The night was finished off with a literal bang, as the last and biggest giant rubbleman exploded from the combined attacks of six red bunny-eared figures in red and black.

Jun and the Administrator, now sitting with Ella and Sophie on his mother’s giant stone head, watched with eyes that could see the collapsing mass of aggravated soul shards and twisted emotions begin to diffuse and evaporate under the warm orange rays of the welcoming flame. What was left was the purest essence of the departed spirits that were gently drawn in to the gentle orange Oath Fire. There it remained and was allowed to finally sleep and rest until it was time to wake.

The world looked so different now.

Warm hues dominated what was once pure darkness, and even the ruins of the old era looked more wistful and melancholic rather than the terrifying hellscape it was.

The world also felt different now.

Jun closed his eyes and felt out with his spirit. The near infinite ocean of painful muted wails of unresolved death that enveloped the world was, at least for them, and for now, was silent and at peace.

When he opened his eyes, his family was returning, and the Administrator had vanished. Again.

Dogadon wasn’t messing when he said she did that.

But it was fine.

He got his confirmation.

He’d done it.

A new Spiritual Artifact was created that day. The implications were very interesting. He had to create more and see what happened. Very exciting.

But this one differed from the Garden and the Table.

The Guardians spirituality was tied to his own sense of conviction. The rune fire that was to become the finishing touch for a sculpture resonated with his powerful will to right the wrongs and reset the world’s balance, and recognized the formation of an Oath and became an Oath Fire.

The Oath, as the Administrator described it to him, was a sacred type pledge, where the Oath-Taker pledges his own soul as forfeit for the price of failure. It was an uncommon type of pledge that was used in certain types of spiritual ceremonies in exchange for enormous gains.

In this case, what was gained was a unique Oath Fire.

Jun subconsciously rubbed the areas of the shattered rune that signified the state of the Earth’s spirit. If it shattered any more, than it meant the Earth’s spirit had shattered, and so would his. But if the Earth’s spirit died, then they were all dead anyway, so was there a real difference? Was this cheating?

“JUN! I LEARNED HOW TO RUN!” yelled a giant blur of starlight as it skated across deformed terrain and up the side of the mountain sized statue to stand before his brother by the time he’d finished his sentence.

“Ah! Congratulations! Did you not know how to run before?” yelled back a startled Jun, who didn’t understand his little brother’s glee.

“Haha! No! I mean with my powers! The Grand Heavenly Movements are all about ‘stepping’ and ‘hopping’ and ‘jumping’ and ‘leaping.’ No running! Isn’t that insane? But after watching you for so long, I suddenly thought of a way to ‘run!’ I move WITH the starlight! Not just THROUGH it! Aren’t I a fucking genius?!”

“Language!” Juan shouted as his giant fist found his adorable, overexcited son’s head and gave him a loving tap. Stepping over his writhing kid, he also reported having gained insight into a movement technique. The Chaos God’s Copper Body was a pure refinement technique and had no exclusive martial arts or methods. Just the strongest body in the universe.

Mary and the rest of the girls soon arrived, and all had excited reports of new gains, realizing that for all of them to spontaneously be inspired would rule out the spontaneous and leave the deliberate.

Jun was genuinely impressed with their enlightened gains, and grew wide-eyed when he also saw the patterns. It wasn’t that he had no idea as to the what’s and why’s, but rather that it wasn’t something he expected to happen, or could happen.

During his first week in of stay in the Nexus under Dogadon’s care and tutelage, Jun had been introduced to almost all of the major aspects of life as an Elder residing in the Nexus. Not all Elders did.

So he understood how most Elders earned their karma, was by sharing prerecorded demonstrations of their expertise for those who could earn it.

As ones who’d Glimpsed the Origin, their souls having been briefly exposed to the pinnacle essence of the laws they studied, their very movements that resonated with those laws were glimpses of the Elder’s personal reflection of those laws.

The Crowns, who could earn a chance to see those recordings, were seeing the essence of the laws through the perspective of a master. It was like gaining indirect access to the Origin. With earnest hearts, they could gain massive benefits.

But that was when an Elder was moving with movements that resonated with laws. Jun assumed that this only applied with martial and technique based Elders.

Jun was just jumping around and punching out haphazardly. There wasn’t any kind of meaning in how he did it was there?

When he explained this to his curious family, they merely nodded in understanding. Jun couldn’t help tilting his head.

“The way you moved was very mysterious,” Lily chimed. People nodded.

“Sometimes it was all very straightforward jump and punch and shatter giant clusters of stone but other times your movements seemed random and your punches turned to pats and instead of shattering, portions of mountain turned to sand,” lil Davie exclaimed with exaggerated hand gestures. “I mean, bro, you’re a person, not a chisel. I’m still trying to understand how come you didn’t just end up shattering a mountain into dust, which is an insane thing to marvel over!”

“Daddy, you looked really cool!” Ella added, looking up from Jun’s lap.

“Aw, thank you sweetie,” he said, wrapping up with lovable little girl in an enveloping hug, causing Ella to squeal with laughter as she protested.

Looking at the time, Jun sighed out tiredly. It was almost morning again.

Feeling the sting of a mother’s glare, Jun looked in the other direction and said to his dad, “It’s getting late. You guys will have to start your days soon. Did you guys have any homework?”

The last question to the new college freshmen was his last ditch effort to get out of trouble, but she didn’t bite.

“We only had a few assignments and mom had us do them from the ship while we watched you do your thing,” Lily said, bouncing the bomb back into his lap.

“Oh, that’s good. Don’t wanna get behind so soon now, do we? Hahaha.” He tried.

Mary had everyone back on the ship while she and her son had a conversation about time management for parents.

Since they were all at the peak of third cleansed, none of them needed to sleep for months at a time if they chose, and although Ella’s constitution was special from whatever those evil bastards did to her and didn’t need to sleep as much as normal children, it was still important for developing children and for humans in general to keep certain routines for positive mental health.

They rejoined the group after nearly an hour. Mary had a lot to say. Not all bad.

Once everyone else had gone off to live their normal lives and Sophie had made certain preparations, Jun and Ella returned home, which was currently a forest lake side cottage, and took a good nap. He had one more day before the Elder’s Gathering and he needed to take a break.

Tomorrow they would play.

——

Unlike the first time he walked down the white stone mountain, now he knew the significance of the countless Crowns from countless worlds climbing up the spiraling steps that led them to heaven.

It was a verification of qualification.

Not all could complete the climb.

In fact, Dogadon had intended to play a prank the first day they met.

When the mischievous creature led the boy down the mountain, it was to see how a newly awakened 4th ranked Elder would manage to climb up the mountain.

The test didn’t differentiate between Elders and Crowns, but since Elders were at such a high spiritual realm, the spiritual pressure that attacked the body, spirit, and the mind of those that walked its steps were nothing to them. But for a 4th ranked Elder?

Very few 5th ranked Crowns could ascend the steps and even some 6th ranked Crowns struggled to the top.

Jun didn’t feel a thing up or down. Perhaps a bit more winded than he was used to, but he’d never climbed that many flights of steps before, either.

“Daddy look! Look! That one’s got a big nose!”

“Don’t point, Ella, that’s not very nice. How would you like it if they said your nose was very small?”

“But their nose is bigger than their body. Of course mine would be small, Daddy,” Ella patiently explained to her silly father making silly points. Her point was that he looked super weird!

A father with his daughter sitting on his shoulders had descended the mountain without a problem - Ella and Sophie having entered through the Elder’s invitation, was labeled as civilians and thus exempt from any tests - and entered a noisy and bustling, colorful and fantastic marketplace where heroes and warlords from every imaginable dimension came to act like common aunties at the street market.

“Look at the quality of these durham scales. They’re so browned at the edges, it’s clear you didn’t store these properly and you dare charge five thousands merits? Do you take everyone for fools? This can’t go for more than a thousand at most, and that’s being generous!”

“You! You! You! Didn’t I say I never wanted to see you at my stall again?! Go bother another innocent merchant! My goods are all high quality! The browning is a sign of maturation and quality! Don’t go trying to make things up and ruin people’s hard earned reputations!”

“Ha! You unscrupulous merchant! Just because you’re ignorant, don’t assume everyone else is! Durham beasts are 6th ranked demon beasts that store their magic in their scales! If fully energized, they’d be a pure aquamarine! They only brown when their magic energies were allowed to leak out in improper conditions!”

The two squabbling over the quality of goods and haggling prices were a giant bald barbarian with bulging scar torn muscles, decorated with layers of demon teeth and bones and claws, and colorful feathers. Although he looked ferocious, the way he was calmly lecturing the enraged tiny mouse sized floating mouse in a suit made him feel more dignified than terrifying.

The floating merchant mouse, on the other hand was beginning to manifest shadows of giant lizard like phantoms in annoyance.

Shouts of angry customers and biting vendors, temporary merchants advertising their newest wares, and even buskers performing for merits, all who were Keyholders that came in all shapes and sizes and states of matter, whether floating, flying, walking, phasing, or crying, from every corner of the multiverse all wove into a tapestry of chaotic delight.

The smells were constantly shifting from every possible combination of smells, from good to bad to emotional, with Ella laughing every time they passed by a Snortian, beings who smelled like their emotional state. They were an easily amused species.

It was the first time he’d gone exploring, and he wanted to spend some quality time with his daughter before things got too crazy.

He also just needed to unwind a bit.

Stressing about the end of the world all the time could get exhausting.

“Daddy, what’s that?” Ella asked, tugging at Jun’s hair from her comfortable seat on his shoulders.

Looking in the direction of Ella’s pull, Jun saw an interesting stall made of tanks of what looked like pinkish water with soft greenish blobs floating inside. A blue fishheaded man was scooping out the softest looking masses of something Jun really wanted to touch into clear cups and handing them out to a substantial line of hungry customers.

“I don’t know sweety, let’s go see.”

“Yaya, yaya!” the little thing cheered as she tugged her father’s invincible hair roots. A lesser man would already be bald.

“Haha,” Jun laughed, not realizing just because it felt like a soft pull, that he wasn’t the same as he was before.

She had never ridden on the shoulders of her uncle and granddaddy before.

Coming closer to the stall, Jun saw at least five servings of beautiful soft green being scooped and purchased and devoured and was growing more and more tempted.

From what he understood, if he wanted to know if it was alright to eat, then he just needed to stand like so and then… oh no. The light was red.

Turning to look at the figures standing in line, he didn’t see anyone or thing that looked like a human, or even a mammal.

This wasn’t meant for humans?

But they looked so appetizing?

Sigh.

Wiping the drool from his mouth and the top of his forehead, Jun looked up and delivered the devastating news.

“I’m sorry Ella, this light says that if we eat this, we’ll probably die.”

“What? Why doesn’t that light want us to eat the yummy? Did I make it angry? If I say sorry, will it change its mind? I’M SORRY LIGHT! PLEASE LET US EAT IT!”

Laughing his ass off, Jun brought down the hollering child from his shoulders and held her from his hip, and explained, “there are all kinds of lifeforms here and everyone eats different things to live. What’s your favorite food so far, Ella?”

“Chocolate!”

“Oooooo me too!”

“Yay!”

“Yay! But not everyone can eat chocolate here. Some could get really sick and feel awful, even though it tastes amazing. Isn’t that bad?”

“That’s not good!”

“Yup! And that’s why these lights are here to tell us if it’s safe for us to eat. So it’s not saying you can’t eat it because it’s mad at you, okay? It’s just helpfully telling us that we don’t want to eat this. We just don’t know it yet.”

“Oh, that’s nice. THANK YOU LIGHT! I WON’T EAT IT!”

“Hahaha!”

 

 

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someone please give me a rating. that 4.4 is giving me highschool flashbacks. a B was a dangerous thing to walk in with. and it makes me sad.