(Aden's P.O.V)

"You look so worried. What is going on?"

Kori asked the minute we were alone. She had a hands on my cheeks, and a concerned expression on her face. I gently removed her hands from my face and held them in my own.

"It's not worry. Just..." I breathed in, struggling to fully explain what I wanted to say. The meaning was there but the words kept on slipping through my grasp because of fear. I...I couldn't take her rejection. Maybe now was not the time to ask the question?

Immortality and godhood were not for everyone and I was terrified of Star choosing to remain mortal, content with growing old when our kids and I would live for a very long time. The concept of forever is hard to grasp but by the time I reached my end if there was one, the universe might have already died and been reborn a dozen times over.

"Just ask."

Kori's voice broke through my wildly raving thoughts. I blinked.

"It's not that simple."

The corner of her lips turned up.

"The big bad demon bane: Aden Strong is scared of asking one simple question."

Oh...she gone do me like that?

Wait.

"How did you know I wanted to ask something?"

I asked, grabbing her tight to me. She giggled at the action.

"Answer me honestly or the war is on."

I threatened with a glint in my eye.

Kori stiffened in alarm, staring up at me in disbelief.

"You would never..."

I held up a hand and started wiggling my fingers.

"You don't think I will? Are you sure you want to take the chance? Once I start tickling... I'll not stop. Ever."

I whispered close to her ear. Kori shivered before sighing in defeat, a flush on her cheeks.

"Okay okay okay you win."

She admitted, wrapping both of her arms around my neck.

"You get this cute look on your face whenever you're about to ask something. I've learned to read your expressions."

I raised my eyebrows at that.

"Ok, that is fucking hot." I growled and pulled her closer, my lips inching towards hers. Kori stopped them with her fingers and a tiny shake of her head.

"Not until you ask me what it was you wanted."

I huffed.

"Maybe my question was why you keep on teasing me?"

I caressed her ass, peppering kisses on her neck.

"Mmmh that's...good." she moaned and I grew bolder. I kissed, licked and sucked on her neck; she was really sensitive there, until her legs started shaking.

An explosion from outside the cottage followed by a loud,

"Explosion is art!" From breeze, cut into the mood and allowed us to briefly come to our senses.

"Aden no."

Kori pulled away from me. We were both breathing heavily at the brief contact. She fixed me a glare and closed her arms over her ample chest. Goddamn those tits are...

"Eyes up here. Remember you had something to ask?"

She said in a stern tone. I knew there wasn't escaping this talk now. I ran a hand down by face, wondering just how pathetic I could get. I mean I had faced off against the god of evil. I had so many abilities than I knew what to do with but the prospect of one honest conversation with Kori scared me. Why are the simplest things always the hardest?

"Ok...okay." I started pacing, gathering up the courage.

"Aden what is it? You're scaring me!" Kori was now just as nervous as I was. Fuck, get it together Aden. I took a deep breath and blurted it out.

"I want you to let me turn you into a god!"

For an instant, nothing happened.

"What..."

Kori took a step back. Oh no. But I needed a clear answer. Even if it hurt.

"I NEED you to let me turn you into a god. Please..."

She rubbed her arm and looked away. My heart broke a little.

I guess she noticed it because she was upon me in a second, hugging me.

"No Aden! Please don't misunderstand! I just...it's a lot. I'm...not ready. Not yet."

With each word, my world seemed to gain more cracks. I knew in the past I would have been insensitive and immature.

I wouldn't have wanted or even tried to understand her point of view. Just seen the betrayal. I would have said something that would have hurt us both, something like...'If you really loved me, it shouldn't take you a second to decide.'

But I wasn't that scared little boy anymore. I lifted my hands and hugged her back.

"Alright, then what do you need to do first before you give me an answer?"

Kori sniffed inside my embrace in relief.

"I've been afraid that all this has been a dream. Is a dream. My biggest fear is to get so lost in it that when it's time to wake up, I'll...never be able to dream again."

And with that single statement, I understood it all.

"This is about your sister, isn't it?"

The silence confirmed it for me.

"She wasn't always so bitter. However, living in a place where everyone has the one thing you have never had, took it's toll on her. I would have been broken growing up if I was the one in that position."

She was wrong.

"I don't believe that. You have a genuine heart of gold Kori. I have never met anyone like you before. Never doubt that."

"Thanks...babe."

She replied after a while. We both broke out in laughter. This was the first time she had called me 'babe' in...ever.

"It's okay. I got you." We hugged for what felt like forever before I shook her gently, only to find out that she had fallen asleep in my embrace. I easily lifted her off her feet then looked at her belly and smiled.

"This is your doing, isn't it? She's been getting tired a lot easily these days." I carried her to the bed and placed her under the covers.

"Don't be too hard on her okay." I kissed the baby bump, taking a few seconds to listen to the tiny thump of our unborn baby's life force. It was such a tiny thing but the quality of life that the child had was already above most gods.

"You're going to be terrifyingly powerful. Make sure you use that power to protect the ones you love."

I liked to think that it could understand me. But even if it couldn't, talking to my unborn child was like therapy.

Still, it bothered me slightly that the child was taking in more energy from Kori, hence putting her at risk. I rolled up my sleeves.

"Time for daddy to contribute."

Now then, I'm a god of life, this should be easy without exhausting myself too much for what Gaea and I needed to do after I was done here.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I looked deep within my oceans of power. Vast expanses of tranquil reserves, waiting to be called on. I possessed an innate understanding of every single domain under me.

Webs of white, life-giving strands of energy poured out of my arms and into both mother and child. Kori had asked me for time to come to a decision and I respected that. However, time and time again had shown me there was always something I couldn't account for. And before she was a god and able to better protect herself when I couldn't, these enhancements were important.

I used my control over life to enhance her body. Her energy storing and distributing cells were made more plenty. She became able to absorb every light in the electromagnetic spectrum, her bones were hardened to a high degree that she could be placed in the core of the sun and not get crushed by the gravity.

Her flesh fibers grew stronger, more flexible yet remaining sturdy to counter any great pressure or trauma inflicted upon her. And lastly her skin was weaved with a barely detectable energy film that prevented piercing damage, energy blasts and provided environmental shielding to a certain degree.

The last function of the energy film was to regenerate any part of her body almost instantaneously. Yes, something that had been bothering me for so long, was taken care off in a matter of seconds. I could now regenerate, which meant...training montage!!!

The energy film was powered by the excess energy she absorbed at any given time due to her new ability to absorb all light. That was as far as I could go without revealing to her the fact that I had enhanced her. Who am I kidding, she would know. Oh, I could blame it on our kid.

I kissed the baby bump.

"Hey champ, sorry but you'll have to take one for the team so that we can make sure your mom is safe, okay?"

He was my kid, I knew he would understand.

Done with Kori, I decided to focus on the baby. There wasn't a lot I could for it as it was already on the path to being stronger than anyone I had in my realm...which made little to no sense. I mean, the child had been conceived when I was only a grandmaster in my elements and was yet to attain any type of divinity. That didn't stop it's potential from casting a shadow over everything and anything.

Still, enough wasn't enough. I made the same changes to it's make up as I did with Kori. Somehow it was easier and harder. Easier because it was still in its maturing phase and hence these changes would settle down in its biological make up much easier than with a full grown adult and with zero chance of side effects. Harder because the child's own network of personal energy that was a blend of spirit energy and just pure neutral energy tried to fight me off.

Once I was done, Kori glowed with a bright white glow. Her red hair flashing with a green fire, before shifting through every color of the rainbow. Her belly glowed a deep golden as well. When the light show died away, I could tell that each process had gone off without a hitch, making me sigh in relief. I had been ready to use a miracle just to ensure that everything happened the right way.

I then tucked her in, kissed her forehead and left the room, a million thoughts racing inside my mind. These two days had been exhausting mentally. The realm was stable enough that I could now delegate rather than oversee everything.

Which would open up more time for me to begin my preparations for the universal trial. One wrong move and I would garner the dislike of multiple cosmic and conceptual beings. There wasn't a maybe to it. I knew I would make more enemies than allies because of my nature. I wouldn't take any shit. To protect myself and everything else I held dear, I had to be more trouble than it was worth it to deal with me. I needed to be stronger and more prepared.

Which brings us to the first of my preparations on the list.

"Gaea, are you ready?"

I called out once I was outside.

"Of course Master Aden."

"Let's do this."

What are miracles? And what makes them different from...every other type of power system? The answer? Miracles had no limits. With enough faith and divine energy, you could do anything. No seriously, I'm talking reality manipulation bullshit. You could create an entire universe with that.

Granted it would take a lot of precise energy control or reliance on the fundamental connection, a god's divinity had with reality to do something on that scale. It was why gods, true gods at least could do whatever they wanted with faith energy as long as it was within the confines of their domain.

Most of that was subconscious things, like immortality, great Psionic Abilities, power distribution and many more abilities afforded to them, independent of their particular domains. All gods could use telekinesis but not all gods could manipulate fire. The latter was a divine exclusive ability, the former was the subconscious ability made possible through the mysteries of perceiving gods as higher beings.

So to put it in very simple terms, miracles were packets of faith energy gained from worshippers plus a god's own connection to their divinity which gave rise to super divine energy that could do anything as long as you knew exactly what that 'anything' was. The alternative was to rely entirely on your own divinity to shoulder most of the burden.

For example, A lesser miracle like blessing an army to win a war was something I could do even if I wasn't necessarily a god of war (though I was). I was still a different breed of god when compared to the normal ones. The same feat could also be achieved by any other authentic god of war but not a god of love. Different domains and all that. That's besides the point.

99% of gods don't know how do anything more than lesser miracles. The difficulty in controlling all that power scaled with the amount of energy you were dealing with. And that was an iron clad rule, otherwise reality would be dominated by gods doing what they wanted without repercussions.

Here in comes the complications, I was more powerful than any god yet, for all my power, I lacked the computational capabilities to precisely control or in this case perform a miracle on the scale that I needed. A universal scale.

Gaea Didn't.

I warped space and appeared at the core of the realm. A world that was full of complex equations that determined the continued existence of my realm. Inside Gaea's core, I closed my senses off to the world and concentrated inwards.

The power rose up like a tidal wave. An almost infinite amount of faith energy received from all my divinities, be they lesser or major. Worship meant for Adera, Adenal and Adan poured into me. I compressed the power as much as I could. Time lost it's meaning while I was in that space. 10 years casually passed by me as I kept on compressing and refining this energy for the large scale miracle I wanted to perform.

I learned so much about energy control. My comprehension taking over and making known to me endless possibilities on how I could apply all this power to do whatever the fuck I wanted...but that was not what I was going for. My mind whispered to me that I had more than the capability to use this miracle without fucking up the process but I relented. I couldn't ruin this. It needed someone who was always exposed to a huge amount of data and information to initiate the process and that was Gaea.

Time passed some more. 10 more years spent without noticing the passage of time, only brief sparks of knowledge that I had spent more than two decades compressing the energy. In the outside world, only two hours had passed.

Until finally, I held meaning within my soul. Above my oceans was a gigantic humming sphere of unlimited power. Every shred of energy inside was made up of the hopes and dreams of over a trillion minds. A mystery. A miracle.

"Gaea, it's time."

Gaea appeared in the core in her true exotic form. She gave a serious nod.

"Let me take over now."

She widened her hands and everything changed.

(Elsewhere)

The presence in the form of an old man with an umbrella sat on a bench infront of a tranquil pond. A pond that to him was very special. The pond was always, ever tranquil. It's very nature written in the core of it's being was ' calm waters'. An idealistic representation of what he knew his creation could never be. For life was living and living was a conflict. A conflict with the void. The pond also doubled as a way to see what his creation was up to through it's bottomless depths and serene surface.

The presence had been seated on that bench for what might have been eons or maybe seconds when things changed.

Something suddenly happened. A ripple that spread out from the middle of the pond, breaking the tranquility. 'calm waters' no more. Something fundamental to the continued existence of DC had just occured.

Something had strayed from the plan.

Instead of being alarmed or angry, The Presence smiled with pride.

"Attaboy Aden."

(Aden's P.O.V)

The world splintered into multiple fragments and I found myself spread out through everything. I was everything and everything was me. My whole elemental dimensions, air, fire and the recently unlocked water were nothing but extensions of my will.

The entirety of the realm, felt. Not seen. And by my name, was it all so beautiful. I could stay like this forever, feeling what Gaea no doubt felt every single waking moment. Then I felt a power, no a substance entrenched in complex meaning. Meaning I couldn't hope to understand now with my limited perception. That meaning wrapped itself around me, like a warm blanket. Around my realm. And then, the dimension as a whole, left the great expanse of the void. Base reality, where all universes with the possibility of existing have existed and will exist.

I broke the norm.

My dimension was no longer part of 'that' fundamental layer of existence. I had pushed past the boundaries of something infinite and transcended it's unrelenting push and pull. The void was all there was. Everything inside the great white void, was the great white void.

All except for my realm.

This new layer of reality was something that had existed before yet hadn't. A paradox.

I have no idea how long it took me to force myself back into a humanoid figure. Infinitely larger, infinitely wider, hovering around a swirling sphere of energy and life. A representation of my realm, with nothing tangible or physical existing beyond it's boundaries.

A conditional void. However, if nothing could exist beyond it, then how come I could perceive it's boundaries and exist outside their influence? Was this conditional void truly different to the void from before? Yes and no. It was hard to explain an Extreme.

I had achieved what I had set out to do and that was enough for now.

'Which was what exactly?' I could imagine Lucifer asking with an upturn of his lips.

Well, I had managed to separate my realm from the DC multiverse or any multiverse for that matter.

I now existed outside of it in a different dimension of reality. I couldn't call it higher because that would mean there was a precedent to it's existence. It was just different. The Presence, the Great Darkness or any number of cosmic entities had no way to ever reach me. They could only perceive what they had created and where. But the Elemental Dimension followed it's own rules now. My Rules.

It's nature was technically easy to comprehend.

Remember, this was beyond space and time but not beyond reality. Base reality is what we believe to be the truest foundation of existence. Anything less than that or more is simulated reality.

Still the question remains, what exactly is this reality. This conditional void. And why is it conditional? Gaea and I called it The Self dimension.

A theorized dimension that Gaea and I came up with to allow me direct and entire control over the realm as well as separate it in case the universal trial did not go the way I wanted. I was realistic. For all my power, there were a few beings who could challenge me and kick my ass. This way though, no matter how powerful they all were, none of them could hope to reach my realm. There was an infinite amount of distance between them and I was the only short cut available.

You can think of The Self dimension as a reality dominated by the agency of being. My being. My thoughts bring about it's tangibility. Thoughts are merely electric signals running through neurons in someone's brain and activating a response based on an external stimulus. I think. Gaea explained it much better.

However, that simplistic and often ignored quality is what enabled all this. See, thoughts cannot be seen or heard or touched. They do not have physicality. Even the way telepaths read minds is through using their own neurons to interpret what someone is thinking.

Thoughts are the truest expression of being. The soul is the being but the mind is understanding of the being.

So the void was conditional because only I could perceive its existence. Only I could know what it was or wasn't because I was the void yet the void was a different entity entirely.

Here's a perfect example. Try accurately explaining what Nothing is to anyone. That was what the void was to any other being that was not me.