POV: The First (Primula, Female Body)

I hummed and skipped through the halls of the Celestial Palace, dragging my brother, Yamua, along behind me.

"Aren't you too old to be acting like this, Prim?" He asked exasperatedly, allowing himself to be drug through the halls in search of our prey. In search of my prey. Tamua was being dumb and not playing with me, even though we were only twenty five thousand years old. He seemed the think that was a long time or something. Ah, youth.

"Never!" I chirped, rounding on him and flashing him my best smile. He had grown up nicely, if I do say so myself, with a face that was neither rough and rugged nor too baby-ish. It was the right amount of cute and masculine, making him look far younger than he should. He looked to be about fourteen, just like me. We aged slowly in these bodies, regardless of our cultivation levels, thanks to being mother's children. Though we had been born at the Immortal level, rather than as mortals like normal people. This caused a bit of an uproar when Mother first realized it.

Even my other body aged faster, though I wasn't purposely slowing down its aging to match this one's.

Yamua sighed and shook his head at me but continued to allow himself to be led along in our search. "Mind me asking what we're doing, then?"

"Bob hid the cookies," I told him.

"Bob hid the cookies." Yamua deadpanned.

"Bob hid the cookies," I confirmed, nodding vigorously. The illusion master made absolutely fantastic cookies, so much so that I even considered giving him the necessary insight to become a Dao Progenitor as thanks. But then he went and hid them after baking a whole bunch of them. It was heresy, and I would not stand for it!

"...this is the super urgent thing you needed me for?" He asked, flabbergasted.

"Do not mock the importance of Bob's cookies," I warned, "those things are worth going to war over." My brother just sighed and weakly struggled to get out of my grip. He knew I wasn't going to let go, but he was putting up a token resistance anyways.

Note to Self: Bribe the First with food. Specifically cookies.

So long as it's really good tasting, you can bribe me with it. I will shamelessly admit that food is the quickest way into my heart.

"Let go, Prim, I still have some cultivating left to do," he argued. I scoffed.

"You have the rest of eternity to cultivate, but Bob's cookies are fresh and ready to eat now. So off we go, cookie hunting!" I announced, throwing one hand into the air and striking a dramatic pose, drawing attention from the passing maids. They giggled at me, making Yamua blush and hide his face in his free hand. As I had a deathgrip on his other hand. He will come with me and join me in the cult of the Cookie God. Cookies are love, cookies are LIFE!

"Why do you do this to me?" Yamua groaned. I laughed lightly, shaking my head and shrugging.

"Because," I trailed off, trying to think of something funny to say and coming up short. So I just shrugged. "Because I can,"

"Why do I even bother?" he sighed, shaking his head and relaxing, allowing me to drag him off into the depths of the Palace itself. For a moment my concentration lapsed as a bit more of my consciousness was diverted to my male body - one of the downsides to having two bodies, if I really had to focus on something the other body had to divert its attention quite a bit until it was...ah, up to par (another dowside to being a Monkey Wrench, I have to constantly retrain my mind and body with each new life) - so I almost missed the dark shadow that loomed in the corner of the hall. With a small curse my male body stopped conducting the ritual it was preparing, allowing me to have equal amounts of brain power in both bodies.

I should boost myself up so I don't have this problem. I thought idly, tapping my brother's wrist with my middle finger as I held him. He just raised his eyebrows at me, and I sighed. Right. I hadn't taught him the danger signals yet. And I'm usually so diligent...

As we passed the shadow, which for all intents and purposes was a perfectly normal shadow in the hall cast by a doorframe I muttered a few choice words, heat flooding my eyes and allowing me to see the various flows of energy in the world. Currently they were only attuned to Martial Qi, because I was trying hard not to cheat and become the single most powerful entity in this realm - perhaps beneath the gods, depending on their power levels - in a few ten thousand years.

That would take all the fun out of things.

Blinking back to reality, I realized I had let my mind wander a bit, and that the shadow had moved, now following my brother and I down the hall. My eyes let me see through the illusions they cast and see them for what they were - a black clad being following us with hostile intentions. They were casting mind magic to send the maids and butlers and guards scurrying, essentially leaving us alone. How typical. Wonder who this fool is? Because it's not Bob, I'd recognize Bob.

"Ah, Mistress Primula, Master Yamua!" A familiar voice called, drawing my attention from the shadow. Yamua wriggled out of my grasp and bolted forward to greet our mutual friend - a young male Karae named Invus. Well, I say young but he was thirty thousand years older than us. Physically, at least.

He was a weak looking thing with long brown hair and frial, bat-like wings. A wide grin stretched across his face as he clasped hands with Yamua, appearing much smaller than my brother. Internally I cursed. He'd be hard to protect from the shadow, as they were clearly skilled enough to both sneak into the Palace and send away all the guards and maids, who were all skilled cultivators in their own rights. (Ha. I'm funny. I laugh at my own joke. Hard...no, it'd just be more difficult.)

Even immortals jumped at the chance to serve in the Palace, even as butlers or maids. There were too many opportunities to be gained from their loyalty to the oldest and arguably most powerful nation in the entire Realm.

"Prim, what are you doing still over there?" Yamua asked, beckoning me over. I revealed a smile and sauntered up to them, elbowing Invus in the side while keeping an eye on the shadow. There was another one one incoming...I'd better prepare a barrier spell.

"So, Invus, you finally managed to ask out that girl you had your eye on?" I asked teasingly, knowing that he had never had any such intentions. Regardless, he flushed a bright crimson and shook his head violently. I tuned out his response and pivoted, splaying my hands and looking directly at one of the shadows, eyes narrowed. Really, I wasn't in the mood for games.

My cookies were getting cold.

"Inverse Illusion," I said coldly, allowing energy to flow out from my body. All of a sudden the shadows vanished, revealing four - no, seven - shady-looking idiots in black garb. The inverse illusion spell I cast did just as the name suggested; reversing the illusion cast so it did the opposite as intended. This meant I myself was invisible, while those seven were perfectly visible.

"What - who are you guys?!" Yamua demanded, squaring his shoulders and setting his Martial Qi to spinning in his coils. This way his aura was still restrained, but he was prepard for battle. The men in black garp made various noises of annoyance and launched themselves forwards, drawing blades and preparing assassination arts to take us out.

Unfortunately for all of them I wasn't in the mood to play. One foot planted itself in the face of one, sending them flying backwards and into the wall, while Yamua flared his energy in both a distress signal and in preparation to fight. Invus, on the other hand, looked shell-shocked. He wasn't much of a fighter anyways.

Golden threads lashed out from my fingertips, gently weaving forth and binding three other intruders. That left three more.

"Primula, where are you?!" Yamua roared, fending off two with a golden sword and shield he conjured with his Martial Qi. Such feeble constructs wouldn't hold up for long against trained assassins, but they'd manage for long enough.

"Right here," I said softly, lightning crackling from my fingertips and blasting the remaining three, knocking them all unconscious. "Easy-peasy lemon squeezy," I rhymed, dusting off my hands and beaming at my brother, who let his constructs fade and gave me a wobbly smile.

"Don't disappear like that in the middle of a fight, please," he whined. I huffed and put my hands on my hip, cocking my eyebrow and giving him a look. "I know, I know. 'Never underestimate my sister,' you've told me a million times. But still, you worried me," he continued, giving me a pleading look. I scoffed and turned my nose skyward.

"No promises," I told him.

"Who are these people?" Invus asked, having regained his calm and now looking at the seven incapacitated men. My senses pricked, and I turned my head to look down the hallway. There were more intruders in the building...how in the world did this happen? I have a pretty good grasp "They're wearing emblems from the Gallos Empire, but that doesn't make sense. What kind of assassins would broadcast who they're working for? And our history with the Empire has been stable in recent years, so why would the attack us now?"

"Well, one reason would be to make a statement, or a declaration of war. They're clearly not being very stealthy about it." I said calmly, sensing thirty other assassins across this section of the palace, all heading in our direction. They wouldn't get close though, because reinforcements were on the way. "Another reason is because they want to make sure we know who they are," I said with a frown. This prompted a laugh from one of the assassins, who shook his head. This was one of the three I had tied up with golden threads, their immortal Qi shut down and preventing any sort of action.

"You brats, children of the Empress, know nothing," he spat. Yamua sucked in a breath and I narrowed my eyes. That we were the Empress's biological children was meant to be a secret. Hell, most people didn't even think we were adopted children. Not that I expected it to stay a secret forever, but this was sooner than I initially predicted. "You are pampered and spoiled, with no knowledge of the outside world, and it shall be your undoing," he grinned viscously as his four other companions - the four not bound by my thread - began to glow with the light of self-destruction.

Their Qi passageways overloaded, energy spinning at a dangerously fast speed and ripping their bodies to shreds as they laughed crazily, accepting their impending deaths.

I cursed myself for my negligence, hauling the three I had bound closer to me and preparing a barrier spell, but Yamua beat me to it. Multiple layers of hexagonal shield manifested around us in a dome of energy just in time to spare all six of us the brunt of the collossal blast. An entire wing of the Palace was obliterated, leaving us standing in mid-air, three captured assassins, two siblings, and one shell-shocked Invus staring at the wreckage. My face was perhaps the most grim of the three.

This...this would mean war with the Gallos Empire. And I guarantee that they had nothing to do with it. My male body had gone through some of their most secure files in my search for the woman with the intriguing eyes, so I can all but confirm that.

"This means war," Yamua said, clenching his teeth and glaring at the wreckage. How many people had died in that blast? (364, to be exact. I counted.)

"No, something's wrong with all of this," Invus said, his face growing hard. The Karae then approached the one attacker who had spoken previously, placing his hands on either side of his head. "Who did this." he demanded.

"For the glory of the Empire!" the man shouted, then chomped down on something in his mouth. The other two moved to do the same, and I panicked, rushing forward and jabbing my fingers into the neck of one, knocking him out and preventing him from eating whatever the other two did. Said other two were now foaming at the mouth, dying.

"H-holy....Father Luotian, that's insane!" Invus yelled, backing up quickly as the two men died. I scrunched up my nose, glaring at the now-unconscious man at my feet, allowing my golden strings to fade away from the deceased two.

"At least we managed to keep one alive," I muttered, reaching my fingers into the assassin's mouth and pulling out the poisonous pill. Clever, devious pricks...I was losing my touch if this got the better of me. Been too distracted lately...

Taking a deep breath, Invus approached and put one hand on my shoulder. "Lady Primula, please move aside," he asked politely. I looked up at his concerned face, mentally shrugged, and pulled away, wiping my fingers off on my shirt. Yamua approached me looking a bit queasy, pale faced and sickly. It reminded me that this was his first time seeing such devestation.

He was handling it well, all things considered. I was just far too old...

"Are you ok, Prim?" He asked, concerned, and I felt a flood of warmth in my chest. He was so cute, to be concerned for me.

"I'm fine, o' brother mine. You should be more worried about what Mother's going to do when she arrives." I muttered just loud enough for him to laugh, eliciting a small snort of nervous laughter from him. Yes, Mother would upturn heaven and earth in her rage...in fact, I think she's doing so now.

"Be quite, you two. I'm trying to concentrate." Invus hissed, eyes closed and hands on either side of the only live captive's head. "His memories are completely blank, which makes this a bit trickier, but...I should be able to..." he continued to mutter to himself, making me raise an eyebrow. What was he doing?

"Primula! Yamua!" Mother's shrill voice sounded out, her normally dignified speech laced with fear. I turned to smile at her from where she flew directly towards us at the speed of light, smashing through Yamua's still-erect barriers and enveloping the both of us in a hug. Her entourage of guards gaped slightly at the sight, but being ever the professionals, they didn't react overmuch.

"E-Empress," Yamua panicked, reverting to how we spoke to Mother in public.

"Mom..." I whispered, wrapping one arm around her and rubbing her back. "We're fine. But..." I trailed off, looking down at the wreckage. Mother squeezed us both tightly once more, took a deep breath to compose herself, and then leaned back to look us in the eyes.

"What happened?" She asked forcefully.

"Assassins," Yamua answered. "From the Empire of Gallos. They hinted at knowing who we were. Primula managed to capture three before they all self-detonated, but two swallowed suicide pills before we could ask them anything. Invus is doing...something to the one who didn't." He said slowly, hinting that the group knew we were children of the Empress.

"I counted nearly forty assassins in total before they killed themselves. Forty people managed to make it inside the palace with hostile intentions. Although I don't think they're from the Empire, that just doesn't make logical sense, the question still stands; how did they get through all the protective formations?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. Even I admitted that, for such a young nation, the Celestial Palace was very skilled in the art of formations. On the cosmic scale they hadn't even begun to scratch the surface, of course, but they were skilled.

On that note, it should have been all but impossible for anyone to sneak that many people into the Palace and launch an attack of this scale. Possible, but very, very difficult for any other nation.

It was as this point that something changed. Invus, who had been quiet up until this point, suddenly changed. His entire demeanor transformed from reserved and scholarly to angry and...angrier. Karma suddenly surged, and everyone who could feel it - namely myself and Mother - sucked in a deep breath. Karma itself was...responding to him. It curled and twisted, bending and whipping about in response to his anger.

"HOW DARE THEY!" He roared, standing bolt upright and fuming. The man before him had his eyes rolled in the back of his head, and, as Invus stretched his hand forward to hover over him, his karma became visible.

A pool of dark red light floated around him, indicating his overall negative karma, while hundreds of strings stretched from him, stretching off far in the distance. As I watched the strings shimmered and twisted, the man letting out a scream of agony as Invus twisted his karma, peeling away layer after layer...

I sucked in another breath, my eyes going wide.

No way. There was now way. I hadn't even -

"They twisted Karma," Invus growled, voice dripping with venom. "They twisted Karma,"

I closed my eyes and heaved a sigh. I hadn't even noticed...that took a tremendous amount of power to do. Like all things, there was a good and evil way to twist karma. The good way happened slowly, over countless aeons, slowly transforming a person into a better person themselves. Normally it was a process that even the person in question agreed with on some level. The evil way, however, was horrendously painful. Six times more painful than most any pain of the flesh. And it is that pain that twisted a person into becoming someone else entirely.

The man was literally not who he used to be, and even if Invus managed to reverse the process, they would never be the same.

Suddenly Invus's power shifted once again, his aura climbing at an incredibly rate. He had always been very skilled in the art of Karma, having gained Immortality through cultivating Karma in a similar manner to how others cultivate Qi or the Elements. It was and always has been one of the more obscure cultivating methods, even in other universes. Karma was just not that well understood in most cases. However Invus was clearly extremely talented in this Dao for him to be advancing this far...

Wait, hold on. I narrowed my eyes as a Hand reached down, the presence of something Divine touching Invus and guiding him along, accellerating his advancement tenfold. Then, suddenly, the assassin's karma snapped back into place, reverting to it's prior state to having been twisted. A relaxed expression made its way across the assassin's face, who fell unconscious afterwards.

My eyes grew wide alongside everyone present. "Ancient..." I whispered in disbelief. The Karae...they were a race of Ancients, weren't they? A progenitor species of unparalleled and limitless talent, from which almost all life in the universe stems from and was modelled after. They are the first to arrive, and never truly disappear from the universe until the day it is eradicated.

I was so stupid to not realize this until now. And why this particular event made me realize it, even I'm not sure. Probably because Invus did something nigh impossible for most anyone, but that doesn't quite matter. But I feel there's something I'm missing...as I thought that my eyes drifted to Mother, a Fae. And I nearly facepalmed. Of course. The Fae were the true Ancients, the Karae and even Avians stemming from their foundation. I mean, technically they were all ancients, but the Fae were the very first. I was so stupid.

"The Empire had nothing to do with this. The karma of this men was twisted and hidden by those in the Dark Federation. I can sense their connection to him from here. How vile," Invus spat. Mother raised her eyebrow and began to speak, but I was too wrapped up in my own thoughts to really listen.

This decided it. My male body needed to hurry up and get at least to the level of Paragon by this universe's standards. That way I could watch over a much larger portion of the universe, because this was a universe where the Ancient species were young. It was an opportunity I could not miss. After all, even I felt pressured by the Ancients. Taking out various factors and a few of my "cheat" abilities, the most ancient and powerful of the Ancients were among the only beings that could be dangerous to me.

"That settles it, then. Gather the council and prepare for war. The Elementals will not escape unpunished from this." Mother said firmly, eyes blazing with anger.

Oh yeah. There's that, too.

POV CHANGE: Keilan

"Well it's about time one of them awakened to the Karmic Path," I grumbled, attention caught by one of my Karae finally setting foot on the path of Karma. True, many of them cultivated the Path, but none really understood or walked it. Their natural affinity for it should have been more than enough to produce one or two by now, but only just now were they beginning to walk it. The same was true, I supposed, of Reika's, Elvira's, and Alexander's children. None of them had begun to walk their own paths, though the Avians were close.

I couldn't wait until a Karmic Dao Progentior appeared. That would be a glorious day indeed. With a sigh I turned back to making the Great Library of Memories, pushing a bit more of my power into condensing the individual memories of the Ocean of Memories, accumulated over countless lifetimes, into books, scrolls, or just memory crystals. This was a long process, and I had hoped to finish it before the war in the Mortal Realm started.

I suppose it just wan't meant to be. Pity.