The Dragon Lord had no idea how to respond to her, simply staring in mute incomprehension. Long Xiaofan was likewise dumbfounded, so it fell on Yoshika to elaborate on her audacious confession unprompted.

  “It’s not as convenient as it sounds. The future is...really big. Impossibly big. It hurts to look at, even if I try to narrow it down. No matter how much I try to reduce the focus, it’s still overwhelming, but it’s there and I can see it. Actually, I can’t stop seeing it—I can only stop looking.”

  She realized she was rambling and stopped. The dragons continued to stare silently, until the silence grew painfully awkward. Yoshika opened her mouth to try explaining more, but the Dragon Lord interrupted her.

  “That’s impossible.”

  He said it with utter conviction. Not mere disbelief, but an absolute certainty that she was wrong.

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but—”

  “No. It’s impossible. The future cannot be perceived, and it certainly cannot be changed. This is a known fact. It is the immutable existence of fate which drove the Bloody Sovereign to his end, and his discoveries were corroborated long before the seal was established.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t have the words to explain her perception of time, so instead she interrogated his claim.

  “How were they corroborated?”

  “My father is one of the three Sovereign Lords of the divine realm. He, along with Shen Yu and Longyan, shares access to the great Font of Creation, the origin of all existence. Sovereign Chou’s encounter with the demiurge, despite its failure, emboldened those at the apex of power to brave the Font to make their own attempts at a greater ascension. Each of them failed, and each of them were met by the same demiurge.”

  Yoshika blinked. A dreamlike memory echoed through her soul. She...remembered that. Another her, gently plucking lost souls from the fabric of raw creation and depositing them safely back in reality before they could be crushed under the weight of infinity. Her lips moved, almost unbidden.

  “There is no greater ascension, only dissolution into the unchanging eternity beyond creation.”

  The Dragon Lord narrowed his eyes.

  “Yes...”

  Xiaofan cocked her head curiously.

  “You’ve heard the story before? Was it from Shen Yu or Longyan? Jianmo wouldn’t have been privy to this information—though I suppose their master heard a similar message.”

  “I saw it. Maybe even experienced the same thing they did, only from another angle. The same one as Chou, probably, though he didn’t know how to interpret it and the demiurge didn’t know how to explain it to him. But I think I have the words now.”

  She raised a hand, and a shimmering path of stardust appeared between their feet, stretching forever into the distance in either direction.

  “You are right that time is immutable, but you misunderstand what time is. You think of it like this—a single past, moving into a single future. A path upon which we trudge inexorably forward.”

  Yoshika turned her hand over, and the path split into two branches, then the two branches split into four, then eight, and so on forever into an endless fractal pattern.

  “In truth, it’s more like this. Even this is a simplification, but it serves my point. The paths are always there, they always have been, and they always will be. They don’t change, yet we can choose which path to walk. Everything that could happen has happened, but only from the demiurge’s perspective—outside of time. For those of us within it, the future remains uncertain.”

  The Dragon lord stroked his chin, staring pensively at the fractal paths before them.

  “Supposing that’s all correct, how are we supposed to just take your word for it? Why can you see it when nobody else can?”

  “I think everybody can sense it to some degree, in intuitions and premonitions. I’ve certainly had my fair share. All of us share a connection to the demiurge. In a way, we are its living body, each of us contributing to its eternal growth and change. But, I’m the Goddess of Unity—not just the sovereign deity of this world, but one on the path to becoming a High Goddess embodying the very concept of Friendship, Love, and Coexistence.

  “For a brief moment, a mere instant that also lasted forever, I was the demiurge. It feels like a dream, but I know that it was real. The Font of Creation is the moment of her birth, and the Tear—I am the moment of her death. I still carry echoes of that connection within me, like a wellspring within my soul. Sometimes I reach in and can’t find what I’m looking for, other times things bubble up to the surface unbidden, so I’m sorry if the things I say don’t always make sense. I don’t really understand it all either.”

  She smiled apologetically and even bowed to the dragons. She knew just how unbelievable it all sounded.

  “As for taking my word—I don’t need you to do that. I just need you to help me navigate.”

  Without elaborating or waiting for a response, Yoshika let the visions of the future wash over her. The clearest path was as dangerous as the Dragon Lord had suggested. The Sovereign Lords were watching, waiting for an opening to present itself. They saw her as a threat to their hegemony and wanted her gone at any cost. Even the Father of Dragons would strike her down given the opportunity.

  Navigating through the infinitely overlapping expanse of possibilities was a mind bending ordeal. It was one thing to glimpse briefly at the place where most futures overlapped, and quite another to find a more desirable outcome. Nobody ever said prophecy would be easy.

  With considerable effort, she meditated on the visions until at last she managed to pluck a single gossamer thread out of the tangled web that would serve her purposes. When she opened her eyes again, the dragons were regarding her with concerned expressions. She was sweating profusely, and a trickle of blood leaked from her nose.

  Xiaofan knelt down next to her and put an arm on her shoulder.

  “Are you alright? What just happened?”

  Yoshika stood up and brushed herself off, wiping away the blood. It wasn’t real, anyway—just a reflection of the wear she suffered from diving too deeply into that wellspring.

  “I’m fine. This is just harder than I expected. I think I have what I need to get started, though.”

  “Started with what?”

  “Just watch.”

  She reached out to the edges of her perception, where the divine seal was like a skin or a shell, protecting her from what lay beyond it, but also blocking it from her view. Intuitively, she could sense that it was hers to mold and shape, like a muscle that she hadn’t quite learned how to flex just yet. If she wanted to, she could destroy the seal at any moment with just a thought. Indeed, that was where most futures converged. It was the easiest way forward, but also the most dangerous.

  The seal could also expand or contract. Growing it required exponentially increasing amounts of essence, but with her connection to what she’d decided to start calling the Wellspring of Fate—since it was no longer the Sovereign’s Tear, and not quite the same as the Font of Creation—that wasn’t really a problem.

  Finally, she could make smaller openings. Little apertures to the outside world. That was dangerous too—it left her exposed. The sovereigns could send more of their avatars, or in the worst cases even assail her directly through such openings. But if she made them small enough—so small that not even a single mortal soul could fit through—then she could peer out from those little pinholes and, with enough of them, create a map of her surroundings.

  The astral expanse surrounding them disappeared as Yoshika did just that. The divine realm was beautiful in a way that defied expression, dazzling the senses of her body, mind, and soul all at once in a harmonious display of brilliant colors and sparkling lights. It was like a night sky, but filled with colors that mortals couldn’t even dream of. A world where even familiar things were somehow more than their mortal analogues.

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  Yoshika shook off the wonder and did her best to reflect what she was seeing, starting with the most dazzling collection of lights, far off in the distance, yet also somehow right within arm’s reach, its welcoming aura giving her the impression that it was where she was meant to be.

  Her interpretation of it lit up in the void around them, to serve as the reference point for everything else. Xiaofan’s eyes lit up at the sight of it.

  “The Supreme Argent Starfield—that is the center of the divine realm, where those who are native to it, like my brother and I, are born and live. It is the seat of power for all three Sovereign Lords, and the origin of all life in the cosmos. It’s the one place where they do not bicker over territory, though their power struggles still play out in other ways. A world of worlds, with cities that dwarf entire stars. Home.”

  There was a nostalgic longing in her voice. Xiaofan had left that place with no intention of ever returning, and she’d made a new home for herself in Yoshika’s world. Still, a part of her yearned to recover a piece of that history, some past glory that she’d always missed, despite herself.

  Her brother, conversely, though he’d never stopped seeing himself as an outsider to the world, was not so enraptured. Almost dismissive, even.

  “It is a place like any other. Just larger.”

  Yoshika cocked her head at him.

  “You don’t want to return?”

  “There’s nothing to return to. Father wrote us off as dead tens of thousands of years ago.”

  She wasn’t so sure, but she wasn’t about to prod at that. She moved on with her mapping, focusing only on the brightest and most distinct starfields. Xiaofan and the Dragon Lord helpfully identified each one and explained who controlled it and how it fit into the power dynamics of the divine realm. Yoshika didn’t really care, but she appreciated their insights and filed the knowledge away for later. Once she’d gotten a decent measure of the far off constellations, she focused on their more immediate surroundings—smaller, dimmer lights hanging in the space around them.

  The Dragon Lord nodded at them as the stars began to blink into existence around them.

  “Ah, these would be the stars within the local starfield. This is a remote and mostly lifeless starfield—likely formed from cast-off remnants of other territories. It’s a small miracle finding a living mortal realm in a place like this. I’ve always wondered how the Bloody Sovereign discovered it.”

  Yoshika frowned slightly at that.

  “Does anybody know where the Bloody Sovereign originally came from? The star he supposedly scoured before his ascension?”

  “No, and I highly doubt it’s this one, if that’s what you’re suggesting. A world that has not developed life is very different from one that’s had all of the essence drawn out of it until nothing but crumbling waste remains. The Bloody Sovereign’s home star would be little more than dust and emptiness, incapable of ever hosting life again.”

  “But there are many different types of world, aren’t there? From what I understand, Chou’s world was an astral world like mine, and Jianmo’s description of his life was consistent with the laws of this world.”

  “Perhaps, but astral worlds are quite common, as are the laws of this realm. In fact, the laws here are consistent with the majority of all populated realms—the very same template used by the Sovereign Lords when colonizing new realms.”

  Her frown deepened.

  “Isn’t that even more suspicious, then? Are you saying our world just happened to naturally develop into an exact copy of the common standard?”

  “That is...slightly unusual, but not far-fetched. It’s the common standard for a reason.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve met Chou, but the reflection of him I encountered in his tomb was more regret than man. At the end of his life, he was obsessed with creation, trying to become a demiurge—ostensibly so that he could kill them. Jianmo once told me a story about how he watched a star expire to learn how they died—what if he also wanted to learn how they were born? What if—and this is just a hunch—the thing he poured his life and soul into creating at the end wasn’t just the tomb, but this entire world. His world, rebuilt from scratch.”

  The dragons sat in contemplative silence for a long moment before Xiaofan spoke up to answer.

  “If—and it’s a big if—that’s true, then you would be, in a way, his final legacy. Not to take away from your own accomplishments, but this world, you, and whatever you make of it would be his first and final gift to the world.”

  Her brother grunted.

  “Or vengeance.”

  Yoshika chuckled mirthlessly.

  “Maybe both. There are versions of reality where I fail and the entire cosmos gets wiped out, becoming an endless immutable mass of pure creation like the realm of the demiurges.”

  He shuddered.

  “Then I am grateful to exist in this reality, where that is presumably no longer a threat?”

  “I wasn’t planning on using my newfound powers of creation to annihilate all of reality, no.”

  The dragons gave her a long look and she giggled.

  “I’m joking—I don’t think I can do that. If I pull too hard from the wellspring, it pulls back. I’m entwined with fate now, and I think I’ve got an appointment to keep, at the end.”

  Xiaofan raised an eyebrow.

  “The end of what?”

  “Me? Time? Everything. I don’t really know. That’s an eternity away and forever is a long time. Right now, I have other things to worry about. Like, which of these stars are empty—where does the ‘border’ of our starfield end, exactly?”

  The Dragon Lord rallied quickly, pointing out the nearest star to their own.

  “It’s nearly impossible to draw a precise line. Distance is a complicated thing between worlds. At the very least, I can say that the star there is unclaimed and uninhabited.”

  “Okay.”

  She nodded matter-of-factly, then expanded the seal to envelop that star. It took some effort, but unlike her attempts to delve into the future it did not strain her connection to the Wellspring of Fate.

  “Next?”

  The Dragon Lord stared at her, dumbfounded, but his sister just burst out laughing and pointed out another star.

  “That one. We’re going to be here a while, aren’t we? You’re really going to piss them off with this, you know.”

  “Probably, yes. I can live with that. Next?”

  Just like that, step by step, star by star, Yoshika began to build her own realm. Not a mortal world or the divine realm, but something in between. An intermediary that existed separately from the conflicts of the Sovereign Lords, but still remained connected.

  As Xiaofan predicted, the rulers of heaven did not like that. When they realized what she was doing, they tried to stop her, but their own strength betrayed them. The divine seal was the product of all three Sovereign Lords concentrating their power, and even working together they could not overpower it from the outside. It was an impenetrable barrier, and with Yoshika there to keep an eye on it, not even the previous methods to bypass it would work—she could mend any holes in the world faster than they could produce them, and she doubted that Void appreciated the repeated attempts to carve tunnels through it.

  In the end, she absorbed the entire starfield. It was a tiny, empty husk compared to the dazzling brilliance of the Supreme Argent Starfield, but it was hers, and like her it was still young. Yoshika had her sanctuary, safe from the wrath of those who would take it from her—so long as she never left it.

  The seal’s nature meant that her place in the divine realm was rooted. She had all the time in the world to grow strong enough to match her foes and outgrow the need for the seal, but she wasn’t sure she had the will anymore. She had accomplished her dream, and while there was still the endless task of actually building her sanctuary, Yoshika had at last found the peace she was looking for. Nobody could threaten her or her loved ones.

  She’d had enough adventuring for countless lifetimes. Someone else could explore the divine realm—when they were ready. Perhaps Narae or Heian, or even someone she’d yet to meet. All of them, no doubt—in some reality or another—but that was a future that Yoshika would rather not meddle with.

  Until then, she looked forward to finally settling down and enjoying the safety and security she’d fought so desperately for so long to achieve. She wanted to enjoy the company of her newlywed wife—who was also herself, but that was hardly new to her. She wanted to spend time with her friends and watch the new generation grow up. Perhaps she would even start families of her own—though she already had two grown daughters and a newborn flower spirit to take care of.

  Yoshika was, at long last, happy with where she was and what she had achieved. She could be the Goddess of Unity, God-Empress of the Sealed Bloody Starfield later. She could figure out what it meant to be a reincarnation—or perhaps, preincarnation—of a demiurge overseeing fate later.

  Until then, she was just Yoshika. Wife, daughter, sister, mother. She was just Jia, the formerly homeless thief girl with sharp claws and a sharper tongue—and Eui, the reformed bandit and murderer. Two girls who had found hope and meaning in each other, when the rest of the world had failed them, then together found hope in the world, despite how it had let them down.

  She was just Meili, a woman with no history of her own, who had nevertheless embraced her newfound existence and carved her own identity, finding both purpose within a greater whole, and joy in her own individuality.

  She was just Kaede, a warrior princess who found true strength only by allowing herself to break down the facades of power and influence, and finally allow others into her heart.

  She was just Eunae, who had nearly been crushed under her own self-loathing and denial until her friends pulled her up from that pit of despair. It was through their love and acceptance that she learned to love and accept herself.

  She was just Yue, who—out of fear and desperation—had done the unforgivable. Though she had not deserved it, she had been given a chance at redemption, and never stopped fighting to earn it. The road to forgiveness was long and painful, but she walked it until she’d been forgiven, then finally forgave herself and continued down the path—one she would walk forever.

  She was all of them, and all of them were her. Hard won lessons—the culmination of all their failures and successes, defeats and victories. Beyond all of that, though, she was just tired.

  So, with the foundation laid, Yoshika descended on the world she’d worked so hard to create and finally found peace.

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