His plan was slow but it was working. Slow was fine; he had time. That was the point of the plan, after all.

He would be a true god someday and he would make his portfolio cover what he wanted it to. Simply being the Incarnate of Humanity wasn’t enough. Humans were annoyingly fractious and prone to having their own opinions. He might exemplify them and have limited control, especially when he was nearby, but those who weren’t kept close always seemed to wriggle out of their appropriate devotion to him and start working for themselves instead.

It was annoying.

Even worse, humans were mortal. Most Beast Gods changed every few hundred years; he was going to break that record.

He’d also break the term Beast God. He wasn’t a beast; he was a human. Sure, wolves and pics and whatever were beasts, but humans weren’t. They were far more; humans were special. They were the only truly intelligent beings, after all; everything else was just an imitation. A Beast.

Beast Gods also weren’t true gods; they didn’t work based on the power of faith. At least, he’d never found a faith pool for his humanity that let him do what he wanted; instead, he could only affect humans.

He hated being mortal. A true god should be able to break the confines of what they were and become more. They should last forever. They shouldn’t depend on the vagaries of people.

No. Becoming a real god was what mattered. A real god that ruled over Eternity itself, all of time. He told his followers that he brought Eternal Life because that made them follow him, but that was only the starting point. He would live forever and he would rule Eternity. It was the only acceptable option.

Lykandeon pulled himself to his feet and hopped over to examine his prize once again. The Core of his Holy Land, wrenched from mundanity and elevated to watch over it, this was the symbol that he’d chosen to represent his godhead. He didn’t know how other gods did it; he thought most used their own bodies, but that was foolish. You couldn’t cast rituals around yourself nearly as easily as you could cast them around something else.

This was also a far better place to store power than a body. Bodies leaked power in a way that Core Crystal simply didn’t. On top of that, he could make people worship the Holy Land and still get its power; it was amazing how many people wanted a Holy Place instead of a Holy Person. This way, he gained power from both.

Sure, he had to be here to spend his faith energy if he didn’t first transfer it to himself, but that was minor. He always carried some when he left the room, after all. Faith energy would let him do anything as long as it was vaguely aligned with his established portfolio.

Strangely, the one thing it wouldn’t let him do was truly extend lifespans. Lykandeon didn’t understand that, but he also didn’t really care. It would let him do something that was almost as good: steal lifespan. Sure, it meant that his strongest followers didn’t live as long and limited his weakest to about fifty or sixty years, but who cared about that? They got the good times, the strong times, and simply passed quickly when their good times were over. It was practically a service to them to prevent the bad times that came at the end of a life.

He was really only taking part of what he’d enabled them to get, anyway. They owed it to him.

Somehow, despite the availability of faith energy, he still hadn’t made the step to truly being a god. He wasn’t recognized as one by the Voice; he knew that came with several benefits. One of which was the end of aging, at least as long as his followers recognized him as young. He wanted that. It might not keep him from dying of old age, but it would help.

He was close, but he’d been close for a hundred years, ever since he finished his conquest of Lyka and tore Aeon out of it. There was a piece he was missing; he didn’t know what it was, but he thought it might be time. Time to let the illegal stories of conflict die and make everyone, even the people in the New Territories, remember only the benevolent rule of their God.

He hoped he didn’t have to wait until the last of the Old died. They were far too useful at what they did; even the ones that weren’t tremendously skilled were excellent symbols to the others who remembered. Perhaps that very memory was the problem, but that meant either killing them or waiting until they died naturally.

Or perhaps he simply needed more Faith energy. That was possible; it was why he’d set out to conquer an entire planet in the first place, after all. It only lasted so long before it needed to be used, but that didn’t really matter; he used it far faster than that. It was slowly accumulating, at least, so perhaps someday he’d reach the point where he was using it simply because he wanted to use it instead of having it expire.

It seemed like the more he had, the more he had to spend to keep his gains and still expand slowly. It was frustrating but at least he was succeeding. Another century and he’d have it, for sure. What was one century out of Eternity?

It would be sooner if the latest project worked out, but so far the returns were minimal. That was to be expected, of course; a few thousand people was very little and so far none of them had the touch of Divinity he’d hoped for. This latest batch looked promising, but it would be years before he knew if the gamble was a success.

Lykandeon drifted in meditative silence, watching his faith energy ebb and flow in the Heart of Aeon. This was the best way to pass the time, simply being one with His power.

A knock at the door brought Lykandeon out of his contemplation of the Holy Land’s Heart. He gestured and the door opened, revealing a scantily-clad High Priestess. Lykandeon took a good look; he blessed his past self for insisting that this was the attire the High Priestesses should wear before their God.

High Priestess Karin seemed uncomfortable, but she often did when she arrived. He sent a touch of faith energy her way to remind her that this was obeisance to her God and that obeying Him was her greatest desire. It was enough to get her to relax, at least.

“Lord Lykandeon.” Karin bowed gracefully and showed him the honor he was due.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Lykandeon spoke first. He wanted to be approachable, but that didn’t mean he was willing to be weak. “How is your project going? The outside Sovereign who wanted an alliance. How close is he to subordinating his worlds to My Church?”

High Priestess Karin shook her head. “He is still insisting that he is here to find and rescue people who were kidnapped from his planet’s Tutorial.”

Lykandeon shook his head. Who would believe that story? A few thousand low-Tier people out of a population of billions, and on only one of two worlds at that? They were barely worth the effort to steal, and Lykandeon had people to do that for him. In no way was it worth the time of a Sovereign of two worlds. This was obviously a ploy to get a better deal.

Unfortunately, it might work. Lykandeon knew his people had stolen the little seeds; they’d tried to gather good ones, but it was always difficult to predict which ones would hold up after the tempering process; often, the ones that burned brightly at first were snuffed before they submitted to reality. Whether that was actual death or simply a choice to become dull and useless didn’t really matter.

Lykandeon didn’t really want to make any concessions, but he was already trying to think of what might work. As long as he got an agreement that made it clear that the Church was the senior partner, it almost didn’t matter what he had to promise to get that. He could leverage it to get everything back and more.

It seemed he’d have to wait. Eternity should be good at waiting. Lykandeon himself wasn’t, but he knew how to put on a show.

“Very well then. How is that progressing?” Lykandeon had no intention of allowing most of his new servants to leave, but a few was a permissible loss if it bought him an “alliance” with two more planets. He himself only had two. It should have been three by now, but Zenith seemed recalcitrant. One little detail must have gone wrong, but he couldn’t even find out what it was.

“I sent Serenity to meet with a number of potential initiates at one of the nearby locations. He appears to have talked to several and even brought one back with him. As they returned, they were attacked by one of the dungeon breaks; Serenity used some sort of berserking Skill or treasure to destroy their attacker. They reached the Visitors’ Palace without further incident.” The High Priestess’s voice emphasized the words “dungeon breaks”, but Lykandeon ignored her. She worried about the strangest things sometimes. There were Acolytes specifically detailed to deal with the dungeons. If they had issues, they’d call in some Priests. Dungeons weren’t important.

Lykandeon moved to his lounge and lay down. High Priestess Karin didn’t move; she stayed standing at the door. Good; training her that she was to stay in whatever position he’d left her in until he told her to do something else was irritating. “Has he said anything about Zon? Even how he left the planet?”

Karin nodded slightly, reminding Lykandeon that he needed to work on her small gestures someday. They should always be intentional. “He has not stated why the planet is closed off or how he got around it; I suspect he sent the details to Rissa in a message. It’s a good security choice on his part, but makes it harder for us.”

Lykandeon grumbled. She was probably correct, but that didn’t make it better. The fact that the mortal wouldn’t say what happened to his army was concerning.

The fact that he could block messages if he wanted but not read them was just plain irritating. He was not only the ruler but the God of Lyka! It was named after him! Why couldn’t he do what he wanted?

“What we do know is that the portal was recorded as originating in Mornmot on Zon, but Mornmot does not exist on the network as a viable location.” High Priestess Karin paused and seemed to consider for a moment before she continued. “I have asked him what happened; what he has said is that he found many of the people who were kidnapped, sent many back to Earth and has people working to locate more. All he would say beyond that is that the method he used to get off Zon is not one he would recommend to anyone else.”

“Mornmot.” Lykandeon latched on to that; the rest of her babble didn’t really matter. “Mornmot isn’t even a city anymore. If he has some way to portal out of destroyed cities, perhaps he can also portal in? I wonder how he got past the demons.”

When the High Priestess didn’t respond, Lykandeon smiled. “Very well, you may go.”

High Priestess Karin froze, then spoke quickly. “Lord, I came to tell you about the dungeon breaks. There are far more-”

“I said you can go. Deal with it yourself; dungeons are the responsibility of the priesthood, not mine.” Lykandeon slammed the door behind Karin. Why did they always have to bring such nonsense to him? Couldn’t they handle anything on their own?

He had other concerns. Bigger concerns. Eternal concerns.

The priests were supposed to handle the day-to-day stuff.