Upon the open waves of the sea, there are many things that one can surely notice. For one, there was not a cloud in the sky, which would of course mean that any ships sailing within the immediate area, would be hard pressed to deal with the cloying heat. Secondly, and this is the strangest bit of information, there were no waves upon this area. However, that was more of a quirk of the area around the Gerard Archipelago, than anything outright malicious. However, the third thing that one could notice, if they had the sharpest of eyes and the greatest of racial bonuses, was that a few kilometers out from the beach of the archipelago, nearby a fishing boat, there was a small divot in the ocean. In the grand scheme of things, no one should rightly care about such a divot, especially of the size that it was currently at. Nevertheless, this was important all the same for one particular cause. Now, before this reason is divulged, there are a few things that need to be stated.

First and foremost, there are many truths in the world, even when not many people know about them. Many of these are rather benign, like for example, which tree produces the best tasting fruit in the world, while others are a bit more difficult to fully comprehend. Just to give fair warning, the next few paragraphs will briefly dip into a specific secret truth so that people who are given access to read this, might understand why the cause of the divot, the person itself, which is discussed herein is so deserving of being feared.

There are clearly defined and known ways in which new gods are created. Either some old ones combine their energies to form a being personifying a new concept, or a new permanent god appears in the world because of some focused mortal influence. However, one person giving power to a specific concept isn't quite enough for a god to be created. Others must convene and embrace the concept and consider it to be worth giving power to. As such, many gods are either mortals ascended, because of the desire to introduce and embody the concept, or they are simply heralds for a concept brought into individual existence.

However, before everything was made easier for mortals to live their lives in accordance with the system upheld by Justicia, gods were formed very differently. Back then, gods could be created for a much wider variety of reasons. More often than not, the first ones to come into existence were self-formed from universal concepts and not mortal ones, concepts like time or heat. Some were even the effect, or maybe the cause, of affinities of the age. Nowadays, most of the old gods have dissolved or simply combined into newer ones, the concepts they embodied being forgotten, outdated or repurposed. In some rare cases, the old god split, simply because mortals have a difference of opinion on the specific concept the god embodied, but both sides of the schism provided enough belief to create a schism in the god itself. That is why churches are so important to the gods. Besides, of course, the other benefits such a diety receives from belief, the established church helps maintain a specific image of that god.

There is an unspoken law regarding the conception of a god, however. One that's always been upheld, even to the modern day, and this is a secret in which many gods will fight to keep silent. Some even going further to seek to hide it, than all other secrets that they personally hold dear.

That secret, being that gods, almost always, have duality.

Now, it might not seem apparent as to why that exactly makes this secret such a harsh one. Most mortals who worship a god which exists, or which they believe should exist, don't really try to understand why the god of the opposite concept should exist. Sure, there are gods that naturally seem opposed to one another, but it isn't necessarily made obvious to most people that such duality is by the world's design. The core of the idea, which most people miss, is that you can't simply have a single god as a concept without one representing the counter concept in some manner popping into existence. If that happened, the god would be unopposed in whatever goal that they may set out to do. This is a problem, because the universe itself strives for a certain balance to be upheld.

Although, the world does allow on occasion a situation where one god can be unopposed, this most often happens through agency, most especially in holy wars between the opposing gods. If one god can 'smite' the other, the winner may be allowed to function virtually unopposed for some period, until someone can either arise and claim the lost seat of power, or the world, which abhors a vacuum, simply forms a new god. one at whatever time it sees fit to do so.

That is the most crucial part of this secret. The world can "act" on its own. Perhaps it is obeying laws we simply do not have the time or patience to understand. However, even so, most should've been expecting this sort of thing to happen. Of course, even knowing that it should or would happen, the location where it happened, is not exactly knowable, unlike all the previous mentions of gods coming into existence. However, even without the ability to predict when it happens, the creation of a new god should provide a sign towards its coming.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Only a handful of gods know what these signs might be, and while some are properly worried about the outcome, others simply think that it isn't that big of a deal. They might be thinking, 'Who cares if a god hasn't gotten a seat of power in forever? If it was important, the world would've already replaced the seat by now.'

They are, of course, also right in those assumptions. Most gods have critical roles within the world such as the rising and setting of the sun, the movement of the moons, and even the formation of new land. However, those gods often split, replaced or reformed within a few decades, based on the wax and wane of their followers. Despite a lack of mortal induced faith though, there are some that are far more enduring. Such gods might include anything from the sound of mice feet against grain, to the billowing of curtains being overshadowed by the night sky. These are actions that could be caused by gods, but simply don't need a god to oversee such things when the world already takes care of those actions for them and the would-be followers don't see the need to attribute the actions to a god. So, when there has been an empty seat of power for such a long time that no-one, even in current memory, or those that could see into the world's past, can remember it being filled, no one bats an eye.

This, like much anything else in the world, is also misunderstood, however. In this case, it's not that the seat was actually empty. It had been filled for some unknown amount of time with empty space. No one, however, recognized the difference between a seat being empty and it being filled with empty space. This lack of a knowledgeable difference has not made any big impact upon the world, or even in the higher circles until now. Now it seemed, that which filled the seat was finally to take action.

When one looks back, there isn't any obvious change to that seat. Nothing radiated power, nor did anything seem to directly influence the world from it. No one could even guess when that seat stopped being actually empty. There was, however, one thing that might have been noticed, even though no one did. It only ever performed one action with the system. Only one thing that could, eventually, be traced to that empty seat. It made a Newcomer in the middle of a sea, this one we've been currently talking about. The belief needed to make that newcomer was more enormous than mortal minds could ever hope to comprehend. However, despite being the most costly thing to bring into existence, the system made no mention of it. It was not recorded in any transaction logs, and anything leading up to the creation of the newcomer was hidden from anything or anyone who might have been looking for it. However it did happen, and because it happened, it would be recorded, no matter what. Just not in the system proper, and only within these pages.

Even with access to these records though, the point of contact where the Newcomer was brought into existence didn't show much besides the small divot at the top of the ocean. The sand on the bottom of the sea floor glistened amongst the glowing rocks that were scattered along in the darkness, some holding flashes of affinities, while others simply were infused with the magic of the ocean. Fish schools flitted every which way trying to find food, mate, or safety in as many forms as a fish could be in. Weeds were scattered amongst the rocks swaying gently in the ocean current. Nothing seemed to be amiss, aside from that one single divot, except something that was insidiously hidden. Only one thing that was unusual in the idyllic scene of that ocean floor, would be a cave suddenly coming into existence where none was before.

If one were to venture into that cave, one might consider it reminiscent of a throat. As the walls were lined with what looked muscles and hairy tendrils. Like a throat, the cave seemed to breath. It sucked various things in, objects and creatures occasionally being pulled into it before slowing to a stop, moving slightly outward but then repeating. Unlike a throat though, the cave did not seem to connect with any physical body. In fact, it looped around and opened into an airy space, as at least one unlucky fish found out. The fish's eyes, unused to being dried and under that much pressure swelled when it saw the water recede and left it, dry, upon the rock. In this space, where no light had ever appeared, nor would, lay several things one might expect, and one strange occurrence, the Newcomer that we've only previously hinted with its existence.

As one might expect, upon the now dry floor, the fish flopped about, gasping for the breath of the ocean waters while its form slowly began to deflate, any pressurizing sacs losing their fluids, as it lay slowly dying and bleeding from the various cuts the rocks gave it across its sturdy scales. Worms were falling from the ceiling down upon the floor below, not expecting any of their old tunnels to have simply disappeared, and started to collectively struggle upon the now packed rocks, heaving to dive back into the safe recesses of the earth, some getting caught up in the fishes struggle as they became stuck to its scales, while others managed to find some cracks in the rocks to dive back into the safety of their homes. Yet, also, there, in the middle of the cavern, although the vision of which was unable to be seen by the dying fish, was the Newcomer, one in the form of a Bide. Or at least something that had the shape of one. It had no skin, no hair, and no scales upon its body. In the darkness of the cave, where no light could naturally exist, if one could see, one might spot the glistening of pupilless eyes. Without light, no one would be able to tell what color those eyes were, but one might be close if one said it was a new color. Some combination of black and something else. Something that made the black darker, and almost endless, like they were just deep pits inlaid into the thing's head where its eyes should be.

From that brief description, whoever is reading this might be under the impression that whatever was created in that cave was bleeding onto the floor. Its muscles would be exposed and its heart would be pounding in the almost stillness of the cave. But the cave was simple silent around it. It had no heart. It had no flesh. It had no bones. It is simply something in the form of a Bide and nothing else.

And the first thing this thing that was in the form of a Bide did when it was brought into the world, was smile and begin to eat.