Chapter 1: Prologue
God
Mortals often view them as almighty beings with supernatural powers beyond their widest dreams. They imagine them as omnipotent and omniscient, able to control every facet of existance with a mere thought.
But they couldn’t be more wrong.
They are neither omnipotent nor omniscient. They are shackled by their own limitations, desires, and fears.
In the best mortal terms, they can be best describe as a collection of narcissistic stalker fossils with an obsessive betting addiction. They watch over the mortal realm, not out of benevolence or duty, but out of a twisted sense of amusement. They place bets on their lives, their choices, their fates, and revel in the chaos that ensues.
* * *
(Celestial realm - A room deep inside an old temple)
The room floated in an endless sea of starlight, walled by translucent veils that shimmered with the soft glow of distant galaxies. A single bed rested in the centre, small and unadoned, its frame forged of muted silver that reflected the cold radiance of the cosmos.
Around it, the air felt heavy with stillness, as if time itself had grown lethargic within these celestial walls. The golden rivers of light that streamed across the ceiling moved at a sluggish pace, and the faint hum of the universe outside seemed muffled, distant, almost bored.
No decorations adorned the emptiness. No windows looked out upon the marvel of creation, only the pale translucence of walls, as if the room had been built to contain nothing but solitude.
"System, open status"
The voice that drifted from the bed carried the weight of divinity, even as it swam through the thick fog of drowsiness.
———————————————————————————————
Name: @#%^!*
Authority: 120,000—> 180,000
Apostle: 103 —> 0
[All your apostles are dead]
[Would you like to bet on a new one?]
———————————————————————————————
’The increase in Authority wasn’t too bad. Compared to the other Gods in the Celestial realm, I am one of the laziest. I’ve never been interested in the mortal realm or anything they do since I was created.’
When it comes to my creation, I have no recollection of the event itself. My earliest memory is of possessing a fully developed consciousness, unencumbered by the physical limitations of a mortal existence. This consciousness was accompanied by a body composed of ethereal light particles, a stark contrast to the corporeal forms of humans. Unlike mortals, our bodies are entirely self-sustaining, requiring neither rest nor sustenance. However, observing the daily rituals of mortals, such as their need for sleep and nourishment, piqued the curiosity of many among us, leading to a fascination with these human practices.
As for me, I became particularly invested in the activity mortals called Sleep. There’s something fascinating about the way they surrender to unconsciousness, the way they dream of worlds beyond our own. I’ve always wanted to experience it for myself, to see what lies beyond the veil of consciousness.
"System, bet another 100 Authority on 200 random mortals. I will be going back to sleep. Wake me up after a few centuries."
[...]
"System?!"
[...]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]
Before I could make sense of what was going on, the light of my body started fading, and I could feel my consciousness slipping. It felt like someone or something was forcing me to sleep, so I didn’t try to resist it. Maybe this time I will be able to dream.
I’ve heard a lot about the dream world that mortals go to when they sleep. It’s a place of infinite possibilities, a realm where the laws of reality do not apply. But unfortunately, that world has always been impossible to reach for me, no matter how much time I tried. Perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps this time, I will finally find the answers I have been seeking.
* * *
Darkness.
For the first time in my existence, it wasn’t the empty, starlit void of my sanctuary. It was thick and warm and strangely comforting. I tried to open my eyes, but they remained stubbornly shut, as if sealed by some invisible weight.
Yet the world around me was alive in a way I had never known.
I could feel everything.
Soft fabric swaddled me, coarse in some spots, silken in others. The air was heavy with scents, warmth, and something sweetly metallic. Vibrations pulsed through the surface beneath me, rhythmic and soothing, like the heartbeat of a giant sleeping creature. Gentle pressure wrapped around my tiny form now and then, careful and tender, and each touch sent ripples of sensation through my new, fragile body.
This wasn’t the cold, untouchable shell of my celestial form. This body was small. Weak. Alive.
A muffled voice thrummed through the air, its tone soft and melodic, though the words were meaningless hums to my new senses. Each sound pressed against me like waves, sinking into my core. Another, deeper voice rumbled somewhere nearby, and I felt the vibrations before I could even process the sound.
I could taste the air. Not just smell it, taste it. The world carried texture in a way I had never imagined. The warmth of the room, the faint hint of some herbal aroma, the gentle rocking motion as I was lifted into a cocoon of arms... all of it pressed into me, becoming part of me.
This... this was what mortals felt.
I had no eyes to see it, but the world was more vivid than any light of the cosmos could provide. Every sound was a colour. Every touch, a swirl of patterns. Every heartbeat, a star igniting in the void.
I wanted to cry, though I didn’t understand why. Perhaps it was the weight of something new, something I had sought for eons without knowing it: connection.
I was no longer a spectator.
I was Alive.
And somewhere deep in this fragile dream, a thought flickered like a candle in the wind:
This is what it means... to dream.
* * *
Elsewhere in the Celestial Realm, Greed was laughing at a corpse of a castle.
He kicked a fallen column off the edge of the isle and watched it drop into the dark below, unhurried, in no rush to hit anything at all.
"Would you look at this," he said, arms spread toward the ruined sanctuaries stretching out beneath them. "All that divine glory. Gone in an afternoon. Turns out gods die just as easily as everyone else, once you know where to hit them."
Pride didn’t answer.
He stood at the edge of the same isle, gaze fixed on the skyline of broken palaces, and let Greed’s laughter dissolve into the wind without acknowledging either of them.
"The mission," Pride said eventually, "was the Akashic Record. Not sightseeing."
They searched for three more hours.
Greed did it the way he did everything, loudly, physically, breaking whatever didn’t need to be broken. Chests broke open. Tapestries torn down and left where they fell. By the second hour he’d stopped bothering to search carefully at all.
"Nothing," he said, dragging his claws down a marble altar hard enough to leave four white scars. "Every vault in this realm, and not one trace of it."
"Then you’re searching for the wrong thing."
Greed rounded on him. "You want to try? Be my guest. Show me the genius method."
"I’d start," Pride said, without raising his voice, "by not destroying every object that might have told us something, before I’d had the chance to look at it."
The silence that followed had teeth in it.
"We are not leaving empty-handed," Pride said finally. "If the Key has already left this realm, someone moved it. Which means someone knows where it went."
Greed kicked the ruined pedestal one more time, mostly out of principle.
"Fine," he said. "Then we stop looking here."
Neither of them said what they were both thinking — that somewhere, far outside the walls of a dying Celestial Realm, the Akashic Record had already found a far better hiding place than either of them had thought to check.