Bitarr’s cloud-like body appeared in front of Tanya who was looking quite peeved. It expected her to be angry after ignoring her summons for half the day, but there wasn't much of a choice. Gunnar’s appetite took longer than usual to satisfy and leaving before he was done would surely lead to him learning of Bitarr’s relative freedom. That would, in turn, lead to more punishments or worse, the chance Gunnar could prevent Bitarr from being summoned

Tanya of course didn’t need to know any of that. She was capable, but decades away from marshaling forces to mount a rescue. Right now all she had were her beast kin siblings and Mildrith. When half of them were apex magic users, they might stand a chance. Until then, he’d play his role and keep her alive. Sadly, that required him staying away for the last few days.

“So how was the family?” Bitarr asked, taking Brand’s form and a seat in the closest chair.

Tanya let out a heavy breath and let herself sink into the cushions of her couch. “Half of them are crazy, and the other half are monsters.” Her voice quickly began to sound hysterical. “Magni wants to destroy the city. Actually, he just wants to kill all the beast kin and tried to use Brand’s attack as an excuse. Modi almost killed him at the mention of breaking an oath. He’s just as much a berserker as his brother!”

Bitarr nodded. “Yeah, most people don’t pay attention to that aspect of my father. But whenever he goes batshit crazy, it's always for a reason. Good thing too. Not even Vidar can stop him in that state.”

“It turns out Vidar is more of a babysitter than a king,” Tanya said. “And the gods are a bunch of children with tempers that can wipe out cities! If Brand hadn’t killed Vara, South Bastion wouldn't be here right now.”

“So what are the gods going to do about the one mortal in all the worlds that can kill them?”

Tanya explained the decisions made at the meeting of the gods but had a question that slipped her mind until now. “Why would Vidar want people to know Vara was killed by a mortal? I thought they'd try to hide it. They mentioned something about a god being born, but I didn't understand.”

“That would be very bad for us, maybe even me?” Bitarr said with a frown. “It all comes down to how a god is born. Most don't think about it too hard but first-generation gods don't really have parents.”

“But all the gods have parents,” Tanya said. “Excepted for Ymir.”

Bitarr shook his head like an admonishing teacher. “Let's take me for example. My father is Modi, his father is Thor whose father was Odin, and so on and so forth until being born from Ymir's body. According to most, Ymir was created from the heat and cold of two different worlds colliding together. Now can you really tell me that isn't bullshit?”

Tanya just shrugged. Most people did when asked this line of questioning. Very few thought of the deeper implications of stories told for longer than a people could even remember. The faithless were usually the ones to puzzle out the inconsistency of it all. Brand definitely had been thinking on the topic and he had more right than wrong.

“Here is the big secret,” Bitarr said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Ymir wasn’t real.”

“Then what created Midgard?” Tanya asked. It was meant to be rhetorical, but Bitarr answered with honesty.

“Fuck if I know. But all the nine worlds have been around a lot longer than the Aesir. There are more gods out there than just us, and some of them are a lot older. They all have their own theory of how the worlds were made, but none of them are right. The truth is, we don't know. And that's the key to understanding where first-generation gods come from. For gods that were born from some unbelievable nonsense, or even Ymir himself if he was real, they are created from the dreams of mortals.”

“You're saying we dream gods into existence,” Tanya said skeptically. “You're making fun of me aren't you.”

“I'm giving you knowledge some mortals spend their entire lives trying to figure out. Brand is on his way to understanding this too. But yes, if enough people think of a god, that god becomes real. I don't know how long it takes or how many people are needed to make it happen, but it happens.”

Tanya now had a look of understanding on her face. “And if enough people thought a god killed Vara-”

“Then one would eventually show up thinking that it did, and that's the scariest part. This god would honestly believe that it had been in South Bastion and killed the Mother of Fire. It would also be born with the means to do it. It might even have a nature specific to killing the Aesir. You never know what people might come up with, and whatever they do will be the reality.”

“And the other way gods are born?” Tanya asked, now fully enraptured by Bitarr’s lecture.

“When a man and a woman like each other very much, a man puts his-”

Tanya fired a mage bolt that dissolved against Bitarr's fortress aura. “And now you're back to being a horny teenager, great.”

“I'm serious,” Bitarr insisted. “Second-generation gods are just that, they're born.”

"No one is born a god," Tanya asserted. “If they were, there would be hundreds of gods even if the chances were low.”

“The chances are always the same because they're never born fully divine,” Bitarr said agreeing with Tanya's assertion. “Whether it be the child of two gods or a god and a mortal, the child is always a demi-god with some random ability more unique than any focus. The demi-god then has to ascend to godhood.”

Bitarr just knew Tanya was going to mention cultivation, so he cut her off abruptly. “Ascension has nothing to do with physical or magical power. It has everything to do with prestige.” Bitarr punctuated his words with a fanciful wave of his hands. “Just get enough mortals to dream of you like they would a first-generation god and you’ll ascend just like that.”

“I’m betting it’s not that easy,” Tanya said.

“No it is not,” Bitarr said vehemently and started counting off his fingers. “Vidar killing Fenris is what truly made him a god. Magni ascended purely because of Mjölnir. That legend of Modi wiping out fey kin cities is how he made it. Amra kept announcing that she’d steal from kings and succeeded each time despite the warning. Soon enough, her legend brought her into the realm of godhood. And Yule just kept feeding people. The only Aesir god that is first-generation is Vara. Her pantheon scattered after Ragnorok so she joined up with us. She believes that Midgard was made in seven days by a being so powerful it can do literally anything.”

“What did you have to do to ascend? I bet that battle with Modi when you were born was enough.”

Bitarr shrugged. “I never ascended. I’m not really a god at all.”

“There are more legends about you than the rest of the Aesir combined. More people know your name than your father’s,” Tanya insisted.

“It's my divine nature’s fault. I’m essentially nothing without a form. I have no mana and can't act upon the world in any way other than with sound. If I were a physical being, then I probably would have ascended a long time ago.

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“But you are physical now?” Tanya said as more of a question.

Bitarr looked at Brand’s large hands with a bit of longing for power that would never be his. “Brand doesn’t have access to my god pool. It's the reservoir of faith that gives the divine their strength. Without it, me and any god would just be a mana construct like Leo. When I take the form of a god, I have access to their god pool. What I can't do, is become a version of myself with that power.”

“I’m sorry,” Tanya said without thinking. She obviously saw Bitarr’s condition of some kind of curse. He was quick to tell her otherwise.

“Don't go feeling bad for me. I'm immortal Kitten, more immoral than any god I’ve ever met. If you cut off my head right now, I’d just turn back into a cloud. Plus, I've also had a lot more fun than most. Being stuck in a single form like you sounds like a nightmare. I mean, you'll never know what it feels like to have a set of balls or be tall, or another race. And I don’t have to worry about being changed by mortals.”

“What do you mean changed by mortals?” Tanya asked.

“All gods, no matter how they are born, are changed by their worshiper’s faith. If some scholarly ass writes a story that is complete bullshit but people start believing it, the gods in that story changes. They might gain new divine abilities like Amra. She used to just be able to just move through shadows. Now she’s the queen of darkness with shadow beasts at her beck and call. But that’s the best outcome possible. You could lose your divine nature or have it changed. New memories could pop up out of nowhere from events that never happened. Vidar’s obsession with boots is a good example. Idle chatter and jokes among his worshipers led to him having a creepy foot fetish.”

Tanya stood up with excitement making Bitarr grown. He knew what was coming next and had thought about such a scheme before.

“If what you say is true, there might be a way to keep the city safe.”

Bitarr rolled his eyes. “If you're thinking of changing Magni or any of the gods, forget it. The biggest problem is scale. It would take most, if not all their worshipers, believing in something unanimously to affect them at all. A city isn't enough. A country might not be enough. You would have to go continent-wide at the very least to make a lasting change. You might be able to affect them locally, giving them the characteristics of the local faith if summoned by a ritual. The problem is, no one but your family summons the Aesir. They'll appear as the summoner perceives them only diverging slightly, like with different clothing. The next problem is the change itself. Spreading a message like, Magni loves beast kin, can become something else entirely. By the time the change is made, he might love raping beast kin women as a pass time.”

Bitarr thought back to the change in Hel he saw their last time seeing each other. Half the goddess’s body used to be horribly scarred. Bitarr, having every appetite in existence, wasn’t bothered in the least but the mangled skin. But it had somehow despaired sometime within the last few centuries.

“Have you ever heard of half of Hel’s body being deformed?” Bitarr asked suddenly.

“No,” Tanya answered. “She's as beautiful as she is deadly. The only thing strange about her is her ten horns.”

“She wasn't always that way,” Bitarr said then stood making his way to the door. “Well, I’m tired of being sober so-”

“Not so fast,” Tanya said. “We’re heading to the king’s road.”

“For the Gridonian army?” Bitarr said.

“How did you know?”

BItarr taped his head suggestively. “I know because Brand knows. He just passed by them a few hours ago.”

A shocked expression came over Tanya but quickly turned to anger. “You do know where he is!” she said accusingly.

“I know where he was when he saw the gridanians, that’s all. I still can’t read his mind, I just know what he knows without any details or intentions. And it's impossible to tell if he enters the city again unless I recall some new information from his head so stop asking.”

“So we are back to square one,” Tanya harrumphed. “But at least I'll have more help.”

“Help from who?” Bitarr asked drawing a blank on any new allies they might have.

Tanya smiled. “Gridanian’s king always travels with his army.”

**********

Eric stood in front of the door of the meeting hall for South Bastion nobility with a mountain of hesitation holding him back. The ex-prince was back on two legs after having his severed limb regrown by a vellian healer.

It had taken a few days to recover, and a few more for the chaos preceding the attack on the city to end. In that time, Eric learned of the many lives taken while he was screaming on the ground and desperately trying to keep himself from bleeding out.

Like he’d thought, every noble that was killed on both Vellia’s and South Baston’s side, had it coming. Eric knew who amongst his peers funded Fenris. He also knew who was stealing money, selling secrets, and was all-around untrustworthy. A few seemed to be innocent at first glance, but given a few hours to investigate, he found disturbing appetites in some he thought he knew.

It was no different for the Vellian nobles. The walls of the castle had unseen eyes allowing word of their treachery to reach Eric’s ear. He’d thought it was none of his concern. What did it matter if the regent had enemies? She was a vellian pawn meant to calm dissent by the virtue of her race. He owed her nothing as long as peace was maintained. What Eric hadn’t counted on was Tanya’s ruthlessness.

She had everyone who stood against her killed whether they were human or beast kin. Vara's priests were given the same treatment and were slaughtered along with everyone else. They took more casualties than anyone and suffered the loss of an apex paladin and archbishop.

The South Bastion nobles had also lost one of their few apex magic users by the name of Gosta. Eric knew he’d make trouble soon enough but didn't expect his execution to be so well covered by the deaths of many others. He was one of the first to die, without even the opportunity to defend himself. The ex-prince was just glad he didn't join them.

During the battle, when darkness left many without a way to fight back, Eric could just barely make out Tanya's agent of destruction. The man’s axes moved in a blur cutting down men and women with precise strikes. That was the first clue Eric had to the attack not being perpetrated by Fenris.

Eric had tried to cast a spell to defend himself, but It didn't slow his attacker in the least. An ax was coming for his neck and there was nothing he could do to stop it. But at the very last second, it’s trajectory shifted to his leg, severing it without resistance.

Eric knew his life had been spared and later realized it was because despite his hatred of humans, he never once betrayed Vellia; he was too scared to. Any action against them was pointless. It would be like trying to fight against death itself. Even if it could be held off, it would destroy you in the end. So Eric did his part to keep his people safe and himself alive, but he didn't want to have this meeting. He didn't want to see how many seats would be empty, and how powerless he was to do anything about it.

When Eric finally opened the door, his heart sank into his stomach. The room was practically empty. There were only ten nobles present out of what used to be 50. And most were young, too young.

Eric’s eyes scanned the room before he spoke. “Why are only you children here?”

One of the teenagers in the room stood and gave a bow. “With our parents gone, we have taken-”

“I don’t care why you are here,” Eric said, interrupting the young man. “I want to know why no one else is here!”

By the end of his words, Eric was shouting. He knew the names of every noble that should be present. A few being busy with other matters was understandable, but all being absent meant treachery was afoot.

Another of the teenagers looked around as if a vellian was in the room then spoke in a hushed voice. “Prince, while you were… away, measures were decided upon to ensure the South’s survival. It turns out, Vara only attacked the city in order to kill one of her fellow Aesir, Bitarr.”

“Girl,” Eric said, causing the young woman to jump with the angry flair of his magic. “I’m going to need you to speak plainly. Where the fuck is everyone!”

“They’re on the way to the king’s road,” a girl said hurriedly. “The regent has gone to meet the Gridanian king. On her way to the king’s road, we'll attack. People will just say Fenris assassinated her. Besides, it's Tanya's fault so many people died.”

Eric was utterly speechless. His face went pale as a ghost and it felt like his heart came to a stop. The girl in front of him was still speaking, but he no longer listened. All Eric could hear was the sound of a velllain army marching on his home. He saw fire and death rain from the sky with the arrival of dozens of apex magi.

“NO!” Eric suddenly shouted.

He shot towards a window breaking through it with an aura of flight keeping him aloft. With a boom, Eric’s speed excited that of sound. Within seconds he left the city behind and was heading for the King’s Road.

“I need to stop them!” Eric thought in a panic. The image of whoever took his leg came back to him. “If I don’t, he’ll kill us all. And even if he doesn’t, Vellia will destroy us all.”