“Though many know of the cold war between the so-called Angels and Demons, very few know its cause, or that the first of the Higher and Lower Races were closer than brothers, and remain so to this day.”

-The Time Codex

Chapter 3: Of Angels and Demons

“So, while we created the inhabitants for the HIgher and Lower Realms in the first thousand years, me and my sister have been perfecting them ever since. The Cultivation system took a good 10,000 years by itself, ya’ know!”

Phel has been lecturing me ever since she caught me, what a pain. But seriously, I messed up big time. When watching over the Mortal Realm while in a state of hyper-time I did notice a lack of sentient life, but I figured that was because the Goddesses hadn’t developed it yet.

“Wait, you actually developed a cultivation system for your mortal races? How, I hadn’t explained that to you yet.”

“Give people a few tens of thousands of years, and they tend to figure things out. Basically, after creating our original races, we realized that they had no way to grow stronger, so we spent a few thousand years researching the fabric of our Realms, and found that that they are closely linked with the concept of faith, ideals, and of course our elements.”

“Great, but how did you figure out the faith bit without any sentient creatures to provide said faith?”

“Hehe, about that…” Oh Creator they didn’t actually create life by accident somehow, right? Please tell me I’m not right, because that is a shitstorm of epic proportions.

“While me and sis were messing around with area of naturally concentrated essence on our respective planets, we might have injected some of our raw divine mana into them, and the result was Elementals of Light and Darkness. They started worshipping us, and that was that.”

“So why did none of these ‘Elementals’ show up in the Mortal Realm while was watching over it?”

“It seems as though they depend on the natural light- and darkness-attributed mana that is found in the Higher and Lower Realms to survive. We bought a couple to the Mortal Realm once… Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.”

The jabbering finally ceases as a majestic gold and black building appears on the horizon. As soon as it does, my ‘guide’ snaps her fingers theatrically, and suddenly we have arrived directly in front of the temple-like structure.

“As you can see here, we’ve had time to decorate. At first, we only tried to create our individual races, but after we had managed that, we were curious to what the ‘perfect’ form of each individual race would be. Hence, we created our sons.”

I halt mid-step, in shock. Phel said they had sons, indicating that she has some connection to then as at least a mother figure, if not more than that. I just hope she didn’t do anything stupid trying to find the ‘perfect’ form… I just jinxed myself, didn’t I?

“Tell me,” I ask, “did you two by any chance do anything particularly special to these sons of yours?”

She stops, putting a finger to her lips. “Well, not really I suppose. Oh! We did graft a tiny segment of our souls to our respective progeny, but other than that, no.”

*BOOM* The pure, marble wall now has quite an extensive dent in it now. Why does it have that again? Oh, right, I was beating my head against the wall because of the sheer stupidity of their actions. *BOOM* Demigods! They made time-be-damned demigods, and act like it was nothing. And not just any demigods either, nooo, they have to create demigods that have the potential to become gods. Now I’m actually going to have to work to ensure the Realms don’t somehow become stardust. *BOOM* I should probably stop the inner monologue and the destruction of the wall by forehead. Phel’s getting that look again…

*Cough, cough* “Anyway, moving on. So where are these sons of yours?”

“If you’ll hurry up, they’re right in here, with Nyxitri. Though they are technically the first of they kind, we put them into stasis after ten years of living with us, so you could be a part of their lives. Sis! The old bastard is finally back!”

*Inside the Twilight Garden*

*Sigh* I miss the rascals. The old coot better get out of whatever time-space he put himself in soon, or I’ll punch him so hard he’ll end up in the Mortal Realm. I look at the surrounding plant life, the beautiful vines and flowers created form the mixture of mine and my sister’s divine mana. Though we have created many other species which reside in this garden (we actually had to convert it into a minor dimensional pocket after the first thousand years or so), they are our pride and joy, omnipresent throughout this space. Their dark, shadowy vines emit a purplish radiance that blends with the golden light of the blossom to generate the constant twilight which the Garden has been named after.

In fact, the plants have such a high affinity for both light and darkness mana, a regular mortal -even an elemental- would die immediately after touching it. The only way to safely come into contact with them is to have equal or greater affinity than they themselves have for either element, namely to be a demigod or higher at this point in time. Though that old Time bastard would probably be able to, considering how stupidly powerful his Domain is.

“... a part of their lives. Sis! The old bastard is finally back!”

Hmm? *BAM* *Ughh!!!* “Why the uppercut.. Why… Don’t you people know that men don’t like violent wome-” *Oomph!* Oh, it seems I kicked him when he was going to say something strange? Oh well.

*Inside the Twilight Garden*

After I finish rolling around on the floor in pain, I finally get a chance to examine the two crystalline coffins that are set up in the center of this clearing. Phel, of course, gave me no warning before dragging me into this dimension, so I was completely unprepared for the swift uppercut to the gut, courtesy of Nyx.

“So these are your children? What are their names, and for that matter their race’s names. Please by the Creator tell me you didn’t name them Angels and Demons, please."

The two Goddesses stop chatting and turn to me. “We were considering it, but something felt off about that, I don’t know why.” I sigh inwardly. Thank the Storylord, one thing the actually didn’t fuck up somehow.

Then Nyxitri speaks up again, saying “We instead chose to give them unique names, resulting in the Sinh-Lätt and the Sinh-Terr.” She then gestures towards the boy with demonic features “This is my son, Lucius,” Phel suddenly breaks in pointing excitedly at the angelic boy, “And my son, Gabriel.” After doing so she snaps her fingers as she seems so fond of doing, causing the coffins to disappear, and the Goddesses to catch the suddenly falling children.

*Yawn* “Is it time to wake up already mom?” Lucius asks this, while Gabriel just mumbles tiredly, shifting around in his mother's arms.

“Yes, we thought it was time you two met your Uncle Lore,” replied his mother, before both of the other divines present turn around and stare at my newly adapted form in obvious shock. I now appear as a tall, curly-haired teenager, slim but muscled, with my robe a neutral gray, and hair green with white tips as well as a short and scruffy beard.

With a shit-eating grin on my face, I explain. “You want me to show my true form to some kids without any mental protection at all? Are you mad?” I step forward, brushing some dust from my robe.

“Nice to meet you children, I am your Uncle Lore.”