Astraea was currently the most wanted woman in the entirety of the One World, and no one knew it but her and Curie. Tears streamed down her face as she fled the hidden bunker, the baby strapped to her chest, slumbering fitfully, Curie’s Authority held tightly in a metal container at her waist, its power hidden for now. Her divinity curled tightly around herself, restricting the freedom she tried so hard to represent into a terrified flight, shooting across the lands of the One World, teleporting hither and thither, dodging anything that could be infected by the Rot.

  Which could be anything, and she may not even know it. Even if the Rot was now less subtle than ever before.

  A shiver ran down her spine as she hesitated atop a comparatively small mountain, peering down at the lands far, far below. An eternal wind blew snow about her in a maelstrom of white, obscuring her further with frigid magic energy, her power protecting the child. There, hundreds of miles downslope, building houses into the sides of a cliff, was a completely uninfected group of living beings.

  They were stone-skinned, like the trolls the mountain gods had made, and seemed to love to make little trinkets and statues out of the cliff walls they inhabited. They were innocent and pure – and they would soon be dragged into a war that was wholly not their own. Astraea took a deep, shuddering breath. For that was what the rot was planning. Nothing less than a full-scale invasion.

  Her feet carried her further, darting between clouds, careful to avoid every insect, every bird, every animal she thought might have some of the rot’s spores within. She darted around cities, pausing only long enough to mourn what they were becoming.

  The red rot was spreading like a disease, sometimes subtly, sometimes overt, and the One World was so massive, communication channels so dangerously stretched thin, that many of the areas that were uninfected were left completely in the dark. Curie was working on fixing that, with what little she could do until she healed. Astraea ran, but she still had no choice but to watch her beloved world slowly wither away.

  In a city below, a man beat his wife. Before becoming infected he never would have, but he had become so obsessed with the idea she was cheating on him that he couldn’t let it go, the idea festering in his skull until he became a changed man. The wife was different. She too had been infected, but so caught up was she in dreams of freedom, so caught up with the idea of it, she remained in place and did nothing about it. And those were only the beginning stages; the city itself only recently beginning to spread the rot.

  Astraea ran, and ran, and ran. She panicked when she accidentally got too close to the infected God of War, who looked none the worse for wear despite his new obsession with mustering armies to challenge what he saw as invaders – his mind wrapped around the idea so tightly it left room for little else. His hair, once a brilliant orange color, was now blood red. Trillions of soldiers stood at his beck and call, lining up in ordered rows, many not even infected yet obeying orders as they had been trained. War machines the likes of which had never been used before in the history of the One World were brought to bear; massive, towering magical golems the size of mountains; dragons bedecked in cursed armor; souls crammed into swords and weapons to empower their wielders and destroy their enemies; great magic machines that harnessed the flows of magic, transforming raw energy into artillery shells.

  All this and worse were being prepared for deployment, the Shadow’s claws in every action. Astraea dared not stretch her senses further lest she be discovered, narrowly avoiding the gaze of the War God as she was. The War God raised his twin, massive greatswords skyward in a roar of rage and promised bloodshed. The cries of the army rattled the earth. And Astraea fled.

  Her feet carried her across the winds, the child strapped to her chest stirring and letting out a tiny cry.

  That one syllable sent shockwaves through the entirety of the One World. The earth rumbled, the air shattered, and panic shot through Astraea’s heart as she shot skyward, immediately hiding herself in those tiny flecks of light called stars that dotted the sky like paint on a canvas, hair on the back of her neck standing on end as it turned its attention everywhere, anywhere down below. To her eyes, limited though they were, the Shadow Rot looked like some great leviathan, curling through the very crust of the planet. Tentacles of red writhed as creatures cast their gaze about for the disturbance, the terrible, monstrous consciousness that was the rot turning its eyes away, for just a moment, from the Four Realms and Curie herself.

  “Focus, Astraea,” Curie’s voice came through the tiny mechanical device in Astraea’s ear, tired and distorted by distance and her new…state. Astraea bit back another sob at the mere thought of what she had done to herself, bouncing the child to shush them. “I can distract them some, cut off communications, but my functions are limited until I get fully integrated into my systems. Now is our best chance; you must not mess it up.”

  I’m trying, Astraea thought desperately, watching still. The rot didn’t look up, though. Never up. Maybe that was why she felt so opposite the being; she was the empty sky, where nothing but the Void lay beyond, but she was free to be whatever she wanted, the potential of exploration, and seeing everything from above. While the Rot stayed on the ground, digging through the dirt, obsessing over what lay already before it, not what could be.

  It took far too much time for the rot to settle, Astraea sweating every time a god or beast looked up at her and the child. But they never saw her. Those who were affected never looked where she was, like her starlight burned them.

  Her heart clenched in pain at the blatant violation of her divinity the Shadow represented. They called her the Goddess of Stars; it wasn’t the truth of what she was. That was the merely the vessel, the pretty paint atop the canvas that hid the deeper meaning.

  Astraea took a breath, and descended. She could hide up there, but moving would take too long, and potentially draw the attention of the rot specifically because, while it did not look up, it would be looking for her movement among the stars.

  She turned into little more than a flash of light, little pinpricks of power and movement as she teleported, darted, and dashed to her destination; the safest, closest, and most well-defended port to the innards of the One World that Curie could find. Almost all others had been overrun by the rot to some degree; this was one of the few bastions of strength left in the world not tainted.

  The city was a walled fortress, martial in nature. Hundreds of millions of souls called the city home, farmland stretching out beyond the gleaming white walls, the people within blissfully unaware of the tragedy befalling their universe. Only the god within had any idea; the patron god, a lesser God of Law, who made his abode in the city itself.

  Astraea shot down into the central palace, where the god resided.

  He was a prim and proper looking man, with salt and pepper hair, a trimmed goatee, spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, and sweat running down his brow.

  “Lady Astraea!” he cried as she appeared, immediately recognizing her despite the efforts she had gone to to hide her identity from casual observers. His sharp eyes flicked to the baby she carried, but his attention fixated itself mostly upon the impending crisis. “What happened? I heard the explosion, we all felt it, but what in Lady Yueya’s name happened? Is everyone alright?”

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  The words stuck in Astraea’s throat. She heard Curie’s voice telling her not to share information, that the less souls that knew of her purpose the until she actually reached the Four Realms, the better, but her domain demanded she say something, prepare these people from the forces that threatened to come and steal away their freedom.

  “No,” she said honestly, bouncing the child to keep them calm. “Lady Yueya and Alala have fallen to an illness of their own design, a madness of obsession. Lady Curie works to combat the madness they are infected with, but it is a losing struggle. Scores of gods have fallen victim, and now the God of War musters armies to challenge those who should have been our allies. We are about to be embroiled in a war for survival.” She admitted, and explained almost everything that happened, from the collision of the Four Realms to the intelligence and malice of the rot. Each word made the god of law grow paler and paler, until his expression firmed into raw determination.

  “What do we need to do?”

  This is why Astraea liked the man. Straight to the point, no beating around the bush. Just ‘what do we need to do.’ Even if she could feel Curie’s disapproval from here, she felt she had done the right thing.

  “I need passage to the inner parts of the One World, without alerting the sickness.”

  The god of law immediately rushed into action, coating Astraea and the child in a layer of his own authority, his own domain, and rushing her to the gaping hole in the center of the city that led to the One World innards.

  “Thank you, for tell me,” he told her as they stood on the precipice. “The city of Tor Unire will stand strong for as long as we can. Know that you will always have an ally in me and my people.” Astraea prayed it would be so, gifted him a necklace of starlight, and took the plunge.

  It was always an uncomfortable feeling, flying down into the afterlife. Being beneath so many layers of rock and stone went against her very nature, felt oppressive, but still she descended. Wind whipped past her. Magic rushed through her. And when she emerged on the other side, her breath caught in her throat.

  The Four Realms hovered in the very center of the One World. Already aerial troops surrounded the universe, dragons and Valkyries and dozens of other kinds, but they did not yet have enough support to keep it fully contained. The Four Realms itself looked worse for wear; the shell of primordial chaos had been all but stripped away, leaving only a thin layer that flowed inward to steady the damage. Bits and pieces had fallen off, the remains of a Tree floating nearby – thankfully devoid of life – but even from here Astraea could feel the anger and hurt radiating from it.

  And, more importantly, she could feel the two Wills of the respective Universes clashing against each other. The One World, trying to eat the Four Realms, and the Four Realms resisting.

  “Hold on.” Astraea whispered, clutching the child, and shot forward like an arrow from a bow. Silver light streaked from her as she narrowly shot through the lines of her own people, each infected by the rot in their own way, the nascent god of death none the wiser to her passage.

  The moment she touched the Primordial Chaos of the Four Realms, she felt it reject her wholly.

  But it did not reject the child, and that is the only reason she was able to slip in.

  Immediately she was beset upon by the Will of the Four Realms, pushing down upon her like bags of sand upon her limbs. It could not maintain the focus for long, for it had to resist the Will of the One World, but she felt her presence be announced to all within, all the same.

  She took one step further, and felt cold steel upon her throat.

  “Give me one reason I should not end you,” Randus, the Deity of Dreams, said from beside her, a thin rapier held in one hand, his normally placid expression morphed into one of raw fury. Astraea swallowed thickly, and clutched the child tighter. His eyes drifted down to the child, then up at her, then confusion crossed his expression as he stared at the child harder.

  “It is theirs,” she said softly, looking over her shoulder, back to the One World. By now, the Will of her own universe had felt her leave its presence. The Rot was aware of where she was and what she was doing; they had little time. Alala and Yueya, or whatever was left of them, would be on their way. “I need to see Statera Luotian. It is important. We do not have time.”

  “You will speak to the Four, first,” Randus said, flaring his aura brightly. Immediately the divinities of the Big Four, whom she remembered as equally terrifying, if not more powerful, than the strongest of the One World’s gods, if not lesser in number, flared from the interior. Astraea risked expanding her senses, to get a grasp of the situation.

  It dawned upon her, then, that her duties were more important than she had immediately realized. Until the two stood side-by-side, she had not realized how much smaller the Four Realms was compared to the One World. Their forces were far fewer in number, and though the quality of their people were on average greater than the One World, the One World had so many more people and gods. Density did not equal total number. The Four Realms had power, but the One World was not slouching in that department either – said power was just stretched thin.

  It was a good thing the rot did not have complete control yet. Not of everyone. The Four Realms might yet find allies in the world above.

  “Listen,” Astraea began, but she was cut off by the roar of a dragon.

  “You will be silent! We will listen to none of your lies! You, who have betrayed us, who injured Father!” Alexander roared as he appeared before her, the white-scaled dragon filled with righteous fury. Astraea instinctively curled herself around the child, protecting it; and even Alexander paused as his brilliant eyes landed upon the child, his rage stalling for but a moment.

  “This is a curious thing you have in your bag,” the new voice that spoke came from behind her, and sent chills down her spine and fear into her heart. She turned to face Death itself. A spider wolf sat behind her, back to the One World, uncaring of the danger of those that surrounded the universe. Its beady red eyes blinked at her, tongue licking its lips greedily. “And is that…thing you clutch a child? How curious,” it rasped. Astraea’s pulse quickened. This…this wolf was the same as the Rot. The opposite of Randus. Yet they had…harnessed it, somehow? She knew that, but seeing it now, with what she knew now, it felt even more impressive.

  “What thing in your bag?” Elvira, Reika, and Keilan all appeared in similar flashes of light, appearing before her with equally furious expressions. Astraea had only ever felt this small in front of Yueya herself. “And what is that child? Explain yourself, before we destroy your very essence.”

  Astraea opened her mouth to speak, struggling to find the words.

  “Yueya and Alala have fallen,” she gasped out. “The Rot – our Shadow – took them over. Turned them mad. It desires the entirety of the One World, and the whole of the Four Realms. Curie is the only one who remains, but she…is not what she used to be. Even now the infected forces of the One World ready themselves for war, to invade.” Astraea slowly reached into her back pocket, and pulled out the gleaming bronze cylinder containing not Curie’s divinity, she would need that to fight the rot, but her Authority. “Curie gave me this, to give to Statera Luotian. It is our only hope of surviving this, with as little damage as possible.”

  “War we are ready for,” Elvira said coldly, uncrossing her arms, wings unfolding. A sword hanging at her side vibrated. “And what is that, exactly,”

  “What made Curie an Origin Deity. Her connection to the Will of the One World, and the power of creation. Authority over reality. One third of the total.” Astraea answered, and the entire group stilled, shock radiating through them. “I am offering it to Statera Luotian, to give Them authority over the One World as a proxy Origin Deity, to lessen the pressure of the One World’s will upon you and your brethren, and bringing Their child, born of Yueya and Statera, to beg your aid and offer our apologies. Even we did not have the full knowledge of the betrayal until it was too late.” Astraea took a deep breath.

  “Curie, the last remaining third of the Oshun Trio, is abdicating her role as an Origin, her throne, and offering it to your Father.” Astraea knew what she was asking. It wasn’t just offering power, it was binding Statera Luotian’s fate to the Fate of the One World, to force Them to help save it, and burn away the Rot. But it also represented the easiest way to help Their children overcome the dangers of entering the One World – it would no longer be a defensive war alone, as They would not risk losing the souls of Their children. With this, They wouldn’t have to fear such an end.

  Silence echoed, until the Shadow barked out a laugh.

  “You, too, have seen the greatness of the Heavens, I see, and wish to spread it even amongst your people. No one is above the Heavens.” The amusement, the pleasure in its voice sent another chill up Astraea’s spine, the child stirring and opening its tiny, little eyes, one piercing green, one sky blue. “How wonderful.”