"Miss Anathasia isn't just your regular Outer God," Rania began, her voice unexpectedly dropping into something close to reverence.
Anathasia didn't speak, but the silence she carried explained more than any long lecture possibly could.
"The other three Outer Gods," Rania continued, "including myself, can manifest physically, or as abstract states. Forms don't matter to us. We're all beings beyond death and beyond fundamental laws. But Miss Anathasia..." Her gaze flicked toward the girl beside me, and she visibly shuddered. "She exists differently."
That alone was enough to make me tense.
"There are Seven Infinitely Recursive Transcendent Stratums we've confirmed so far," Rania said. "There should be more, theoretically. But among those seven, only Miss Anathasia can traverse all of them freely."
Meaning sank in slowly, like cold water down my spine.
"She doesn't just move through them," Rania added. "She transcends them. She can override them. Concepts, structures, metaphysics-none of it binds her."
I blinked. Hard.
Trancend? Rewrite? Laws? Concepts? Her? The girl who hogs blankets and steals my fries?
"Okay, hold on," I cut in. "You've been throwing around these abstract... cosmic... whatever terms since earlier. Can you make it simple?"
Anathasia sighed, uncrossing and recrossing her arms.
"What she's trying to say is that I'm beyond what you think Outer Gods are. No, not beyond. Outside the multiverses and whatever foundations existence thinks it has. It's annoying to explain, but just-here."
She crouched down and pinched a bit of sand.
"Each grain is a universe."
"So... a lot," I murmured.
"No." She gestured around us. "This whole beach is the multiverse. Multiply that infinitely."
Then she casually conjured a chair, sat down, and spun once.
"Outside that is another stratum-or bubble, simply put-containing all those multiverses. And 'transcendent stratums' isn't even the right term since everything is non-linear. Meaning no ladder to climb."
I stared.
"It's not just quantity," she added with a shrug. "It's quality. Ontology and metaphysics happen way outside your local reality. But you get the idea."
Did I? Barely. But I tried.
"So Outer Gods govern stratums that transcend and contain lower stratums, and Anathasia is the one above all of them?"
Both nodded.
"Not really above, but close enough." Anathasia shrugged again.
Rania blinked. hesitating, then looked away. "Our language... isn't built for her."
That's when it hit me.
"Wait-so I've been arguing with the highest possible entity in existence?"
Anathasia smiled gently, then shrugged. "Roughly said, yes."
"I've been patting the head of someone who governs those seven stratums?"
"Yup."
"You're telling me I've been dating the literal being who sits above the balance of... everything?"
"Bingo~" She rocked gently in her chair.
My brain stalled. Hard.
"Okay... I feel like I'm about to faint," I muttered just before my knees gave way-only to land in a chair she conjured beneath me.
I looked at her, dazed, confused, overwhelmed. And she just... smiled.
"Why are you here then?" I finally asked.
"Because," she said, tapping my forehead. "I'm your girlfriend."
"That... doesn't answer anything," I muttered, pressing a hand against my face. My brain felt like it was leaking out my ears.
She only shrugged, completely unfazed. "Makes perfect sense to me."
"What about your responsibilities?" I insisted. "Shouldn't you be... I don't know, running the cosmos? Maintaining balance? Being a God?"
"Ah. Quiet, okay? Don't sweat the details," She waved me off like she was swatting a mosquito. "If anything goes weird out there, I'll notice. I can just manifest another me in whatever stratum needs me."
"...Wait, you can do that?"
"Obviously."
She flicked her fingers as if the topic bored her.
"So it's no big deal." Anathasia tilted her head toward Rania. "Right?"
Rania nodded immediately, almost too fast, like disagreeing was physically impossible.
"Right..." I exhaled, rubbing my temples. I still didn't want to believe any of this, but—
"But you can't, because you've seen enough to know it's real?" She cut in, a smirk tugging on her lips. "Heh."
"...Did you just read my mind again?"
"Not at all~" she said, shrugging with that fake innocence she often wore.
Before I could respond, the voice from a timid Outer God behind Anathasia chimed in.
"So... may I help myself to some...?" Rania spoke up, still standing just a few steps away.
"Ah, so that's what you're here for." Anathasia hummed, waving her off to the grill while I stood there, still trying to process everything.
"Are Outer Gods usually like this?"
"No," she said. "Just me and Rania."
"Right..." I muttered, staring out at the sea. "Now what?"
Anathasia didn't answer.
Honestly, this was way too much. I came here to relax, grill some meat, maybe tease Anathasia a bit—
not learn that she's casually sitting on top of every level of existence in existence.
Trying to put my feelings into words was useless. My brain had already thrown in the towel.
By the end of the day, I more or less... accepted it.
Accepted that I was dating the cosmic godhead whose existence I didn't completely understand.
As for Rania, Anathasia eventually got tired of her and teleported her off the planet.
Since she's an Outer God, I'm sure she's fine.
> (She is currently stuck in the Contradictory Sphere.)
-P.S. Narrator.
---
Somewhere within the Contradictory Sphere
A congregation of entities gathered. Beings that once existed only as shapeless, writhing currents of contradiction.
But in this place where logic folds in on itself and meaning devours its own reflection... they had begun to think.
Some twitched into vague forms. Others flickered between states. Existence, nonexistence, something in between, as if choosing an identity was a paradox in itself.
They had no true mastery over the Layer.
Not yet.
But for the first time, they were aware of the intruder who had just arrived.
And every contradictory instinct in them moved.
However, before any of them could fully assemble themselves—
"Ah. So this is why she sent me here..." Rania murmured, not even looking at the forming shapes.
The Layer warped. Not in fear—fear couldn't exist here, but in disagreement with her presence. Reality folded sideways, colors unmaking themselves, and the ground inverted into something that wasn't ground anymore.
A soft breath escaped her.
Then the blue light bloomed.
Not bright, absolute. A wave of structured existence tearing through contradiction, forcing the realm to behave for a fraction of a second. The gathering entities evaporated instantly, erased not by violence but by the simple fact that they couldn't coexist with what she was.
When the light faded, only Rania remained.
"Honestly... this girl." She sighed, brushing dust off a dress that had never been touched. "Sending me to clean up her mess again..."
"I heard that."
Anathasia's gentle voice didn't echo through the realm, it echoed through her. A thought pressed into her mind, deliberate and undeniable.
Rania stiffened. "Uhm- I wasn't complaining. Promise."
"Are those things gone?" Anathasia asked, cutting straight through her excuse.
Rania swallowed and focused. The Contradictory Layer bowed and buckled beneath her attention; distances inverted, horizons looped, and colors flickered between states that shouldn't coexist. A half-formed entity dissolved the moment she looked its way, collapsing into a smear of non-reality.
"Dormant," she finally answered. "What's left can't act while I'm here."
Anathasia hummed. "Good, tell Drovkah to check on it occasionally, come with him if possible."
"Understood..." Rania murmured.
---
Back at the beach.
I sat alone, feet buried in the cool sand. When I finally lifted my head, the night sky spread above me-an endless field of stars, some barely flickering, others burning with impossible brightness.
And that's when everything from earlier finally settled in.
"This... and you're telling me everything I've ever known is just a single drop in an ocean I'll never even see the edge of...?" I whispered, mostly to myself.
A soft crunch of footsteps brushed through the quiet. Before I could turn, something warm and gentle settled over my shoulders. A blanket, draped with familiar care.
"Something bothering you?" a voice murmured behind me. Hers.
Anathasia lowered herself beside me, eyes lifting to the stars as she leaned her head gently on my shoulder. Her hair spilled across my arm, cascading down to my lap.
"Still struggling with everything from earlier, I see," she said softly.
"Yeah... a bit," I admitted.
The gentle lapping of waves filled the silence between us.
"I guess it must be hard," she murmured, "knowing you're just a small part of something... that vast."
She slowly lifted her head from my shoulder.
"But y'know," she said, turning to face me, "even if you're just a small part of it... you're still part of that vastness nonetheless."
She smiled-soft, warm, almost human in a sense. I found myself smiling back, struck again by how different she was like this... compared to what she truly is.
A pause.
"So let's forget the unnecessary things, alright? And focus on the things that matters most." She reached over, her hand cupping my cheek.
I placed my hand over hers, leaning into her touch.
"Yeah... you're right."
She gently leaned her head against my shoulder again. The chilly evening air brushed past us, but it didn't feel as cold anymore—
or maybe it's because I was with her.
That's probably the case.