Yoshika stared in mute disbelief at Sovereign Chou. She didn’t understand what he was saying. Why would he want to kill the creators of reality? What would even be the point? From what little she understood about demiurges, she wasn’t even sure whether they were even things that could be killed.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Jianmo.

“Hold on, you never said a word about that to me! I’m certain you were aiming to become a demiurge.”

Chou glanced down at the sword and sighed.

“Jianmo, I do not hate you, but surely you know that I never intended to create you at all. I shared a great deal with you, but there are some things that I had to keep in confidence, even from you.”

Yoshika shook her head.

“But why? You spent so much time trying to discover the secrets of creation, to make your own world—I thought this place was the fruit of that labor until I figured out that it was just your soulscape.”

“One does not destroy ultimate power without first comprehending it. To destroy the demiurges, I needed to understand their power. I intended to ascend to match them, yes—but only as a means to an end.”

“What end?!”

Chou pursed his lips, pacing slowly as he collected his thoughts.

“The young man who read my scroll. He told you that I claimed no land and ruled no subjects. Did you wonder why?”

She shrugged.

“A little, but I had other things to worry about.”

“My domain was developed over billions of years, and grew far beyond anything you could comprehend as you are now. However, it began with a simple hatred of those who ruled. Those who felt entitled to the fruits of their subjects’ labors simply because they had power over them. There is no greater value to me than freedom, and there is no greater anathema to that value than the shackles of destiny.”

He spat the last word out like a curse. Yoshika considered his words for a moment. She couldn’t deny that freedom was important, but a hatred of all rulers?

“If freedom is so valuable to you, then why did you scour your homeworld of all life? Isn’t that just another form of tyranny? You took whatever you needed from the people and the land because they didn’t have the power to stop you.”

“And you killed the woman with the spirits despite your own domain of unity. Then, even after subjugating the demon, you allowed her to kill two of your peers and gravely injure a third before finally enslaving her to your will. I have no interest in debating morality with you—I find you as repugnant as you surely find me.”

As much as Yoshika wanted to deny him, his words cut deep. She’d made plenty of mistakes in her life, and she was bound to make many more. She didn’t feel bad about killing Bai Lin, nor did she think she’d done the wrong thing by sparing Yang Qiu, but that didn’t change the fact that people had suffered and died on the altar of her ideals.

All she could do was acknowledge her mistakes, try to correct them, and keep moving forward.

“So that’s it, then? You gave up on killing fate or whatever and then left this place here as an unwinnable death trap to lure people in on the off chance that maybe one of them could do what you couldn’t?”

Sovereign Chou nodded.

“That is essentially correct. Though I object to the notion that the trials are completely impossible. I did everything in my power to ensure the greatest possible chance that those who entered this place would be able to succeed. That you and your lot have failed does not mean that success wasn’t possible.”

“If you say so. There’s just one thing I don’t understand—Zheng Long said that it was your discovery of fate that led to your downfall, and Jianmo said it was direct intervention by the demiurges. If your ultimate goal was to kill the demiurges, then neither of those sound right.”

The bloody sovereign paused, glaring down at her with a serious frown.

“They are both correct, and they are both wrong. Destiny is indeed a real force that drives the universe, and the demiurges did speak to me, in a sense. To understand, you must ask yourself—what are demiurges? What is fate? How can either be knowable? These are the questions that drove me for much of my life.”

“I don’t suppose you can just tell me?”

He scoffed.

“I can summarize what I learned, but even in life I never truly uncovered the whole of it. In the hierarchy of deities, the lowest rung is a simple god. These are commonplace in the divine realm—roughly equivalent to what you call houtian cultivators in mortal realms.”

Yoshika furrowed her brows.

“What about mortals?”

“Pardon?”

“Mortals living in the divine realm, or whatever is equivalent. You said you were starting at the lowest rung, but then implied there was something below that.”

He sighed.

“I do not hate inquisitive minds, but I dislike being interrupted. In the divine realm, what you call xiantian cultivators are known as demigods. They are the lowest among immortals, and all such beings within the divine realm were born there. Only demigods are capable of descending to mortal realms without avatars.”

“Why?”

Chou glared at Yoshika, sighing in frustration.

“Gods naturally ascend from the mortal realm to the divine, but to reverse that course takes considerable power. Such power would tear open the boundary between mortal and divine and irreparably damage the fabric of reality, destroying both the mortal realm and the god in the process. It is just as well that in my time, the number of beings capable of wielding such power could be counted on one hand.”

“Who are they?”

“Young Lady, my purpose here is not to give you a history lesson.”

Yoshika crossed her arms and huffed.

“Then what is your purpose? I don’t even know why you’re answering my questions at all if you’re planning to just kill me after, but that’s not going to stop me from asking.”

He pursed his lips, staring at her for a beat before continuing.

“I will get to it. Most gods either preside over a single mortal realm, or travel between realms using avatars to further their domains. These lead to different paths of ascension. The travelers become high gods, controlling and representing fundamental laws of existence, while the administrators become divine sovereigns—living worlds.”

“You were a sovereign, then? And so are Shen Yu and Longyan, right?”

“Of a sort. In my case, I took both paths, while the three lords took the path of the sovereign to the extreme.”

Yoshika cocked her head.

“The three lords?”

“Shen Yu, the Immortal Sovereign. Longyan, the Demon Lord. The Father of Dragons. There are none in the divine realm who do not know these names. They are the greatest of the gods, and rank above all others. Because they are all sovereigns, it is thought that sovereignty is the true path to power. As such, even weaker sovereigns tend to hold higher status than high gods.”

“Those three are the only ones strong enough to enter mortal realms, aren’t they? What sets them apart from regular sovereigns?”

Chou nodded.

“Indeed. Though there were two others—myself, and the Void. The Void is a high god—as are most greater elementals—and for a time I was considered to be an unofficial ‘fourth’ lord.”

“The Bloody Sovereign.”

“Just so. They gave me the name Chou because I rejected their claims to power. The way they draw essence from the denizens of their realms disgusted me. The god of my own realm was a sovereign, and while you may think me cruel for it, I did what I must to free myself from its clutches.”

Cruel didn’t even begin to describe it, but Chou was right—she wasn’t going to get anywhere debating morality with him. They were too fundamentally opposed in their views.

“So you became a sovereign, but since you’d already destroyed your world, and you’re opposed to ruling over others, you had to find another path.”

“Thus I also became a high god. I had no choice but to pursue such power, for I was hounded from the moment of my ascension until the day of my death by greedy deities who sought the Tear.”

“Is this where we finally get around to talking about demiurges?”

Sovereign Chou turned away, frowning.

“I suppose we must. As you know, the Sovereign’s Tear is a fragment of a demiurge’s essence. An infinitesimal portion of its power, contained within a crystallized droplet of blood shed in a battle that predates all of reality. The truth is...more complicated than that, but the core of it is true—the Tear’s power is that of a dead demiurge.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it told me so itself.”

Yoshika blinked.

“The...Tear did?”

“No, the demiurge. Now at last we come full circle, to the reason for my downfall. The truth about fate and demiurges, and the reason I abandoned my life’s work. Demiurges are not living things as we understand them. They interact with the universe they created only sparingly, and only through avatars. Each and every such occasion has shaken the entire divine realm to its core.

“I do not know why they created the universe, or how. I know only that they are all-powerful, utterly immutable, and that there are exactly seven of them—one of which is dead.”

Yoshika shook her head.

“Wait, hold on! I thought where you were going with this was that the Tear is just part of one of those avatars, but it really is part of an actual demiurge?”

“It is, yes. But so are you, and so am I. So are all things. The death of the demiurge didn’t occur before the beginning of the universe—it was the beginning of the universe. All of existence began with the simple paradox of an eternal, unchanging thing undergoing its first and final change. Before you ask, I do not know how this is possible, I only know that it is true.”

“Because a demiurge told you?”

He shook his head slowly.

“Not a demiurge. The very same one whose death heralded the beginning of time—and whose death will also herald the end. Demiurges are timeless. All that exists, existed, or ever will exist, is but a single still image to them. The demiurge from whom our universe was and is to be carved knows precisely how it will die, because it already has.”

Yoshika tried to wrap her head around what Chou was saying, but the logic just went in circles. She didn’t think he was lying, or even wrong, she just couldn’t understand it. As she tried in vain to comprehend, The Bloody Sovereign regarded her with something resembling sympathy.

“Do not feel bad for failing to understand. I have witnessed the birth and death of stars, and contemplated upon the forces of reality for eons. In my life, there was nobody who understood the universe more profoundly than I, and in death I doubt that any have yet surpassed me. For all that, I don’t understand it either.”

Yoshika chuckled mirthlessly.

“It’s not the demiurges that confuse me, Chou—well, they do but that’s not important—it’s you.”

He furrowed his brows.

“Have I not made myself clear? The demiurges are timeless and unkillable, yet as long as they exist, there can be no freedom. As long as they can see all that was or will be, nothing we do has any meaning. I knew it could be done, because I held the evidence of it in my hand, but by the time I realized the truth, I was already a slave to my destiny—and it was not my destiny to slay the demiurges.”

“So? You should have found something else to live for. Who cares about the demiurges, or the creation of the universe, or ultimate power? You mocked him before, but that’s one thing that even Sovereign Shen understood better than you. There’s more to life than just the pursuit of power. You could have learned that from your disciple, but you were too arrogant to see what was right in front of your face!”

Chou sneered down at her with disdain, but then just shook his head with resignation.

“I do not expect you to understand. It matters little, in any case. My final gambit was a failure. The boy who read my scroll is too broken to be of any use, and you have already begun to walk the path of a sovereign. None of the others have the potential.”

“So now what?”

He turned away and began to walk down the endless hallway, his words echoing between them.

“Nothing. I tire of this, and my purpose has come to an end. Do what you will—I won’t hinder you any further. I do not hate you, Yoshika, but I loathe what you will become. If I still lived, I would strike you down where you stand, but that is not within the scope of my designated function.”

“Wait, that’s it? Just like that?”

He stopped and glanced back at her.

“Did you expect a fight? I don’t care anymore. My legacy is yours—go forth and conquer. Become everything that I hated. I can think of no end more fitting for The Bloody Sovereign.”

As Chou turned away, his body disintegrated and the immense pressure around her faded. The spell maintaining the construct stopped dead, and the divine essence hanging in the air became loose and unrestrained.

Yoshika stood for a moment in stunned silence.

“Did he just self-destruct?”

Jianmo chuckled.

“Looks like. I wouldn’t let your guard down, though—even without a will behind it this place is bound to be dangerous.”

“Jianmo, please don’t be offended, but your master might be the worst person to ever exist.”

“He had that effect on people, yes.”

Yoshika shook her head and resolved to put all the confusion about demiurges and Sovereign Chou behind her for now. Perhaps it would matter again, some day, but her worries were closer to home.

First, save her world from being destroyed by the same power sustaining it, then find a way to protect it from the inevitable war over that same artifact. She’d figure the rest out later.