From the very moment Jayden was created, he had always been bored.
Maybe not at first—but living for thousands of years works quite the magic.
For him, and other celestial beings of Atretis, entertainment had become their only reason for existence.
"Hey Jayden, did you hear? That lass from the Fourth Realm challenged Drek to a match over the Skybound beauty, Luxuria. They're going at it on the Fifth Island right now!"
"Jayden, Jayden! Word is Fina got herself pregnant by a mortal. No one knows how the little thing will turn out. Some say it'll be an abomination."
"Jayden, have you heard? Rein's gone totally crazy! Like, *really* crazy. He's walking around mumbling nonsense with drool all over his face. All the guys are celebrating—apparently the ladies are disgusted by him. Serves that handsome bastard right!"
But even all that couldn't stop the effects of time. Jayden's senses dulled, the thrill faded. He was alive—but tired.
He was bored. *Bored! Bored! Bored! Bored!*
"Jayden! Jayden!"
A voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He turned listlessly to see Lila standing beside his bed, an annoyed pout on her lips.
"You dumbass! How dare you zone out when a cute little loli like me is talking to you?"
Jayden raised an eyebrow. "You're thirty thousand and thir—"
He didn't finish. A ball of water was already flying at his face. He could have dodged it, but what was the point?
Lila was a persistent bitch.
So with a sigh, he let it splash him in the face.
"You bastard! Jerk! Don't you know ladies are sensitive about their age?"
"But you're no lady."
*Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash!*
Great. Now he was drenched.
"I'll go tell Big Brother you bullied me!" she yelled, storming out and slamming the door so hard the walls cracked. Moments later, the door fell flat on the ground.
Jayden stared ahead, mind numb. Was this the seven thousand six hundred and forty-sixth time his door had been broken by a lady? He wasn't even sure anymore. At some point, he'd stopped counting—but when was that?
With a sigh, he sat up on the bed he didn't need and walked toward the shattered doorway. As he moved, time itself seemed to rewind. The cracks in the walls faded. The door lifted, retracing its fall through the air, and reattached to its frame as though it had never been broken.
By the time Jayden stepped outside, the room was as good as new.
He wandered out, listless. Knights standing along the corridor dropped to one knee as he passed, but he paid them no mind. He walked, and walked, and walked. He didn't know where he was going—or rather, he didn't remember.
Eventually, he reached a large golden door, flanked by two knights.
These two were different. Jayden could sense it in their aura—intense and heavy, making the air shimmer and compress around them. They felt familiar, but the fog clouding his mind made it hard to place them.
"How peculiar," he murmured, approaching the golden door. The knights dropped to one knee like the others, their gazes fixed on the floor, as though meeting his eyes would mean certain death.
Jayden studied the door, intrigued by the intricate seals etched across its surface. The fascination passed quickly, and his expression returned to its usual stoicism.
"Right... how do I open this?" he muttered, resting his hand on his chin in thought. A flicker of memory tugged at him—he'd done this before. Acting on instinct, he drew a drop of blood from his forefinger and sent it floating toward the door with a simple thought.
The seals began to shift, and with a sharp click, the golden door burst open.
Jayden stepped inside and found himself in a throne room—one he knew all too well, even with his mind clouded and scattered.
It was stunning. Rare metals and precious stones gleamed from every surface. Fourteen obsidian chairs were arranged in precise order, and at the far end stood a golden throne, so polished it reflected the light like a star.
Jayden approached the throne with a bored expression.
"Right... that's mine," he muttered, as if the sight of it annoyed him more than anything else.
And honestly, it did. Anyone would grow sick of a seat after occupying it hundreds of thousands of times.
Without any of the grace expected from one of the Seven Lieges of Atretis, Jayden flung himself onto the throne and slouched, mumbling in boredom.
"What day is it again?"
"How long have I been alive?"
"So I've lost count... again."
"Wait, how many times have I lost count of things?"
"Guess I lost count of that too."
As his rambling continued, a subtle distortion in space prickled at his senses. He glanced upward blankly, where a thin crack had already appeared in the air above—his mouth slightly open, not in awe, but simply because he'd forgotten to close it.
"Maybe this'll be interesting," he muttered, watching the rift widen.
Like shattering glass, space fractured, revealing three figures standing midair, armored like knights—though these were nothing like the ones from earlier. Comparing those guards to these was like comparing a pig to its butcher.
They were on a different level.
Then again, they couldn't compare to *him*, either.
One of the knights bowed his head and spoke.
"Jayden the Third, Liege of Balance, you have been summoned by the gods."
And just like that, color rushed back into Jayden's dull grey world. For the first time in ages, something *mattered*.
His existence was about to change—
At least... if everything went well.
---
The universe was made up of trillions upon trillions of worlds, galaxies, and stars. It was sentient—a bastion of order in the vast chaos, feeding on that chaos to survive. The day it stopped feeding, it would die. That's why it kept expanding, stretching its reach to swallow more chaos so it wouldn't fade into nothingness.
Worlds were born and destroyed—by their own hands or by others. The universe might be a place of order, but it was merciless, with only one rule: the strong survive, the weak perish.
Despite its vastness, the universe was only a lower realm, known commonly as the realm of mortals. Only by shedding all the shackles of mortality could one ascend to Atretis—the realm of immortals.
Atretis was divided into seven realms, each comparable in scale to the mortal universe, but fundamentally different.
A difference so vast it formed a chasm between the two.
What were mortals compared to immortals? Calling mortals mere ants would be a lifetime's glory.
That was why Orana—the first and weakest realm of Atretis—was powerful enough that the weakest being there could destroy the entire mortal universe with a snap of their fingers.
Yeah, it was that exaggerated.
To prevent order from collapsing, shackles were placed on the strength of those who traveled from Atretis to the mortal realm. And the force behind these shackles was a being every existence feared—even the gods.
The Creation Order.
A formless entity wielding absolute power, so overwhelming that everyone simply gave up resisting its influence. The gods could put up some resistance—at least, that's what they claimed to save face—but everyone knew the truth.
The power gap between the realms of Atretis wasn't as extreme as between the mortal universe and Orana, but it was still significant. The remaining realms, in order, were: Srevis, Masati, Rovrog, Thran, Phico, and finally the seventh and final realm—often called the Realm of the Gods—occupied by the Seven, Sicora.
There were seven gods: four gods and three goddesses—let's not masculinize the ladies.
To maintain order, each god created unique warriors and granted them the title of Lieges. Then, like the lazy beings they were, they slept off and left the rest to their Lieges.
Each Liege ruled Phico, the sixth realm, overseeing all of Atretis to ensure order. But over time, even the Lieges grew tired and created commanders. And the commanders got tired too—and well, you know how it goes.
Which was why Jayden was happy to hear he had been summoned—or at least that the sleepyheads had finally woken up. The other Lieges must have been summoned too, and Jayden knew all the gods wanted was a brief report on Atretis's state before heading back to sleep.
But Jayden had other plans. He was going to plead, beg, and grovel before those scheming bastards to be absolved of his duties. He was tired—dead tired—of his boring, utterly uneventful existence.
So, with a sigh, he practiced making a cute face. Philaria, the goddess of balance and his mother, always seemed to lose her edge when he acted adorable.
Humiliating as it was, he was desperate. He didn't care—at least, as long as nobody else found out.
***
The moment the three knights left, a portal materialized before Jayden. He narrowed his eyes, confused—his mother, Philaria, was summoning him separately from the others. It wasn't strange, just startling. He was meant to meet the seven gods together with the rest of the Lieges.
At least, the gods usually spoke to their Lieges personally only after the general meeting.
Without much thought, Jayden stepped through the portal in front of his throne.
He wished he'd been prepared for what awaited him. It took him completely by surprise.
Sicora was divided into seven domains, each managed by their respective god—each domain a physical manifestation of that god's attribute.
He was currently in the domain of balance. But what was this?
The sky flickered wildly between night and day. Fire roared, then shifted to wind. Wind turned to water, water to earth, and earth back to fire, cycling endlessly in a dizzying loop.
Gravity pulled upward instead of down.
Creatures rampaged, wild and berserk.
Ba-thump! Thump! Thump!
Jayden's heartbeat quickened. Something was wrong—very wrong. One of the answers to why the portal hadn't led him straight to his mother's throne room hit him instantly.
She was losing energy. She was... dying.
Without wasting a second, he soared through the air toward her castle. His speed unleashed a sonic blast so loud that many creatures bled from their ears, and the weaker ones dropped dead.
The beasts scattered, sensing from his aura alone that they didn't even need his gaze to die. He could kill them without looking.
Jayden didn't care about the monsters or beasts in the realm. Only one word echoed in his mind like a curse:
"Mother! Mother! Mother! Moth—"
He reached her castle in seconds and flew straight to her throne room without stopping. The doors were wide open, and before he even blinked, he was inside.
The room was dark. Thunder rumbled outside—a sign the season had shifted once more to bring storms.
And there, seated on the transparent throne, was his mother. A forced smile lingered on her pale face as she looked at him.
Philaria was the most beautiful of all the goddesses—arguably the prettiest being in existence. Her eyes shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow, and her glossy purple hair framed a face so outrageously divine that a less capable man might go mad just from looking at her.
But here she sat, on her throne, her domain in shambles, blood trickling from the corner of her lips. Vulnerable. A sight that would stir any man's instinct to protect her—not that many men could.
"What... what happened to you?" Jayden stammered, his mind racing. Was Atretis under attack? Were the gods at war with each other? Or was this some cruel cosmic joke? Thoughts tangled in his head, threatening to overwhelm him.
"Sweetie," Philaria's voice was soft, just as he remembered it, though her face twitched in pain she desperately tried to hide. "I know you have questions, but we don't have much time. See, I sort of rebelled, so the others are coming for me."
Jayden took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Her words sounded like nonsense. Since he was already here, he needed to understand what was happening.
"How?" he asked—and immediately wished he hadn't.
"Well… um, how do I make this sound less stupid? Right. Alaria saw a vision of Atretis in ruins—six gods against one girl—and the girl was winning. By the time the vision ended, Kron and Maderek were already dead, and the other four weren't far behind. So, using the karmic threads, we tried to find and kill her. But I found her first, and I… I," she mumbled, scratching the side of her head in an adorably awkward way, "I hid her."
Jayden's eyebrows twitched. "Why the hell would you hide someone who's fated to kill you?"
Philaria shot him a glare—like a child caught doing something wrong but refusing to admit it. "She was just so cute, and funny, and… well, a boring man like you wouldn't understand. Nevermind."
Jayden's face scrunched at the insult, his eyes practically shouting, *And whose fault is that?!*
"Well, what was I saying?" Philaria said, conveniently ignoring his accusing look as if it weren't there. "Right. The others found out today, so they're coming for me."
"Mother, you love me, don't you? I know you're just playing around, so for the sake of our relationship, I beg you—end this joke right now. Please, for the love of everything sane, give up on the girl who's going to kill you."
"Um, about that, Jay Jay," she said, twirling her fingers nervously. "I've already given up my origin force to protect her until she's strong enough. So… in the next few minutes, Mommy is going to die."
Jayden felt his world shatter. Suddenly, a ringing filled his ears, drowning out everything—he felt deaf.
"The others are already here," Philaria said, irritation creeping into her voice. The domain trembled. Loud banging echoed outside, followed by voices that rattled his eardrums.
"Philaria! You insane, suicidal witch!" That was probably Kron.
"If you want to die so badly, I'll do you the favor. But die alone—leave me out of your madness!" Drastia screamed.
The pounding grew louder. Jayden couldn't see what was happening beyond the walls, but he could feel it—the Domain of Balance was collapsing.
"The barrier I put up outside won't hold much longer," Philaria said, her voice steady despite the chaos. Jayden, dazed and spiraling, barely registered her words.
"I'm placing seven seals on your body," she continued. "To suppress your strength—so they won't detect you."
Even before she finished, he felt them activate. The seals flared across his body like branding fire. And then—weakness. Bone-deep, suffocating weakness.
"I'm sending you to her," she added. "To protect her. Keep her safe."
Jayden's eyes snapped into focus, red and raw with rage. "I'll kill her. I'll destroy her. She's the reason I'm losing you."
Philaria smiled bitterly. "Too bad. I placed a command—hurting her is off-limits. But sure, keep dreaming. I'm rooting for you, honey."
Jayden's body trembled, and with a strained voice, he asked, eyes wide with disbelief, "Did you also curse me to protect her… even if I don't want to?"
Philaria gave a soft chuckle and shook her head. "No, no. I may be a terrible mother, but your free will is still yours. You get to choose what to do with all that lovely pain."
She leaned back, the cracks of the collapsing barrier screaming louder now, closer.
"So, goodbye, Jayden. I'm about to die… try not to miss me too much."
A deafening crash echoed through the chamber as the final layer of the barrier shattered. In that instant, space itself twisted, and Jayden felt his body being wrenched away, pulled into a spiraling void.
"Wh-why…?" he gasped, voice breaking.
Philaria smiled—faint, sad, almost mischievous.
"Because she's cute."
And then—darkness.