Chapter 15: January 28th 1911

Like a river, time was friendly for Daiyu as she was no longer a little girl but an adult woman. Her beautiful raven silk hair waved in the wind from the outside of the cabin in Shen Yi’s home. She no longer had the frame of a little girl but a woman. It had been ten years since she had been with the God of the Arrow. She used her time wisely and well.

Shen Yi sat by on his chair by the cabin midday as he looked at the high mountains. Daiyu sat on a stump that she often studied from. The cold was apparent here as snow would sometimes creep up in the area, but she was used to it. The trees around them were comfortable as an atmosphere.

Shen Yi himself was busy smoking a pipe with tobacco. He was enjoying a relaxing, comfortable atmosphere. He was busy quizzing her as she was reading one of the many books that only he had on everything related to the gods.

He tested her reading “Once again, I want you to go through the roster for me. Name the original surviving dragons of the Great Cataclysm that are part of the Coalition of Deities.”

She looked away as she struggled to answer the question “Vishap, Quetzalcoatl, Sárkány, Tiamat, Ikuchi, Zhinü, ... Qīnglóng, Ryūjin, Ayida-Weddo, Drakaina, and ... um ... Víbria.”

“Very good, like anything else, keep in mind that the information you have in those books that you are reading is old and outdated. We actually do have additional dragons born over time that have joined up in the coalition as well,” he replied. “Now which of the four main deity groups has the highest surviving amount of deities?”

“Oh, that one is easy...”

“In order of highest to lowest.”

She got an angry look, “Damn ... um ... Egyptian, Hindu, Greek, and Roman.”

“Ehhh ... not completely accurate. Greek and Roman are the same tree in our studies because?...”

“Romans borrowed the Greek Gods and renamed some.”

He nodded, “Good, Norse is the last group you are looking for. Now when was the Coalition of Deities created?”

“It was created in 1589 AD in Roman Calendar after the signing of the Treaty of Enki.”

“What was the treaty before that that was the forerunner of that treaty?”

“The Treaty of Rudra.”

“When was that signed?” he asked.

“1580 AD.”

He blew smoke from his lips from his pipe. “Very good. If you are confronted with a hostile deity, what do you do?”

“Run,” she responded.

Shin Yi nodded, “Yes ... as a mortal, you don’t have much. Mortal weapons are very ineffective against us. What is the main way a human can kill us.”

“Weapons of a god.”

He nodded but also shook his head. “Weapons forged by mythical or deity can kill one in return.”

“I do have a question. In your book, why are the mythical creatures and fairy tale characters counted as deities?”

Shin Yi scratched his chin “I don’t know, we just don’t have the terminology for it.”

“Seriously? Hundreds of years have passed, and you guys don’t have the word to call yourselves that fits more appropriately of what your group is? Hmm ... I have to find a word that fits a name that identifies not just deities but mythical creatures, folklore creatures and people, fairy tale characters, and legendary characters all in one. I know it! I have a word that I can use to identify yourselves that I think will work. How about ... immortals? ... no that won’t work, it sounds too generic. How about Mythics? Yeah, that would work. It sounds more correct to call yourselves mythics that are creatures or people that consist of deities, folklore characters, fairy tale characters, or creatures of legend that are not ordinary human mortals.”

Shin Yi nodded, “It is a word you could recommend to the council for the Coalition. Just because you are a mortal doesn’t mean that they will ignore you. Believe it or not, we have actually used the term immortals in the past to sometimes describe ourselves, but it is true we have never had a specific term yet to encompass who we completely are.”

“I am always curious; why not show yourself to the world? You are gods. Mythological creatures exist, the fairy tales that exist.”

“Some of us were born immortal. Some of us were created immortal. Some of us happened to find their way to immortality. The fact is, after Cataclysm, we knew it was time for us to never reveal ourselves to you humans. We got involved in your histories a few times, and the results were not promising and catastrophic. We cannot be hurt by human weapons, but what if one day you could? How do humans look at us knowing that behind the scenes, the gods and fairy tale creatures exist, and all their history was brought forth? Some of the members of our Coalition are considered evil by humans because of what they did. How would those humans respond if they saw those they considered evil?”

She thought about some of the members of the Coalition that were considered evil by the humans. She sighed.

Shin Yi sighed as well. “You have asked this question before Daiyu. I know how you feel. What if the gods got involved in the Boxer Rebellion? Would your family still be alive right now? Answer that question.”

She looked down, “I don’t know.”

“Then, what if the ones that you fought pled to the gods to help them out in their struggle to take control of the Chinese? What if the gods got involved in that? How would your life be right now with that change?”

“I would be angry.”

He smiled. “Then you can see why the Treaty of Rudra was ultimately signed. All our past history, good or bad, was erased, and we united together. It is not perfect. In fact, it is far from perfect, but it is better than what we had back then. That being said, there is nothing wrong doing some things from the established rules every once in a while, as long as it does not dramatically alter their future. Of course, there are the shards, and that is to us as gold and diamonds are to the humans. Here comes my next quiz question for you. Why did we survive the Great Cataclysm?”

Daiyu knew this question. “The answer is simple, the ... mythics managed to craft the Lintarsha Crystal that they used on Cataclysm.”

“Why did that crystal save us then? Why did the immortals just try to fight the Cataclysm?”

“Cataclysm was more than just a foe,” she answered without hesitation. “It was a force of nature that could strike all realities no matter where you hid. Magic had no effect on it, and in fact, it dispelled our magic. Even time magic was useless against it. The ability to alter reality proved no effect on it. The most powerful of gods could do nothing against it. The thing consumed good and evil with no care. The Cataclysm did have a weakness, though. If the mythics could create a crystal and pour a part of their magic into it, then the 100,000s of mythics would create a powerful beam of energy capable of overcoming any force like it. It worked, but the crystal shattered after its use. Some say it’s on purpose, and some say it is an accident from the imperfections of making it.”

Shin Yi blew a puff of smoke into the air “The one thing that my book does not explain well that you need to know is the price that crystal had on us. We were desperate to make it and survive. The crystal permanently drained some of our powers as well in an attempt to create it. It would actually be impossible to make another one. There isn’t enough for us to make another one, and we would possibly perish trying to make another one. One of the reasons we want to assemble it again is to have the crystal ready in case something else shows up like Cataclysm. If only we had more time to assemble it.”

“What did Cataclysm look like? I am sure humanity would have seen such destruction from above us.”

“Humanity would never see what it looked like. We fought it in the outer rim of the solar system. It was pure nothingness—a giant ball of darkness that was slowly creeping to this planet. You would have only seen the night sky above you go even darker as it slowly came and consumed the planet as a whole. You would have barely known what it looked like then ... poof ... no more. Some claimed that they could see three red eyes from it even though I never saw it. We created different realities to fight it, but it did nothing to it. I watched my arrows simply fizzle to nothing against it. It was there, though, that we started to discover the weakness in it.”

Daiyu scratched her head “What was its weakness?”

“Besides the crystal obviously, it was showing a shift in a movement when we kept uttering reality while striking its core. Each time we did it in very rapid succession, it slowed momentarily as it was trying to adapt and reorganize its reality to normal again. The problem is that Time magic and reality-altering magic is finite to cast it. You can only cast it so many times before you are drained and need to recover. Every method to adapt and come up with new ways to fight it only drained our resources, and we had already lost half our number. If only we knew sooner, then we might have put a dent into it. Sadly it was not meant to be.”

“Why not go back in time or alter reality to manipulate the past?”

He shook his head “The crystal drained some of our powers making it. It limited that ability. We did use it as much as we could. The catch is using time, and reality-altering magic can cause long term damage to the surroundings the more you use it. Eventually, it will weaken space itself and make places like Earth uninhabitable unless done sparingly. There is always the threat of paradoxes, which is something that is difficult and annoying to fix. Let’s get back to your test of knowledge. Name at least five Egyptian deities that are part of the coalition today.”

Without hesitation, Daiyu named five individuals “Anubis, Tefnut, Reneutet, Taweret, Nemty.”

“Very good,” Shin Yi responded. “Who is the most powerful of those five?”

She thought about it and guessed, “Anubis?”

“Yes, and no ... that was a trick question. None of them are more powerful than the other. Anubis is quite the fighter and can put up an incredible fight, but it does not make him more powerful than the other four.”

“What do you mean?”

He responded, “Each god or deity or mythic as you would put it, has an ability that the other does not. For an example of those five gods, you told me, who has the most important if you wanted to grow crops? Would you go to Anubis that you just told me?”

“No, I would not.”

“Who would you rely on? You have crops that will die if they don’t get the care they need. Who of those five would you go to?”

Once again, she thought about and answered, “Tefnut, she has the ability to bring rain.”

“Very good. I met Tefnut once. She is quite capable of bringing a good fight to someone if she wanted to. Just because she can summon rain doesn’t mean she is helpless in a struggle too. I have seen her bring a powerful acid rain on a group of individuals because they tried to bring harm to an individual she was trying to protect. Those individuals regretted their actions, I promise you.”

She continued reading her book. She read the next page of her book out loud.

“The dragons of today, much like many ... mythics, have the ability to take on two or three forms to hide themselves from society and mortals. They have an in-between form that they take on that is most comfortable for them to use that resembles that of an anthropomorphized version of a true dragon. These walking bipedal dragons can typically fly and fight in armor and weapons while carrying their invincibility into battle. When pressed, they can transform into their ‘true’ form of their bodies, but it will drain their power like when they transform into a human form.”

Shin Yi pointed his pipe at her “That book is not completely accurate when it was written. There is a wide variety of dragons, and as a result, it can be difficult to categorize what each one can do. Some dragons are barely what you can describe as a dragon but that of a flying snake-like naga like Ayida-Weddo, for example. She has three forms, human, her in-between form, and her ultimate form. The idea of three forms is that the one that is most stable is one that in between the form of a human and dragon. In the end, it really comes down to the individual. Zhinü, for example, has only two forms, and that is her original powerful jade dragon form and human form.”

“Assuming human form is the hardest thing to do when staying with mortals,” Daiyu continued to read her book. “The price of using magic continuously drains an immortal’s energy. Half a day is usually the limit of how long an immortal can assume a human form. That being said, some immortals are already human-like as-is and can fit with mortals relatively free from suspicion and don’t need to worry about this limitation. Once a human form is cast by the magic-user, even going beyond half a day is not something to worry too much about. It is possible to go beyond that time period maintaining that shape as it truly depends on the immortal such as shapeshifters that can take any form or simply the individual itself. Usually, going beyond the time period is not fatal, but once the magic is fully drained from the immortal, they cannot cast any magic unless they revert back to their original form. Within a full day of maintaining the shape, the immortal will exhibit signs of illness and fever. Within beyond of holding a continuous form of that shape, the symptoms will worsen but not be fatal. No immortal has ever perished from holding human form for too long.”

Daiyu closed the book for a bit as she scratched her head. “Shin Yi, you have always been human before you became immortal. I never had the chance to ask, but how did you become immortal?”

“Actually, you did ask me that question twice, but I avoided the answer. You asked a year of when you first arrived and a second time a year later after that. I was nervous telling you that because you would try to seek it out and bring harm to others trying to find it. I guess it is safe to tell you this now that you have been here long enough that I can trust you. The fact is ... I discovered a pill that can give immortality.”

Daiyu almost interrupted him “The pill of immortality from your legend, of course. In the legend of your story, you had a pill of immortality that another individual wanted from you. You decided to give it to your wife Chang’e, and she went to the moon.”

Shin Yi chuckled a bit “Heh, Heh, one of the things you forgot in your learning is the importance of knowing that not all legends are accurate. History and myth get skewed over time, and as a result, stories are not always the same that the mortals have written. The fact is the pill was large enough to be divided into two pieces. I gave one to Chang’e and one for myself. I mean think about it, if I was going to give one for my wife, then it was hell for sure that I would have one for myself so my wife and I could live forever ... and remain together.”

“I won’t ask any more about the pill father.”

“Thank you. Immortality is a gift and a curse. I took the pill, and I live forever. I outlive all that I live. Chang’e is gone, and I am alone. Sometimes I wish I never took that damned pill.”

Daiyu tried to consul him as he looked down and smoked “Without you, the nine sun demons would have destroyed the region. The Chinese have you to thank for in making their lives better.”

Shin Yi nodded, “Yes, of course. About that ... Daiyu, there is something you need to know about that story. The legend of the nine sun demons was the fact that there were ten not nine. I never found the tenth demon. It disappeared. The mortals went and wrote in their legend that the tenth sun demon went deep into the sky to become our sun. I wish the story were true, and I want the mortals to think that is the case. I don’t want them to fear that another sun demon is still out there ready to scorch the region again.”

Daiyu had a look of shock “I did not know about this part of the story. To think that another creature that you hunted may still be out there ready to strike anytime is unsettling.”