Infamous Goose

2.7 Interlude: The Dao Progenitor

The boy’s name was Xing. Xing Wu, one of the Young Masters of the Xing clan, built and flourishing among the outer edges of Pangaea, just barely outside the reach of the Celestial Palace. And he had never faced a hardship in his life. Not like some had.

In all twenty years of his life he’d had everything handed to him on a silver platter, and not just because he’d been born the son of a noble family. He was weak, physically, even if he was exceedingly talented in qi cultivation. E...

2.6 Hearth and Home

“It’s very interesting, what’s happening to your Hidden Realm, Morgan.” I said conversationally, my hands working even as my eyes stared off into space. Bits of metal lay all around me as I fashioned them into chainmail, my fingers bending cold steel as easily as clay to make the little links. There was no purpose to my project here, not truly, I just enjoyed working with my hands.

“I don’t care,” Morgan groused, paws over its eyes as it lay on the floor of its cell. I pou...

2.5 Hidden Realm

I gripped threads of energy, winding them together to form four thick ropes tied to the core of each of the Realms. The elemental gods all floated around me, watching, aiding, each maneuvering threads and streams of their own, respective, elemental focuses. My muscles strained as I held everything in place, using nothing but my physical might to hold these streams of energy and preparing to heave one last time.

Sure, I could use my divine powers to do this, but it had been a long time s...

2.4 Echoes of the Past

Elvira found me while I was teaching Kei, Reika watching on as she worked to develop the top of the Life-Giving Tree. She descended from the skies on a ray of golden light, piercing the cloudy substance of the Heaven Realm and the barrier separating the Physical and Heaven. Reika huffed at her sister at the interruption, the staircase she had been setting up crumbling a little under Elvira’s natural pressure.

“You’ll have to build it stronger than that, dear,” I told her absentl...

2.3 Here There Be Dragons

A party was being thrown. Confetti filled the air, streamers draped across the halls of my palace, while gods and other spiritual beings milled about, chatting happily. Balls of multicolored light drifted about the center of the grand foyer, circling the large fountain that sprayed water merrily into the air, a rainbow forming in the mist. Little spirits danced about in the air around it, looking like little faeries in the light of the Realm Sun and Lunar Star, their soft light filtering down...

2.2 The Old Man and the Sea

Her name was Inesa, and her meeting with a crusty old fisherman changed her life. She met him on the docks of a small fishing village, the weathered old man mending a hole in his net with gnarled fingers, his progress slowed by arthritis and age, but still noticeable as the work of someone who had done such a task his entire life. The dock itself was long, the wood creaking underfoot as she settled herself beside the old man, who barely spared her a glance with his cloudy eyes before returnin...

2.1 I Have No Point

I peeked into Morgan’s chamber to find the wolf sleeping on its side, just beneath the window which let light from the Realm Sun in. It hadn

I peeked into Morgan’s chamber to find the wolf sleeping on its side, just beneath the window which let light from the Realm Sun in. It hadn’t been too long since the Sun War ended, so its injuries still showed, though it was starting to look better. The spidery legs it had lost were slowly growing back, it had filled out a little bit, and th...

1.39 A Talk Between Gods (Epilogue)

I sat alone, a cup of fragrant green tea in one hand as I stared out into the Void. For the first time in a long time, my thoughts were blissfully empty, devoid of pressing need to act or do anything. My incarnations were running about the Realms, doing work still, of course, but my main body? It was taking some time.

And I was waiting for someone.

I saw it before it reached me. It was just a flicker, a glimmer of light, a vague shape flying in out of the corner of my eye from som...

1.38 The Star

I watched Sol’s memories, having not destroyed them, so I could understand his actions and motivations. Every passing second made me madder and madder at him; he’d felt cheated out of being the greatest thing in the sky, with the Lunar Star; he’d felt cheated by Elvira, who had rebuffed his attempts to woo her, more out of sense of duty than of a dislike of the sun god; his possessiveness of the Realms gradually increased, desiring nothing more than to have all of creation be his, to th...

1.37 Aftermath

The immediate aftermath of the battle was as messy as all battles were. Perhaps this one even moreso, as it was a fight between gods.

Burial shrouds were laid out for those who had been slain, or whose souls had been so grievously injured they might have to re-enter the cycle of reincarnation to heal. Many of the Heavenly Host were among the dead. Two of Elvira’s angels had been victims of such a fate, and one god. More were so badly injured, they would take millennia to heal properly...

1.36 Of Fate and Fools

“You would raise a hand against Your own child?” the Shadow asked, baring its fangs even as sadness crept into its tone. I smiled thinly, keeping my posture relaxed and sword at the ready, held loosely in my grip as it was. The blade seemed to vibrate in my hand, as if sensing my intentions. “They truly have corrupted You, haven’t they? Great One, I will remind You of Your true self.”

I did not verbally respond, stepping forward and swinging in the same motion, space warping a...

1.35 This is How High the Heavens Are

Alexander fell from the skies, drawing my attention away from the condensing of the Lunar Star’s power, the Shadow gripping his throat between its jaws as they tumbled to the ground, colliding with great force upon the lands of Pangaea. I could only spare one eye to watch my mightiest child as I finished my work, counting the seconds until I was finished.

And what I saw roused old blood within me.

Alexander bit and snarled, all but immobilized as the Shadow rose victorious from ...

1.34 Keep It Together

The Shadow made a noise in the back of its throat as it turned back toward Elvira and her siblings, amusement writ all across its features. “It seems the Great One has turned Their gaze away from us. Seems you no longer have Their favor,” it drawled out. Elvira scowled, six wings flaring outward as she grit her teeth, fighting against the pain that came with the damage to her Realm.

It felt like a dagger had been driven into her gut, deeper even than the bone spur of the Shadow. The...

1.33 Explosions

Once again, I was forced to watch as my children slaughtered each other, this time on a far grander scale than ever before. What surprised me the most about this entire thing, however, was not the ferocity in which both sides fought – it was the fervor with which the Shadow’s forces proclaimed to be loyal to me.

No fight emphasized this more than the battle surrounding my two angels, Fu Hao and Stilicho.

“You dare to call yourself loyal!” Fu Hao bellowed, clapping...

1.32 The Call to War

The entirety of the Four Realms trembled when the Shadow emerged from its hiding place. Rifts opened in the skies, gaping holes in reality that led to a hidden network of spaces that wove throughout all of creation, and darkness seeped out.

War came with it.

Alexander was first to act. He had been resting in his cave, watching the spirit river flow by. The moment the stench of the Shadow reached him, long before he saw any of its forces, golden flames began to spill from between h...

1.31 Interlude: The Shadow of the Four Realms

The Shadow remembered the first breath of creation. That great sigh that rippled through the Void, bringing with it awareness and a litany of souls. It had been born before that first breath, leaving it, a few lesser souls, and the Great One alone in the Void. The Void, which harmed neither it nor the Great One, yet would destroy the lesser souls in an instant. Curiosity had driven it to explore the empty vastness some, though it never strayed too far from the Great One as They toyed with tho...

1.30 The Call of War

Alexander floated beside me as I walked through the art-adorned halls of my palace, the god of fire and goddess of water clinging to his back like little monkeys. They had found him the moment we returned to my palace, having been doing something in my garden, and immediately latched onto him with happy cries. I could see the urge to chatter at him tugging at the two gods, but they respectfully remained quiet, letting Alexander and I finish our conversation.

“Are you sure about what y...

1.29 Floating the River

Alexander and I went swimming in the Spirit River. Energy and souls alike drifted by as we floated along, watching the turning of the Realms and traversing the entirety of the river. We started in the Heaven Realm.

Much of the time we spent in comfortable silence. We watched as spirits of all kinds manipulated the energy already existing in the land itself or was produced by souls – many of whom didn’t even notice our presence – twisting it and putting it to work, following tribut...

1.28 Kei is a Problem Child (Lovingly So)

Reika found me at the roots of the Life-Giving Tree, smoothing out a stress fracture I had found in the fabric of reality. It wasn’t dangerous yet, but certain imbalances in the Realms’ structure would cause such things to continually worsen. If not addressed, say, with me creating the Lunar Star, then it would lead to the collapse of the Realms themselves. Not soon by any means, but the fractures will start causing serious issues in the next twenty to thirty thousand years if left alone....

1.27 An Immortal Army

Elvira led me deeper into her palace, holding the new soul I had made the entire time. And she presented before me a problem.

“We need an army.” She said bluntly, leading me through the winding halls. Artworks lined them, from multicolored tapestries to stone busts of various gods, spirits, and angels. For a moment she stopped at a window overlooking a large courtyard, spirits playing amongst the garden therein. A bouquet of lightflowers grew in the windowsill, their petals emitting...

1.26 Report

I meditated for over a thousand years. One thousand and fifty seven, to be exact, and the moment I returned to full awareness the Shadow’s forces fled. A haunting, echoing call rang out through the Four Realms, and the dark angels and dark spirits that had been harassing the Realms dropped whatever they were doing and fled. Not all of them escaped into the rifts in space the Shadow created, quite a few were caught by various other beings and spirits. Most caught were sealed away, cultivator...

1.25 Karmic Immortality

Fang Xu met god.

He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but know it he did. Perhaps that was the point of the ascension trial. Each step across the golden bridge that formed before his soul when the trial began – the waters of the karmic ocean lapping against the gilded posts holding it up – brought him closer and closer to that divine soul, the creator and parent of all.

Each section of the bridge, of which there were seven, presented with it a new challenge. Yet chains held him ba...

1.24 The First Clash

Patience was not one of my many virtues, hence why it may have been a blessing that I was largely in deep meditation when Fang Xu was working on reaching his karmic tribulation. Fifty years is not an especially long time to someone like me, but the wait would still have been agonizing – especially because I’d been looking forward to the reuniting of the two lovers for quite some time now.

And that moment had finally arrived. My consciousness pulled itself awake just enough that I co...

1.23 Fang Xu

The man’s name was Fang Xu, and he was damn tired. He sat in his little home, a log-and-plaster house situated at the edge of town, staring out the window at the dense green forest. Grey skies loomed overhead, the sun just starting to rise, and he suppressed a jaw-popping yawn.

“I swear to Father Luotian and Mother Statera,” he cursed, rubbing his stomach absently. “I must have been tricked. There’s no way a sane, well-informed person would have agreed to a life ...

1.22 Heavenly Tribulations

Part of the nature of my enlightenment was that, when I fell into deep meditation, I did not truly disappear from the Four Realms – not that I ever could. I was the Heavenly Will, and the Heavenly Will was me. And the moment I touched upon it, allowing it to merge with me once again, filling a piece of that hole I felt within me, something was triggered. It felt like finding the last piece of a puzzle you hadn’t known was missing; and suddenly tables and charts and information flashed in ...

1.21 What is a Dao?

“What is a Dao?” I asked no one in particular. Kei glanced up at me from where she’d been playing with a toy boat I’d made for her out of wood and shrugged, then promptly went back to pushing it along in the little creek she knelt at. We were sitting in my garden, her enjoying playing with the plants and little spirit beasts I kept – there was a monkey swinging through the trees Kei liked to laugh at – while I fretted over the idea that had been teasing me for the past few hours.<...

1.20 Foxes and Men

Reika shoved Kei into my arms, and all but demanded I watch her for a time. I wasn’t complaining, of course, I loved watching the rambunctious little fox-girl, it was just surprising. I’d been shaping a new sun in the Physical Realm – the idea was to create a galaxy, with the Tree and Pangaea as the galactic center – when Reika popped by, shoved a squirming Kei at me, and promptly vanished. Which left me alone in space, a just-finished sun before me and a half-divinity that was still ...

1.19 The Council of Gods

“Are all of Father’s incarnations sufficiently preoccupied?” Elvira whispered to the two gods behind her. It was Sol who answered, Gilles, the one Elvira hoped would reply, remaining silent.

“Yes, my Lady. Reika just handed Kei off to the final incarnation to keep His Majesty busy. The others have been distracted or are otherwise preoccupied by their duties. I will inform you if any fall out of sight of my Sun.” he whispered back, bowing his head, golden hair held perfectly in...

1.18 Worry

My incarnation stood beside my true body, frowning slightly. I really did look a mess, sitting cross-legged in my newly created meditation room. My hair was in disarray, be it male or female form. My face was pale, my robes tattered and stained with soot. My arm of primordial chaos looked a little weird, its grey-and-blue coloration a sharp contrast to my natural skin tone. Yet my breathing was even, expression placid and calm as power began to build in my core. Since I did not have the seemi...

1.17 Here There Be Angels

When I dream, I see everything.

That is both an exaggeration and not. I have seemingly little control over what, exactly, I see, but I can see anything. This time, I experienced the lives of mortals.

Every pain they went through, I experienced. The strength of their emotions flowed through me, every little pain and heartbreak. Celene’s depression and pain, that sudden unwillingness to survive after the unfortunate death of her fated lover – every inch of it tried to pierce my ...