The sun spilled its golden light over a vast, open field blanketed with lush, emerald-green grass.
Wildflowers danced in the breeze, their vibrant colors swaying rhythmically beneath a flawless sky.
Birds soared high overhead, casting fleeting shadows over the earth.
It was a place untouched by time—untouched by war, fear, or sorrow.
Standing at the center of this beauty was a young man.
He was tall, lean, and gracefully muscular.
His hair shimmered with streaks of gold and green, tousled by the wind.
His silver eyes, marked by a four-pointed golden iris, gleamed with otherworldly calm.
This was Aetherion.
He looked around the field and began to stretch, even though he didn't need to.
It was simply a habit—something that had carried over from his mortal life as a human.
So, he did it without thinking.
After stretching, he closed his eyes.
Raised his hands.
The wind calmed.
And then one clap echoing.
"Parallel Expansion,"
he whispered.
The world shifted slightly.
Suddenly, a dome of silver and pale-blue light expanded around him, and yet the field remained the same as if nothing had happened in space.
But this was actually an isolated space created from his technique —Parallel expansion— where he could train without consequence.
No damage to the land, no disruption to nature.
When it ended, reality would reset.
He raised his hands, and the earth responded.
Vines curled into humanoid forms, trees bent and reshaped, stone twisted into limbs.
He extended his hand.
A faint silver mist passed from him to the humanoid forms.
One by one, clones of himself emerged—eighteen in total.
Each identical in appearance, from his golden-striped hair to the glimmer of the moon-marked forehead.
Each clone was formed from the Earth, shaped by nature… but their appearance, that's the Moon's gift.
Illusion woven into reality and onto the humanoid forms.
Making them look like him, act like him, and have the same ability as him, because they are a reflektion of him.
As for their strength? Roughly that of a minor god.
He stepped back, taking a deep breath. His hands curled into fists.
He looked around at his clone and his lips started to raise, forming a smile.
He uttered two words that he knew that he might come to regret.
"Attack me."
Immediately, all the clones started to smile and began to have a twisted face.
Without hesitation, the clones moved—silent, smoke-like, disciplined.
They surged forward with incredible speed.
Aetherion saw the pattern of the attacks thanks his eyes.
He parried the first strike, then spun to evade the second.
Not fast enough to react, the third caught his side with a blunt blow that made him skid across the field.
The sparring had begun.
Dust and light scattered with every blow.
Aetherion twisted, kicked, summoned a shard of star-energy and slammed it into the ground, disrupting the advance.
But the clones adapted.
One circled behind him while another launched into the air, sending down vines wrapped in glowing silver energy.
He gritted his teeth and smiled.
'Good.'
This was the kind of pressure he needed.
After all, what better way to train than by fighting oneself?
Each of his clones possessed his abilities—albeit in a slightly diminished form—but together, their numbers balanced the scales.
They could match Aetherion in combat—not entirely equally, since he wasn't going all out—but in terms of technique and experience, they mirrored him perfectly.
And that made Aetherion's blood boil.
He was actually enjoying himself.
As the battle raged on for hours, Aetherion created more and more clones of himself, becoming a graceful storm of divine combat.
***
Far away, amidst the serenity of a temple garden, Rhea sat alone.
The flowers were in full bloom, but her golden eyes were distant.
Her fingers brushed lightly over the petals of a rose, her breath slow and weary.
She hadn't smiled in years—not truly.
The burden in her heart was a quiet, unrelenting ache.
She sat in silence until the ground beneath her shifted.
Leaves stirred.
Vines curled upward.
From the earth itself, Gaia emerged—elegant, radiant, her forest-green hair trailing like a river of nature's will.
"Hello, my daughter,"
Gaia said softly.
Rhea stood slowly, startled at first.
But when she saw Gaia's eyes—those warm amber eyes—her shoulders sagged with a tired sort of hope.
Before Rhea could speak, Gaia raised a hand.
"A protective space surrounds us. You need not fear Kronos eyes or ears. We are hidden."
Rhea's lip trembled.
"Why are you here?"
She couldn't understand why her mother—Gaia, the Mother Goddess—had appeared now, after all this time.
Not once had she come, not even in answer to Rhea's desperate prayers, when she begged for her firstborn and all her children to be returned.
Yet now, she stood before her.
Gaia stepped closer and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I came to speak of your firstborn."
Rhea froze. The rose fell from her fingers.
Immediately, all thoughts of resentment toward her mother vanished, replaced by a single, overwhelming thought—her child.
The one who had vanished without a trace.
"You… Have you seen him?"
"I've raised him,"
Gaia said.
"Since the moment he touched the Earth. He lives. And he is strong."
Tears welled in Rhea's eyes. She turned away, biting her lip to suppress the flood of emotion.
"I thought I'd lost him,"
she whispered.
"He was gone. I could not sense him anywhere… Not even Kronos men could find him."
Gaia's voice was firm, but kind.
"He has not forgotten you. And he wishes to meet you. Soon."
Rhea slowly turned back around, her voice cracking.
"He wants to meet… me?"
"Yes,"
Gaia said.
"He is your son, it's only natural he wants to meet his mother. And… he seems to have a plan."
The two women stood together in silence.
Mother and daughter, bound sorrow—and now, hope.
Rhea took a shaky breath.
"Then take me to him."
Gaia smiled.
"Soon. He's preparing himself even now."
And above them, in the distant sky, the moon hung low and wide—as if watching, waiting, guiding the threads of fate ever closer