"I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time," are the words of a man who will be born a hundred years after the end of this story.

"If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything," are the words of a man who was born a hundred years before the beginning of this story.

Amatus, the god of love, was the first among many gods. From passion and love, more believers were born, believers who also believed in other gods. Accordingly, the other deities looked up to Amatus as a father figure, a god among gods, the Beloved.

Oloro watched the god of love from a safe distance as he sat in the Infinite Garden, the abode of the gods, nervously twiddling his thumbs. On his knees rested a kind of magical orb. Smooth as glass, it showed the Prince indulging in an apple within his chambers. Amatus didn't take his furrowed gaze off the orb.

"You're still watching the Prince?" Oloro asked cautiously. "I'm looking for leverage," Amatus replied briefly.

"Leverage?"

"Every person has a leverage point. Most often love, sometimes greed, fame, revenge, desire... Everyone has a leverage point, a motivation, something that drives them. Once you find someone's leverage point, you can predict their actions," Amatus said, his eyes still fixed on the orb.

Oloro continued to watch him, still a bit confused.

"Look here," the god of love motioned for her to follow. They stopped in a vast meadow within the garden. Amatus snapped his fingers, and in each hand appeared a paper bird. "There are two types of people. Those driven by motivation," he raised the bird in his right hand, "and those driven by discipline," he said, lifting the paper bird in his left hand.

Amatus threw both birds into the air. From both his right and left hands, a wind was released, carrying the paper fliers. The wind from his right hand was much stronger, and the paper bird of "motivation" soon flew out of sight.

"What would you say is better, Oloro? Motivation or discipline?"

"Motivation, obviously… The right bird flew farther and faster than the left one."

Amatus laughed and snapped his fingers. The pair reappeared about thirty meters away, where the right paper bird had landed.

Oloro cautiously approached the paper lying on the ground. She picked it up with her thumb and forefinger. The wind's impact had crumpled the bird's wings, and its body was broken. If she hadn't seen it earlier, she would never have guessed that this paper had been an origami bird. While Oloro examined the crumpled paper, the left bird elegantly landed in front of her feet without a single scratch. Amatus put his hands behind his back and turned away from Oloro.

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"What kind of 'slow and steady wins the race' shit is this?" asked the daughter of the goddess of nature.

"Oh, no! No, no, quite the opposite! Motivation will always get you to your goal faster, but once it's gone, it leaves a person broken, lost, without a clear direction... Ater is a man of motivation. Almost animalistic, fleeting desires drive him from place to place through life. The Prince, on the other hand..."

"Discipline?" Oloro guessed.

"I'm not sure..."

"Is it true? That you spoke with a god?" Antonus asked his boss. The Prince smiled and nodded. "I can't believe the Beloved deemed you worthy of his presence." The Prince's smile widened, "Or perhaps I deemed him worthy of mine?"

"The truth usually isn't that flexible," the fire master quipped.

"So, tell me, what did that twinky say to you?" Edward asked the Dark Doctor. "Twinky?"

"You know, the god of love."

"Empty threats and relatively pathetic attempts at intimidation. For someone so old, he definitely didn't seem wise… He said he'd keep an eye on me and to be careful with what I do. Nothing special… A strange interaction, very strange." Edward nodded.

Eldricka sat leaning against the tall walls made of a strange, oily black material. No matter what she tried, she couldn't get over them. Behind those walls lay the essence of Ater's consciousness; she could feel it in there.

Eldricka, as an entity, lived within the host's psyche. To take control, all she had to do was touch the essence of the host's consciousness and infect it with herself. Great Chiefs spent years training to hide the essence of their consciousness. Ater wasn't hiding it, just defending it, but to Eldricka, it seemed equally unreachable. She began pacing nervously around the walls. She had tried everything, to no avail.

She knew what she had to do. She had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but the stubborn Arbor left her no choice. She spread her arms and began the process of destroying Ater's consciousness.

Ater collapsed onto the floor in front of Edward, completely stiff. Edward rushed to help him, but there was nothing he could do. Arbor closed his eyes.

Eldricka wasn't pleased that it had come to this. When she destroys someone's psyche, there isn't much consciousness left for her to control. She hadn't even tried this with the Chiefs; they would only force her into the next Great Chief. But now that she was no longer tied to their blood… now everyone was fair game.

*THUD!* A heavy, strong blow struck Eldricka in the head, and she collapsed forward, unconscious.

Ater was no longer paralyzed. He got up from the ground and looked at Edward in confusion. "What happened?" he asked, bewildered.

In Arbor's mind, Eldricka regained consciousness. She was lying on the ground with her hands and feet bound. "I knew I smelled you. Thanks for causing chaos and showing me where you were," said an unfamiliar man from her left. Eldricka sized him up. The man was wearing a long, worn, and half-torn leather coat. Beneath the coat, a half-unbuttoned black shirt revealed his bare chest, covered in scars. His black pants were so greasy they almost shimmered.

"Who are you?" Eldricka asked defiantly, "And what the FUCK are you doing in Ater's mind?"

The man laughed. "I am… a friend of the gods. I'm here to make sure you don't go wild. You can think of me as your jailer," he said with a wide grin. The scars on his face twisted with his smile, giving him an inhuman appearance. 'So many scars… as if he wrestled with a tiger,' Eldricka thought to herself.

"How can you even enter this place?"

"I told you, I'm a friend of the gods."