Nairmis stopped thinking, his head feeling somewhat swollen. He had overused his light of wisdom, and a dull, throbbing ache pulsed at his temples.
Rubbing his temples, he stood up and looked at the elves hauling stone in the distance, but his thoughts had not truly left the analysis he had just made.
He thought again of the existence in that analysis that had left him both covetous and wary: fate divinity.
It was certainly tempting. From a certain perspective, it might belong to the most powerful category of all attributes. Seeing the future, changing its course, even weaving predetermined endings-in a sense, it could be called one of the strongest.
It determined the beginning and end of all things. Even the God King could not fully escape its entanglement.
In his fragments of memory, any deity connected to fate stood at the top of the food chain, regardless of which mythology they belonged to.
The problem was that this world already had beings who wielded fate. Nyx, the primordial Goddess of Night and Hemera's mother, was one of the major controllers of the river of fate.
If he accidentally caused a major disturbance in the domain of fate and Nyx mistook it for coveting her authority, one slap from her would leave not even ashes of a pitiful third-class god like him.
Nairmis shuddered. Forget it. He would leave fate divinity alone for now and revisit it once he could protect himself well enough.
What truly interested him now was time node divine nature. If he could nurture it into a complete time divinity, would he be able to establish stable, two-way communication with his future self?
Nairmis's eyes lit up. Wouldn't that amount to having a prophet-level cheat? His future self knew every detour he had taken, every pitfall he had stumbled into, and the best opportunities.
If his future self could transmit those experiences to his present self in advance, wouldn't conquering this world be a piece of cake with the two of them joining forces?
But he still had not figured out how to make his time node divine nature grow.
The strongest time-related deity he knew of was Rhea, but that Goddess of Time was currently curled up inside Gaia's belly as a mass of essence, so he could not count on her either. Other things related to time remained beyond his reach for now.
Nairmis let out a long sigh. He would take it one step at a time. He was hard to kill, anyway. The fact that his future self could send him messages meant he had at least lived until that day.
As for how he should navigate the process in between, he would figure it out as he went.
He rose from the rock and bent down to pick up the lyre beside his feet.
The shouts of elves hauling stone and the scraping of timber being dragged came from the distance. Construction had been underway for a while. It was time to take a look.
He intended to use his healing divinity to give the working elves a stamina recovery buff. He really was a good boss.
Hemera stood on a mountaintop, gazing sorrowfully toward Proeon.
She had not approached today, not because she did not want to, but because he could not. The moment she drew near, a gaze had descended from the sky.
That gaze carried no fluctuations of divine power, but Hemera had felt it: a stare from above bearing an unmistakable warning. Its meaning was perfectly clear. Stay away. Take another step, and face the consequences.
Hemera had frozen in place. In that instant, her daylight divine power had nearly gone out of control, and an instinctive terror had seized her limbs.
She could not resist that gaze. She had been forced to retreat, then retreat again, only daring to stop once its pressure had weakened to a level she could bear.
Now she twisted the hem of her dress between her fingers, her lips pressed together and her eyes slightly red.
Why?
She did not understand. Why was Uranus stopping her from approaching Nairmis? She and Nairmis truly loved each other. What right did His Majesty the God King have to interfere?
Suddenly, a possibility occurred to her, one that filled her with both anger and panic.
Had Uranus fallen for Nairmis too?
The more Hemera thought about it, the more sense it made. Nairmis was so beautiful that any being with a sense of aesthetics would be drawn to him. Uranus might be brutal, but he was not without aesthetic taste.
Perhaps His Majesty the God King had taken a fancy to Nairmis's beauty and forbidden her from approaching because he wanted him all to himself.
Hemera's pupils abruptly contracted, and her breathing quickened.
The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. If he did not harbor such intentions, why had he listened to the lyre all night? Why would he forbid her from approaching? Why would he show an unusual degree of interest in a third-class god?
That face really... really did make it easy to harbor those intentions...
Hemera clenched her fists. She had made up her mind. Once daylight ended, she would return to the Underworld and complain to her mother.
Her mother was a Primordial God, the sovereign of night. Even Uranus had to show her some respect. She would have her mother help her win Nairmis back. She could not let that brutal God of the Sky have his way.
Fortunately, Nairmis did not know what she was thinking. If he could have heard Hemera's inner monologue at that moment, he probably would have spat a mouthful of blood in her face.
Seriously, lady, what are you imagining? What kind of melodramatic divine soap opera is playing out in that head of yours?!
But he could not hear her. He was busy encouraging his employees with healing music.
In the Sky Divine Domain, Uranus sat upon his divine throne, the contours of the entire earth reflected in his eyes.
He could monitor all things without the slightest effort. Nothing beneath the sky could escape his sight, provided he wished to look.
At that moment, his gaze rested on Proeon, where a minor god with blond hair and blue eyes was encouraging his followers with music. Around him, a crowd of elves hauled stone, making for a bustling yet trivial scene.
He had observed Nairmis for a long time, from extracting the essence of his divinity to distribute among the Nymphs, to drawing plans and assigning tasks, to restoring stamina with his lyre. Uranus had witnessed the entire process.
He had originally wanted to see what was so special about this being who had drawn the world's will's attention. Then he had seen Nairmis strip away the essence of his craft divinity and create five low-ranking subordinate gods.
Then Uranus had looked away. He understood now. What made this young god special was his stupidity.
Distributing divine power to others, creating dependents weaker than himself, giving away resources that could have been used for advancement in exchange for loyalty-to Uranus, it was all utterly pointless.
He himself was still only a third-class existence, yet he was already rushing to cultivate subordinates. Such a failure to distinguish the essential from the trivial was simply laughable in Uranus's eyes.
True strength came from concentration, from investing every resource in oneself and forging oneself to a height no one could shake.
He thought obtaining loyalty would make him stronger, yet he did not know that in this world, strength itself was the only source of loyalty.
He stopped paying attention to Nairmis. A fool who scattered his resources was not worth any more of his attention. So long as he posed no threat, he could do whatever else he pleased.
Hemera, however, was an exception. A child of night-although Uranus thought little of Hemera herself, he maintained a basic wariness toward Nyx. If Hemera approached Nairmis at her mother's arrangement and some accident occurred, it would not be worth it.
A warning glance was enough. She should understand.
There were many more important matters beneath the sky that demanded his attention, such as the movements of the ocean and developments in the Underworld. As for that minor god playing the lyre, he was not worth wasting any more time on.
Nairmis had no idea that Uranus had already labeled him a fool in his assessment.
Night fell. At the foot of Mount Proeon, he taught the elves to light a fire.