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The goddess Adrianna smiled as Alpha, her favorite golem assistant, made the final adjustments on the ephemeral formation that would soon be inscribed onto her soul. She would have assisted, but she was unable to move from her position on the altar. Even a slight shift would ruin Alpha’s efforts and require massive cost and effort to redo.
Instead, she turned her attention to the ceiling of the ritual room within her celestial palace. She focused on the tableau above, which depicted swirling galaxies and nebulae within the Mortal Realm in hyper-time. Adrianna focused, zooming in on a moderately-sized planet surrounded by man-made constructs.
Gentrius, as named by its inhabitants.
The planet was more advanced than most within the Mortal Realm. That had been one of the largest factors in her decision to choose it over others with better resources. It would be interesting to see what happened when it ascended. Few truly advanced planets from within the Mortal Realm had ascended to the Mana Realm, but those that did generally brought a lot of new ideas.
Adrianna allowed herself a moment of amusement as she imagined the surprise those exploring the stars would have when they eventually returned to find their home planet missing. But she wasn’t a cruel goddess. Adrianna had ensured there was at least one space station far enough away to be left behind during the ascension.
No, she wasn’t cruel; she just wanted the most advanced planet available within the Mortal Realm. Her decision was perfectly reasonable.
However, she was under no illusions about how most of her divine counterparts would react if they learned of her plans, especially if she was successful. Adrianna knew that the moment any of her fellow deities discovered what she had done, they would spare no effort to hunt her down to extract her secrets.
Thankfully, short of admitting who she was, they’d never be able to find her. As long as the soul enchantment worked the way she intended, they wouldn’t be able to identify her even if she was standing in front of them. Her current self would likely struggle to identify her future incarnation, and she knew what to look for.
She didn’t have to worry about someone extracting her secrets from her golems, either. Only Alpha had been involved in her plan, and it would never betray her, even if she did allow the golem to retain the knowledge – which she would not. Even a Master Artificer specializing in golems would find themselves empty-handed were they to dismantle her favored assistant.
Not that anyone was likely to try. Most had forgotten that Adrianna was capable of golemsmithing in the eons since she’d learned. It was not something she practiced openly. The other Immortals likely assumed she, like most others, purchased or traded for her golems.
And nobody sane would trust secrets to a creation made by another Immortal.
It had taken her several centuries to learn the intricacies involved in creating powerful golems. The timing of her ascension had been fortuitous, as the Immortal most proficient in creating intelligent constructs was on the decline and willing to share his knowledge to ensure it was not lost.
She hadn’t been the best of his students, but she was better than most. Her training and experience had ensured the knowledge she sought to protect would be irretrievable from the minds of her constructs. As soon as the first ritual was completed, all of the knowledge and memories related to her plan would be purged from her most loyal golem, leaving only her remaining instructions to carry out.
It was a necessary action.
Adrianna’s problem, like every other so-called Immortal, was that true Immortality was a myth. Everyone in the Immortal Realm knew it, but few were willing to acknowledge the fact since it was believed that nothing could be done to change it.
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Some opted to ignore their impending return to samsara, greedily hoarding whatever power they could obtain until they were faced with inevitability. In fact, there were several vacancies on pantheons across the myriad worlds because many deities held out until the end, refusing to pass their role to another.
Most eventually granted their name and authority to an up-and-coming god or goddess – much like Adrianna’s predecessor had done. The former major deity would then focus on cultivating, transitioning from a divine body into a spiritual body, thus extending the amount of time they had before they’d be forced back into the cycle of reincarnation.
Even those who eschewed godhood and opted to form a true spiritual body from the start could only exist for so long. Eventually, their will would waiver, or their mind would break, and they’d be pulled back into samsara, returning their divine power to the realm. It might take several eons, giving them more time than those who chose the added power of godhood, but their time was still finite.
It was the way of existence, regardless of what universe one might have been incarnated into. There had never been a way around it, no matter how smart or creative a so-called Immortal might be. The loss of self and return to the cycle had always been an eventuality.
At least, it had been until now.
The current Adrianna could have followed in her predecessor’s footsteps, but she’d chosen to try something new. Adrianna was viewed as one of the stronger, more popular goddesses, but that was mostly due to how long the name had been in use. She was strong – remarkably so. But it came at a price.
The goddess’s most recent divine body had only lasted a millennium before it had to be recreated, and doing so had taken a huge portion of her divine power. The power was easy enough to recover as a major goddess, but that was part of the problem. Balance, like true Immortality, was impossible.
At least, it was within the Immortal Realm.
One either failed to obtain enough divinity to sustain themselves, slowly weakening until being ejected from the realm, or they gained power that slowly wore away their sense of self until the realm ejected them. Both paths led to samsara eventually.
Adrianna refused to accept either path.
If her plan worked, she’d retain her memories no matter how many times she died. Only after returning to the Immortal Realm – or whatever equivalent realm she found – would the soul formation fail. At that point, she’d have the power to recreate it…infinitely.
She would become functionally immortal, even if true Immortality within a singular existence was impossible. At least she’d know who she was and retain all of her memories. She’d retain everything that made her Adrianna.
Power would be easy enough to obtain with her knowledge. And, who knew? Maybe with the right foundation, she’d find a way to make a body while in the Qi Realm that broke all the rules. It wasn’t like she couldn’t try various things across multiple lives. As long as her memories transferred, death would be little more than an inconvenience.
Seeing Alpha had completed its task and was waiting patiently, the goddess Adrianna reached out to a group of her followers within the Mana Realm world of Erith and instructed them to begin the first ritual. The system was already primed, and her most loyal golem assistant had access to just enough power to provide the promised blessings upon the successful completion of the last ritual.
It was possible she’d be able to hide her departure for several hundred years if everything worked out. It mostly depended on whether or not she could connect to Alpha through the system she’d chosen while within a mortal body.
It was an exciting time.
As the first ritual reached a crescendo, Adrianna activated the enchantments she’d designed specifically to control and shape the faith being channeled to her through her followers. The pain was excruciating, but she remained focused as the ephemeral inscriptions hovering above her body were transferred to her soul.
This next part was important.
If it worked, the death of her divine body would activate her new soul enchantment, and she’d be reincarnated on the designated planet with her memories intact. If not… she’d be reincarnated on the designated planet with potential soul damage and no knowledge of who she was.
No pressure.
“I will endeavor to return swiftly, Alpha,” she told the golem as the initial soul pain receded. Once she was certain the formation transfer was complete, Adrianna said the command word to set the next step into motion. The golem did not hesitate, and she saw the flash of a blade descending before her soul caught fire. It was infinitely worse than the transfer, and it felt like her very soul was being seared as the pain reached its peak before abruptly ceasing, taking her consciousness along with it.