As she sensed the approach of her Phoenix companion, the empress turned towards the balcony expectantly. She suspected the Phoenix man would not be alone and was proven right as the Young King also entered along with her friend. “Welcome back. You were a bit faster than I expected, but I have refreshments ready.” She always had trouble reading the mood of Solarians, and now the man looked inscrutable. “I’m guessing you didn’t have to fight?” That would certainly improve his mood.

The Phoenix answered in the Young King’s stead. “Hah, no. Only three people from the Four Winds had to fight, and I was one of them. I only had to take part in one fight though. The combination of a dragon and a Phoenix was too much for the other groups to handle so they gave up. There’s a nice little detail you forgot to mention by the way. You could’ve told me the girl was a dragon, a Kirin even.”

“An Abyssal Dragon to be exact. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an Abyssal Kirin. I can certainly see why Xinglong was interested.” The Young King also commented, expressing no feeling with his voice.

“Yes, well, that little detail surprised me as well. My assumption is that the old dragon helped her with the bane of all Abyssal Dragons. She might not even have been a Kirin originally. If that is the case, then she isn’t a Kirin, but an Astral Dragon instead.” The empress commented with a small secretive smile. Kirin was a general term for the serpentine dragons, separating them from the more lizard-like chromatic and metallic dragons. Astral Dragons did fall into the category of Kirin strictly speaking but were usually considered separate due to their special abilities.

“She was a feisty one. Granted her enemies were underestimating her at first and weren’t exactly the cream of the crop, but she still took out several immortals without killing them. It appears that little stipulation was especially hard on her. She would’ve done even better if she was allowed to use deadly force.” The Phoenix guessed correctly.

“Yes, I can certainly see how she could be a problem for the Celestial Emperor in the future. Considering her age, that future might not be all that distant either.” The Young King stated.

“And? But?” The empress prompted. The words of the Solarian had made it clear there was more left unsaid.

“She…is a creature of darkness and chaos. I believe she would be much more at home in the Night city. Her powers are of the dark and death, and I got the feeling she really doesn’t have all that much regard for the lives of others. That’s not to say I would classify her as evil exactly. She seems more amoral or at the very least following a moral compass that is not consistent with the general public. Notably, she doesn’t appear to be interested in seeking the downfall of others, which is good. Unless given a reason to, that is. If given a reason, she seems the type to avenge a slight thousand times over.” The Young King felt strangely hesitant with his words as if he was still mulling it over.

The empress didn’t prompt him to continue. Besides being impolite, it was better to let him chew through things on his own and continue when he was good and ready. He was coming to similar conclusions that she had come to on her own, just that their points of view were a little different. She considered Dee’s darker qualities a positive. It remained to be seen what he thought of them.

“You were right in that she most likely won’t become an enemy of the Solarians without us giving her a reason. That is good, but perhaps not the only consideration. You said that she would burn the Celestial Court. That’s why you’re here. I’m not the biggest fan of the Celestial Emperor, but he is a great stabilizing force in the Day city. It might be that removing him would be a bad thing for the Pantheon as a whole. Unless something takes his place. The Celestial Court in general should remain at least. If the girl decides to go for the whole Court, then we might need to stop her, or we might become vulnerable to the three remaining parties of the War in Heavens. With the demons gone, the angels are free to act, and we’re not on friendly terms with them. ” The Young King finally turned towards the empress.

“That brings me to why I’m here. She needs to have someone keep an eye on her. You are in the best position to do so. We will not act yet, but I will hold you accountable in case she brings too much chaos into the Day city. I know you have your own goals in coming here. Reward goes hand-in-hand with risk. This is the risky part. Keep an eye on her.” He didn’t stick around any longer and got up to leave as soon as he had given his decree. He had wasted enough time here.

As the two others watched the Young King leave, the Phoenix spoke. “Will this hamper our plans? I get that it’s good that they are not interfering yet, but this will narrow down our options.”

“No. No, it will not. The Young King coming here personally was a little unexpected, but it went about as well as can be hoped. Besides, his threats are based on some false assumptions. I did leave the Celestial Court because I didn’t intend to stay in a burning and sinking ship. I did not, however, specify that she would burn and sink that ship by herself. She might be playing with lit matches and preparing to poke holes in that ship, but the Celestial Court has been a bonfire ready to be lit for a long time. The only thing keeping that ship from going down in flames is the presence of the emperor, and not to sound too self-centered, me. You should know the rot and infighting that goes on in the shadows.” The empress looked at the Phoenix meaningfully.

“Of course. There’s a reason why I’m here instead of reporting all this back to the emperor.” The Phoenix stated emphatically. The emperor holding the others of his kind as leverage over him was only one of the symptoms.

“Exactly. There’s only so much I’m willing to do to salvage that wreck, and my patience is wearing thin. Mistakes were made when the court was created, mostly because the emperor ignored my advice, and now those mistakes have festered into something worse. So I’m done with it. The court will devour itself once the emperor is gone. The Solarians will see reason once the court turns on itself. Keeping a sick institution will not benefit Pantheon in the long run when something new might rise from the ashes of the old. She will only be the catalyst for the change. As all agents of chaos should be.” The empress revealed her smile fully. There was still a lot of work to be done to reach that point. For now though, they had time.

-----

As Dee’s power grew, the range of her perception abilities grew with it. As the group returned to the old Four Winds territory to prepare for the impending move, the range of her perception had grown enough to notice something she had missed before. To be exact, she could now sense an angel just on the edge of her perception range observing them. Her eyes were sharp enough that she could have seen the angel with just her eyes a lot earlier. That’s assuming just her sight would have been enough to recognize the angel from the crowd. Now her other senses had gained enough range to catch up with her sight, and she had been able to locate the angel rather quickly.

She had made the discovery as soon as they had come out of the teleportation formation, but it had taken her a few moments to fully register what it was that she was sensing. After all, the city had countless people and visitors from several races. Picking up an anomaly among them was not easy, but an angel most certainly was an anomaly. She allowed herself to observe the angel through the shadows. The angel was female and was obviously hiding her more angelic features. Currently she looked like a more majestic elf or a beautiful human.

Dee quickly traveled through the shadows to a place behind the angel. Even though she herself was hard to detect, there was enough a disturbance from her method of travel that the angel spun around in alarm. For a moment it looked like the angel considered drawing a weapon, but seemed to ultimately decide against it. That was a good sign. In a way. Dee wouldn’t mind scattering a bit more angel bits around the embassy again.

“You have exactly one chance to peacefully explain why one of your kind is hanging around here. And please try to sell me some drivel about it being coincidental. I’d love to squeeze the information out of you by force.” Dee asked with a rather menacing smile.

“I’m here to observe you.” The angel blurted out without holding back.

“Ok, elaborate.” Dee prompted with a frown. The angel was giving up too easily for it to be fun. It was also a little suspicious. Dee’s mental psionic abilities squeezed closer to the angel’s thoughts, just close enough to detect lies. Of course, as she herself well knew, lying could be done without actually speaking any untruths, but it was still something.

“I’m not sure of the exact details. A lot of angels were given directions to look for someone matching your rough description. Your old description that is. Actually, I’m not even sure what most of the others were told about you, as they weren’t exactly sharing freely. I reported what I had found to the Archangel of Mercy and was told to keep an eye on you. And to keep any other angels away from you.” The angel woman explained in a hurried tone. Apparently the woman was quite clear what would happen if her answers were unsatisfactory.

“And have you? Kept other angels away I mean.” Dee asked with a slightly piqued curiosity.

“As far as I can tell, and I’m good at this so almost certainly yes. I even had to deal with one Seraph that got a bit too close. I have no idea why you’re so important to the archangel, but here we are. My instructions were clear. I’ve been keeping an eye on you since your last match in the Cauldron of Blood, though I lost you for a while. You would know better than me why.” The woman seemed even more capable than Dee had thought, which was saying a lot considering Dee was giving her a lot of credit because she had managed to observe Dee this long without her noticing. However light that observation had been.

“And why exactly should I not just get rid of an annoying observer like you?” Dee asked the menacing tone creeping into her voice.

“Because someone else would just take my place and they might not be as good at keeping others away. Also, I would really rather not die. I’m just doing what I was ordered. I’m sure you can sympathize when it comes to that.” Truth be told, even the angel had no real reason to give beyond that.

Dee considered the situation for a moment. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to report back to your master. If they have something to say to me, they are free to either come and visit or send a message. However, you will stop your little surveillance operation. If you manage to keep the others away, I will consider that an act of goodwill, but know that any angels trying to observe me from now on will not be returning alive. That includes you. I have a whole lot of reasons to kill your kind on sight, and not a whole lot stopping me from doing so, so consider yourself lucky. Now get!”

Dee wasn’t letting the angel go because she was feeling particularly merciful. She did so because the angel might be more useful alive than dead. What the angel had said about the instructions she had been given hinted at many things. It seemed like there were some among the angels that she might not have to kill after all. If she wanted to perform the task Lumen was giving her, and she still wasn’t entirely sure if she did, she would need some allies among the angels. Or if not allies, then at least contacts that would not try to kill her on sight.

---------

Araqiel was still panting from fright as she reached the embassy of the angels. This was the first time she had been caught by her observation target since her early training. Her sensory abilities were some of the best among the angels. Even those serving the Archangel of Wisdom lost to her in pure range. The girl had been so scary! She was probably doing it unconsciously, but when the girl was preparing to kill, she was radiating such bloodlust and danger that it almost froze the blood in Araqiel’s veins. It was like standing in front of the Goddess of Death waiting to be reaped.

Her hands trembled a bit as she reached the communication room and drew the required set of magical runes to connect with the right recipient. Luckily there hadn’t been anyone else wanting to use the room this time. The transparent image of the Archangel of Mercy shimmered into existence in front of her. It had taken a short time of her mother to answer, as she had likely not been waiting for this contact. “What is it, my daughter? You look like you’ve seen better days.” The voice of the archangel sounded a little worried.

“My target caught me during observation.” Araqiel reported the most important point succinctly.

The archangel frowned. “Child, this is not like you. First you lose the target for a long time and now you get caught. What is wrong? And are you ok? From your reports, it seems a little odd for you to escape unharmed, considering the target's abilities.”

“I suspect the target’s senses have reached a point where further observation by me is impossible. I was already keeping maximum range, which is partially why I lost her that one time, and I was still found. As for my wellbeing, the target let me go with a message to you.” Araqiel explained a little defensively. Her worth was mostly tied to her ability to observe others without being noticed, so when her ability to do so was in doubt, her worth would plummet.

“To me?” The archangel asked with a weird tone.

“As the target caught me, she asked some questions. I felt it better to answer honestly since I truly didn’t know anything worth hiding. That proved to be the correct answer as my presence here shows.” She said rather smoothly and proceeded to relay the message word for word.

The archangel thought about the situation for a long while. “It seems I will have to make a trip to the Pantheon.”

“Wait, what?!” Araqiel asked in shock. The last time an Archangel had visited Pantheon had been a huge diplomatic incident.

“Not officially of course. It will take me some time to get away from my duties without arousing suspicion, but I think it’s time I have a meeting with the future Champion of Lumen. I suspect her mission will have a large impact on Paradisia.” The archangel gave a curt explanation.

“The Champion of…” Araqiel couldn’t imagine someone less suited to be the Champion of the Goddess of light than the girl she had just run away from. She managed to gather her thoughts despite her shock. “I will prepare things for your arrival.”

-----------

The angel’s presence had prompted Dee to consider what would happen once she left Pantheon more carefully. As the others were busy preparing to move all of the community into the second circle, Dee decided to make contact with the other goddess that had a mission for her. She had said a prayer before going to sleep, and as expected, found herself in the dark palace of Umbra after falling asleep.

“Well, well. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” The goddess asked as soon as Dee appeared.

“I assume you’ve been peeping on me again?” Dee asked rather pointedly. It had become obvious the deities had some way to observe her.

“Calling it peeping is putting such a nasty spin on it. Call it looking over you, for your own good of course. I wouldn’t dream of doing something like that just for amusement.” Her tone of voice made it clear she did it mostly for amusement.

“So you most likely saw my brief encounter with the angel?” Dee prodded further. She mostly just wanted to know how detailed their observation was. The angel was just an excuse and an example. Something to distract Umbra and draw out information.

“Yes, though you shouldn’t assume we are constantly looking. We do have other duties you know.” Umbra was wise to Dee’s little tricks and obfuscated the facts a little. The deities were perfectly capable of doing several things at once. The only real exception was if they were challenged by other gods. That required their full attention. Otherwise they would keep a duplicate body sitting by Eternity’s campfire observing Dee, while at the same time handling all their duties with another body. As much as deities had bodies in their realms. Calling it a presence might be more accurate. So she wasn’t really lying when saying they weren’t constantly watching. Not entirely.

“Well, the angel reminded me of few things. Two important things especially. First of all, I’ve been the future Champion of both you and Lumen for a while. Will that title change anytime soon? Secondly, you said you wanted me to become a focus for the power of chaos and change. I assume that doesn’t just happen by itself?” Dee asked her real questions. She knew the goddess had dodged her previous inquiry in some way but didn’t know to what extent.

Umbra laughed suddenly. “Well, aren’t you getting serious. Let’s start with the Champion part as that is easier. You become our Champion when we decide so and you accept. We can’t force it on you of course. In any case, we could do it anytime, but you seem to want to avoid the attention for now. Once a deity picks a Champion, all the other gods will find out about it. When it’s a deity of our level, it would draw a lot of attention, most of it unwanted. You might even be unable to handle such attention, as the Champions of some other gods like Order would love to hunt you down for the glory of their god. So, we’ll hold with that for now.

“As for the focus…well, that’s a bit more complicated. In a way, it’s similar to being my Champion as I’m the deity that represents those concepts, but it’s still separate. It can be the same person, but it usually isn’t. Just my approval isn’t enough. I can designate candidates for the position, but the candidate has to earn the position. Remember how I told you long ago that while you are my preferred choice, you are not the only one? Yes, well, there are other candidates. To actually gain the power, there are certain ways to go about it. Once I let it be known that the spot is available, you will have to compete for it. The easiest way to go about it would be to eliminate the competition. Another way is to eliminate Champions of other deities. Like I said, the two positions are intertwined in some ways.” Umbra explained.

“So how many other candidates would I need to eliminate to get the position?” Dee asked with a small grimace. She had known it would not be so easy.

“That depends. The different candidates are not created equal. If another candidate had killed you while you were a child, then that would not have done much. The present you is much more valuable when it comes to such things. So it depends. Ultimately you will have to eliminate a fair number of your biggest competition. However, there is no need to worry. You won’t need to slaughter your way through the whole upper echelon of the remaining demons. That would weaken the already lacking strength of demons too much. Your biggest three competitors should do it, especially if you also add in something like a Champion or two of the light gods.” Umbra grinned. She had a couple of specific Champions in mind actually. Something she would gladly share. She might not be able to give the position to Dee directly, but she could help.