“During the sixth cycle, or maybe it was the fifth, the queen of all eternity began feeling something she had never felt before.” Luke said, his voice laden with mockery. “She began to feel lonely. It snuck up on her, nibbling at her mind that she did not actually have anyone to discuss everything with. Finally, after a century of thought, she broke and decided to make a vessel that she could discourse with about all of reality. It took her over an hour, which is a long time for her to do anything of this ilk, but eventually she thought she had the companion made perfectly.

“It would be a companion who she could teach and who would be able to communicate with the beings that had begun to develop in her tower. She based it on the most prolific of the species, the human, for that reason, and gifted it with cognitive powers beyond normal capability so it could learn languages in moments. The companion would be her true masterpiece, a living thing that could contend with her on an intellectual level. Finally she decided that it should be her opposite, in almost all senses, so made the companion a male and gifted him with the «Book of All». What she ended up forming was a young boy with bright blue eyes and soft blond hair.

“This boy was like a son to Babel.” Luke continued, releasing his hands and smiling sadly. “He was doted on by her, and taught everything that he could take. He learned more than any other being could from her or the book, and began taking up a stance to eternity that was the opposite of his mother’s. It was exactly what she intended, but soon she discovered that despite all her knowledge, it was not what she wanted. They began discourses that devolved into arguments, and finally rows bloomed from the ashes of the original discussion.

“Despite their arguments the boy learned all he could. He wanted to make his mother proud, to make her understand his point of view. He wanted for her to see that he was right, despite how much younger he was than her, he could still put forward just as valid points and understood everything just as well as she did. So he took his book and began to absorb its contents. He rose in power as his understanding of everything bloomed and his conviction in his view became more and more firm.”

There was a momentary pause in Luke’s tale that Laurence took advantage of. “But what was their argument about?” He asked the wistful looking man. It was obvious that Luke was avoiding certain details about the story, but Laurence could not work out what, or how to ask. In the end he asked to see if Luke would divulge on his own terms.

“He never said. All I know is that if I asked him now, many millennia after he first argued with his mother, he might have changed his mind.” Luke paused and cocked his head to the side, now more thoughtful than wistful. “However, he also might be even more obstinate about the point. People are like that though. Once someone is convinced of something it takes a lot to change their mind. Either way, the boy, now a man, had become beyond competent and had evolved his soul and body to the peak of immortality. He just had one step to take and he would become on par with his mother, one more thing to master and he would be a true god like her. Unfortunately his aspiration was scuppered at the last step.

“The day he completed the fifth path, his path of «Chaos» she took the book from him. She claimed that it was so that he could finish this path of his on his own, but he knew otherwise. It was her final act of control over him and he hated her for it.” Luke spat the last few words with a venom unparalleled in his speech so far. “In response the man did the only thing he could do to get back at Babel. He left. He walked out of their home and began climbing the tower, looking at all the things his mother had created. Everything he found forced his view more and more into the forefront of his mind. It made him bubble and seethe that his mother did not understand that she was wrong, he truly believed that he was right. Finally he snapped. He could take no more, but could only vent his hundreds of years of pent up rage upon his mother’s creation. He had no way of matching up to her so instead he began obliterating everything in his surroundings. In three days he had obliterated half a plane of the tower. It wasn’t that he had ruined and made it unlivable, he had actually removed it from existence. It was something that was previously thought impossible beforehand but he was a «Five Path Master», one who had mastered five book paths, which had never existed before. He was on a warpath and there was almost nothing that could stop him. He wiped out swathes of land and killed millions of people but still no one could stand against him. In the end he was forced back by the connected power of the six great clans, and bound by a great manifestation formed from the lives of three Hephaistia clan elders. Their creation was a seal, one that could only be broken if the bloodline of the three elders died out, or if there were six book paths used as a key to the seal. They then cast him out into the unknown lands that he had ruined, reforming them as best as their powers would let them.”

Laurence realised he knew the story as it ended, it was one that his father had told him not too long before he left. «The Fallen King», the legend about the man who fell from the peak of power to the lands below and wreaked havoc amidst the masses. “I recognise both of these stories!” He says excitedly at Luke.

“Huh. If that's the case then why aren't you sad about it? A normal child would be sad or bored by an old story.” Luke replied. Apparently Laurence’s reaction had confused him.

“I have heard the stories before, but these are very different versions of what I know. In the version of «The Fallen King» that I know, the king is sealed by three Ascendant Immortals permanently. It's also not related in any way to the creation myth.”

“That kind of annoys me.” Said Luke in reply. “Without those two parts, it's an incomplete tale. Tell me, Laurence, how do they portray the Fallen Morning if they don't go over his reasons for destruction?”

“He's treated as though he's a madman, or a rabid animal. The story spends a lot of time over the hunt for him, and a little on his sealing. In fact it ends just after he is sealed, which confused me a little as there was no rounding off to the story. It seemed to end abruptly.”

“Life happens like that. Not every path leads to closure and some people never come back into the tale. That I...” He paused, as if internally correcting himself. “That I have a different, less popularised version of the story annoys me. For one thing, mine feels more complete.”

“I like yours more, though that could be because it's a new version of a story. I may be... biased? I think that's the right word.”

Luke laughed. “Yes. You're a smart child, Laurence. Did you know that?”

“That's only because I like learning. I'm not smart compared to an adult in most things.” He smiled sheepishly. “I don't even know how to get myself out of trouble most of the time, and I get into it a lot.”

“That's something you don't lose with age, you just get in different kinds of trouble. Don't worry, Laurence. You're a talented child, and you could easily become a Heaven rank before you are twenty.”

“But that's ages away! I'm only seven, that's double my entire life so far at least!”

“You should not be too impatient. Most people with talent wouldn't reach Heaven rank before they are fifty, while a normal person who cultivates would have to be at least a hundred before they can think about Heaven. Only a golden child had such a chance, one who was born to wield the power of the world's way.”

“I am supposedly a golden child of the Absolution clan, but my father was never clear about what that actually meant.” Laurence sighed. He had a lot to ask his father, but no way to actually do it. It annoyed him more than he actually realised.

“You're supposed to be a golden child, yet you don't know what one is? That's ridiculous. I may as well teach you about them then, so what would you like to know about them?”