The Atrium was complete, a magnificent, impossible realm. Nicholas, the Shaper, sat upon his throne while the strings and stars of his form pulsed with quiet power. He observed his creation. The Luminous Court blazed around him. The burning sea glowed. The time-sand shimmered. It was perfect. It was his.
A profound silence descended. It was a new kind of silence, not the quiet of stealth. It was not the hush before a strike. It was the silence of… safety.
For the first time since his awakening, the constant, screaming pressure vanished. The fear of monsters. The dread of discovery. The frantic race for power. It was gone. The tension left his divine body and his soul, so long clenched like a fist, slowly uncurled.
And in its place, a hollow ache bloomed, a deep and profound loneliness. He was a king in an empty castle. A god on a solitary throne. He looked at his attendants, the Cupbearer, the Keeper, the Witness, the Warden. They were magnificent. They were powerful. They were his. But they were also… instruments. Tools he had forged for his salvation.
He thought of every person he had met. His father, Jonathan, a useful scholar, then a political pawn. Circe, a dangerous teacher, a source of knowledge. His half-siblings. Rivals to be eliminated. Even his own mother was a strategic obstacle and a shield to be used.
He had treated every single being as a piece on a board. He was in a brutal, desperate fight for survival. He was in a permanent state of fight-or-flight. There was no room for connection. Only calculation.
Now, nobody in this world could kill him. The immediate threat was over. And he felt the cost. He missed simple things. A real conversation, a shared laugh, human connection. Not the adoration of worshippers. Not the obedience of servants.
He resolved to change. After the solstice. After the world was divided. He would do it. He would take human form again. He would walk among mortals and he would experience this world. Not as a predator or as a god.
But first, there was growth. The old gods were still vast and his pantheon was still small. He needed to expand his power. His mind, freed from immediate terror, turned to a grander design.
He remembered the demigod system. The gods used their children as filters, it worked because a demigod was an extension of their parent's domain. Their faith flowed back to the god, purified.
A thought, once a distant theory, now crystallized. What if you could make a mortal into something like a demigod? Not through birth. But through choice. Through a ritual through which a mortal could transform themselves.
They could inherit a brand, a mark of a god's authority just like he inherited the powers of him mother. They would gain power; their soul and authority would be boosted. They would become preparatory minor gods with miraculous power for a mortal.
And they would become new filters and conduits for faith for his attendants. His attendants could grow stronger and through them he too could grow stronger. All without the risk of madness.
He acted immediately. He sent a psychic call. It went to the Order of Eternity. His most loyal followers. He asked for volunteers. He needed test subjects for a dangerous ritual that would either lead to death or to glory. The response was overwhelming. Faith made them fearless.
For two months, he experimented. He worked in a secluded part of the Hall of the Ascendant. He tried different symbols. Different incantations. Different ways to imprint divine authority onto a mortal soul.
Many attempts failed. The mortal soul was too fragile. It could not bear the divine mark without the protection of faith. It shattered. Or the authorities were too alien and not their own. It rejected the mortal vessel. The volunteers paid a terrible price, their mortal bodies shattered. But they were appropriately rewarded, their bodies remade into undying flesh forged from the Blood-Sea.
Nicholas was relentless with his authority over Magic and Fate guiding him. He analyzed every failure. He refined the process.
He found the key, the ritual required a concrete anchor. A physical focus for the divine authority, a piece of the God itself, made manifest.
However, the mortal soul also needed something to grasp, something to bind the impossible power to their mortal frame, and so to the fragments he added whisps of faith, to act as a glue between the power of authority and the mortal's soul.
He gathered his attendants in the Luminous Court. He explained his discovery. They needed to make an offering. A permanent sacrifice.
They would split their God-Souls. Not a large piece. Just a large number of infinitely tiny fragments. A mere sliver from their now-massive beings. But it was a piece of their essential self.
They agreed. The Warden focused. A shimmering sliver of mirrored essence peeled away. The Cupbearer let a single, glowing drop of his blood-fire separate. The Witness shed a mote of crystalline time-sand. The Keeper released a single, whispering rune of secret knowledge.
Nicholas himself contributed. A single, short thread of fate, magic, and war, braided together.
He took these divine fragments. He did not keep them. He scattered them. He cast them down from the Luminous Court. They fell through the Hall of the Ascendant.
They landed in the Shore of the Unseen where they were infused with its waters before they sank further into the ever-shifting Dream-Realms.
He gave them a command. A final instruction. Each fragment was to transform. To become an Object of Power. A sword that could cut destiny. A chalice that could heal any wound and command flames. A crown that could reveal truth and control water. An amulet that could command space and earth. They would be hidden. Waiting. They were the ultimate prizes.
But a key needed a lock. A ritual needed instructions. He turned his mind outward. To the sleeping believers in the Sea of Unconsciousness. And to every other dreaming mortal on Earth.
He wove a new, subtle magic. He took mystical texts, crude, mortal spells and basic rituals. He mixed them with fragments of his own advanced knowledge. He scattered this information into the global dreamscape. Most who found it would learn simple tricks. A minor charm or a small divination.
But a rare, lucky few would stumble upon something more. Hidden within the chaos of dream-lore was the Advancement Ritual. The instructions to find an Object of Power. The method to bind it. The path to transform a mortal body into something… more.
He had done it. He had created a system. A divine recruitment tool that spans the entire globe. Any mortal, anywhere, had a chance. They could find a fragment of his power; they could brand their soul with his authority. They would become his unwitting demigods, and their flowing faith would feed his pantheon.
The other Gods would be furious. They would not understand the source. Their own children were born, not made. This was something new. Something insidious. It would drive them mad with confusion and rage.
Nicholas, the Shaper, sat back on his throne. A slow, cold smirk touched his non-existent lips. The game was evolving.
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