Once again, I was forced to watch as my children slaughtered each other, this time on a far grander scale than ever before. What surprised me the most about this entire thing, however, was not the ferocity in which both sides fought – it was the fervor with which the Shadow’s forces proclaimed to be loyal to me.

  No fight emphasized this more than the battle surrounding my two angels, Fu Hao and Stilicho.

  “You dare to call yourself loyal!” Fu Hao bellowed, clapping her hands together. A mountain of gold energy appeared in the sky, crashing down upon a collection of dark spirits that had been attacking her as she flew above the cultivator’s city of Manu Ti. Stilicho charged about in the skies above, wielding a spear of silver light as he did battle with another three dark angels, handily keeping them back. “I am an extension of the Creator’s will! They do not wish this!”

  “It does not matter what Statera Luotian wishes!” the dark angels shouted back, crackling black energy erupting from their forms and shattering the descending mountain. “They have forgotten the truth! We will remind them, and the world will return to the perfection it once was! The false gods and faulty creators have blinded our Lord, and we will remind Them of the Way!”

  Perfection? What perfection? And what Way? How am I blind? It’s pretty arrogant to call me blinded. I frowned, clenching my fists tightly and tamping down on my emotions as best I could. Stone cracked beneath me as my irritation spiked. I had to fight the urge to open my eyes – watching the conflict through my other senses and connection to the will of the four realms was safer – and turned my attention to another part of the fight.

  Chaos gods. Three of them, in totality, if you didn’t count the Shadow. Two battled with the gods surrounding the Tree, Greed and Hatred using all of their might to weave discord amongst their ranks. But the gods were holding firm, formations of elements keeping the destructive, evil gods at bay…for now. Sol was being taken away from the battle by the god of metal Argent, blood dripping down his side from a blow Hatred had dealt him. The proud sun god waved his sword at the dark being, screaming madly, rays of furious light blasting out every which way.

  Meanwhile Gilles and Aeriel did battle with the third, a goddess who felt different from the others. She cackled, dancing about the two with an agile grace that could only come from endless amounts of training.

  “I told you, little god,” she taunted, stealing control of Aeriel’s wind as she blew a gale at her. It swirled about her finger, her domain sinking into it and twisting it to her own ends as she unleashed it back upon her, a veritable hurricane blowing the wind goddess halfway across the Physical Realm. “I have been fighting since the day I was born. And mere training is nothing without experience.” She continued, dodging Gilles’ whips, smirking the whole time. Gilles remained calm, though, only keeping her at bay, not overextending or lashing out beyond his means. And suddenly, I realized what he was doing.

  Battles between gods were battles of philosophy, in a way. The goddess had just shown it in the fight with Aeriel; she had taken what was supposed to be the wind’s domain, and colored it with her own to strike back. Gilles was preventing her from doing that to him. He was patient, waiting for his moment to strike…like a snake, leaping out of the shadows. And she was waiting for that same opportunity, but by her nature she was not as patient as Gilles – shadows simply were, while she just arrived. My lips twisted into a frown as I shifted in place, the sounds of groaning stones echoing beneath me. This goddess fought differently than the other two; she fought like a true goddess, with battlefield experience. Hatred and Greed…weren’t. There was something off about the way they used their power, as if it wasn’t truly their own. As if the power itself fought back against them.

  My focus narrowed upon those two, peering into their very beings, and what I found there nearly had me leaping to my feet, rushing out to end this here and now. A roar filled my ears as the power within me threatened to burst out, responding to my emotions – but I tamped it down, keeping the reins on this power.

  Blood. Hatred and Greed had been twisted into becoming gods by using droplets of my blood, tainted with dark miasma and the maddening power of the Void. Even now the power tore away at their souls, driving them further into madness – it was suicidal, whatever transformation they had undergone to be able to accept the power in my blood, however briefly. The other goddess had not; she was a true deity, by all rights.

  Unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. A part of me wanted to leap up right now, jump into the fray and end this conflict before it blossomed into something even worse – but Fate kept me still, kept me seated. I had to let things play out, until it was time to intervene. Assuming my children didn’t win this, and there was a fairly good chance they could, only then could I intervene. My own heartbeat thundered rage into my ears as I turned my gaze to the source of all of this, the being that was responsible for everything happening right now.

  The Shadow, alone, did battle with the Big Four.

  Foul miasma radiated from its canid form, its wolf-like body covered in mangy grey fur, bone spurs sticking out from its joints. Eight spider-like limbs sprouted from its back, tipped with vicious points dripping a dark, sticky substance. Eight red eyes blinked on its forehead, always watching, while a maw that could open far too wide and contained far too many jagged, dagger-like teeth slavered beneath it. Injuries had accumulated on its body throughout the fight, but with how rabid it looked, it was hard to tell just how injured it was.

  The wolf leapt back as Alexander breathed flames, narrowly avoiding the golden fire while simultaneously batting at Keilan with its blunted foreclaws. He blocked with a web of karmic strings, but was still forced back as the Shadow’s foul miasma rushed forward to poison him. Green light from Reika flooded over Keilan, countering the miasma’s poison, while Elvira leapt into the fray. Her wings were lightly tattered, her bare fists striking with all the weight of her titular Mountain. The air bent and cracked, the Shadow scrabbling as it desperately tried to avoid a direct blow from Elvira’s fists. But she was fast, and vicious, and it was forced to block with one of its spidery legs – the limb shattered under the force of the blow, a howl of pain tearing its way from the Shadow’s throat.

  But I could see what it was doing, as far away from the fight as I was. I wanted to scream out a warning, shout out about the danger, but it was already too late and I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. The Shadow had been tactically retreating, only taking glancing blows and dealing minimal damage to sell the illusion.

  It didn’t have to overpower the others, not that it could. It merely had to outplay them.

  “You cannot win! Together, we are too strong!” Elvira bellowed, jumping back, away from the Shadow’s snapping jaws. Keilan filled in her position, black yin-based energy forming a shield that repelled all of the Shadow’s miasma right back to it. Alexander roared and dove at him from above, narrowly missing a great bite but whipping the Shadow with his tail as he swam by. The blow sent it flying, straight to a web of Keilan’s karmic strings – but the Shadow was not so easily contained. It flipped over midair, twisting its momentum, dodging around Keilan’s net, and aiming straight for Reika.

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  What happened next, happened in slow motion. Keilan and Elvira’s eyes opened wide, Reika raised her arms, a shield of wood raising before her – the Shadow’s seven remaining spider legs pierced it with ease, stabbing into her and injecting its foul poison. She coughed, golden blood spraying from her lips as she fell to her knees, the Shadow whirling.

  A whine of concern forced its way out of my throat, the sound rumbling through my entire chamber, but Reika was not so easily felled. Even now the powers of life coursed through her, healing her wounds and combatting the poison. But she was effectively taken out of the fight for now.

  “Don’t you know the basics of combat?” The Shadow asked rhetorically, sprinting forward with astounding vigor and speed, revealing the true depths of its power. “Always take out the healer first.”

  Alexander roared and charged, the great dragon snapping and snarling, striking like a snake – but the Shadow, despite being far smaller, struck with lethal precision. Its spidery limbs stabbed viciously, tearing off scales and drawing blood, beating him back and threatening to take out his eyes. Elvira jumped in to intervene, but the Shadow leapt into the strike, burying a bone spike on its spine into her stomach. She was sent hurtling back coughing blood and crashing into Keilan, who had been prepared to lash out with a burst of psychic force, the two colliding with a shockwave of power.

  “Now, now, ‘o siblings of mine. I truly don’t want to kill you,” the Shadow said in its raspy voice, hiding its panting beneath bravado. “But if you keep standing in my way I will not hesitate.”

  It was Reika who replied, clutching her stomach and desperately healing the seven holes in her body, green light flooding from her. Alexander moved over to fly beside her, casting a worried glance at her even as he bled from the face, deep gashes surrounding his eyes from where the Shadow tried to blind him.

  “Shut…up,” she gasped, the Shadow’s paralytic poison forcing her to focus on herself, and only herself, lest she succumb to her wounds. I grit my teeth, worry eating away at me from the inside. “I don’t…care…what you spout…it is all…lies. You fight against…Mother’s creations. You are…anathema to everything She represents. You are…poison, to Her works. Know…your…place, beneath Her.”

  “No!” the Shadow snapped with surprising force. “You are the poison! You who defiled Their great creations; forced Them to twist Their perfection into this…abomination! Even my cursed form I took, only because I was forced to! It is you who need reminding of your place! I am the only one who can truly see the lies you have poisoned the Great One with – you, my siblings, who are supposed to be equal to me yet find yourselves scrabbling in the dirt, with the worms, with these petty acts of creation! And you, dear sister, are the worst of the lot! Taking the Creator’s lessons of creation, and filling the world with your own imperfect visions! I deny you!” it howled.

  “Reika, go back to the Tree,” Alexander rumbled. “Heal yourself. Please.” Reika struggled to her feet and nodded, wiping her bloody mouth on the sleeve of her green dress. Already her wounds were closing, the poison fighting against her but not able to withstand the sheer density of her vitality for long – I heaved a sigh of relief. Despite all its bluster, the Shadow had not struck a fatal blow, she would be fine in not but a few hours.

  Still, injured as she was, she had to retreat for now, lest the Shadow target her again. With a promise to return she slowly flew off, a cadre of spirits rising up once she was far enough away, swirling about her to protect her return. The Shadow watched her go with a smug smile, not concerned in the least, and I frowned at it. What was it planning?

  “You have lost, Shadow,” Elvira intoned, visibly fighting back the urge to go charging in once again, despite the wound in her stomach. “Look below. Even now your forces are in retreat. The dark angels are losing, your foul gods are being captured. If this was a battle of ideals, you lost.”

  True to her words, the Shadow’s army was…well, not in retreat, their madness drove almost each and every one of them into a violent rage, but actively being sealed away. The army of heaven continuously sealed away dark spirits in amulets of jade or plain nets, to be carted off and sealed beneath the Life-Giving Tree and the Holy Mountian. Manu Ti was largely secured, the devil cultivators in full retreat while demonic spirit beasts scrabbled uselessly at the walls. Even in the karmic realm, Keilan’s new creations actively bound and sealed the few remaining dark beings that fought there with karmic strings and psychic powers.

  As for the dark gods, Hatred and Greed were being held down by a pile of gods. The gods of fire and water had them trapped in individual maelstroms of their respective elements, while others still swirled about them, caging them with bolts of lightning and pillars of ice. It was only a matter of time before they were properly sealed away, while the final goddess, who continued to battle against Gilles, cackled with gleeful madness.

  She was on the retreat now, Gilles having been joined by ten cavalry men of the heavenly host in pursuing her. They readied their talismans while he beat back their advances, Aeriel rejoining the fray with a furious expression, wind howling at her back. My frown deepened. Her glee came not from the joy of battle and chaos, but from another feeling. It was that of someone who knew something the others didn’t, it was…

  My mind flashed back to the dark gods of Greed and Hatred. Suicide. Wait, suicide!

  “NO!” I boomed, my entire palace threatening to explode from the force.

  “That’s exactly where I want them,” the Shadow said with a grin, sucking in deep breath and howling. All at once the dark angels laughed and leapt upon their attackers, igniting their very souls and cultivations. Explosions rocked the Realms, lines of fire detonating in the Tree and Holy Mountain. Every single sealed or captured being was blown to pieces, their souls stripped of all hints of their former power, and most of their personalities, as they flew back to rejoin the spirit river, leaving destruction in their wake. The Karmic Palace was blown wide open, its roof destroyed and the lines of souls flooding into the valley utterly disrupted.

  Screams rippled through the Realms, the pain of every living thing flowing to me, telling me just how bad the destruction really was. The Life-Giving Tree groaned, the two dark gods laughing as they tore free of their captors, spinning through the gods and tearing them apart, disrupted as they were by the explosions.

  The Mountain listed dangerously, bits of the heaven realm sagging downward, threatening to collapse upon the Physical Realm where the Tree smoked, branches snapping off with cracks that echoed through creation. And the Shadow stared up at me the entire time, grinning, anticipating, waiting. Almost as if it had something to prove to me.

  Fine. Fine! I hadn’t wanted to do this, but things have taken a turn for the worse. My other failsafe’s would have to be put on hold; be they using the Will of the Four Realms, or a dozen other things, none were as quick as I needed. Suicide bombing was beyond even my expectations. What a fool I was, to not expect martyrdom. Not to mention fate…it whispered in my ears, telling me which path to take, which ones to avoid. Futures in which the Four Realms remained stable fell away like crumbling roads in the wake of this catastrophe, leaving a few narrow options. Timing was key. To minimize damage and maximize benefits, few as there were…

  I shuddered to imagine what the damage would have been, had I not forced the Shadow’s plan, given it more time to build its forces.

  With a grunt I stood, squaring my shoulders and opening my eyes. I was greeted by a beaming light of blue – the stone of my meditation chamber transformed to crystal so bright it hurt even my eyes to look at.

  “RANDUS.” I spoke, as softly as I could but was still a yell. “BUY ME TIME.”

  “How much time?” Came his soft reply, barely audible through the roaring of power in my ears, begging to be unleashed.

  “FIVE MINUTES.” That was all the time I needed. That was all the time I would get. Taking a deep breath I braced myself, the power I had been amassing condensing. And once more, I sacrificed a piece of myself for the good of the Realms.