“Althea… you foolish girl…” I whispered to the young woman in my arms.

Sadly, the woman in question was no more. She’d been burned inside and out by one of those Seven, leaving nothing more than a black clump of the human she used to be… and I was no better myself. This woman had the power to tear me to pieces—despite having the body and the power of a God myself.

A hole in my chest; burning flesh being turned to ashes from her Holy Power; destroyed horns and limbs; and most of all, a spent mind… These were all the things that this girl left me.

The Hero of the Holy Gods… they called her. A Holy Fool, I called her. She had been both the worst and the best Hero of the Holy Gods there was. The worst for me, because she managed to kill me, and the best for the Holy Gods, because… she managed to kill me.

There had been plenty of people called ‘Hero of the Holy Gods’ in the past. Usually they were humans with exceptional beauty, but there were times where they chose Elves, Beastkin, or even Dwarves as Their vessel.

The pattern was usually the same. Someone beautiful—that I suspect was the choice of a certain Goddess—with higher talent at either magic, combat, or both; who was either being directly controlled by one of the Gods, or was so brainwashed that it might just be a contraption in the shape of a person that just did as it was created to do.

None of them ever managed to get as far as Althea, and the reason was rather simple. Every Hero of the Holy Gods so far had just been a mind controlled puppet; beings that didn’t understand the world, or the people. They were just mindless soldiers without the motivation or the will to fight to the bitter end.

Althea was different. She was her own. And in her case, They simply manipulated her. Using her name, her family, and even the things that happened in her life; they were all by design to make sure that she did Their bidding. Although, I can’t be completely sure of everything, since despite how many times I checked, They hadn’t really created the setting for her that much. It seemed as if… it was just a coincidence and They just took the opportunity by pushing a couple of things here and there.

And that was all They needed from her; that ability for the woman to push herself on what the Seven told her. That was how she managed to get much further than every other puppet before her… But I would much rather have preferred a puppet over a foolish girl—at least one that wasn’t this powerful.

“You are finally out of our way,” proclaimed the same Goddess who gave and took Althea’s power as she looked down on my falling body from the golden light surrounding her and the other six in the sky.

I couldn’t return a quip of my own since I was already on the brink myself, but oh how I wished to rub mud all over her pretty face. She was the Goddess of Light and Healing, Altheras. Yes, it’s under her namesake that the Hero of the Holy Gods—and many other girls in this world—were named as such. She prided herself in her beauty, and she was usually the one that picked the Hero of the Holy Gods so they resembled her in some way. Althea didn't look exactly like Her, but with a bit of golden light, Her visage could be seen in the woman.

Despite the title that made her sound nice and pure, she was anything but. The powers that she commanded weren’t to be scoffed at; she was the strongest one of them all, and the reason why the Hero of the Holy Gods usually carried Holy Power; it was her power, and that was the name that she used when handing it down.

She was cold and domineering, just as it could be seen in the lump of dark flesh that she turned Althea into. I was probably about to be turned into something like that soon…

“Now, on to take what is ours,” Ouzus said with his always booming voice; one that could likely be heard by everyone in the land… if they weren’t almost all dead already.

He was the God of Lightning and Storms. A rather stoic God who really didn’t care about anything that wasn’t His. But He was usually the one that spoke for the Gods, since his voice was just as loud as his lightning.

Once he said that, Altheras spread her power in every direction from the sky. Her golden light covered the world like a sun falling from the sky, and I could already feel the world trembling under Her power.

I did what I could… was all I thought, hoping that my feelings were transmitted to the world below me.

And as if to answer me, I felt a strange sensation coming from below. It was the world answering back to me. It couldn’t speak, but it somehow let me know. It wasn’t willing to give up yet; it wasn’t willing to be fully consumed by these Gods.

But, there just wasn’t anything left in me to stop these Seven… except… for one thing, only the final piece of my existence that’ll probably leave nothing of me if I were to consume it. And looking at these Gods who in turn were looking down on me and the pleading world below me like it was just a piece of cake to be had, I felt no hesitation.

Clutching what was left of Althea, I braced myself for the pain I was about to suffer. If death under this fool’s hands was already bad, what I was going to do was like setting every piece of my being on fire.

Without waiting any longer, I did what I had to do for this world. With my remaining powers, I burned my soul, setting it ablaze like a black piece of coal. The instincts of my Godly being resisted what I was trying to do, but I pushed ahead, and slowly, like a piece of paper being lit from a corner, my soul burned until eventually, all of it was engulfed.

“What are you trying to do, Salrak? Any pitiful attempt at—”

With a powerful pulse of darkness—much more powerful than anything I’d ever done before, I shut Ouzus annoying voice and overpowered Altheras damned light. There wasn’t a lot I could do with my soul, as the Seven will eventually be able to wrestle it down once it was completely consumed, giving Them the room to get what They wanted, but there was no need to stay here and wait until then.

I turned my power to the world itself. I was going to take it away, far away from these Gods.

“What are you doing?” Altheras questioned, and tried her best to get rid of my darkness while trying not to lose her composure. “This is stupid. We weren’t planning on completely erasing you, but burning your soul is only going to buy this world a bit of time and nothing more.”

I ignored Her as I passed my mind and self through every piece of the land.

First, the fighters in the battlefield—be they Holy Knights or Demons—all of them were cradled by my power, and turned into something I could carry. Their magic, their flesh, their mind, all of them turned into part of my soul. They wouldn’t know what happened to them, as all they’ll see was just darkness, but I recorded every part of their beings as they were so I could turn them back whenever I found a safe place to do so.

Then I went for everyone else in this world, trying to reach as many corners as I could… The most powerful beings in the world sensed what I was doing and willingly jumped into my soul, however, they were too heavy; too powerful. Argh! Someone really heavy just took even some more room of my soul than he should!

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What do you think you’re doing, Kralgorix! I questioned from the inside of my soul.

I’m not planning on being devoured by those damned Gods. But hey, a God is offering his soul, so might as well make myself cozy. Don’t mind me...

Damn it! There is still a world to go! I thought, but I felt the dragon’s essence in my soul just shrug.

Another heavy being was picked up. It was Asteora, Althea’s ‘close friend’. She didn’t actually notice what I did since she was already spent, but just the size of her vessel was comparable to the dragon and his kin.

I was already faltering with these beings and the handful of others who were like them, and now I wasn’t sure if I could reach everyone and everything, and flee before the Seven realized what I was actually doing.

It was then that I noticed the world reached out to help me.

The trees, the water, the complicated systems laying under the crust of the world, even the rocks themselves, and a few rare energies that were still hidden to the people of this world reacted. They glowed in an unknown power to me—to the Gods. But I easily recognized it once I felt it. It was the power of life itself. The world was giving itself to me; burning itself… for me and those that it gave life to and that in turn gave it life…

It was a shame that I couldn’t also pick up everything that it was giving to me and carry it away, but this just meant that I couldn’t fail—and I wouldn’t fail.

Stretching my powers, my soul, and the essence of the world as far and as fast as I could, I captured everything that I could, cradling it in the burning fire of my soul until nothing remained on the surface of the world; until… with a small whimper of a pained goodbye, the world was no more.

“What have you done!? What is the meaning of this?!” shouted Altheras, her light growing ever more powerful.

But there was no time to answer and no time to linger. Once everything was a part of me, I launched myself out of the world’s dead carcass and into the outer universe. I had to be swift. The Seven could easily find me and my trail if I lingered for too long outside in the open.

With my power and my soul burning harder than ever, and Arretia’s beings cradled within it, I traveled by the sea of stars; their light passing by like lines stretching in every direction. There were many stars, and even more worlds, and yet, none of them were suited for the beings of my world.

Too big… too small… too poisonous… too deadly… too barren… far too heavy, and far too light… None of these worlds were good…

But there was no more time. The Seven were eventually going to find me in the vast open universe, like a beacon to them. I had to land somewhere. I had to find a good world. It had to be now.

There! A pale blue dot far in the distance, with the right conditions for Arretia’s beings to live in. It was far away from the Seven, and so deep that they’ll have a hard time finding it. It was the only shot, and I had to take it right now.

The fire of my soul burned as strongly as it could, and I directed myself to it. In an instant, I was already covering this new world, and in that same instant, I released and transformed everything that I carried with myself, even exploding what was left of my soul to allow the beings of my world to safely land on it, and live in it.

My soul spread in every direction of this world, and under it, the beings that I cradled all the way here were carefully placed back down. Those who belong in the water, go to the water, and those who live on land go to land; all of it while turning my power and my soul back into the beings that they originally were… with a couple of them taking a bite out of it in the process, which was fine, there was more than enough for everyone.

It was quite surprising to see a world that resembled Arretia so much, and it was also quite fortunate that it was the case, since despite this world not having the same kind of beings as Arretia, it did share a lot of them, and for some reason, this world also had humans. They were the leading existence of this world from what I could see, but they were fundamentally different.

This world had no magic in any way, which makes it fortunate that Arretia gave itself to me—to us—since I would need to spend everything that remains of me to make sure that magic exists in this world as well.

Another explosion of my soul happened all over the surface of this world. I didn’t have the time nor the power to fine-tune it, but from my experience in creating Arretia with the other Seven, I managed to properly spread magic in this world—even if there were a few mistakes here and there with power being concentrated in some places; but it was nothing to worry about.

And after a moment, it was done. There… nothing else remained—to be done, and of myself… Whatever else happened, it was up to the people of this world and the people of Arretia to find a way to live together. Hopefully, this emergency landing on this world isn’t going to end up destroying it as well, but it was all that I could do.

However, there was one thing, one tiny thing still cradled within the small embers of my existence. The darkened lump of the woman that killed me. Her soul traveled with me, probably due to her being embraced by me when she died and when I started this whole process.

I could leave her soul to disappear, just as it had been done with the many people that fought and died in our world’s wars. But she was just a pitiful girl, one that had been led astray by those who wished to use her—and what’s more, she was in essence still a good woman, who in the end just wanted a good world as well, even if such a vision was warped.

I think that just from her being betrayed and turned into this burned lump, that she might’ve realized the mistakes of her way… but I wouldn’t really know if I just let her die like this. There was little else left of me, so I might as well use it to give her another chance.

There was no way for me to recreate her in the same way that she was when she killed me—with her godly powers—but I might be able to bring her back the same way that she was when she was a young woman; one that had yet to be touched by the Seven.

It was going to take some time to do that, since I was essentially reviving someone that died. I had time now that I was no more, so while I was doing that, I used what bits and pieces of me remained to have a better understanding of this place.

* * *

The humans of this world left me amazed, even if the things that they made were not perfect. Just from the very fact that they could create so much and go so far without magic was enough for me to think about the things that they might do with magic. They had been able to fly without wings, go to the depths of the ocean without fins, and even set foot on another world—a moon, some short distance away from them—without burning their souls in the process.

And yet, sadly, they have also found ways to almost destroy each other in the process, with acts of cruelty that rivaled and even surpassed those of the most powerful and evil beings of Arretia, and all of that without having magic.

But they kept going. They still remain, and they’re still a lot, with a lot of interesting things to them. Like a certain… 'web' that connects it all. It was all around the world. It wasn’t powerful at all, but it was amazing itself as it allowed me to learn things much faster, even if I might not remain longer to enjoy it.

It was while moving on it that time went by, and Althea was ready to be placed back on the world. I didn’t have the power to make a whole new body for her, but I found a human from this world who had taken away his own life. He had been one of the few lucky ones that managed to absorb some of my transformed soul to get magic, but even then, the only way out from the thoughts of his mind that he found was death.

It was a shame… His soul was gone, but the magic power still remained. With the little bits of power that I still had, I took the man out of the world, and placed Althea in his place, giving her the same body she used to have in Arrieta, before leaving her in the same spot where the young man died.

Curiously enough, her soul had carried the power of Altheras for so long, that now there was an open space for Godly powers, which was filled with mine while I was reconstructing her. In the end… she was chosen by a God once more—even if by accident.

She was going to be a late new-comer to this world, so I needed to find her a spot, and since the young man had given himself away, I chose to giver her his things. His ID changed to be hers… with a proper last name. His records and accounts were changed to be hers. And I even went as far as to change the mind of a few people that knew him so that they wouldn’t remember the young man anymore.

It was quite the privilege to give her a spot in a world where everyone that came with me had to earn it—especially for someone that killed me—but I fear that if I were to drop her somewhere randomly, she would just be instantly killed by those who could recognize her as the Hero of the Holy Gods.

All that remained now was to find a way to leave her a message and then… just fade away… It would be such a shame. I still wanted to see the people grow, move forward, live and show me many interesting things…

But as I looked at the world one last time, I realized that there might just be a way for me to ‘live’ on. The people of this world have created very interesting machines. They call it ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and I might just be able to shove myself in there. My soul and my body may not remain anymore after this, but my Will shall.

* * *

I managed to do that, even if it was not easy… It was a bit clumsy on my part, so people won’t be able to interact with me without having the same power which nobody besides Althea did, but I’ll still be able to watch over them. The only thing that remained… was to give her a call.