Chapter 223: Space Gods

21st March 2012, Missouri

(Rose Potter POV)

It wasn’t magic, not really, but it was some sort of energy that far eclipsed it in power and density. Now that she could feel it properly, it was amazing how well the little plant was able to hide its energy output. Every single thing that is charged with any energy will let some of it out, it was a fact with magic just as it was with all other kinds of energy. Perfect insulation is almost impossible. With that said, this is as close as Rose ever imagined perfect energy insulation to be. It was like someone had hid the entirety of Hogwarts inside this plant and yet the energy loss was almost unnoticeable.

All in all, Rose had no idea what they hell what this thing was, “What is that?”

“That, my dear sister, is a seedling of one of the most powerful beings in the universe.”

Rose was both awed and confused at this, “I don’t understand…”

Jasmine started explaining, “A few decades back, I detected something landing on the planet. It was extremely powerful, absolutely terrifying, but it wasn’t whole, so to speak. It was like a projection of energy, a shard of a whole, that decided for some reason to see the world. It was like a tourist, one that happened to be powerful enough to blow up the planet on a whim, that's it. He traveled all over the country, visited the wonders of the world, he went to bars, got drunk and met a woman. They started dating and even had a son. The entity then left the planet, leaving behind a wife and a son. That man was a projection of one of the strongest entities native to this universe. They’re the closest thing to gods that inhabit this reality, we call them the celestials.”

“What are they?”

“Well, I told you before that the number of souls in a universe is regulated by cosmic entities. If there are too many souls in a universe, then the number of new births start to decline, still born children become more common, to regulate the soul density of the universe back to its balance. Similarly, if there are too little souls in the universe, then the number of births grow exponentially. But what do you think happened at the beginning of the universe, when there were no lifeforms. The universe was made of scattered atoms, nothing more. So, how do you think Life and Death balanced the soul density of the universe?”

Rose looked thoughtful, “They could artificially create life and get things going…”

“A good theory but cosmic entities are known for their noninterference meaning that they dislike the idea of getting involved themselves. They would not do this for every universe in the multiverse, it would be ridiculous. No, what they did was create souls that are denser than others.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean by denser souls?”

Jasmine chuckled bitterly, “People like to say that everyone is born equally. The truth is that they’re wrong, not just in the family they’re born with, or the physical abilities they might have, every soul is different. In a single species, the difference isn’t too much. Just some people have more life force in their souls, more density in them. They are generally stronger, faster and so on. But take that to a ridiculous scale, and the difference becomes as clear as night and day. In an empty universe, with no souls or no life, the first life form ever created would have the soul density of an entire galaxy today. With such a soul density, they are able to channel cosmic energy to create planets and even life. After the first few million years, the soul density of the universe had stabilized enough that celestials stopped appearing. And started dying out.”

“I still don’t understand. Where do they come from?”

“They first exist as a soul without form, without a body. After a while, the soul starts developing a consciousness that inhabits the soul entirely. Their soul density is so great that they could channel cosmic energy to gather the atoms around them to create a body for them to inhabit. After millions of years, they fully merge with their artificial bodies and become fully living beings with immense powers. The celestials then travelled the universe, creating stars and planets, experimenting with new life forms. Earth is, for example, one of their experiments. The core of the planet is that of a dead celestial and the race itself was edited to maximize our genetic evolution, which is why there are so many kinds of super powered beings on this planet.”

Rose was awed by the knowledge her sister was giving her. She really was a born teacher. Her passion for passing down knowledge was something she loved about Jasmine, and it really was a shame that not many people could see this in her.

But still, the existence of living gods that roamed around the universe was as fascinating as it was troubling. There were beings out there that could create stars. Even Jasmine didn’t come close to them. Rose had never felt so small, “Then why don’t you ask them to fight Entropy with you. They could definitely help you.”

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Jasmine shook her head, “They’re not easy to find unless they want to be. As far as I know, the one that put the seed here had very negative intentions and isn’t someone I would even think about trusting. The only other celestial I have ever met was one who sent a team of warriors here called the Eternals. Their bodies are powered by cosmic energies, and their job is to allow the perseverance of life on Earth by hunting down cosmically powered monsters called the Deviants. I spoke to the celestial they serve, Arishem, and he isn’t happy with me since I interrupted the birthing cycle of the celestial.”

“Wait, birthing cycle? I thought you said that the celestials weren’t born, they just appeared out of nowhere.”

“And normally they are, but after the celestial wars, and especially the fight against the God Killer Knull, their numbers have lessened drastically. Of course, with every celestial that dies, an enormous population boom occurs in all other living races. In other words, celestials are anomalies to the cycle of life and death, they’re just placeholders for soul density until the other races start growing. This means that slowly, fewer celestial started appearing, and now that our universe is old enough and has started to mature, its soul density is getting more stable, meaning that the natural birth of any celestial is now almost impossible. To prevent the extinction of their race, the celestials decided to manually create new celestials by adding a small amount of their essence to the corpse of a dead celestial and put it as the core of a planet. They make sure that the planet will be inhabited, and they gather the extra life force, that every single living being leaves behind when they die, towards the core. Eventually, the gathered life force will be strong enough to give birth to a new celestial in the core of the planet. It will then emerge from the core, destroying the planet. Its power pales in comparison to a naturally born celestial but they’re still plenty powerful.”

Rose was horrified at the thought. There was a space god that wants to destroy the planet to give birth to another one of its kind? How the hell, were they supposed to deal with that? They already had their hands full with the whole Entropy situation. They didn’t have the manpower to deal with something like this, “What did you do?”

Jasmine had a smug look on her face, “Nothing much, I discovered this situation a few thousand years ago and found that the flow of life force was just unnatural. Using an old artifact of mine, the soul stone, I was able to redirect the flow back to what it was supposed to be. Sadly, I have lost the artifact, but I haven’t been in a situation that will need it in a very long time. Anyway, by doing this, I just made sure that the life force never reached the celestial egg, meaning that it’s still inert and will remain so until someone undoes my work. Arishem was furious with my actions and asked the eternals to put us in contact. Things were tense, but since I was under Death’s protection, there was nothing he could do to punish me. I think he’s just waiting for me to die, and he would undo my spell then; even for someone as long lived as me, it’s barely a blink of an eye for Arishem who is one of the oldest celestials. Even after my death and my spell being undone, it would take thousands of years for the celestial egg to mature properly. It should be enough time for humanity to have perfected space travel and terraforming planets which would mean that the grand majority of humanity would live on other planets, meaning that humanity will survive.”

“So, you’re just going to leave them to die?”

Jasmine gave her sister an incredulous look, “What other choices did I have? Kill the egg, which would probably result in Arishem destroying the planet in spite or fight Arishem himself, a being who could quite literally destroy our solar system with a snap of his fingers? This was the best solution I could find with the human race surviving. Trust me, if you have any other idea, you’re welcome to share it.”

Rose stayed silent and averted her gaze.

Jasmine snorted, “Yeah, I thought so. Now, with what we’ve learnt, it would be a good idea to speak with them. After this mess is done with, I’ll track down one of the Eternals and try to get an audience with Arishem. Maybe he, and the other celestials could help us.”

Rose nodded and changed the subject, “You still haven’t told me what this seed plant thingy is…”

“Oh, right. At its base, it’s a self-replicating biological agent that absorbs all matter around it as it expands. In other words, it’s a world ending weapon that could be activated with enough cosmic energy.”

Rose had a horrified look on her face and actually took a few steps back in fear, “Why the hell didn’t you destroy it yet?”

Jasmine shrugged, “I had very powerful wards around this place and an empty dimensional pocket created to contain it if it ever goes off. Killing it could send a signal to the celestial letting him know that something happened. Truthfully, the most likely scenario that would happen is him returning and putting in a new one considering how he didn’t add any protections on it. But the worst-case scenario is that he would kill whoever is responsible for the death of his seed and make another one too.”

Rose sighed in relief at her sister’s explanation. Of course, Jasmine had a plan, she always had a plan. She would never risk the safety of the entire planet like that, “And what’s your plan with this?”

“Well, that’s easy. I’m going to absorb it.”

Wait, what? All thoughts of her sister’s sanity and forethought disappeared from Rose’s head. It was funny in a way, to watch as her faith in her sister plummeted entirely. Was she out of her mind? She had just said that killing the seed would probably alert the cosmic entity, why the hell is she planning on taking over a fraction of the power of what she had already described as one of the most powerful beings in the universe.

And Jasmine isn’t just killing the seed, she’s planning on stealing its power, meaning that the celestial will be enraged with Jasmine. It’s a frankly stupid idea to do and Rose had no qualms to say that to Jasmine, “No offense, Jasmine, but this has to be one of the stupidest, most reckless, and absolutely ridiculous, ideas I have ever heard of in my life.”