The castle where the Starisnovas made their base was quiet.
Narisva didn't walk through the halls so much as pass through them. Space folded politely around her presence. By the time she reached her room, her footsteps hadn't echoed once and no one saw her. She stood before an unmarked wall and opened a portal with a flick of her wrist.
Her room unfolded on the other side.
It wasn't luxurious. It was… simply a large circular chamber carved from ancient stone, reinforced with layers of spatial insulation. The walls permanently glowing with a soft starry hue. There was only a single bed, a long table covered in scattered papers she never touched and a bathing chamber that took up nearly a third of the space.
The moment she stepped inside, the outside world ceased to exist. A red hologram appeared, floating in midair. She didn't need to read it. She already knew what it would say. She had felt the invisible pressure lift the moment she crossed the barrier of the base. Still, the words formed anyway.
[Congratulations.]
[Quest Completed: Save the Xypelians.]
[Result: 1,273,847 Survivors.]
[Reward: Admiration of the People.]
Narisva stared at it for a long moment before she laughed bitterly. She gestured vaguely around her empty room.
"Admiration. That's it? I brought nearly ten million people into a frozen mass grave and managed to drag a fraction of them back out. I killed more of my own people than most gods kill enemies. And my reward is… feelings?"
The hologram didn't respond of course. It never did. It just hovered there. She waved it aside with a flick of her fingers but another message replaced it immediately.
[New Quest Initiated: Find a Way Out!]
[Objective: Escape Frostdeath.]
[Status: In Progress.]
Her eye twitched.
"No."
She didn't even look at it this time. Instead, she raised her hand and created a temporary dimension that wrapped around the entire room like a cocoon. The outside world was cut off completely. For the first time in a month, Narisva was alone.
She stripped off her battle attire without ceremony. The clothes vanished into her inventory mid-motion, leaving no pile. She stepped into the bathing chamber, where a massive circular tub carved from some sort of white stone waited in silence.
She opened another portal. Snow poured out into the tub until it was filled nearly to the brim with shimmering white. Then she summoned a miniature sun no bigger than a bar of soap, floating above her palm like a tiny blue star. She dropped it into the snow.
The snow melted into water, but the water didn't boil. It should have. Any normal physical law would have demanded evaporation, steam, explosive pressure but apparently, the laws of melting and evaporation didn't work normally with mystical snow, or even with normal water for that matter. The water became impossibly hot without changing state.
Narisva stepped in.
The heat bit into her skin instantly but it wasn't scalding at all. She sank slowly. Her shoulders disappeared beneath the surface which had a starry night sky dancing across her collarbone.
For a few seconds, she said nothing.
"Fuck it. I hate this realm."
The heat soaked into her bones, for the first time since the Second Epoch Cycle began. Her mind, unfortunately, didn't follow.
Veneri's name appeared in her interface almost immediately. She made an audio call to him. She didn't even wait for him to speak.
"Don't say anything. I'm not calling to hear your voice. I'm calling to complain at you."
His familiar tone was all she could hear.
"Good evening to you too, strongest Divine of the Third Generation."
She sank deeper into the water.
"I finished it."
"Finished what?"
"The Xypelians. Or what's left of them. The system gave me a reward."
"Let me guess. Something completely useless?"
She snorted. "Admiration."
There was a brief silence on the other end before Veneri laughed.
"Oh that's cruel."
"Right? I wanted a way out. Or at least something that doesn't feel like the universe patting me on the head for failing less than everyone else. And now it wants me to find a way out of Frostdeath. As if I haven't been trying."
"Well, you are very good at impossible things."
She rolled her eyes, even though he couldn't see it.
"I just want five minutes where nothing is dying, nothing is worshipping me and nothing is turning into monsters."
"Are you okay?"
That single, stupid, simple question almost broke her.
"No. But I'm pretending really well."
He didn't joke this time.
"Do you want me to come? It will be hard since I'll be able to do it for an hour at best-"
"No. If you show up, I'll start becoming desperate again."
"Fair point."
The interface shifted before she could stop him. For a fraction of a second, she forgot about all the issues she her at the moment.
She saw his face for the first time in seven months. Vastarael Richinaria looked… different.
His hair was shorter instead of flowing down his shoulders the way she remembered. Water slid down his skin in slow rivulets as he leaned back against the edge of his own bathtub, unfazed by the fact that he was speaking to one of the most feared Divines while naked in a bath. He smiled when he noticed her staring.
"Wow. Seven months and that's the look I get? I was expecting at least a sarcastic comment."
Her throat felt tight in a way she didn't like.
"You cut your hair," she said, finally.
He tilted his head slightly. "You noticed."
"Of course I noticed. It suits you."
That earned her a soft laugh.
"And here I was worried you'd tell me I ruined my favorite feature."
He was in a place with oceans and night breezes that wouldn't kill him while she was buried in a frozen graveyard pretending she wasn't breaking. Vastarael's eyes flicked briefly, taking in her surroundings.
"You're in a bath too. Please tell me that's not Frostdeath water."
"It was snow five minutes ago."
He winced. "I stand corrected. That's worse. You said you wanted to vent. I'm here. Tell me everything."
That was all it took.
"I'm tired," she said at first.
"I know I'm supposed to be, but this is different. This isn't exhaustion from fighting or training or even killing. It's… hollow. Every time I save someone, I think of the ones I didn't. Every time someone bows to me, I want to scream at them to stand up because I didn't earn that."
Her fingers curled against the stone rim of the tub.
"I killed two people yesterday. Xypelians. They were infected but they agreed to die. They asked me to and I did it because it was the logical choice."
Her voice wavered for the first time.
"And then a child asked me where her brother was, the same one I killed the morning before."
Vastarael didn't interrupt. He didn't soften it with reassurance or try to redirect her. He just listened.
"I can't feel the sense of victory, Veneri. That's my Bane, I know it's part of me but sometimes I'm scared that one day I'll stop feeling anything again. That I'll just… function and fulfill vows without a conscience until the world decides I'm done."
She finally looked at him.
"I'm scared, Darling..."
The admission actually amazed him but he did not reveal it.
"I'm a Divine. I'm supposed to be beyond fear but Frostdeath makes even me feel small. And when I close my eyes, all I see is white and blood and people turning into things they never asked to become."
Her lips trembled.
"And I can't tell anyone else. They're strong in ways I'm not. I just… keep going."
Vastarael exhaled slowly. Then, very deliberately, he smiled.
"Nari, you're doing something very wrong right now."
"What?"
"You're measuring yourself by outcomes. That's my mistake, not yours. I do that. You're not built for it."
She frowned faintly. "That's not reassuring."
"It is, because it means the emptiness you feel isn't failure. It's proof that you still care."
She scoffed weakly. "That's a generous interpretation."
He leaned closer to the hologram on his side.
"You're scared because you haven't lost yourself. If you were becoming what you fear, you wouldn't be afraid at all."
"You don't understand. Every victory takes something from me."
"I know," he said immediately. "That's why I keep beating you."
She looked up sharply. "What?"
"If I didn't, you'd be unbearable by now. Imagine a Narisva who wins at everything. Terrifying."
Despite everything, she let out a short, breathless laugh.
"You do it on purpose."
"Absolutely. Every argument. Every competition. Every time you think you've cornered me logically. Seriously, figuring out your Bane was not that hard. When we were in Nyramith Island for that one year, I figured it out. It's as if every breakthrough you had was not fulfilling. Although I admit, it took me months to know about it."
"You're infuriating."
"And yet you don't seem mad that I know about it."
"I hate that you make me feel better. I hate that I need this."
"There's nothing wrong with needing someone. Even Divines get tired of holding the sky up alone."
"Stay on the call," she said quietly. "Just for a bit. Please?"
"Of course."
-------
And we are back!
Sorry for the long wait. Believe me, I wanted to post sooner but I had to plan this out? Anyway, you now understand why Narisva is the strongest.
The usual 2 or 3 chapters will begin from tomorrow. Happy April Fools!