If we manage to make it to 500 stones by the time of the reset you get another extra chapter!!!!
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Nicholas turned to examining his new state of being. A new awareness flooded Nicholas's consciousness. It was not a single sense, but a symphony of cosmic data, overwhelming and absolute. He was no longer a man looking at a world; he was a god perceiving a system.
His consciousness expanded, encompassing the entire Earth. He saw its teeming, mortal life not as individuals, but as a shimmering, interconnected web. And through that web, a constant, whispering chorus echoed in the back of his mind. It was the sound of his name. Aeon. Shaper.
Each prayer, each whispered invocation from a member of the Order of Eternity, was a distinct note in a grand, global chant.
It was a hum of power, a river of belief flowing directly into the reservoir of his soul, now there was no need to use false containers, he could control faith expertly and direct it and use it however he pleased.
But his perception went deeper than faith. He could feel the subtle currents of magic being invoked across the globe. It was like feeling a million tiny needles pricking the fabric of reality.
He saw hidden covens of witches in damp cellars, their crude rituals summoning, minor being and demons from the Hell and the other Divine Realms. He saw priests in ornate churches, their faith creating shields of golden light to banish tormented spirits.
And he saw his own Order, their magic clean and structured, weaving the new symbols of his authority to heal, to build, to protect. They were his hands in the world, and he felt every spell they cast.
His sight pierced the Veil, the mist that separated the mortal from the divine. He saw Olympus, a breathtaking city of marble and starlight perched atop a shimmering mountain sitting atop the clouds.
Gods and Goddesses, radiant and powerful, lounged in eternal halls, feasting on nectar and ambrosia, their laughter echoing with ancient boredom.
He saw the Underworld, a vast, grey plain where countless shades wandered in silent, endless monotony. It was a bleak fate, but preferable to the other place his gaze fell upon.
Hell. A realm carved from humanity's deepest fears and most creative cruelties. Countless souls writhed in landscapes of so horrifying they defied description, their eternal torment administered by demons whose forms were shaped by millennia of belief. Their screams were a silent, psychic wound in the cosmos.
Then his perception shifted upward, to Heaven. A realm of pure, harmonious light where legions of angels and blessed souls were endowed with endless false happiness and sang endless praises to God. The order was perfect, beautiful, and to Nicholas, an utter waste of a souls potential.
And he could feel them. The true owners of the world. Their presences were not located in one place, but were vast, atmospheric pressures covering the entire globe.
The stormy, possessive authority of Zeus. The wise, calculating weight of Odin. The complex, cyclical power of Brahma. The serene, shining mark of Amaterasu. The ancient, paradoxical stillness of the Three Pure Ones. The boundless, compassionate reach of the Tathagata Buddha. Their collective power was an ocean, and his new pantheon was a mere raft upon it.
He was close. He could feel the potential, the sheer scale of power required to truly contend. But five gods were not enough. His pantheon was a fledgling thing. To stand as an equal, he would need more domains, more concepts, more divine hands to shape the cosmos. But first, he needed to secure what he had.
He returned his focus to his sanctuary, to his four attendants. Their new divine forms radiated immense power, but it was raw, uncontained. They needed anchors, filters, Symbols of Power to channel their authority and protect their sanity from the roaring river of faith.
Not to mention that once their artifacts were created he would be able to once again process a significant amount of his collected faith and transform it into strength by allowing for most of the impurities to be left in the artifacts.
"The time has come," his voice resonated through the sanctuary. "We forge your Symbols. This will be a pain like no other, as the process requires the splitting your own essence."
He showed them the method, a ritual of self-mutilation on a soul-deep level. To create the ultimate filter, one must sacrifice a part of the self to become the filter.
Marcus, the Cupbearer, was first. His form, a humanoid mass of boiling blood, convulsed. With a terrible act of will, he tore his own essence in two.
A scream that was not a sound but a ripple in reality itself echoed through the sanctuary. One half of his being remained, dimmed but still potent.
The other half, a swirling orb of liquid fire and vital essence, floated before him. Nicholas guided the ritual, shaping the orb. It elongated, its surface smoothing into a dark, metallic sheen.
A stem formed, then a wide bowl. It became a Chalice, and as it solidified, the blood within it began to glow like the rising sun and flow endlessly, a self-replenishing fountain of the Life-Flame, his ultimate artifact for channeling and purifying the faith of emotion and vitality.
Next was Jonathan, the Witness. His sandy, crystalline form shuddered as he performed the same agonizing division. The severed half of his soul-energy coalesced into a brilliant, geometric shape. Nicholas focused, refining it.
The edges sharpened, the light refracting into a billion colors. It became a Prism, clear as diamond yet containing entire spectra of light. This artifact could now split any soul, see its every thought, and witness every moment of its personal timeline, a perfect tool for governing time and consciousness.
Then, Julian, the Keeper. His terrifying, non-Euclidean form twisted in upon itself. The splitting of his essence was a silent, mind-rending event. The extracted portion swirled, a vortex of arcane symbols and forbidden knowledge.
Under Nicholas's direction, it collapsed in on itself, the chaos organizing, flattening. Pages of a strange, living material formed, bound by a cover of shifting shadow. It became the Book of Secrets. Its pages were never blank; they constantly shifted, detailing everything known, unknown, and unknowable in the cosmos, the ultimate repository and filter for his domain.
Finally, Hercules, the Warden. His nature was different. He already possessed an artifact, the Nemean Lion's pelt, a symbol of his past life's ultimate defense. But it was tied to his old, limited authority. They would not split his essence, but reforge what he had.
They placed the golden pelt at the center of the ritual circle. Nicholas, the Shaper, called upon his authority over Magic and Fate. All 5 Gods focused their combined authority on unraveling his past artifact.
The pelt glowed, then melted, not into liquid, but into a shimmering, silvery substance. It rose from the floor, stretching, reshaping. It formed a Pillar, simple and severe. Its surface was not solid, but a constantly shifting distortion, a focal point for control of space itself.
Where the Pillar stood, reality would bend to Warden's will, making his control over space not just strong, but absolute and domain-controlling.
The four new Symbols hovered before their owners, they were less so physical object than they were authorities made manifest.
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