The Celestial Empress walked amongst the dead. A piece of white cloth covered her face, threads of silk interwoven with magic to prevent disease from spreading. Yet that did little to stop the smell of death from touching her, nor the feeling of cloying blood from clinging to her hands. The battle had been brief. It had been intense. And never before had she seen so much death, all at once.

  Her heart was solemn as she knelt beside a line of corpses, recognizing one of her Immortal friends among the dead. She saw young Fae, not even on their second century, lying beside Immortals who had been well into their tenth millennium. A great dragon beside scores of avians, elementals dead beside Arachions, angels beside powerful dark spirits. All were equal in death. All were equal in war. Even she had come close to death at least a dozen times in that fight.

  The Celestial Empress bowed her head, not yet praying to Statera Luotian. They were fighting for Them, after all, so what condolences could she offer? Ask that They guide the lost souls? That They help the children, who were dying for their Parent? She could not imagine such a thing, not when They were unable to truly help, as They must so desire. Instead she simply wished the souls of the deceased good luck, and turned her attention to the other thing occupying the bulk of her mind.

  For every dead member of the Four Realms, there were at least ten deceased of the One World. No gods had perished as far as she knew, but broken ships, dead bodies, and destroyed war machines littered the space around the Four Realms like an obscene asteroid belt of death. Blood made small floating lakes, bodies mountains of corpses, and souls...souls drifted aimlessly, uncertain where to go. As she watched, angels and dragons both moved about through the wreckage, teams of her own people collecting useful objects to be sent back for study, while others burned the mountains of corpses with holy fire.

  She let out a long, slow breath, and looked down at her hands. A single spot of red rested on the back of her right hand. A spot, where one of the infected had touched her.

  It never entered her body. She could feel it trying to claw its way into her system, to corrupt her qi. Already she could feel it trying to inflame her insecurities, attempting to whispers words of inadequacy in her ears, that she needed to be stronger, smarter, to throw her dao star into the sky and become a god like her mentor, Xing Wu.

  But she was not so weak to succumb. She had survived the Immortality Trial of Statera Luotian; she had inspected every inch of her soul, faced every facet of her being, and come to terms with it a million times over. She did not need something as glorious as a dao star; her dao lay in the empire she had built, a dao of people and places, not something to be hung in the night sky. If Xing Wu had forged the path to heaven, she laid the foundation of earth.

  With a scoff she plucked the rot off, examining it closely. It wanted to scream at her. To shout. To bid her obey.

  It did not understand the Four Realms. They were cultivators; people who defied the heavens because they could, people who struggled to immortality and beyond. They fought for the sake of their parents and their gods and all those behind them. Even if this rot did make them obsessive...it would only strengthen them further. How could one become Immortal, if they were not a little obsessive over the idea? That was the truth of it.

  Golden fire erupted from her fingertips, not quite divine in nature, but close, and incinerated the spore.

  She dusted off her hands and cast one last look at the fallen dead. She bowed her head in respect, and turned back to the defenses.

  Even the dead had no time to rest, because she had figured out another one of their games. They had lost people. The One World had lost far more. But comparatively, comparing the number of forces lost to the number of forces they had total, the One World had still lost a lesser percentage of people than the Four Realms.

  It was a war of attrition. And if they engaged in that, they would lose. So she would present her thoughts to the gods, and pray they already had a plan for a counter-offensive.

  ***

  Atreum hissed as his wound was bandaged, his broad chest bare in the healing tent. The divine servant who attended him dipped his head in apology before getting back to work, sewing up the still weeping wound with a thread of divine energy. Whatever that damnable "angel" with the spear had done, he wasn't healing as fast as he wanted.

  "Lord Atreum, Count Jax here to see you." One of his generals, a blank-faced automaton Curie had developed specifically for him, intoned, stepping into his tent and lifting the flap. Atreum did not bother with clothes, keeping his arm raised so he could continue receiving treatment while the Count entered.

  The man was a relatively weak god. Jax was a minor god of the land, appearing as a fat man with far too much jewelry, and dark skin. His bead eyes met Atreum's as he entered, jowls jiggling as he smiled widely.

  Atreum scowled internally. If this fool didn't control a large amount of precious resources, including the magic metal that made up the siege weapons, he would never deal directly with the man. He was far too...

  "Atreum! I am so glad to see you are well! When I heard you had been injured, I feared the worst. What would we do without the great general of war guiding our forces?" he cried genuinely, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

  Genuine. That was the word Atreum was looking for. Genuine. A man who looked like a fat, greedy pig had no right to be a jovial and kind as he was. And such a man had no business being near or advising on war, either.

  "This kind of thing happens in war," Atreum drawled.

  "Yes, quite." Jax said, wringing his hands, sausage like fingers covered in rings glinting in the lantern light of the tent. "I was just, uh, wondering if it is truly worth it? We lost a lot of people. Soldiers, equipment."

  "You question the viability of my methods?" Atreum asked sharply, meeting Jax's eyes with sudden intensity. The fat man dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief, wiping away sweat and looking away. All the same, he answered.

  "I wonder if the loss of life..." he trailed off. "Is worth whatever we will gain?" Atreum had to give it to him, despite being a weak god, at least he had to balls to question him. He wouldn't begrudge the man that.

  "Yes. We lost more soldiers total, but I am confident we lost a lesser percentage of our forces than the enemies." Atreum said, wincing as the servant accidentally poked him with the needle. He did not flinch, though, and shooed the being out of the room when he finished. "We also gained a good deal of information about their top-tier forces, and dealt quite a bit of damage to their front line, their vanguard. We have troops to spare. They do not."

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "That's a bit..." Jax trailed off, obviously taking moral issue with his tactics. But Atreum did not need him to agree. Only to keep supplying metal and material.

  "Perhaps it does sound harsh, but that is simply the quality of the enemy we are up against. I do admit that they fight admirably. An entire universe, fighting like the mad dogs they are," In truth, he admired them. Rarely did he find a culture that was capable of uniting in such a manner, to stand against an overwhelming force. Be it Xing Wu, the dragon Alexander, or even the Celestial Empress who had inspired the mortal troops, to even many of the mortals themselves, they fought without fear of death. With a firmness of heart and unity of mind that truthfully inspired jealousy. If he had a force as dedicated as that, this war would be over.

  But he didn’t have a force like that. And they were arrayed against him, a wall of steel and determination, which meant figuring out how to beat that.

  "At least if some of our other plans go through, then we will not need a frontal assault such as this again. We merely have to wait for them to collapse internally." Atreum said with a shrug, slipping into his red t-shirt and rolling his shoulders, ignoring the way the cut along his ribs pulled.

  "What do you mean?" Jax asked, hands freezing. Atreum huffed, shaking his head as he exited his tent, surveying the armies. The dead were still being tallied - easily in the billions - but the dead were not his concern right now. The dead were the Four Realms concern.

  His concern were the other plans he had set into motion, and he sat just outside his tent, dismissing Jax with a wave of his hand once he was certain the portly man had nothing left of value to say, not that he had anything to say regardless.

  And he watched. And he waited.

  ***

  Its name was Thanijo, and it was Death.

  The god of death drifted into the Four Realms, dancing between souls, its long scythe all but invisible to all who would look upon it. In truth, it hated this realm.

  Those who claimed to be immortal, not deny the natural state of death in a way that grated its very domain, went against everything it represented. Even if Atreum had not ordered it, Thanijo would have hated and tried to take as many of these people's souls as it could.

  Its pale fingers twitched around the haft of its scythe, form shifting to whatever it needed to be most to reap a soul - in this case, for its current target, nothing at all. Its presence vanished, the ever-present pressure of the Four Realms Will pushing down upon its shoulders but never completely aware of its presence.

  It was just death. Even here, where people tried to deny it, it was a natural thing.

  Thanijo drifted through the barrier carefully, slipping past the defenders. Angels did not so much as flinch at its passing - once, a green-haired goddess of the wind looked directly at it, frowning, cocking her head to the side as she searched for it but never found it. It hovered over the medical stations, pausing only briefly to debate over reaping some of the dying and injured within, but eventually deciding against it. It had bigger game to hunt. And then, far too easily, it was inside.

  The Four Realms was a mockery of everything it knew. Instead of a clear life and afterlife, a material realm and the realm of the soul, it was split into four different parts. More, if you counted the blasphemous immortality. There was a realm of pure, blinding holy power that reminded Thanijo of Yueya's palace - but it didn't understand why one would separate Heaven from the earth? There was the physical realm, which was a strange, fragmented area of elements and a giant tree that radiated life energy and growth; so similar, yet so different, to the One World's land. Then a realm of darkness that was not quite death, and an afterlife that flowed through it all.

  Thanijo shuddered, slipping through qi and false void as it descended into the Realms itself, doing its best to ignore all the blasphemy going on around it. How could beings live here? The energy was way too dense; it was like swimming through honey. Thanijo pushed on regardless, pausing only once, briefly, to check that its camouflage was working, as well as the tracking.

  A piece of Yueya's divinity hummed in Thanijo's palm, blending it into the background of the Four Realms, blinding the Will, however momentarily, while simultaneously drawing it toward the one it was connected to.

  The piece of itself that had been stolen.

  Thanijo didn't know how Atreum had gotten a piece of Yueya's divinity but it didn't care, either. If it led it to the one who allowed such blasphemy over death, it would ignore what was necessary. This entire universe was an affront to its senses, to its very existence.

  Forward it darted, slipping between flows of energy, dodging past the watchful gazes of those who might possibly be able to see it - but even dreams could not foresee death, and this realm had no god of foresight, as best it could tell. Thanijo dodged and ran and flew, past the tiny mountains, beyond the tree that radiated life, and down, down, down, into the heart of the Realm, into the tiny cracks no one else could see or know.

  The Hidden Realm, they called it. It was extremely well hidden, so the name was very much appropriate. However, with information given to Thanijo by Atreum, about all the Four Realms inner workings, it was trivial to find. It was death, and death came for all, no matter how well hidden.

  Some small part of itself wondered how Atreum had gotten ahold of this information, but shelved those thoughts for later.

  Instead, it flew, and flew, and flew, until finally, it came to its goal.

  A door, guarded by powerful immortal beings. They radiated divinity, but were not gods; merely silver-armored beings with a mockery of true divine immortality. The "heavenly host," powerful, elite troops of Elvira, the Goddess of Heaven.

  They fell to a single stroke of Thanijo's scythe, their lives snuffed out, their souls ascending to whatever heretical afterlife this accursed place had. Thanijo did not think it would matter much, which is why he let those souls go and did not snuff them out, as well. Soon, this entire universe would be destroyed and all their souls would shatter.

  Thanijo slipped inside, the shard of Yueya's divinity shuddering in delight at being so near to its goal. To its reunion with its self. Thanijo had only a few more feet to go, a little bit further to find the heart to this entire damnable place and stop it from beating forever.

  It slid forward, down the hall, through the wards and spells, to find it.

  A man - no, a woman - with horns and hair of black. Curie's mighty curse crackled in her body, a young child, a newborn, practically, sleeping just beside her. The authority of Curie radiated from the being, and Thanijo's eyes narrowed to slits. This was it. Everything it had been waiting for -

  Thanijo sensed the danger far, far too late. It threw itself backward, but the jaws of oblivion were already there; time ticking away endlessly, stopping even Death as black jaws clowsed around its throat - and even death was no more.

  ***

  The Rival did not even look up as the weird ghost thing was eaten. "It is a good thing you made it quick. What even was that?" he said conversationally, licking his finger and turning the page to his book. Beside Statera, little Amari Ren babbled, one tiny, pudgy hand reaching out and grabbing a piece of the curse, the black lightning crackling but not doing anything.

  “Just a rat, snooping about,” Morgan growled out, tone of voice at odds with what it had just said.

  "Must you let pests into a room of healing?" Randus complained, pouring himself a cup of steaming tea.

  "Silence, both of you," Morgan growled, thought the smacking of its lips and the smile on its face betrayed how pleased it was. "Who are we to turn down a gift, when it is delivered to our front door?" This time the Rival did look up, to see a little ball of divinity held on the tip of Morgan's spider-like limbs. The Shadow grinned fiercely, stalking forward and placing the ball against Stateara Luotian's chest, watching, pleased, as it sunk into her aura.

  The Rival frowned, but made no move to stop it. Randus didn't either. Especially not when they felt her aura stabilize a bit more, the curse's intensity fading just a touch more.

  "There. Now even more beings will know the glory of the Heavens," Morgan hissed. The Rival stared at it, judging what to say or do in this situation.

  "I agree with Randus," he settled on eventually, turning back to his book, finger on the line he left off of. "Don’t let pests in next time." Morgan cackled in response, and the Rival relaxed a bit , leaning back in his chair.

  It was a good thing Morgan got to that foul god first.

  He would not have been as kind as a quick oblivion.