Yiran stared at the notification as he tried finding appropriate references in his divine library for this Primordial God-King now Queen. Unfortunately, this particular god predated the entire current pantheon of light by a few hundred millennia. This meant that even among the gods few records of him existed. What he had already found in the few minutes he had been looking, which thanks to his temporal manipulation was for him a thousand years, were only a few relevant books. 

What he had found was disconcerting, to say the least. The Primordial God-King was according to the books the most powerful god to have ever ruled over this realm. Apparently he was also the creator of the pantheon of the Dark Gods, and a smaller but more powerful pantheon of Shadow Gods. Of the Shadow Gods, only Systeria still remained in this realm. The others having left for other realms long ago. More importantly, this God-King was also the creator of the system, which meant he controlled the system.

The last book he found was among the most illuminating. As this one actually dealt with what said god actually embodied. This is quite important as it determines the chief characteristics of said god. Unfortunately, he was a rather troublesome god type. He embodied the duality of creation and destruction. Which also meant he had powers over life and death. The fact that he embodied the cycle of creation and destruction meant that this god had some very troublesome abilities. Even more interesting was that this gender-bent god had multiple aspects as he was also the primordial god of magic, and the primordial god of knowledge. Like all primordial gods he primarily embodied concepts, and because of that, he was harder to classify.

Reading further on this book he had also learned why the light had been declared evil by the system. In the early world, when demons still walked only in the infernal plane he proposed a plan he called the ‘Great Balance’. Ultimately this plan forbade interference with mortals except when events on the mortal plane threatened to upset the balance. The Primordial light gods opposed this plan, and blatantly ignored it. They chose to help some of the mortal races with gifts of knowledge and power. Which the mortals promptly used for war. This war spread across the entire world, and during the war, a foolish mortal experimented in magics forbidden by the Primordial God-King resulting in the creation of the Undead King who is now commonly known as the Demon Lord. It was at this point that he interfered, and destroyed the Primordial Light Pantheon for their actions stripping away their divinity and cursing them to live out the remainder of their lives as mortals in the infernal plane.

As for the Undead King, he did not directly intervene. Instead, he gave the mortals a chance to defeat him on their own, by issuing the very first grand level divine quest. Ultimately each of the sentient Primordial races summoned their first hero and sent him or her on the quest of defeating the Undead King. These Heroes were ultimately unable to permanently defeat the Undead King, the magic that animated him having already grown too powerful to be fully countered, but they did manage to seal him away. An act that began the current cycle in which the king occasionally escapes his bonds and then wages war against the world until he is ultimately defeated and sealed away once more.

Yiran leaned back in his chair and wondered what he was going to do. He knew this god was too powerful to oppose, and to do so was suicide. However, this god was also vehemently opposed to the light faction. Then an idea occurred to him. If this god disliked gods interfering with the mortal plane, then he should just take a vacation. He did need a break after all, and maybe it would help him figure out where he went wrong with the Stormwind Kingdom. Getting out of his chair he left his library to plan that vacation.

Phyllis lost all power in her legs after that casual display of power, and slumped to the floor. Not only had the small girl before her updated the system with a wave of her hand, but she had also in the same moment cast a powerful spell. She had felt it pass over her, but she had no idea what the spell did. Only that it was so powerful that it blinded her mana sense. She was vaguely aware that Misaki had also slumped to the ground, and it took her a few moments to find her voice. When she did, she asked the very first question that came to her mind in a small voice, “Did you just casually update a system event?”

Arlie who had been paying a fair amount of attention to the child attached to her bosom looked up, and smiled before replying, “Yes, I did create the thing after all.”

Her eyes widened, and she replied, “You created the system? Does that mean you .....”

Arlie suddenly interrupted her while rubbing the baby spider girl’s back, “Yeah, I could fix those loopholes in the system. I know about them, but I never bothered to fix them in the first place. I figured they would make things more interesting that way.”

Phyllis wasn’t sure what to say in response to that. However the holes in the system weren’t all that important, so instead, she said, “You know, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but you weren’t what I expected.”

Arlie looked over her figure, and replied, “I guess not. Anyway, my changes aren’t why you called me across space and time.”

Misaki who had been silent the whole time finally found her voice. As she pushed herself off the ground, “We were hoping you could help us with a little problem.”

“That level two hundred Archpaladin on your seventh floor, right?” asked Arlie as she started burping the young girl who was done nursing.

“You know about that?” asked Misaki awkwardly. While Phyllis also pushed herself off the floor.

“Kind of hard not to. I sensed him when I arrived. It's why I cast that little time spell to give us some privacy,”  said Arlie just as Ren gave a loud burp. Phyllis had so many questions that she wasn’t sure which to ask and instead she thoughtfully scratched her cheek. As for Misaki she started examining Arlie’s old chair, and said, “He and his friends are after your granddaughter, Milith. I was hoping you would be willing to help us stop him.”

Arlie gave a gentle smile, and replied, “asking for help when you are in over your head is an admirable trait, and since you are only in trouble because you chose to aid my clan I will help you. My very presence weakens the paladin, so I will leave him to you. As for his buddies, I can remove them from your dungeon easily enough.”

Curious about the phrasing Misaki looked up from the chair, and asked, “Remove? What are you thinking of doing?”

“Not sure yet, depends on my mood, but I won’t kill them. I have too much blood on my hands already,” replied Arlie absently as she was paying more attention to the baby girl in her lap. Who was happily cooing.

Phyllis and Misaki looked at each other before asking almost in perfect sync, “What do you mean by too much blood!?”

Arlie slumped her shoulders a bit, and replied in a sad almost resigned tone, “I am old, very old even by the standards of my own race. I am the last living member of a group called the First Lords. As such, I witnessed the fall of humanity, and it was by my hand that the Solean Empire was born. My empire had many enemies at first, the greatest of which were the Cylovans. Enemies that I had to destroy to protect my people. In the case of the Cylovans that meant genocide. They were the first but they would not be the last. In my long life, I have killed countless enemies to protect what was important to me, but I have never enjoyed taking a life. As such, I prefer to avoid killing my enemies when I can.”

Pausing briefly she put Ren on the floor and started to fix her displaced robes. Beginning with her breast wrap. Something both Phyllis and Misaki had been curious about but neither had asked. While fixing her robes, she continued, “However you aren’t here to talk about my past. Now that I think about it I will let you decide what I do with the helper knights. Also, as for what I want in exchange I want you to continue to look after my granddaughter. When she recovers I want you to send her to me. I will teach your gate here, the address for my private gate.”

Neither girl had expected things to go so smoothly with Arlie. Misaki wasn’t sure what to say, and was a bit distracted by the spider girl that wanted to play with her. So she gave in and started to play with the girl. Phyllis took a moment to think about her response. The mention of a private gate was something that she felt she needed to ask about. Looking up from the floor confident in what she was going to say, she was surprised to see the old wooden chair was now empty. Looking around she didn’t see Arlie, and Misaki was playing with the spider girl that was happily squealing her joy.

Suddenly she felt some hands placed around her abdomen. She nearly jumped as she hadn’t been expecting this. “That’s what I thought. You have no idea how to properly regulate your mana, do you?” asked Arlie. Phyllis looked over her shoulder to see that she had a concerned expression on her face.

“My sister said she needed to reteach me on that, but we haven’t had the time,” replied Phyllis a bit confused about the sudden shift in topic.

“Reteach?” asked Arlie and then her gaze focused on the ring still stuck on Phyllis’s finger, “oh, I see. Still learning the difference between male and female. I think I would be a better teacher for that, and I can also give you advice on pregnancy and child-rearing if you like.”

Phyllis broke contact, and turned around to look her in the face, and asked, “What's the catch?”

“None, and this isn’t part of any contract either. I figured since I would want to check in on Milith from time to time after this, that I might as well impart some of my knowledge. Something that would prove useful to you,” replied Arlie looking thoughtful.

Phyllis lit up, and excitedly asked if that could include magical knowledge. Arlie gave her a few seconds to calm down, and then glanced over at the spider girl playing with Misaki, before saying, “I could. However I would need you to join my clan first as an apprentice, and I am afraid you will need to raise your level first. The weakest spells I know would require a level of four hundred to cast.”

Phyllis didn’t need more than a second to piece together from Arlie’s statement that Arlie must have been forbidden from teaching magic to those outside her clan. As for why, she would need more information, but tradition was always a good bet. It was a bit disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. So she changed the subject, and asked a question that had been on her mind earlier, “Aren’t you worried about unexpected visitors?”

Arlie scratched her cheek, and replied, “Not really. If I don’t want visitors, I can just deactivate the gate.”

Phyllis guessed that made sense, and after a quick look towards the other two asked her about a possibility for the knights. One that she thought up during their brief conversation.

Eriko dismissed the notification about a world event, and was greeted with the updated version. Which she dismissed after reading. She found the two being so close together to be quite odd. Normally there would be many years between such events. The few cases she was aware of were related, however, but she had no idea how these two were related. She guessed if she knew more about this primordial god queen she would be able to figure out the relationship.

She looked up to ask Shiori if she knew anything about this god, but quickly discovered that she was no longer at the table. She hoped the girl had finally decided to go get some clothes, but somehow she was doubting that. Then her husband yelled through the door, “Is Court Mage Shiori decent yet?”

She looked towards the door, and replied, “Unfortunately not.”

He yelled back, “in that case I’m going to wait in the throne room.”

She acknowledged the statement, and then sat back in the chair to wait for Shiori to come back. Something she didn’t have to wait long for, as she came out from behind a bookshelf holding an old and dusty leather-bound book to her bare breasts. Staring at the book, Eriko asked, “What’s with that book.”

“I remembered reading something about a Primordial God-king when I was reindexing the books last year. I figured I would go ahead and retrieve the only relevant book we have,” said Shiori as she placed the book on the table. Eriko glanced at the book, and could tell that it was very old. The cover glowed slightly with the touch of preservation magic, but despite the magic, the leather was worn, and dust clung to it like a dirty dust rag. The title was carved directly into the leather, and inlaid with silver that had long since tarnished. Still, the ancient elven characters were still readable. The book was titled ‘The Eternal Empire.’

Confused she asked, “and how exactly is this book relevant?”

Settling into her seat, and flipping open the book Shiori replied, “It is only partially relevant. It mostly focuses on the Eternal Empire, but it does have an entire section on the deities and gods worshiped by said empire and a brief description of them. That is the relevant part, as the Eternal Empire worshiped not the Dark Gods or the Light Gods, but the Primal Gods.”

She frowned, and said, “doesn’t sound very illuminating, but it's a start I guess.”

Shiori didn’t respond and instead flipped through the worn pages until she found the section she was looking for. Then she turned the book, and showed the page to Eriko. Sure enough, the description was rather vague, but it did give her a little insight into this god. From what she saw, she read she didn’t think she would have to worry too much. He was described as a powerful, but benevolent god. Honestly, she had more to worry about from the people, and their reaction to the world event than this god. Still, she did need to know more.

“I’m going to find my husband and discuss this with him, but I want you to find more on this god, and do put some clothes on,” said Eriko before departing with the old book in hand. Shiori watched her leave than muttered under her breath, “I hate clothes, and there is nothing wrong with a little nudity.”