Aaron was frustrated. Taking Alys as a patient would change their relationship forever, and not only on her end. He didn't want to care for her more than he cared for a random clan member in a random world, but it was either doing that or watch her unresolved issues turn her into a danger to be dealt with.

Caring for her would also require him to invest time into her that, honestly, was better invested elsewhere. He had too many things to do already, including winning a war, and now he would have to reserve an hour or two of his days for her for a couple weeks to a month.

But the worst of all would be the feeling of dependence that would grow in her. He was the source of some of her problems, and now, the solution for them. He was the villain and the hero, the disease and the cure, the evil and the good. Treating her would put him in a central position in her heart as a source of certainty, and there was no way to avoid it.

Unfortunately, finding another Mind Healer for her would bring other issues with it. She was too vulnerable now. Anyone would be free to easily manipulate her, and if they hurt her too, she might break. As resilient as the human mind was, there was a limit to it, and she had gone through way too much in the past weeks.

Alas, what must be done, must be done. He would heal Alys, and then he would have to punish her for disobeying the rules, and that would only worsen how central he would become in her life. He would do his best to dampen it, but he was no specialist. Only time would tell what would happen.

He started the first session immediately. "Now, Alys, tell me of your woes."

She was so lost that she even had a hard time feeling defensive. She started talking, about everything, and only stopped three hours later. That first day, Aaron did nothing but hear her.

"Let me leave!" Ren yelled yet again.

Yue ignored him. She was in deep thought, as she had been ever since Lika left like that. Her words were cryptic but ring true — in the Domain of Deception, only Yue herself should be able to lie, but one never knew when another god found a way around it.

Lika was the oldest of them all except Shalar himself, but was far from being the strongest, which many found strange, Yue included. What secrets did she hold? And why didn't Shalar want them revealed?

The obvious answer was power hoarding. The rules against Spiritual Energy, together with the quotas on Shalar's distribution of Divine Energy, were evidence of that. One particle every ten thousand years, and he promised that with enough of them, one could become as strong as Shalar himself.

That was only a lie to entice the new gods, of course, else Lika wouldn't be so weak after so long — how old was the Goddess of Light, anyway? And what was her actual relationship with Shalar if she knew secrets he had forbidden only her from speaking? What terrible secret was he keeping from them that she believed her herald, a former Immortal, would help fix? At least that's what Yue had taken from Lika's cryptic speech.

"I will kill you! Let me leave! Now!" Ren threatened.

Yue was no fool. Power was the most important thing of all, that's the reason they had all become gods. Lika also wouldn't go against Shalar if there wasn't power on the table for her. But could there be a deeper reason behind it? A reason for Yue to keep her silence?

As much as she called Lika sister, and as much as they had been fathered by Shalar, none considered themselves siblings, or Shalar a true father. They didn't know each other near well enough. Who was Lika, really? What did she really want? How much of her goodness was a facade, and how much was real?

Yue was the Goddess of Deception, and paradoxically, she loved discovering the truth above all.

"I swear that I'll—" Ren started yelling again, but this time, Yue acted. She cast a skill, and he was enthralled by an illusion, tuning silently immediately. He would wake up eventually, as he had woken up time and time again, but then he would also get emotionally unstable enough to be fooled once more.

She wondered if she should report the herald to Shalar and get limited gains from it — certainly less than owning the former Immortal herself — or observe more and risk someone else finding out about him. Eventually, others would find out about it, and then her profit—

"Yue," said a female voice that made her have goosebumps. Her mortal-yet-immortal mother was praying to her. They had no familial love lost between them either.

Though her mortal was a mortal, Yue feared her more than Shalar himself. For all his power and greed, Shalar was consistent. He obeyed his rules most of the time; it took a lot of anger or potential gain for him to go against them.

But her mother... Yue suspected her to also be a former Immortal. Yue's brother had tried to kill her once, but her mother had gotten access to a particle of Divine Energy somehow, and the result was so gruesome Yue still trembled every time she remembered it. Even today, after receiving so many particles of Divine Energy herself, she still didn't know how to do that to anyone. That was proof enough that her mother had a mysterious past.

"Yes, mother," Yue replied the prayer.

"I have someone I need you to hide for me," said her mother, Alamor'avoth Salarin shar lo'Yor — strangely, a male name. "If you hate your father even a tenth of as much as I do, make sure no one ever finds anything about Aaron Ironblood."

Yue was shocked, and then she contemplated, and then she killed Ren in a single stroke. She would have to pay for killing a fellow god with no permission from Shalar, but the message was clear: Ironblood could kill her father.

She would give up her very life for that hope.

In the depths of Liech, a scaled eye the size of a mountain opened. Fate was whispering change, and he had been ordered to prevent such things.

He would observe. He would find the source of the trouble. He would destroy it.

The World Dragon had woken up.

Sun God Rey, in his golden Sun Armor, looked from the heavens down the world. The players were moving, and it wasn't even time for the Great Reset yet; the world's technology was still outdated, the mortals' power still far from threatening the gods.

He smiled as he saw even the High Elves and the Abyssals prepare for whatever was coming. It had been a long time since a world war — a true world war, not the pathetic quarreling the humans called so — had come.

Last time, he had fought against Shalar, but now he knew better. This time, he would scorch Liech for the glory of his new master.

In Liech, all roads were like arteries leading to Posa, the Heart of the World. The nation was the largest, richest, and strongest of all. Internal corruption and abuse were dealt with swiftly and brutally, but its citizens and companies knew they held the upper hand in almost everything on the outside. They abused that fact as much as they could.

The tale of the rise of the Athos Conglomerate was filled with said abuse. They strong-armed weaker nations and companies from the outside to bring riches to invest on the inside. In less than fifty years, they had become the number one company in the world. Now, a thousand years later, they were on the decline.

Still, they held to their diminishing power, influence, and money like drowning men holding to lifeboats. The previous efficacy in finding new markets and dominating them had become an efficient bureaucratic machine that found decreasing profit margins and did everything to fix it.

Desperate times meant desperate measures, and their bureaucrats and cultivators were a notice away from marching at any branch or partner store that dared to operate in the red. If the bureaucrats could do nothing to fix that, the warriors would take everything from anyone involved as restitution. It was better to return with little profit than get further down the rabbit hole of money loss.

When giants like the Athos Conglomerate fell, the ants below suffered for it.

Their headquarters was an enormous tower of metal and glass that pierced the skies. It shone under the sun, showing all its glory to the passersby, though the attentive observer would notice rust at the higher floors as the maintenance funds were cut to prioritize more important operations.

There, a man wearing a blue suit, black tie, and brown shoes — the latest office fashion — walked through the sea of aisles from which his coworkers determined the future of Athos' many subsidiaries. Their floor was modern, following an open concept with little to no walls. Small cubicles divided by beautiful white crystal held one person each, always with an equally beautiful black glass table and a comfortable metal chair. Many other crystals, papers, and pens assisted the brightest minds of the company.

The man was one of such, and he had just received a report that he had to report to the higher-ups urgently. He even had to keep himself from running. His peers looked up from his tables to stare at him with envy as he moved, carrying a recording crystal that obviously contained important news. He would receive a bonus that day, and they all knew it.

He arrived at the white crystal walls of his boss's office and knocked lightly once. The cloudy crystal became transparent enough for his boss to see him, and then a portal appeared in front of him. Trying times required unfortunate security measures, even against one's subordinates. The last boss had been lynched by his workers after he announced a wage cut. Now, the Heavenly Steel Crystal made the new boss protected even from Champion level attacks, and the only way in was through a portal that had to be opened at just the right frequency, else it wouldn't open at all. The frequency was like a lock, and only the portal crystal in the boss' hands was synced to it.

He went through the portal and found the room the same as it had been in the past, filled with outdated furniture and useless things. A wooden table of all things, a sofa, books, and even a portal window. Who had time to look outside while there was work to be done? The man was still glad for accepting the special potion that helped him focus more. The first three had been free, and some whispered about addiction, but they were just fools that couldn't see the truth. He had to pay for them nowadays, yes, but he worked so much more that it more than made up for it. Oh, his nose bled sometimes, but it was nothing that a quick trip to the Physician provided for free by the company — in exchange for a minor wage deduction a while back — couldn't fix. He had even made it a habit of visiting the Physician every day after lunch already. Just another step of his perfectly organized and, more importantly, effective day.

"What is it?" his boss asked. She was a voluptuous woman who was in power because she was the concubine of her own boss. Her thin, revealing dress was way too unprofessional, as was her manner of doing business. She seduced some fools to get rid of them without paying for the contract fee, since romantic relationships were forbidden between coworkers. Not he though. Never he. He knew better than to fall for her insidious tricks.

She hadn't even turned to look at him after he entered the room. She was staring outside the useless window. The wind touched her golden hair just the right way to make it undulate charmingly, but he didn't even glance at it or at her impressive backside, neither did he notice her thin waist or how her figure was wider at chest height even while she had her back to him. Not he. He was a professional.

"T- T- The branch in T- T- Thenor..." He started with some difficulty, another unfortunate side effect of the potions he was taking. The woman mistakenly took his staggering for anxiety because of her presence and turned her head to look at him with a provocative smile, which he barely noticed. Some would be awed by the way her body turned just the right way when she did so, but he didn't. "Loss of p- p- profit."

She turned completely, and he didn't look at her body at all. His weak coworkers would look curiously at her new belly button piercings — or just at her exposed belly button for good measure — but he was too focused on work to do so. He looked only at her pink, full lips, and her sky-blue eyes, never at her body.

She flowed to the sofa and sat there. "I remember you. You have been with us for a very long time, haven't you? You're one of those holding the old contracts. An outstanding worker that deserves everything you have and more." She patted to the seat on her side. "Come, sit here, tell me about the loss of profit in the Thenor Empire."

He smiled. Recognition, at least. She knew how professional he was.

And if she did, there was no trouble in sitting on the sofa and relaxing a bit, was there? Or in taking his stiff suit so he could feel her skin better once he sat beside her. She was already taking her own clothes anyway.

It was only natural to not let his boss be the only one naked in the room.