“Let’s just say… I got it from a certain Lord.” Phos saved Kass from explanation, walking to Ornis and pointing to the path ahead. “Aer was your mentor?”

Ornis nodded hesitantly, the expression of a guilty child obvious on his face.

“Lords can take disciples??” Phos exclaimed, having learned something new.

Nymph put the whistle around her neck and looked at Phos. “That reminds me, Gods can also adopt Lords as their siblings or children. It’s happened a lot.”

“Yeah, Light-bro! For example, Did you know, the Sun God Helios took Boss as his younger brother? No one knows why, but everyone thinks it’s because both of them work with fire.” Kass interjected, quite firm in his statement. “Helios…”

The group fell silent. Phos glanced from left to right, confused.

“We can’t say anything about the God of our Solar System now, can we?” Nymph clapped, signifying the end of that conversation.

But Phos was curious. What exactly was with this God of the Sun?

“Gods can live in Anima Mundi too, right? Where’s Helios?”

Ornis cast a strained glance in Phos’s direction. Nymph straight up looked away.

“You see, Light-bro, do you know Aster?” Kass spoke up once again.

“Who?”

“The Lord of Halley’s Comet, a strange comet that exists both in the inner and outer rings of our Solar System.”

Phos didn’t know or care too much about astronomy, but he nodded in understanding regardless.

“Aster comes to the inner circle every 76-or-so years,” Kass continued. “Last time was 1910. Light-bro, do you know what year it is?”

“I was born about 150 years ago, so…” Phos hated math, but he tried his best to calculate. “1986?”

“Exactly, Light-bro! Every time Aster comes around, the Lords of the Nine Planets and the Sun God Helios will hold a convention similar to the one we were just at.”

Kass knew a lot; Phos was surprised. In the corner, Nymph’s eyes shone with love. As expected of her future man!

Meanwhile, Ornis rolled his eyes. But he was surprised as well—why did Kass know so much? Who told him?

The only Lord with a connection web wide enough to tell Kass was…

Pyre.

There was always something up with that man that Ornis couldn’t quite put his finger on. He found himself staring at Phos, another Lord close enough to the Lord of Fire. But why did it seem like Pyre was concealing himself around Phos? While Ornis trusted Phos’s words about the man, he could still tell that Pyre’s act was paper-thin.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

As Kass and Phos discussed space, they reached a clearing in the forest of clouds. It was like the end of the world: Waterfalls of white fell into a sky-blue abyss, cascading down from the Heavens. Above, an enormous cloud held a mansion, quietly floating overhead and casting shadows on the ledge where Phos was standing.

“This is it.” Ornis cut Kass’s words off. “I can’t believe Aer is still here…. I thought she would move after her mentorship with me ended.”

Just what did you do to her?? Phos stared dumbfounded at the Bird Lord.

Without waiting for anyone’s input, Ornis spread his sparrow-like wings and took wing to the air. In an instant, he’d become a small speck in the distant sky. Nymph, while she didn’t have wings like Ornis, created a giant beanstalk that carried her high above the platform of clouds. Her expression was excited but tense as she advanced towards the castle, and she had forgotten all about the two lords below who… couldn’t fly.

“Mr. Bird!! Nymph!” Kass reached for both of the Lords to no avail. “Light-bro…what should we do?”

Deadpanning, Phos extended his hand. On his fingers danced a small flame. “I can try to set this cloud on fire. There will be a draft, but if we can’t float, we’ll probably get incinerated.”

“Awesome, Light-bro! What about using a hang-glider to catch the wind?”

Phos blanked.

That was a great idea!

A great idea?

From Kass???

He watched as Kass pushed his hands towards each other before pulling them apart, a new, shiny metal hang-glider sparkling in his arms. Kass turned to Phos expectantly.

“I almost forgot that you’re thousands of years old.” Phos hesitatingly touched the hang-glider.

It looked like it could support both of them. Phos hated math, but he’d calculate as much as he had to in order to ensure his safety next to Kass. But before he could even measure the length of the hang-glider’s wings, Kass had grabbed Phos’s wrist, forcing a wisp of fire out from his fingertips. Phos watched in horror as it lightly landed on a soft cloud… then engulfed it in flames.

A small wind rose from the sudden fire, and as Kass and Phos stood frozen in surprise and shock, the clouds surrounding them were soon inundated with red fire. Closing in.

“Kass!”

“Light-bro!”

The two needed only to shout each other’s names to understand their meanings. Without another word, Kass wrapped his arm around Phos’s waist, held onto the hang-glider with the other, and rode the drift towards the castle in the sky.

“Why are you holding my waist?! Do you want us to die???” Phos restrained himself from smacking Kass’s arm. When he looked down, he understood the severity of the situation. One wrong move and he’d be tumbling down into an endless abyss.

“Light-bro, I think you’d fall and die if you tried to hold the hang-glider bar!” Kass hollered as loud as he could through the roaring wind. “I’m super strong, trust me!”

Phos didn’t respond, relaxing his tense muscles instead. He pondered on Kass’s words.

“I think you’d fall and die…”

“Die…”

From what Phos had heard all throughout his life, when a Lord or a God died, they were simply erased from existence. This was only a theory, of course. No one had seen it happen.

But they were Gods. Immortal. They served a purpose in the world. Could they truly perish so easily?

By the time Phos snapped out of his thoughts, he’d been thrown onto a vast fluffy whiteness. He looked up to see a horrified Kass and, following his gaze, Phos understood why.

Below was a sea of flames. It reached towards them, licking at the clouds right under their feet.

This was the first time Phos realized his power.