Fate [2]

POV CHANGE: Statera Luotian

One thousand two hundred and eighty five years. That's how long I spent in secluded meditation, and the moment I awoke the entire Four Realms trembled. All the conflicts currently ongoing between cultivator and angel alike froze, as suddenly the dark angels began to flee. Ever since Wang Zizai's ascension there had been innumerable skirmishes throughout the Four Realms, some of which were 'lost,' some of which were 'won,' both neither of which were ever true losses or wins. After all, there were no real stakes to the current game. Of course, what this meant was that I immediately cast my divine sense over the entirety of the Four Realms, searching for the culprit. What I found was...nothing. The dark angels reached certain points and simply vanished into thin air, and even when I focused all my attention on the spots where they disappeared I still sensed nothing.

This was cause for concern.

With a huff the boulder I had been meditating within exploded, my true body standing up, roots of the Life-Giving Tree that had wrapped around me making snapping sounds as they broke and retreated under the ground. With a boom I shot into the sky, teleporting across the entirety of the Mortal Realm to appear above Elvira's palace. The suddenness of my appearance startled my four children, who had been having a strategy meeting concerning the dark angels. After all, I had done everything in the matter of a few seconds, and their senses hadn't quite caught up to them. Unfortunately for them, I had ruined whatever plans they had in place by waking up. Elvira herself was only recently joining in on these battles, having spent all of her time tempering and refining her body in the Primordial Chaos until about a century and a half ago...though she had quickly taken to battle like a fish to water. 'Light,' or 'white' in Elvira's case, is all about conflict and activity, so I was honestly not surprised by this. Although she had not actually fought any battles yet, she was an extremely skilled tactician, even rivalling Keilan, who tended to come up with more abstract tactics.

"Father."

"Mother." My children said as they came scrambling out of Elvira's palace. I looked at them all with a blank expression, waving my hand and nodding my head.

"Fill me in on the situation." I said monotone, causing my four children to look at each other. There was a good reason for my inexpressiveness, and I dreaded what I had to do. My enlightenment had touched upon Fate, which just made my enlightenment that much more profound. Though Fate is not to be confused with fate. They're different. And one pisses me off much more than the other. Alexander, noting my expression, led me into the main hall of the palace, where a military strategy board was in place, depicting the entirety of the Four Realms. A number of skirmish sites had been set up, and my four children were just getting the reports about the dark angels fleeing. Apparently some mysterious force had been interfering with their ability to know what was going on in their respective Realms, so information and movements of the dark angels were delayed in getting to them. Once again, this was concerning.

Thankfully the situation wasn't that bad. I sat in one of the chairs, eyes closed and a frown on my face as I listened to Elvira and Keilan give their reports, mentally creating the map and situation. I still didn't know what the purpose of these attacks were, as they were far too systemized for my liking, nor who exactly was controlling it, but I was still forming a general idea of the entire situation. At least, more of an idea than my children had. After their reports all four simply stared at me as I thought. It was a long while before a forlorn sigh escaped my lips.

"Fuck." I said, standing up, followed by another stretch of silence. "My hands are tied." I announced. Silence reigned for a long, long time, especially from the surrounding Deities that had, at some point, come to pay their respects to the newly awakened me. Instead what they got was me telling them that I wasn't going to help in this fight...basically. I mean, I would, but not to the degree that I'm certain they were hoping for. After all, I am their creator. A number of them were probably expecting me to just swoop in and 'boom!' War's over. But that is not the case here.

"Why?" Alexander was the first to recover first, because he had already figured that something like this situation would crop up. Upon meeting my eyes, however, Alexander was shocked for a split second. I was angry, and it showed.

"Because of numerous reasons. First off, not even I can find where they're hiding and coming from. Eventually I'll figure it out, but right now it's like I'm flying blind. My current guess is that it has something to do with the Void, which is characteristically 'nothing' and technically invisible to any form of sensing. Second off is that this is the first storm the Four Realms is facing. I cannot deny it the chance to grow from this." I said simply. A few complaints were raised to this, echoing from around the hall, which I allowed to run their course. My eyes spoke volumes about what I truly thought of the situation. There was much more to that last point than simply 'cannot deny the Four Realms the chance to grow,' or even 'facing a disaster to avoid calamity.' No, I had seen a bit into the workings of Fate. And seeing as how this was a point in the timestream that I could not change? Well, that really, really pissed me off. I may have been an average angel on Earth, but now I'm anything but average. And one characteristic that I did end up picking up from my lives on Earth was basically this; "tell me what I can't do, and I know exactly what I want to do." Unfortunately that thought process conflicts with the duties of a Deity...especially those of an Origin Deity. Taking a deep breath, I suppressed my anger. I had hoped to mitigate the damage, but unfortunately...the vision I had been shown was just a bit too beautiful.

That, and I knew that the way I was about to do things was one of the better ways of handling this. I wanted a bunch of happy stories...but pain is both a very good teacher and motivator.

"So you're going to just let your people kill each other?" Reika asked, and I nearly snapped at that. The aura that unintentionally flared out of me nearly shattered Elvira's palace, the entire building rumbling and shaking for a split second before I managed to reign it in.

"Sorry." I apologized, taking a deep breath. Reika's face was shocked, drained of all color, and the Deities had all taken a number of steps back as they stared at me. The pressure I had just shown was far beyond anything I had shown previously...though that was only because I had prevented the pressure I was releasing from affecting them. I just so happened to lose control this time. "Just...yes, technically I am. Strictly speaking, I couldn't stop that anyways. Mortals are mortals. They're stupid, and bound to have wars and kill each other and stuff at some point. As sucky as that is, that's part of freewill. Plus, there are already dark angels here. All we can do is try to keep the damage to a minimum. That's no excuse though. What I'm about to say, though, is strictly for you four's ears. The rest of you need to leave." I said, and waved my hand. The Deities currently in the hall were all swept outside with a gust of wind, and a barrier was erected around me and my first four children. Keilan was giving me an odd look, and I clasped my hands in front of my face. I was going to show them pieces of my vision, so that they could see what we were working towards. This needed to happen, something I realized only I had seen it.

"I had a vision..."