Things seemed to fall in place in accordance with Gaius’ desires over the next three centuries. Celestia’s creation had brought about an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity, as the people of old Orb interacted with that of new Orb. Of course, to them, Orb no longer existed; everyone now lived in the same transcendent paradise called Celestia.

The nations of Orb had rebuilt themselves from the ground up, although things had to change. The Western Holdings could no longer make use of the feudal system and their system of noble birthright. Taking cues from the other nations, they reformed themselves into something resembling a modern system of governance, with all due checks and balances. It took fifty years to fully reform the nation, but once that herculean task was completed, Queen Hyperion, who had given up her divinity, welcomed death with open arms and reincarnated as an adorable boy in a certain landmass, discarding her memories in the process.

The North — well, it was still based on the northern landmass, so Gaius referred to it that way — still called itself the Mortal Light Dynasty, although Pinnacle Kolya now devoted most of his efforts into exploring outer space. With Celestia a world where one just needed to will resources into being, all sorts of technological miracles were now possible. He and Oracle Galina were still alive — somehow — making them the oldest mortals who still remembered Orb, and once in a while, Gaius and Isabelle would drop by, ask them both why they hadn’t died yet, and then talk about old times.

As for the East, Paragon Ying Xin — or rather, just Ying Xin — reunified the three separate peoples that once made up the East. Calling themselves the Inwards Stars, Ying Xin led her people into a long trek into the infinitely expanding Celestia. They eventually settled in a huge plateau, one hundred and fifty-three thousand kilometres from the great statue of Weiwu, which marked the centre of the four landmasses. The Inwards Stars, which had faced the horrors of war, had desired to recluse themselves from the world at large. Their goal was similar to that of the North; they desired to research spaceflight and make their way out of the planet. Whatever the case, the decades-long trek had reinforced their desire for inner peace and isolationism.

That didn’t stop Gaius from dropping by once in a while, however, but he and Isabelle never made contact with Ying Xin and the band of researchers that occupied the top echelon of the Inwards Stars. Gaius and Isabelle had mingled into the crowd when she finally passed away from old age, paying their respects in silence, which marked their last visit to the East.

Meanwhile, in the southern, infinite landmass, the Republic and the Southern Assembly were still busy facing their demons. To the original inhabitants of Celestia — those from Cybral — the entire judicial process of a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate the Second Extermination was still underway, despite the fact that no one alive now remembered what Orb was. The populace of both nations just knew that they were working to reconcile some huge enmity that preceded their creation myth, and the Second Extermination Truth and Reconciliation Commission was now just a festival for both nations to get along and discuss their expansion plans for the future. Amusingly enough, talks about merger had lasted nearly as long as the existence of the Second Extermination commission itself — both sides really just hadn’t gotten into the mood for doing things seriously.

Ark City was located inside the Demon Sovereign’s Divine Kingdom. Gaius wasn’t sure what the situation was like in there in recent decades, since that was the only place his passive observation failed to work on, but whenever he talked to Gemini, he could tell that it was peaceful inside.

All in all, Celestia was a great place. Conflict hadn’t happened at all, and the people wanted for nothing.

“Is it really necessary for you to monologue all this every year?” Isabelle, who was hugging Gaius from behind, asked. The two of them still looked like youths in their prime, a point that Pinnacle Kolya envied every so often. It also probably didn’t help that the two of them cuddled whenever possible, which was literally all the time…even in front of Kolya and Galina.

“I must remind myself of my achievements,” Gaius replied with a straight face. “And besides, it’s only during the new year, right? CE 312, January 1st. It’s good to look back and see how things have changed.”

“What a narcissist.”

“I’m not…” Gaius held her tight. “Right, when is Nakama and La-Ti coming? Are they still mad at each other?”

“I think they made up ten years ago, but they always try to look angry at each other whenever they come here for a visit,” said Isabelle. “It’s like they’re trying to trick us or something.”

“They’re quite the nice pair, but they don’t want us to think that,” said Gaius. “I don’t really get what game they’re playing. It’s not like they’re blood related or anything, and master-apprentice romances are fine too. Why would Gods of Creation care about trifles like these? And besides, if they really wanted to hide things from us, they really shouldn’t bring Nexus along.”

The two of them stared out of the window, and then sighed. The two of them were currently in what would look like a silvery orb from outside, but that would just be a disguise. In actuality, they were in a floating cottage, like the one Paragon Ying Xin had centuries ago.

“Enough standing around, though,” said Isabelle. “I’m going in to cook.”

“Alright. Let’s go—”

“Not you. You’re too—”

“Isabelle, I woke up from my coma centuries ago. There’s no muscle weakness or anything,” Gaius replied. “You use this joke every year…”

“Well, you monologue every year too. I don’t see why I can’t play the same joke every year,” Isabelle replied.

“Fine. In the first place, do we actually need to cook?” Gaius asked. “We just need to wish for good food, and it’ll be done.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, though. Right, who else is coming?”

“Gemini, Lila, Aldnath…that should be all. Kolya is still bedbound with Galina, but I suppose we can visit them later.” Gaius closed his eyes for a moment. “This should be our last year here, though.”

“Aldnath’s coming along, right?”

“Yeah,” Gaius replied. “Me, the Dragon of Time and the Demon Sovereign. As agreed, the rest of you will hold the fort here, while the three of us investigate the high-dimensional beings Pabar and Tiadall, as well as deal with the threat their universe poses to Celestia.”

“About time we did that, really.” Isabelle took a deep breath. “It’s been a long, long time since I said this, but be careful out there, okay?”

“Yeah.” Gaius smiled. “No worries. I’ve been training for this.”

The two of them looked out of the window, and Gaius let out a sigh. “You’ll need to plug up some vulnerabilities and whatnot. The copy of Celestia is complete too; we’ll wipe out the invaders there and use it as a springboard into our target universe. I’ll trouble you to control it.”

“When did you finish it?”

“Over the past month,” Gaius replied.

“That’s why we weren’t busy trying to have kids then, huh?” Isabelle muttered.

“…You do know that both of us are Gods of Creation, right? Having kids is a lot harder for beings like us. The success rate is like zero-point-zero-zero-zero-zero something,” Gaius replied.

Isabelle flicked his head. “We had three hundred years—”

“—and Gemini already has five kids. Yeah, I know.” Gaius giggled. “It must be a shock for Aria whenever she learns that she has a sibling a few centuries younger than her.”

“Stop trying to make me laugh!”

The two fooled around for a moment, and then headed into the kitchen. It didn’t take them long to prepare a nice spread of finger food, rice and curry, and a doorbell rang as they placed the huge platter of fries onto the table.

Isabelle left to open the door, returning with Gemini, Lila, Aldnath, Nakama and La-Ti. Everyone nodded at each other for a moment, and Gaius smiled as they started chatting away in earnest. Blinking twice at Isabelle, he retreated to the window he had been looking out of earlier and looked out at the world of his own making.

It was a marvellous sight, and no matter how many times he looked at it, Gaius couldn’t get used to the complex mix of emotions inside him. He hadn’t done it perfectly, but he had worked long and hard to steer it in the right direction.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

“About our final destination,” Gaius replied. “Right, congratulations on your new kid, Gemini. How did Aria react to her fourth brother?”

The Demon Sovereign, clad in a stately suit of black and gold, chuckled. “With a whole lot of resignation. The one taking up her mantle of shocked reactions is now Melody, who is positively mortified to learn that she has a brother at the old age of two hundred and eighty.”

Gaius snickered. “But at least you have kids. Me and Isabelle have been trying really, really hard. But Gods of Creation just exist on a fundamentally different level. I propelled Isabelle’s strength up, but she isn’t quite a Boundless One yet. She still has some shackles remaining.”

“I can see it. Of everyone present, only you, me and Aldnath are willing to leave Celestia,” said Gemini. “In a way, Celestia has become their shackles too.”

“A necessary price, if we are to have peace of mind,” Gaius replied. “I’ve opened up a second Celestia — minus the utopian aspects — but it’s already under investigation from that higher universe. Reportedly, immortal beings have appeared in it, causing chaos amongst the people there. Millions of souls have returned here, as a result.”

“That is indeed grave news.” Gemini clicked his teeth. “But the two of us and Aldnath should be able to end this disaster directly. After that, Aldnath will return back in time and perish in Orb.”

“Yes. He’s already prepared. This should be his chance to become Boundless too; if he succeeds, he should return alive. If not, the time loop will be set in stone, and his life will end,” Gaius replied, before looking at the old man, who nodded back at him firmly.

Gemini looked out at Celestia. “We leave tomorrow, no?”

“Naturally. We have spare rooms too. Are you staying overnight? I’ve some Du Contee here…”

“I would accept the offer, but I’m gathering my family too. This trip we’re making is going to be an insane one, after all. We can bring our full might there, but we need to be utterly cautious about doing so,” said Gemini. “There’s some danger there, so I want to spend time with Lila and the kids, as a family.”

“That’s a good idea,” Gaius looked back at the happy scene. “For the sake of our world, we, the Transcendents of Celestia, will stop at nothing.”

His story had ended centuries ago.

But a new one would soon be written once more. Pabar and Tiadall, dimensional invaders from a top-order universe…and the huge weakness that Gaius and the others were about to exploit.

“Right,” said Gemini, breaking his chain of thoughts, “did you know that the new Orb has this interesting creation myth going around? It’s called Legend of the Lost Star, and it’s about you.”

“Me?” Gaius blinked. “Yeah, I did. It was kinda embarrassing, though.”

The Demon Sovereign chuckled evilly. “Yeah. Your intelligent artefact took the liberty of tossing it into the fake Celestia, after making the necessary adjustments.”

“Why would he do such a thing? This does it! I’m destroying that fake Celestia now!”

“Were we not using it as a springboard first?” Gemini asked, a hint of amusement on his face.

“Fine. I’ll destroy it after we use it as a springboard.”

“You say the scariest things at times…”

--- Fin ---