As the light stole Gi away, he expected it to take him to that endless plain of white, but it was different this time.

The light pulled him from the embrace of his clan and the entire world seemed transparent behind a veil of white. He could see Samba and Tiria and Wane exactly where he'd left them. The demon horde had started a fighting retreat, but everything moved infinitesimally slowly. So slowly in fact that it took him a moment to realize that they were moving at all.

Like before, tendrils of darkness were seeded across the plane, but now that it was a backdrop against the world, it wasn't distributed randomly. The tendrils seemed to originate from the forest that split the main continent.

Congratulations, mortal. You've traversed to the end of your path and reached the height of mortal power. Now, it is time for you to transcend and join me in the battle for our existence.

The words had the deep resonant quality of the First One's voice, even displayed in text, but she wasn't actually speaking to him. This was just part of the system she'd created to birth gods for her battle against the Old Ones.

But why was he still frozen?

It took him a long time, but eventually, he felt like he started to hear whispers. At first, most of these were vague and incomprehensible, providing him only the hint of their meaning, but soon it grew loud enough for him to understand.

A god in the form of a mortal...

The monster who saved Veridia...

A destroyer who brought mercy...

The whispers slowly got louder and more urgent. Time that had frozen around him sped up. The demon horde disappeared from his sight and the human moved like ants fixing up their wall. Something that should have taken months even with magic took only a minute in his eyes.

But no matter what he did, he couldn't move and time raced forward without him.

***

Tiria knelt before the the statue of Gi and Danna. Danna hovered above them all in her human form, arms extended to welcome them in her embrace. Gi reached one paw towards her as he set to scale the heavens. At the base of the statue was all of those they'd lost lifting Gi up - Kumo, Wax, Nori, Corin, and more. Each of their names were inscribed across its base, circling all the way around.

The children, Flora and Fauna, knelt beside her, but she could see that neither otter nor human was still actively praying. They were both faithful and a strong pair, but they were children after all. She said the next part of her prayer aloud.

Gi and Danna, the corruption continues to spread, pushing against our towns and villages. The human nations are growing discontent. I fear if nothing is done; this world will push towards war once more. Please, lend us your strength, your guidance, and your wisdom as you did in life. In the name of the divine spouses I pray, truly let it be so.

Tiria got up off her knees and her back creaked with the age of her years. She placed one hand on it and steadied herself. Her Vitality should have kept the pain away, but the world was different now than it once was.

You'd never know it looking at the children though.

They popped up, grins spread wide across their face. "Are we already done?!" Fauna asked. As an otter, she was younger than Flora was, though of a similar height, but that was the nature of their clan. Humans guide the otters until the otter is old enough to guide the human.

It was beautiful in a way that Tiria wouldn't have considered back in the Child Stage.

"You've both been pretty good girls. I suppose Gi and Danna might appreciate more active prayers now in the form of outside playing. What do you think?"

Their eyes went wide. "Thank you, High Priestess," Flora said with as much decorum as a child could provide and then she sprinted out of the temple. Fauna was right on her heels, but also yelled out.

"Thanks, Granny Priestess!"

Tiria chuckled to herself. There were other priests and priestesses in the temple engaged in prayer or quiet contemplation, but none of them seemed particularly upset about being interrupted by the giggling children.

Just as the Underbridge Clan had been a boisterous people, so too was the Clan of Heaven and Earth that it evolved into.

A few of her clergy gave a Sign of the Mother as she passed, one fist to womb and Tiria nodded in acknowledgement before stepping out of the temple into the streets of Wavecrest.

It still took her breath away.

Most of the buildings were structured to blend in with nature. Rivers and aquatic pathways criss crossed the entire city, aligning with paths and bridges for their human members. Occasionally, a tower, castle, or other building broke the town's silhouette in its more human style, but it didn't truly stick out. The taller buildings blended with nature through ivy and trellises providing an accent to low hillock houses.

It was gorgeous, but it was the people that took her breath away. Humans and Otters were everywhere going about their lives. Many of them aligned with their pairs as they carried groceries or water, shopped at some of the nearby stores, or even just floated lazily in the water ways.

Their species had formed a bond that mirrored the one that Samba and Mark had so long ago. Thinking of him always made her consider her actions and it brought a gentle melancholy. She'd come to terms with those regrets long ago, but striking down someone so pure still had cause for sadness.

Though the water would feel good on her aching back, Tiria decided to walk and absorb the ambience of life in the city. Some greeted her respectfully as she walked, but her people were people of the moment. Most laughed and talked with their friends, pairs, and family.

It was nice.

Nostalgia kept her occupied until she'd arrived at the main castle. None of the guards stopped her as she walked through the gates and towards the planning room. She opened the door and both Alice and Samba stood over a table.

The years had worn on Alice much as they had Tiria. Wrinkles now lined her face and her hair had turned a clear white. Her Cultivation had done a better job, keeping her healthy though. Samba was even less affected. If it wasn't for some silver around his muzzle, he'd look the same as he had back during the War of Ascension.

Alice smiled warmly when she entered. "Tiria, it's good to see you."

"And you, leader."

"Sister," Samba said. He'd taken to calling her that after Kumo's death, but she didn't mind. In a way, he was the closest thing she had to family especially after Chum's passing. "I don't want to sound... unfaithful, but-"

"Both he and Danna are still in the heavens. Trust me on this. If they still live, then they still fight."

"I don't doubt that. It's just... we're having to evacuate another village to the east. The corruption is moving too close and they've already lost people. If you say he's alive, I trust you. If he's alive, I also trust that he's fighting for us, but why do things grow more dire? Where is His presence here?"

"Despite the name of our clan, we don't truly know the state of the heavens, but the essence of believing is to have faith when you can not know. Our best course of action is to continue to venerate him in hopes that our prayers may help."

He still looked conflicted, but he nodded. "As you say."

Her brother had gotten wiser throughout the years, but he was still someone that struggled to understand that which was beyond what he could see. It was lucky he had Alice as his pair.

"Then might you now lead us in prayer, High Priestess?"

Tiria smiled. "For the leaders of our esteemed clan? It would be my honor."

***

Gi continued to race into the future as the pressure of the whispers grew louder and louder, but still he was stuck just outside the walls of Veridia's capital.

The dark veins that lined the edges of the white space grew thicker over time and a tide of darkness crawled over the ground from the east, growing larger and larger in his vision until it looked like it might swallow the whole world.

Gi fought, thrashing about in place and screaming as the wave of oblivion drew ever closer. The pressure of the whispers grew louder and louder, but these weren't the whispers of eldritch madness.

They were prayers.

That pressure was his own Divinity swelling until he felt a pop within his own Soul as he was separated from the endless cycle of rebirth. The prayers over however many years he'd been frozen nestled across his shoulders like a cloak and - then he was free.

Gi disappeared in a snap.

He'd become light, streaking through the stars faster than any construct anchored in reality. The world still felt split to him with one piece in that realm of white - a place of Pure Truth - and the other in reality - a Truth mixed with Chaos.

Gi had cultivated himself while he was alive and he could feel that piece of him, that reality, as a large core that fueled his new Divinity. Danna, having ascended from a Soul recently passed, didn't have that same core of reality within her.

That was why the First One had created the system that she did.

Some of that understanding came from his newly ascended state, but some came from his connection to Truth. His ability to see both past and present and understand things as they truly were.

He knew the line of Divinity that he followed through existence was leading him to the First One's camp, but any attempt to scry upon it through Truth ended in failure. From Danna, he understood that to some extent that was the obfuscating nature of gods, but the First One purposefully revealed herself so that other gods might find her.

Yet, he still couldn't see her. Things had gone very wrong.

He didn't even know how much time had passed while he became a new god. Even if he did, time was a wobbly inconsistent thing. Years frozen in Veridia could be as short as months where the gods were or as far as centuries.

With how far the Old Ones influence had spread, he feared the worst.

His anxiety mounted until he ripped through the atmosphere of a planet formed from concepts. It was a half step between reality and Truth.

Gi crashed down as a beam of light in the center of an empty camp, but things were not as they should be.

The broken column that they'd used to display Gi's world now funneled a plume of Divinity into the sky and formed a dome over the center of the camp. The rest of the luxurious tents and buildings were just beyond but they were... wrong.

Space had been contorted before so that one could easily travel to any section of the broad camp. Now it was disjointed and broken. Tents existed in multiple places in a kaleidoscope of torn material and shattered space. They hung from the air or even two dimensionally at odds with Gi's current understanding of space.

Even looking at it made a buzz fill his mind that he hadn't experienced since he and Danna had scouted the most dangerous of planets.

Worse still, creatures lurked in between the camps, moving from one section of broken space to another. They had thick bodies that looked more like tree trunks with four appendages that broke off near the top. Two of the appendages held massive claws, another ended in a series of tubes, and the last had seven mouths hiding eyes where an orifice might be.

One of them locked gazes with him and he felt that alien consciousness loom closer, trying to devour that core of reality in his Soul.

"Gi!" The shout did nothing to break the connection with the eldritch horror, but a hand snatched him away, breaking his gaze.

"Danna...," Gi mumbled.

His wife had appeared from a portal in the center of camp that lead to the barren planet that they'd often used as a decontamination world during their scouting missions.

"What happened?"

"I'll explain once we're out! Don't look at the Yithians."

She dragged him to his feet and yanked him through the portal. The buzz of whispers disappeared as soon as they were inside, but even this barren desert planet didn't look like it had escaped the corruption.

A stench pervaded the place as the very sand seemed to be rotting in massive dark brown patches.

"One more jump."

Another portal opened, but Gi could tell that it wasn't Danna that had done it. They stepped through and landed in at the entrance to a small manor.

It was painted off-white with weathered stone at its base and ivy ran along its roof and sides. A forest surrounded them, but something about it didn't seem to have ay hint of reality like the other planets that they'd been on.

As soon as they were through, Danna pulled him into an embrace and Gi squeezed her back. "I thought you were lost," he said.

"I thought so too. We've needed you."

"I got frozen for some reason. I couldn't move-"

"I know," Danna said, squeezing his shoulder. "You ascended so much quicker than others do naturally or even through the First One's system. It took much longer for your Divinity to be strong enough around your former mortality."

"Am I too late?" From being trapped in time to seeing the devastation of the god's camp, his hope had already started to flicker.

"Almost, but no. We still have a window to act. Come on, I'll let the First One explain. This is her heaven after all."

Gi's mouth dropped open. "This is her heaven?"