“How can we trust you?” A voice spoke out after another bout of silence.

‘This fat Toad is still so bold?’ Gaia inwardly asked with slight surprise. Now, she was sure that he had an agenda. When she had spoken about possible Envoys of Envy she had looked towards the Toad on purpose to drive suspicion his way. Not for any great particular reason, it was more because it was extremely easy to do and was beneficial.

This was a creature that had tried to smear her reputation, let him suffer a bit. That was roughly her thought process at the time. Of course, a part of her actually did suspect that he was an Envoy that was trying to sow discord so her passive attack wasn’t completely unjustified, but it hadn’t been that important in her mind when she said it.

The Toad may have a lot of reason to feel envy but he had never shown any of the behavioural patterns before so her suspicion was low. He never seemed to yearn, never seemed to hate, and was seemingly content alone in his swamp even if he was a bit grumpy.

But now… now her suspicions were beginning to ring like bells.

Perhaps he was just an extremely wary person, but he was questioning her at his own risk and that was not the trait of a cautious person. If he really were cautious he would have chosen to hide from the war entirely. He’d have pretended to listen, not arising suspicion, and then as soon as the gathering was over or whenever he felt the need, he would vanish and never appear in public.

Why should he stay here to ‘warn’ the others? To help the same people that had treated him like air or even disgust, out of the goodness of his heart? No way! It was in his best interest to vanish!

But no, instead of doing that, he was publicly stating that she, the goddess of creation, was trying to scheme against everyone?

…Even a fool would refrain from such a thing unless they were seeking to suffer. And not necessarily because she would do anything, but because her devout followers would be the ones to descend on him first. All the Dragons had been glaring at him for a while now, and in such a state, he could still muster the courage to ask ‘How could we trust you?’

If she didn’t realise that something odd was going on by now then all the experience she had accumulated in her past immortal life would have been in vain. But in any case, she had been questioned and now she had to answer.

“I am a goddess. And not a lowly one either. Whether I’ve fallen or not I am the goddess of creation and my mind is not something that Envy can hope to affect, no matter how capable he becomes. It is impossible for me to be an envoy of Envy, but that’s not enough for you, is it? You’re probably thinking that I may still be an ally, or that even if that weren’t the case, I may still be harbouring some kind of sinister plot of my own.”

“This…”

“Whatever heinous thing you think I’m planning, you are wrong. I… am the creator.” As soon as her words fell, multiple globes of golden light formed around her, which in itself wasn’t anything impressive, but when those lights started to shiver and turn into flesh and blood animals, nobody could keep their calm any longer.

Birds formed and flew away, rodents formed and scurried off, spiders formed and crawled away, and much more. All kinds of small animals were brought into existence out of thin air and they fled in random directions in very life-like manners.

They were real! Raiko and other similar furred animals had their hackles raised as they shiverred, Apis the giant Celestial Elephant actually stumbled backwards, Chad and the other 2 Legendary Birds had their feathers frozen stiff, others yelped out aloud, and even Jörma’s eyes had constricted to the max.

“Would I create life, only to harm it for pitiful gains? Do I… look mortal like you?” Gaia spoke once more, but this time her voice sounded transcendent, and in that moment, she let the full weight of her age show in her eyes, her 2 golden orbs freezing over with million year old ice and desolation, causing those that met her gaze to seize up from a fear that emerged from their very instincts. A primordial fear.

They all felt it, even Jörma, and it was then that they confirmed that she really was a god. They still didn’t fully know what a god was or what it really meant to be one, other than it meaning that you were exceedingly powerful. But now they knew that it was something… other. Something far above what they were. What was that word she used? Mortal?

The common language feature of the System allowed them to know what she was talking about to an extent and what they vaguely understood from that word was ‘being with finite power and lifespan’. She… clearly wasn’t that. Not even close. Not with those eyes.

Gaia wasn’t even utilising her aura. She just looked at them with those baleful eyes and they felt the control they had over their own bodies strip away from them. They were unable to move, talk less of putting up some type of resistance, and in that moment it became very clear to them that if she wanted them dead, there was no need for some kind of elaborate trap. She already possessed the ability to kill them all! This was the power of a god!

‘This Toad just might get us killed! And I even believed him for a second! FUCK! If I live past this day I’ll crush him even if it’s the last thing I do!’ Many of the thoughts could be summarised as that.

Evidently, under the effect of Gaia’s past immortal influence, their way of thinking was no longer coherent, and the bone-deep fear that they weren’t used to feeling was driving them towards madness.

It really wasn’t quite fair, the dominion that an Immortal could have even in their next life. But maybe that was a wrong thought to have. Perhaps it was fully deserved after what was sacrificed to get there.