Inside a dark room sat a man with messy blonde hair. His light brown eyes were scanning a furnace with great interest. Interest so strong, he didn’t notice, at some point a silhouette had appeared behind him.
“You do realize that if you fail, you will blow all of this up? Might I add that includes the both of us.”
Without turning around, he answered the voice behind him, seemingly unsurprised someone had come to find him. Not hurried in the least by such ominous words, “Oh come on, how is it possible to kill a god like you?”
A woman with an otherworldly beauty, a face difficult to find words to describe. Pushing a strand of green hair behind her slightly pointed ear, green eyes as cold as the desolate space outside the planet. Without missing a beat, said through grit teeth and a lot of anger, “Yes, indeed a god. Only funny story about that. There was this inescapable asshole going around telling the people he was the high priest of the Will of the World. Spreading grandeur lies about how I created this world and created an entire religion.”
Man stopped what he was doing slightly, “What? Are you telling me the rumors weren’t true?”
Matching her eyes, the woman replied, “Maybe I should just kill this high priest and be done with it. That way, I won’t lose sleep over the mad man trying to kill us.”
Turning around with a twisted smile and otherwise innocent face. In reality, his face was anything but innocent, “Oh you knew that was me?”
Meeting his eyes, she let out a helplessly long sigh, “What other person in this world can avoid my gaze, running around spreading such troublesome things about me? If it was another person, they would have died the second they opened their mouth the second I found out…”
“Oh, come on. It was just a bit of fun. There are only twelve churches…”
“That is old news, the number is already in the forties…”
Stopping for a second time, the man paused with a cold inhale, even while being in front of a furnace of magic flames. It was possible to see his breath every time he spoke. The special formation they were inside was far below freezing, while inside the furnace was well over boiling. Placing a strange shaped pole with a bowl and a heavily dense ingot inside. When the bowl made it into the furnace, the ingot inside started to melt immediately.
“How devoted.”
“You asshole, why did you even do it in the first place?”
For once, he didn’t immediately answer and hesitated slightly, “I have this, but you have nothing. We both know you’re far beyond the point of being effected by your blood. If this wasn’t the case, you wouldn’t be here with me now. I don’t like to toot my own horn… Well, okay, I do. But in this case, we both know being around me pushed you to far greater heights than was likely to happen if we didn’t meet. I know this because while I will admit I could have reached these heights without being around you. The time it would have taken would have been extraordinarily longer.”
Looking up at the ceiling, she seemed a bit melancholy, “You do know that even if you complete his work, it won’t bring him back.” Knowing he wouldn’t reply, she continued, “The most probably conclusion to occur here is that we will be meeting him in the gates of the Will of the World.”
Flinching slightly, a bit of the metal inside the bowl spilled, “Haha… You read that part? I thought it was a good touch.” Moving the bowl out of the furnace, he turned around once more. Soon he started to pour liquid metal into a cast sitting in the middle of the room. This cast was sitting in a seemingly countless complex symboled number of magic circles, numbering no less than twenty, each bigger than the last.
She had already seen the circles, there was nothing else to look at. Some she had seen before, while others were new. Exacerbated, she couldn’t help but let her mind wander, working out the calculations behind some of the unknown circles. Returning to silence, if not for what the man was doing, the silence would have taken over completely.
Once he was done, the mysterious metal started to harden slowly as a few of the circles lit up. With how cold it was, it was a question what type of materials he was using to not cause problems. Nodding slightly, “Don’t worry, I am saying this with completely confidence, nothing will happen.”
Bitterly, spitting out spitefully, “Completely confident?”
Looking at her, aggrieved by her words, only lasting a few seconds, his eyes shifted, “Don’t worry, I am saying this with moderate confidence.”
“Moderately confident?”
“Don’t worry, I am confident.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Confident?”
“Okay, fine. It probably won’t blow up.”
Words failed her, they weren’t ordinary. She was being worshiped as a god. While she never admits it. She didn’t care about being called the Will of the World. Not enjoying being thought of as a god, she couldn’t hide the fact that she didn’t dislike watching the people of the land. Now she had a solid connection to them. With her personality, she could now have an excuse to interfere with large issues and stop the total annihilation of the population.
Since the world was very unstable, it wasn’t surprising the world outside was inhabitable. Tiny pockets of races still survived. Those were the locations of her churches. Places, she now had a reason to help survive until the world returned to normal. With them, it would give her a reason to not go insane like the man before her. Sighing heavily, “Why does that actually fill me with confidence.”
An untold amount of time later. He had completed his experiments.
“What you mean you forbid it? This is everything Neil worked for!”
“Do you think your actions have no consequences?! If it wasn’t for Neil, I would have never allowed you to continue the experiments in the first place! Neil is gone. If we die, then they will get away with everything they did to us, and killing Neil. Or are you telling me, since you completed his research, it was okay to destroy everything he gave us in the process?”
“Elizabeth!…”
Sighing heavily, she felt she was sighing every time she talked to Izic. They used to be so close, and now, he was like a stranger. “I am not telling you to destroy it. Find someone to wield it. Seal it in, once that person is found they can come out. But not before that, only once a container to bind it. If you try to otherwise, I will have no choice but to destroy it myself. You might not believe it, but that is something Neil wanted so badly to complete. I don’t want to destroy it, either.”
Time was not linear for everyone. Some weren’t constrained by such simple primordial mechanics.
“Her? You want to give it to her? Are you serious?” There was disbelief in her voice.
“Why not, I can tell. She is the one.” There was pure confidence in his voice.
“She is just Grade F, what is so special about her?”
“Oh, you don’t know?”
The feeling of being poked and prodded to be studied always pissed her off, “Just out with it…”
“Shame on you, the Will of the World. Failing to notice the greatness of your own creations.”
“Shut the fuck up and spill it. I didn’t fucking create anyone…”
A wicked smile appeared on Izic’s face. Possibly the only person in the world that knew her truly like this. Without much delay, “She is the adopted daughter of one Everwood.” Seeing the surprise on her face, as she opened her mouth to speak. He continued, interrupting her, “As you can tell, she is also someone with dragon blood. Get this, she is also the great something, something, something, grandchild of one Everwind. Or something, possibly granddaughter, I haven’t studied blood long enough to tell which.”
This time there was a serious expression on her face. Turning around and disappearing, her voice lingered in the air, “Fine.”
“Hahahaha finally, I just hope she can stomp out some of that insanity of his. I don’t want to die just yet. Wait… she is adopted daughter of that elf… Fuck!”
“What did you say? Izic are you insane, I might not be able to kill you, however you think I can do nothing to you?!”
“Wow, calm down. Hear me out…” Jumping back, he disappeared from the little wood house. Yelling as fast as he could, “I didn’t mean I wanted her for myself. I said I wanted to give her something special. This something would bring her an insane amount of help if she can seize it!”
Shortly after finishing his piece to the empty air, a beautiful sword slashed from thin air as a man with sharp eyes appeared from thin air like a ghost. The blade moved with ghostly precision. The man he was swinging at caught the blade as the ground beneath his feet cracked before spiraling out behind the man in a fan shape. If one looked closely, they would see that the cracks were deep fissures. Darkness hid how truly deep they were. Even still, there was only a small trickle of blood coming down the man's palm.
Their conversation went back and forth for a long time. Once in a while, a blade would swing through the air when Izic failed to convoy the full meaning behind his misleading statements. In the end, the conversation finished on a strange high note.
“Fine. Only you need to do something for me.” Seeing the nod, he continued, “If this spirit is as you say he is. You must stay by her side for the foreseeable future. When you do leave, there needs to be a way for you to protect her. Using your word as binding. And, the favor will be told to you at a later date. It won’t be hard, I just don’t know when I will be trading it in.”
Izic looked at the old man that was but a fraction of his age. He wanted to argue, a blank check was annoying. Only he couldn’t do anything else. He was an Ever, if he lied and said that all races were children of Elizabeth, it wasn’t completely wrong. She was protective of the Evers. It was one thing, to not kill the powerless. Even if it wasn’t much he looked down at his palm seeing a bit of blood. The Evers were weak, only they weren’t powerless.
“Fine.”
Time tickled on once more. Currently, he was humming a tune. It was upbeat and fun, he found himself more free since completing his project. This world had seen many iterations. He even became famous in this iteration. He didn’t care either way. Only there was a deep sadness inside him that wouldn’t go away. No matter what he did, it continued to linger. Neil was indeed gone. He had no idea what to do now.
He had spent so much time on this project. While there were many ups and downs. All of it was after he completed his work. Now came introducing himself into their lives. This was troublesome. Still, that Ever made a deal with him and allowed him this access, or at least a chance. Now he was left with nothing to do. Even this would just be a pass time. All he could do was wait for Elizabeth’s games to come to an end. When that happened, he would get the chance to fulfill every one of his deep dark desires…
Turning to the side, he couldn’t help but smile, “Oh, it’s time. This should be fun.” Taking a step, he appeared in a clearing. He was leaning on a wood chair as he looked down silently. Borrowing the suppressive force of the throne to hide himself as he watched the things happening below. Frowning slightly, he met the eyes of that Everblood. Returning the nod, he returned the smile to his face as he watched everything play out.