there, magical supplies over there. Nothing overly expensive, and no refuse or food waste - those, he presumed, were elsewhere - but magic spells had been cast around the entire place by someone with a lot of power to organize the junk bit by bit. Hundreds of scavengers scoured the place, grabbing bits and bobs here and there to take back. “One man’s trash,” and all that. Clearly, the dwarf got his supplies from the junkyard. Free garbage. Free waste that could be repurposed. The idea was elegant.

And everything was clean...ish. There was some of the debris that came with it being a junkyard, but not nearly as much as he'd expected.

On one hand that was expected because magic and magicians. On the other they'd had to rebuild the entire city from scratch, basically, and even if it'd been a few years there was another giant junkyard, and loot pile, just a teleport away in the form of the old capital.

"Unexpected," he muttered to himself, turning and walking back the way he'd came. Of course, he could see everything he wanted to see in an instant if he wanted to. That was just it though.

He didn't want to. He was busy watching the changes.

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And that, he had to admit, came largely in the form of titles, and temples. Titles hung over a lot of the people’s heads; there were people like Ricard the [Scavenger], Geru the [Drug Lord] and more. He presumed that not everyone could see the titles, or Geru was just stupid for displaying that she was a drug lord. Or he was just special, and could see through her attempts to hide her Title. He was definitely special.

It was fascinating, though, how the [System] was changing. Already there were little stat sheets forming, listing minor accolades and things like that as well as some basic numbers for things like strength, and people had accepted it as a part of life now.

Cultivators would not have. He was fairly certain one or two had elected to stay behind at the start of all this, but those people had swiftly fled because the world just wasn't amenable to their style of growth. The "qi" here was like trying to digest a food your body wasn't meant to eat. Though that was slowly changing as well - already, the connection to the Four Realms was starting to bleed more energy into the land, blending it a little bit so it wasn't quite so foreign, enriching everything.

But that was a slow process.

The temples, on the other hand, were clearly Four Realms in design and nature. Oh, sure, there were churches dedicated to the gods of the One World, he even saw one dedicated to the Oshun Trio while walking around town, but here in the slums? There was a lot of worship of Statera Luotian, and the pantheon of the Four Realms.

Right smack dab in the middle of the slums, the Rival waltzed into the temple and took a gander.

It was simple, which was fine. Unlike the great temples that had been erected in the Four Realms, this one was much more modest and cozy. It could fit maybe three dozen on wooden pews packed into the small room, a podium on the far end raised up slightly. Tapestries, more like posters than tapestries, were plastered on the walls in lieu of the fancy stained glass and expensive paintings. The posters rendered fairly inaccurate descriptions of the Big Four and Statera, with her male and female forms looking like a buff man in a toga with flowing hair and wielding the wrath of heaven, and the female a warm, rosy cheeked mother gently looking down at the world.

And beneath them...were the Oshun. Not the Big Four. The Oshun. Running about, doing Statera’s will.

The Rival stared at it. It was a minor change, all things considered, especially since mortals got things wrong all the time. This was probably something most of the gods saw as genuinely true. Statera Luotian had come along and taken over everything, and technically, the Oshun were doing her will. Sort of. If you squinted and looked at it sideways. He narrowed his eyes further. Technically, Curie's SystemGuardians also worked for Statera, though it was, in his eyes, more working alongside.

The gods of the One World hadn't accepted that Statera Luotian had essentially been gifted their universe, and was now their God. Their...Heavens. That wouldn't change, no matter what they thought, no matter what the Rot thought. And, to top it off, the mortals had already come to accept it. Those who knew, anyway; there were lands far, far away that had yet to fully receive the information and feel what had happened. The One World was just too big for this kind of universe-changing event, even for something as cataclysmic as the collision, to reach all the ears in a few short generations.

"Did you come to worship?" A voice asked from the side. He turned to behold a wrinkled old man and woman, grey haired, dressed in drab grey robes, with the pointed ears that denoted some kind of elvish heritage. They were old, for their kind, a few thousand years. Which meant they were among the ones who actually remembered the fall of the city. He smiled and shook his head at the pair.

Their age was notable, though still nothing compared to his true age, but otherwise they were unremarkable. Though they had built this homey little place to worship. Statera would love them. She probably did love them.

"No, dears," he told them. "Just taking a peek." And with that, he sauntered right out, and took a deep breath of the stale, frankly smelly air of the slums. Relatively clean it may be, but compared to the rest of the city it still stank.

Though maybe that was just him. There was a giant corpse slowly rotting and infecting the world with its Rot not too far away. Which did remind him...

"Statera," he said, drawing a circle around himself in the middle of the street with a bag of salt he pulled out of his spacial ring. A few people stopped to stare, and he gave them a big old wink.

This would get them talking for a while.

"Yes?" Statera's reply, in that silky smooth, knowing and kind voice of hers, sounded right next to the Rival's ear, as if she was beside him. Which, if he was correct about her growth path, which he most certainly was, she technically was right beside him.

"Beam me up. I'm ready!" I cried, spreading his arms wide and turning his face skyward. A few people muttered around him as nothing happened, and he frowned. "You were supposed to teleport me when I said that."

"Was I? I didn't think I wanted to cause a miracle to happen in the middle of the street. So I'll just make it look like a regular teleport." Statera reasoned. The Rival frowned and opened his mouth to protest - he wanted to make a scene - only for light to flash around him and suddenly he was back in the Four Realms, Statera's hand on his shoulder .

"That," he drawled, pointing a finger at her dramatically. "Was no fun. You're a buzzkill, you know that? I wanted to make a scene,"

"Yes, yes. You had a whole plan, I ruined your fun, blah blah blah." She rolled her eyes. "Did you take a look at what I asked you to?" The Rival pouted at her for a moment, giving her his best puppy-dog eyes that she met with an unflinching, stoic face, then pouted .

"Boo." He complained. She stuck her tongue out at him. He sniffed. "Juvenile. Yes, I did do what you asked, but honestly, You’re probably more qualified to understand what's happening than I am. I have a lot of experience, but I refuse to fall completely under the expert fallacy, even for myself. Origin Deity stuff is your wheelhouse, not mine,"

"I know, I just wanted a second opinion." She said, and he sighed heavily once again, his stomach clenching and unclenching, twisting uncomfortably.

"If you let them merge again, it will likely have unintended consequences." He said slowly. "You will become more powerful as a result." Her eyebrows rose, but she did not comment, so he continued. "Look, it's complicated. But walking around gave me a better idea. You allowing this would essentially subordinate the Oshun to you - there's this thing called Intent of Divinity. It's like...look, let's rephrase that. Y'know how you borrowed power from the Overgod to create your universe, using [Words] that carried such heavy intent it created phenomena?"

"Of course."

"This is sort of like that. They will be borrowing your power to glue themselves together. Their raw power will greatly increase, and they will, eventually surpass you in raw strength. But you will gain a different kind of power - not over her, but of her." The Rival tried to explain.

“What you mean is that it will tie into the power of belief, that I am above the Oshun. Essentially feeding my current evolutionary path of the Heavens.” Statera said gently. The Rival nodded. That was it! Those were the words he’d been looking for. Stupid brain not working right. “And? What else?”

“It will do wonders for stabilizing the One World. And those three. And probably your kids’ construction projects. Honestly, the pros outweigh the cons so much it’s almost terrifying; you’ll be more than ready for the big dumb dragon you keep saying is on the way.” He said with a shrug. Statera sighed heavily.

“That’s what I was afraid of. Then I suppose I have no choice but to allow it,” she said with a shake of her head. “The issue is, I fear we are still playing into Yueya’s hands.” The Rival waited for her to expand on that, and when she didn’t he let it drop.

Her worry was palpable, but she needn’t be. He’d already decided. If Yueya tried anything untoward, he’d just kill her and take the Overgod’s punishment. He couldn’t risk the Rot growing stronger, some final, great scheme of its coming to fruition, but more, importantly, he wouldn’t let that happen to Statera.