POV: Gilles

Elvira was pissed. Though I couldn't really blame her from being so, I was more trying to calm her down and prevent her from potentially obliterating something than worrying over what it was that she was so angry about. I love my wife dearly, but...well, she's terrifying. More terrifying that Statera in my opinion. Statera's like a kindly old grandpa that you just don't mess with, while Elvira is, well...

"I'M GOING FORCEFEED THEM THEIR OWN KNEECAPS!" She bellowed towards the skies, her wings flaring and tails thrashing. Every time her tails changed direction, small windstorms kicked up all around, throwing dirt up into the air and threatening to uproot trees. She was holding back, of course, or else these windstorms would be powerful enough to annihilate the Holy Palace.

"Honey, calm down," I said in a weak attempt to soothe her, watching as a few of the foolish spirit/servants that hadn't fled the moment Elvira's temper began to flare ran out of the area. We were currently in the palace garden, filled with all sorts of beautiful plants and sculptures dotting the rather large area, though that was subject to change for the moment.

"I could kill them, you know. That'd make everything easier." Tian stated casually from where he was leaning against a tree, his spear resting against his shoulder. Inesa stood next to him, trepidation and concern written all over her face. The two of them had arrived a few mere hours ago, Inesa having convinced Tian to take a small tour of the entierty of the Holy Palace as a sort of vacation. Elvira had swept them up the moment they stepped into the palace, in an attempt to escape some of the stress being placed upon her recently.

That didn't stop her from recieving the news that had sent her into such a rage, but it was a nice idea.

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH, TIAN!" Elvira shouted at him. Inesa flinched and Tian blinked in surprise. "GAAAAAAH!" She shouted again, looking towards the sky as power began to build up inside of her. I relaxed a bit upon seeing this, now knowing that she wouldn't just charge off the Mountain and destroy half the Mortal Realm.

"You know that we would never ask you to do that. Nor would we want you to." I told Tian, who just shrugged.

"I don't know, at this point I'd almost be willing to take the dock to my Karma. What's another few hundred thousand years to get it back up again, eh?" Tian asked with a grin. I just shook my head at him, not denying the statement but fully understanding that it wouldn't actually solve anything. Tian understood that as well, I'm sure, but this is his way of complaining.

"U-um...is - should we b-be worried?" Inesa stuttered, looking nervously at Elvira. I glanced at my wife and smiled slightly as she unleashed all the power she had built up with a shout, a beam of white light shooting up into the sky where it scattered out into a thousand directions much like a firework.

"Don't worry, this is just how she vents." I said over her roar.

"Huh. Y'know, I can understand that. Sometimes I just want to destroy something as well. Like now, but I'm holding back." Tian reasoned, nodding to me. I snorted. That may be true, but Tian cannot destroy an entire Realm in his anger. Elvira might be able to, if she went all out.

"Haaaaa..." Elivra sighed, letting the stream of energy die off as she relaxed her shoulders and stared at the sky for a few moments. Then, she turned and looked at me, shaking her head and letting out a sigh. "Sorry about that. Had to let off a little steam." She said apologetically, moving over to stand next to me.

"O-oh, i-it's," Inesa started, but was cut off by Tian.

"You've got quite the explosive temper. As the de-facto ruler of the Deities and the Heaven Realm, is that really an image you want to display?" Tian asked cheekily. Elvira shot him a glare and Inesa gave him a horrified look, no doubt wondering just how in Statera's name he found the gall to talk to Elvira in such a way. I found his statement and Inesa's reaction humorous. She could scare Tian into submission with but a few words, and yet he was completely unafraid of provoking beings more powerful than him, while Inesa was utterly terrified by said beings. Quite humorous.

"Don't call me that, please," Elvira said with a sigh, rubbing her temples. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed slightly, pondering what a child between Tian and Inesa would be like. Forgetting about the fact that one is an Immortal Dao Progenitor, and the other is a Deity of Hearth and Home, their personalities were so different that it makes one wonder if their children would end up becoming a mix of both, or vastly like one or the other. I dismissed this thought as swiftly as it came, however. The Four Realms will not allow any deity to have a child until it has expanded in size greatly. That is something I had experimented on with Elvira greatly...

Ahem.

Moving on.

"That whole ruler farce is an image that desperately needs to be changed. I've always fancied myself as more of a Chief than a ruler." Elvira continued.

"What's the difference?" Tian asked.

"Uh..." Elvira said, struggling to come up with an answer that would satisfy Tian and wouldn't be a mere few words.

"A ruler is like a king, empress, or president. They are definitively 'in charge.' A chief, at least in the tribal sense of the word, is more of an advisor than a ruler. A chief is considered to be the most capable of giving orders and advice, but isn't technically 'in charge' of anyone, acting more as a representative or the like. A ruler's word is law, a chief's word is weighted suggestion." I explained calmly, stepping in to save my wife from a long and confusing conversation about the differences of the two leaders. Tian made an 'ah' noise and nodded.

"So it's like the difference between little miss empress...ah, sorry, the Celestial Empress and a Dao Progenitor. The Celestial Empress is the one who officially rules over her area, but no one is going to argue with a Dao Progenitor if they say something needs to be done. Right?" Tian asked. Elvira nodded.

"Yes. Exactly. I don't like the image of a ruler, same as Father. He wanted to be seen as a parent, and the deities to be a family, a Clan, not a Kingdom and its subjects." Elvira explained. "That is something I agree with, and am trying to solidify by changing the way the deities see me. The joke of me being a ruler has been taken too far."

I smiled thinly as the converation lapsed, glad for Elvira's distraction from the problems in the Mortal Realm and even in the mortals of the Heaven Realm. The mortals were getting so wound up with everything that, even though they had been fighting numerous wars lately, the fact that they seemed to be heading towards even more war and chaos had finally reached us. The deities were finally having to intervene in the lives of mortals...taking a more direct approach to handling this than normal

What really set Elvira off was one particular kingdom of cultivators in the Heaven Realm declaring war on numerous other sects and kingdoms, and starting to go on a warpath to conquer the lands beneath the Holy Mountain. The king there had been just a bit too overzealous, reading about ancient conquerers that had failed to do what he had set out to do, and wanted to prove himself their betters.

Foolish. Hubris. Foolish hubris, that's what it is.

The unfortunate thing was that we had stationed a few angels around said king to influence things and prevent him from starting a war. Obviously that didn't work, and the king found a way to start a war anyways. Or, more specifically, a whole bunch of people behind said king found a way to start a war. It will require meticulous planning to right what has been skewed, but to be honest, this isn't a problem that requires a deity's attention or intervention. And, frankly, we don't have the time to do it. We're busy enough as it is with implementing the designs Statera left behind and perfecting the ones already in place. We're still being forced to take some action, however.

The Spirit Realm's much-needed makeover is one of the things that is requiring the most attention. We're only just starting that behemoth of a project.

"...in truth, it's not about what they're doing that bothers me. War amongst the mortals is the equivalent to a spat between toddlers, with karmic punishment being the subsequent 'time-out.' While the cultivators starting to get involved is a bit of a problem, it's not too much of an issue. It's that dealing with them, and the spillover that will undoubtedly flood into the Mortal and Karmic Realms, causing more chaos and war, is creating more work for our already limited manpower." Elvira finished explaining to Tian and Inesa. Tian whistled.

"That was quite the comprehensive explanation! I always expected more...brute force and simplistic explanations from you. You strike me as the straightforward type." Tian said.

"That was simplistic, you idiot. It's far more complex than just that, I promise you." Elvira retorted, shaking her head. "But for now I'm going to have to leave. Alexander will want to talk, Reika will need to be updated, and Keilan needs to be warned, in case he doesn't already know. There will be an influx of negativity in the mortals." She said, stretching her wings and running a hand through her almost-white, blonde hair. It had taken me ages to finally realize that Elvira's hair was actually blonde, not white. Even now I can't help but think of her as having white hair, but against the snow-white feather of her wings and tails, it's a little more obvious. With a single flap of her wings she vanished, not teleporting, simply flying so inconceivably fast that it seemed as such. Even to me.

"That was...abrupt." Tian stated to the thin air. I chuckled, and Tian jumped at the noise. "Fuck, man! I forgot you were even there!" He exclaimed, glaring at me with exagerrated emotion. I rolled my eyes and drifted towards the two, shaking my head.

"Quite. I would love to stay and chat, but I do have duties to attend to as well. Elvira drug me away from my research to talk with you two, calling it a 'brain break,' and I would like to get back to it. It's quite interesting you know, if you want to hear about it. There are these phenomena in the void-like spaces between the Regions that, when exposed to various stimuli, can create entirely new phenomena..." I stopped talking when Tian held up a hand.

"No thanks. I'm good. We'll just explore a bit. You go do your thing." He said bluntly. I chuckled and shrugged, vanishing into the shadows without another word and reappearing in my research area. Various jars and experimental guides lay strewn about the cave-like interior, and for a moment I hummed to myself.

Yes, I think I'll do some more Void research. I haven't touched that in a while, and I feel as if it may lead to a few breakthroughs in a few of my other projects. Creation and the Void react to each other in very interesting ways, after all. I can only wonder if that has anything to do with the sudden increase in the density of the Primordial Chaos? That is what I have been repeatedly told to investigate, but it can be put off for just a bit longer in lieu of more...interesting pursuits.

POV CHANGE: Statera Luotian

I wandered around for quite a while, outside of the Four Realms. It was a surreal experience, but also incredibly informative. There were an uncountable number of universes, all blurred out so I couldn't see into them or anything, but still there and very, clearly enormous. Exponentially larger than Yueya's One World, which is the largest of the Twelve, and even then I felt as if most of them weren't done growing.

However, every once in a while, I would pass by flashes of clarity within the different universes. Sometimes the clarity was around extremely powerful beings, beings that could obliterate or recreate the Four Realms as easy as breathing, or objects of similarly immense power. The only time it wasn't, was...peculiar. What caused the clarity was not the being itself, but rather, the positively massive ball of memories floating outside of the universe itself. It appeared to me as a ball of blue energy, about the size of me, flickering with various different flashes of memories around it. I was utterly confused, of course, by what in the world it was doing outside of its respective universe, until I followed the 'trail' it led down to the universe itself.

All I could see was a man, sitting on a rock, fishing at a lake. For a moment I watched him, then turned to continue on my journey, part of my conciousness accidentally bumping the ball of memories. What it was that made me able to see the memories, or even touch them, I am unsure. But the moment I did touch them, everything...shifted slightly. Whirling, I looked around in shock at the sudden feeling. The man below hadn't even twitched my action, and nothing else seemed different. It just...was. It was as if fate had taken a sudden turn, down a rockier path.

It was not a feeling I was pleased with. But I was also unable to do anything about it, and as such, soon moved on with a feeling of foreboding. After enough time had passed, I turned and moved off into the darkness, towards where the number of universes began to grow thinner and thinner, until all that was in front of me was the Void. Then I turned, looking up at the endless number of universes that stretched out above me, and continued on into the Void.

I wanted to see something. What it was, I wasn't sure, but I wanted to see. All of these universes were clumped together, thin strips of Void separating them from one another, but what were they together? I felt as if there was something to see there. So I flew away as fast and as far as I could, until the obscured universes were nothing more that dots and, in the distance, I could see a haze of blue that indicated even more universes.

"That's far enough, little one." A voice suddenly spoke, arresting my movement. It was an odd sensation, having my consciousness suddenly stopped by what felt like a physical force. Whatever it was, its mere presence was strong enough to distort the Void around me, which had remained undisturbed up until this point. "Go back to your Realms, you have seen enough for now." The voice said, pushing me along. I could do nothing but accept this, still pondering about the haze of blue I saw in the distance, until I was roughly shoved back into my body and thrust into unconsciousness.

POV CHANGE: Mr. Blue Boxes

Unbelievable. The little bastard actually managed to get outside of the barrier around the Four Realms, travel through the void, disturbed that one specific being, of all fucking beings, and then proceeded to travel far enough to start seeing that all the universes in the multiverse started to blend together. Un-freaking believable. The distance alone between universes should've been enough to prevent Statera Luotian, as they had begun to be called, from seeing even one other universe in a trillion years of travel, let alone passing through a (relatively) vast swath of space and seeing hundreds of universes!

Not only that, but then they passed by all restritctions I had set for young beings like themselves, and proceeded to see a bit of what a whole bunch of universes together physically looks like! That was far too much for such a young soul to be able to do without assistance. The hand of Fate is at work here.

With a heavy sigh I allowed the insignificant portion of my consciousness assigned to dealing with Statera to resume its former duties. I could create trillions of universes without hardly a blink of an eye, merely assigning parts of my mind to watching groups of new Origin Deities took almost literally no effort or attention on my part. If it cost any less effort, it would take no effort at all.

It normally wasn't even my job to watch over the new deities. Other beings handled that, but this particular twelve represented a certain...investment on my part. Someone relatively significant had requested something of me, and as such I decided to watch over the group personally. The problem was that Statera and a few others in the group were proving to be particularly entertaining. I might have to start doing this more often.

With a slight shake of my head I turned my attention away from the Multiverse, out towards the "endless" Void. So many other things were happening, if I spent all my time worrying about the birth of new universes nothing would get done. With another sigh I closed my eyes, allowing my consciousness to rest. The barrier would hold for a while yet.