A friendly meeting with God (From the perspective of another power.)

Pure white. Pure black. Both of these things surrounded Rayne as he opened his eyes. There wasn’t a simple boundary between the two colors, but Rayne felt like there was. Looking around at all the extreme colors was giving him a headache, so he closed his eyes, sitting down on whatever he was on.

“Hmm? You seem to have died… I do wonder how you managed to wander your way in here. Oh well.”

Rayne’s entire being shook from the power of his words, making him feel as if he was being torn asunder from listening. He had no choice but to scream out in agony.

“Oh, now this is odd… You shouldn’t have survived that. Even if my omnipotence is sealed, you still should have been vaporized.”

Rayne could barely take it anymore. So he tried to think of something to ease the pain. Too little, too late. He couldn’t think clearly anymore, his mind clouded over from the agony. Suddenly it disappeared, allowing Rayne temporary relief. His eyes seemed to be glued closed, so he stopped trying to open them as he turned to the last place he heard the voice come from.

“You’re quite interesting. I think you might be able to help me. Care to help a god get back his powers? I’ll reward you well..” The voice echoed in this infinite space.

Rayne thought for a second, his voice no longer granting him pain. He tried once more to open his eyes, a futile attempt.

“I will help you, but I want to be able to see you. I’d rather not help a god who tried to destroy everything, so I’d like to know what you are going to do with the powers I find as well. And then I just want a small piece of information.” Rayne grinned, no happiness in it.

A hearty laugh echoed. It lasted for half a minute, before gradually dying down. “You’re funny as well! This will be interesting… The first two, I can easily grant. But before I do and seal the deal, as they say, what is the piece of information you want?”

He sounded genuine. Seemed like he could be trusted. “Well, it’s both a piece of information and a request. I want to know where my sister is. Then, if you do know where she is, I would like you to try and bring her to me. Of course, the second part is not part of the deal, it is simply a request from the one who is trying to recover your powers.”

“You would put a request on a god?!” Another laugh. “I like you! Alright, I shall seal the deal. I will grant you your vision, my wishes for my power, and information about your sister in return for you trying to get my powers with all your power!”

The shout echoed upwards, spiraling into the unknown. Rayne’s eyes flicked open, and he studied the god in front of him, trying his best not to focus on the background. A small man chained to the… ground? There wasn’t anything for the rings to connect to, but they were certainly stuck in that position. Two large horns sprouted from his head, curving backward over his silver hair. He didn’t have red skin or anything, so Rayne assumed that he wasn’t the god of demons or anything, but it never hurts to be sure.

“When I gain my powers back, I plan to build my own world. My own utopia, I suppose. I simply want to live my eternal life in peace and silence.” He gestured around him the best he could while encased in chains. Mostly flicks of the head and slight arm twitches.

Rayne knew he was sincere, but he didn’t like the way he worded it.

“You’re certainly good at finding loopholes.” The god looked shocked. “You said you wanted to live your eternal life in peace and silence. Now, theoretically, if there were humans anywhere, it wouldn’t be silent, would it? So I can only assume that you plan to build this ‘Utopia’ of yours on a mound of human bodies. Isn’t that right?” Rayne theorized, asking the last question with venom in his voice.

“Ah, you saw right through me! Just as I would expect from my chosen one! But not quite. I would clear the bodies away first. Rotting flesh isn’t a pleasant smell, even to somebody like me.”

A silence filled the air. Rayne simply stared down upon the chained god, expressing more with his eyes than he could with words. The god looked down.

A flash of golden light spread throughout the empty space. The ground seemed to open up before Rayne realized it was actually an eye opening.

“Quick, boy! Come to me! You’ll be vaporized by the energy beam otherwise!” The chained god screamed at him. Rayne couldn’t trust him, but he didn’t really feel like dying by vaporization. Rushing towards him, the eye began to glow brighter. Sliding like a baseball player, Rayne ducked under the god’s left arm. The eye exploded, and Rayne felt a pinch on his neck.

He screamed as something foreign was shoved into his jugular vein, shooting towards his heart. Once they connected, pain exploded throughout his entire body, causing him to spasm as he became smaller, becoming younger.

“Ha! This is what you get for reading too much into things! Your sister will meet you in 1 year! Now go find me my powers!”

Rayne felt something ripped from him as if a portion of him was taken away. He reached upwards as if to grab it, but he was already too young to move his muscles. A burning sensation on the left side of his chest. Then darkness put its hands over his eyes.

Rebirth, or Death again? (From the Pov of Rayne)

I awoke with a start, shivering from fear. My memories flowed into me before some more memories came.They weren’t mine. They were the memories regarding the world around me, I suppose. Not much was there, but I thought up names and statistics like I had known them all my life.

The world is named Avalon. 213,772.5 miles in diameter, Avalon is 27 times larger than Earth. Then there are gods. Three tiers are in effect, decided by the people who worship them. The Cosmic tier was for the 6 gods that handled the main elements, and never showed their faces on Avalon. God of Darkness, Zaleth. Goddess of Light, Adalina. God of the Flame, Fornar. God of Earth, Mercurum. Goddess of Air, Imali. Last but not least, Goddess of Water, Lezarath. Equal numbers of both goddesses and gods, probably so that the people wouldn’t believe one gender is better than the other.

Then there is the Deity tier. These gods and goddesses were created as a mixture of two or more Cosmic tier powers. Some of them were created as a group effort to make a new element. Goddess of Ice, Hana. God of the Sea, Navemarin. God of Health and Healing, Medicalon. Twin Gods of Disaster, Merunes, and Arkio. They control War and Pestilence, respectively. The Goddess of Forgiveness, Helia. God of Betrayal, Judah. God of Magic, X’ablin. There are many, many more in the Deity tier, but these are the only ones in my memories.

After that, there is the Race tier. Each of these were created between multiple Cosmic tier and Deity tier powers, making them the lowest in the three tiers. They each held the power to create a singular race. The God of Humanity, Larkus. Goddess of the Elves, Levatia (Le-va-sha). God of the Dwarves, Girmu. Goddess of the Demons, Athena. God of the Beastkin, Waulnog. Goddess of the Fairies, Eleanna. Last but not least, Goddess of the Dead, Lilia.

Each of the races has a very specific gender ratio. (Male: Female) Humanity has a 1:1 ratio. The Elves have a 1:2 ratio. The Dwarves have a 7:1 ratio. Demons have a 1:1 ratio. The Beastkin have a 3:4 ratio. Fairies have a 1:12 ratio. The Dead are just that, dead. So they don’t have a gender ratio.

That’s all that my new memories contained, so I would have to find out anything else I wanted to know on my own.

A light flicked on as I began to try and move. The bright light hurt my eyes. Luckily for me, a shadow covered the light a second later. I looked upwards, staring into the eyes of a beautiful young lady. Jade green eyes, long brown hair, and a maid outfit. Alright, the last one was the main thing that caught my attention, but that’s unimportant. She shifted to the left slightly, but I kept my eyes on her, wondering what she was doing. She gasped, pointing at me like she just found me sleeping with her husband.

Umm… What did I do? I was just looking at you…

Then I realized that I was not as old as I remembered being.

Shit… I might have just done something really horrible…

An elderly man walked in soon after the maid began screaming. I looked at him on instinct. He showed a look of surprise, but nothing like the maid. I almost breathed out a sigh of relief, but I stopped myself from acting too suspicious.

After all, I’m a baby now. I can’t be doing things like sighing in relief when an elder doesn’t start screeching in surprise when he sees me looking at him. The elder shouted something at what I could only assume was the general position of the door. A minute passed.

The maid was calm now, simply looking at me with curiosity in her eyes. The elder had gone away from my field of vision, but I heard the creaking of a wooden chair and a sigh off to my left. I spent the entire time looking at the maid’s beautiful green eyes. Every second that passed, I seemed to sink another layer deeper into the bottomlessness of her eyes. The door slammed. I wasn’t sure whether it was closing or opening until two new faces appeared before me, crying like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

A man and a woman, both with stunning ice blue eyes. The man had short, choppy brown hair and a plain white shirt. The woman had shoulder length blond hair, and a brown shirt. Both of the pairs of clothing looked very uncomfortable as if they were made from sacks.

The woman reached down and picked me up, cuddling me against her bosom as if I had just come back from the dead. I chuckled at my own joke, not noticing the woman stiffen. She brought me up to eye height, looking at me like I had done something wrong. She tapped me on my left chest, and I looked down at it.

A mark. I never had any birthmarks before. But now, a mark is upon my left chest as if I was branded. It seems my parents think it’s a birthmark, but I know better. This is the brand that will force me into getting that shitty god’s powers back.

Damn, how did it end up like this? All I wanted in life was to keep Eve safe until we both died. Well, we both died of natural causes. I don’t believe that being scythed to death is a natural cause. Well, I meet her in a year. Just 1 year. I can wait that long to see her again. 365 days. I’ll start the countdown now.

Earlier, with Death (From Another Power’s POV)

The large man sat on his diamond throne, staring at the three souls in front of him. Then he laughed. He had come up with a great plan for two of these souls, and the fact that he did not see the third one coming was hilarious to him. He waved his hand, and large streams of silvery liquid poured from the ceiling onto two of the souls, casting a body for them. He took Eve, holding her by the neck, as he threw Rayne towards the wall at speeds the human eye couldn’t follow. Instead of hitting the wall and splattering blood everywhere, however, a portal opened milliseconds beforehand and Rayne disappeared. The figure looked to Death.

“You are dismissed from servitude.”

Death was shocked. She was just released from a contract that was supposed to last until she died, which, as a goddess, was forever.

“I thank you for your service. Goodbye, Lilia.”

Lilia was thrown to the same wall Rayne was. After she was gone, the towering figure looked upwards, tossing the last body in the same way. He hated to put them there, but even he could not deny those orders.

“Now then, I’ve done what you asked me. Please protect them. I wouldn’t want any harm falling upon my son and daughter…”

Laughter echoed throughout the room, not the man's, as lightning shot down, vaporizing the leftover soul and the towering figure. When the light faded, all that remained was his diamond throne.

Back to Present (Rayne’s POV) [365 days until Eve]

Of course. Even in rebirth, I’m still poor.

I’ve been taken to a house. Or, more of a shack. My muscles don’t work yet, so I can’t fix up even one of the many holes in the roof. Water drips from one of the broken boards. I’m not even sure how long it’s been since the last rainfall, but I can’t imagine it was short enough for water to still drip.

The floorboards are torn up in multiple places. One of the walls has a human-sized hole. The only table in the house has a leg missing. The kitchen doesn’t have a sink. There is no bathroom. There’s a large moss-covered stone in the living room.

Wait… Why the hell is there a boulder in the middle of the damn living room?!

I seemed to have stared at it long enough to catch the woman(who’s holding me)’s attention.

“What is it? Oh, that boulder? That’s our mana recovery boulder. It helps when we are meditating.” She almost sounded thankful to the boulder.

My eyes must have lit up when she said mana, as she began to laugh like a little kid.

“I’ll teach you it sometime. It’s a family tradition anyway. You’ll begin learning in about a week.” She paused for a second. “Mmh. About 28 days, so a bit under a week.”

Wait. What? 28 days is over a week. It’s four weeks… Does that mean that they classify time in different times here?! Then what’s a year…

I dreaded the answer. My face definitely visibly paled. I began to fall into the pits of depression, tears coming to my eyes. One almost fell to the ground.

A finger brushed it away. “Hey, don’t mess up the ground. Meditating isn’t that difficult. Neither is it painful. No need to dread it that much.”

I shook my head fiercely, trying to get my point across. I actually wanted to start now. I feel a twitching in my body. Blood begins to drip from a few points on my legs and arms. Inside of my elbows, a ring around my kneecap, between the tendons of my thumb and pointer finger, beneath my ankles. Strangely, I feel no pain. The woman holding me sprints outside as far as she can, trying not to soil the spot where we were.

“Wait! Come back! Avalina, bring him back!” The man shouted after us, his words falling on deaf ears. I pressed my hands to my chest. That’s when I realized.

I had full control of my body. My legs bent when I told them to, give or take a fraction of a second. I could practically feel the muscles in my body reforging themselves to fit my needs. Within a minute, the crawling feeling stopped, leaving me feeling exuberant and powerful. I spun my way out of Avalina’s grasp, landing on my feet. My vocal cords had not progressed any, so I limited to noises at the moment, but that didn’t stop my shout of victory. In a day, I would be so far progressed I would be able to speak in full sentences. It seemed children grew faster in this world, anyway. I ran back to where the man stood, Avalina chasing me to no avail. The blood stopped flowing, leaving only a stain on my small white shirt.

That reminds me, when did I get these clothes? They almost seem like something you would put on a corpse before burying it…

As I reached the house, the man put his hand up to close his mouth. I almost laughed at the stupid action. I managed to hold myself back, though and instead stared at the rock. It seemed to be spinning. I blinked a few times, thinking I must be hallucinating. But no, the haze stayed there even after all that. I walked closer. The man showed a sudden sign of panic, reaching out to grab my shoulder. I dodged on instinct. But then I felt a tug, not from him, but from the rock.

I was yanked from where I stood, as if in a whirlwind. Twirled around the rock, I lost my sense of direction. Then I lost my sense of hearing, unable to hear anything over the whipping of wind. I felt something grab me, and I looked towards it as best I could without opening my eyes to the wind. A hand. Feminine in appearance, bleeding slightly from the third knuckle. Something shifted inside of me, causing me to scream out. A burning sensation erupted on the left side of my chest as if a hot iron was being pressed to it. Opening my eyes as much as I could bear, I saw a light shine through my shirt. Then everything went black.

A Demon (Avalina’s perspective)

I am the mother to a demon. But I love him all the same. Even as he sucks the blood in my body from me.

My name is Avalina. I was going to be a mother. I was so excited, I barely felt the pain from having the baby. Then the maid took the small bundle in her arms, looked to me, and began to cry. I couldn’t have even imagined that something could have gone wrong. But here I am, crying over my stillborn child’s body. I had so many things planned out. I had a name for him, I had his first birthday party planned, I knew when and where to start teaching him magic. But all of these things shattered in front of my eyes when I saw the maid that held my child begin to cry.

That was, until the elder that owned the maid began shouting in his native language. It surprised me enough that I stopped meditating as soon as I finished my circle. I got dressed and began to run to where his cries came from. Once I got there, I rushed to the bed I had laid my child on, ready to burn at a moment's notice. He stared up at me with golden eyes, round and filled with something indescribable. My husband was the same, and we both broke down into tears. My stillborn child, however illogical, was staring back up to me, full of life.

I learned on the way back to the house, while he was sleeping, that the maid had come in for one last prayer to Lilia before the burning. But when she had gotten there, he was staring up at her with those golden eyes, seeming in pain. When he saw her, he stared into her eyes. No other part of her body. Just her eyes. She shared her experience with the feeling of it. It was quite… entertaining to see her shiver in her seat. She seemed to have fallen in love with those eyes, to the point in which she asked me if one day she could come here to see him again. She was ecstatic when I told her yes. My husband and I burst out laughing, continuing for a good time.

Once we had gotten to the house, he had woken up. He had gone back to looking into the maid’s eyes for the short time before they had come to a stop, much to her pleasure. Once they had left and we were all out of the cart, he looked to the house. His face clearly showed his disappointment. I nearly dropped him trying to stifle my laughter. I walked around the house, carefully judging his reactions to everything. His eyes lingered a bit long on something, so I looked over at it. It was the mana recharge boulder. But his look of utter confusion was so funny, I nearly burst out laughing. Having a child was so much fun! After I explained what it was, he showed a look of excitement. Such a different expression was too much, and I began giggling like a kid again. I reassured him that I would teach him.

Something was wrong, though. When I mentioned that 28 days was a bit under a week, he looked confused, as if he already thought he knew how long a week was, and it was not just over 28 days. I never told him anything, so I could only wonder how that worked. Then I noticed the tears. I swept them away, concerned for both him and the area. I assumed he was dreading learning magic, completely opposite of what I had originally thought. But when I thought of something to help him, he shook his head as if trying to deny the existence of magic itself.

He began his growth spurt. Blood poured out through the skin without perforations. It causes most children extreme pain, but the fact that he didn’t show any gave me enough pause to let some blood soak into the floors. I cursed at myself under my breath, before grabbing him and running. If the child had even half the amount of mana in his blood that I did, he would cause a whirlwind that could easily destroy the entire building. Thirty seconds went by, and I was still running. However, my child would no longer tolerate it. He twisted in unimaginable ways, wrenching himself out of my grip. He hit the ground running the other direction. Terrified out of my mind, not even hearing his victory scream, I sprinted after him as fast as possible.

No way, he’s still ahead of me?! Stop! Stop going back there! Were the only thoughts going through my head at the time.

Silly of me, I know. I should have said something. But I didn’t and I chased him all the way into the house. My husband attempted to grab him, a fake look of concern on his face. I could tell he was fully prepared to bleed the child out to super-charge the boulder in the center of the room. But, amazing even me, he dodged the hand. But he leaped his way right into the whirlwind stirring the center of the room. Taking my time to slam my fist into my husband’s face, I leaped in at the precise moment to catch him. He turned to look at my hand, which was slightly bleeding. I scratched my hand on his jawbone a little harder than I intended too…

He saw the blood, and began screaming, even over the roar of the whirlwind. He clutched his chest with both hands as if something was trying to crawl out. A glow pierced his shirt, In the same shape of his birthmark. It was then that I finally remembered the mark. They weren’t even published in books anymore. After all, the evil God of Vampires, Dradacil, was imprisoned nearly 18,000 years ago. But here was his mark, burning its way into my son’s chest. His hair turned a shining silver, and when he opened his eyes against the wind, his left one was red. He lunged at my wound, sucking the remaining blood off it. Then he removed himself from my hand and planted himself on my neck.

How wonderful. My own stillborn son is going to be the death of me.

“No… I won’t… I WILL NOT LET THEM DIE AGAIN!!!” A shout echoed throughout the room before the vampire attached to my neck went limp. Even the whirlwind broke apart. I dropped to the ground, exhausted from my little trip around the room and loss of blood. I checked my fist, where I was bleeding earlier and was amazed to see it completely healed. Then I followed my son into the depths of unconsciousness.