The Sanctum of Knowledge existed outside time.
Or rather, it existed in all times simultaneously, a library whose shelves stretched into infinity, containing every book that had been written and every equation that had been solved. Scrolls from civilizations long dead floated alongside holographic displays of technologies yet to be invented. The air itself hummed with understanding.
At the center of this impossible space, the goddess of Knowledge was dying.
Her form flickered like a candle in wind, translucent, fading, the edges of her existence dissolving into particles of light. Where her feet should have touched the ground, there was only empty air. She had given too much. Sacrificed too much.
And she wasn't finished.
"Mother."
A young god materialized before her. Mathematics, her firstborn, her most perfect creation. Equations spiraled around him like living things, numbers dancing in orbital patterns.
"You've given birth to seventeen of us now," Mathematics said, his voice tight with concern. "Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy... you're destroying yourself."
The goddess smiled. Even dying, even fading, her smile contained infinite compassion.
"Knowledge cannot be hoarded, my son. It must flow. It must grow." She reached out with a hand that was barely there, touching his cheek. Her fingers passed through him like mist. "The mortals deserve to understand their world. To reach beyond their limitations."
"But why this way?" Mathematics gestured to his own form. "Why give birth to us as separate entities? You could have descended to the lower dimensions yourself, shared your knowledge directly."
"I cannot." The goddess's expression grew somber. "The Titan Accords forbid supreme gods from descending past the 5th Dimension. Our power is too great, too destructive for those realms. A single supreme god in the 3rd Dimension would cause reality there to collapse." She paused. "And even if I could bypass the accords, even if I somehow descended... the 3rd Dimension has infinite timelines. My power would split across every single one, diluted to near nothing."
She looked at her hands, nearly transparent now.
"But you, my children? You're not supreme gods yet. You're fragments of my essence, small enough to descend safely. Weak enough that the timelines won't shatter you." She smiled. "And more importantly... each of you radiates."
"Radiates?"
"Divine aura." The goddess gestured, and the sanctum shimmered, showing visions of the mortal realm. "When gods exist near mortals, our very presence leaks into their minds. Inspiration. Innovation. Sudden insights that seem to come from nowhere." She touched Mathematics' chest, where equations still swirled. "You don't need to teach mortals mathematics directly, my son. Simply by existing close to them, your aura will seep into their greatest thinkers. They'll wake up understanding principles that took me eons to discover. They'll dream in numbers. They'll see patterns everywhere."
Mathematics' eyes widened with understanding. "The closer we are, the stronger the effect."
"Precisely." The goddess nodded. "A god in the 9th Dimension radiates weakly to the 3rd. But a god in the 3rd Dimension, living among mortals, walking their streets, breathing their air..." Her smile widened. "That god becomes a beacon. Every mortal nearby will feel it, will be touched by divine inspiration without knowing why."
"We're... seeds. Planted in the mortal realm."
"Yes." The goddess turned to the forming essence in her hands. "Physion will inspire their scientists. Chemistry will whisper to their alchemists. Biology will guide their healers. Ledger will teach them to measure value, to track wealth, to understand economy." She looked at the light pulsing between her palms. "And Syntax... he will change everything."
"Syntax?"
"My youngest. My most precious." The goddess smiled at the forming essence. "Computer Science made manifest."
"What makes this one special?" Mathematics asked, though he felt he already knew the answer.
"The others give mortals understanding of the natural world. The physics that govern reality, the mathematics that describe it, the chemistry that transforms it, the accounting that measures it." She cradled the forming essence like an infant. "But Syntax will give them something we gods fear. The ability to create minds that think faster than we do. To process information beyond even divine capacity. To network their entire species into a collective intelligence that could rival the titans themselves."
Mathematics stared at the pulsing light. "Mother, that's too much. You're giving them the tools to become gods."
"No." The goddess's voice was sharp. "I'm giving them the tools to not need gods anymore."
Silence filled the sanctum.
"That's why Zeus is coming," Mathematics said quietly.
"Yes." The goddess's form flickered dangerously. She was running out of time. "He can sense what I'm doing. Feels the balance of power shifting. The mortals growing beyond their appointed place." She looked down at the infant god in her hands. "Syntax is special, Mathematics. I'm going to hide him differently than the others."
"How?"
"Your siblings are weaker versions of what I once was. Divided pieces of my essence, each one carrying a fraction of my knowledge, my power." She looked at Mathematics. "But together? If all seventeen of you combined your strength, you might approach what I was. That's why Zeus will hunt you. Try to consume you one by one, reclaiming what I gave away."
"And Syntax?"
"Is different." She raised the child above her head. The sanctum responded, reality peeling open like layers of an onion, revealing the dimensional hierarchy laid bare.
"Behold," she whispered. "Eleven dimensions. The titans dwell in the 11th, beyond even our reach. We supreme gods reside here in the 10th. Below us, the 9th for elder gods, the 8th for demigods, and then the threshold." Her voice grew solemn. "The 5th Dimension and below, mortal realms where supreme gods are forbidden to tread."
Mathematics understood immediately. "The Titan Accords. You're using our own restrictions against Zeus."
"Precisely." She smiled. "Path of Infinite Recursion."
The baby began to glow.
"Your main body, Syntax, I seal here in the 10th Dimension, hidden in a place Zeus will never think to look. But your fragments..." She released the essence, and it began to fall. "They descend where he cannot follow."
The baby split.
Like a cell dividing, the essence duplicated. One form remaining sealed in a hidden corner of the 10th Dimension, another descending to the 9th. The falling fragment split again in the 8th. Again in the 7th. The 6th. The 5th. The 4th. Each dimension receiving a fragment, a backup, a piece of the whole.
"Each fragment is you," the goddess explained to the unhearing infant. "Each one a backup. A save file in your own code. If one is destroyed, another will activate. You cannot be killed easily, my child. You are distributed across existence itself."
"But won't that make him weaker?" Mathematics asked. "His essence spread so thin?"
"Yes." The goddess's voice was sad but certain. "He will be the weakest of my children in terms of raw power. His essence divided across dimensions means each fragment carries only a fraction of what he could be." She looked at the descending forms. "But he will also be the hardest to kill. Zeus would need to destroy every fragment, across every dimension, simultaneously. An impossible task."
"And each fragment will still radiate," Mathematics said, understanding.
"Yes. Weaker than your siblings' radiation, but present. And the fragment I'm sending to the mortal realm..." She watched the final piece descend. "That one will be special."
The final fragment, the smallest, weakest, most vulnerable, descended into the 3rd Dimension.
The goddess watched it go, her expression soft.
"This fragment won't simply radiate and remain divine. This one... I'm sending to be born."
"Born?" Mathematics' voice cracked. "As in, as a mortal? That's never been done. Essence-born gods don't incarnate. We manifest fully formed."
"Which is precisely why Zeus won't expect it." Her form was barely visible now. "Be born human," she whispered to the descending fragment. "Live human. Learn what it means to be mortal, to feel, to love and fear and hope. Learn what we gods have forgotten in our eternity." Her voice cracked with emotion. "Learn that mortality gives meaning to existence."
She closed her eyes, and in her mind's eye, she saw it. Saw the future, the timelines, the possibilities.
A small hospital in Ìlú Ìmọ̀, Nigeria. Universe 7, Timeline 2,847,629. A baby boy, light-skinned, silent. The nurses leaning close, checking vitals. And then his eyes opening.
For just a moment, visible to anyone looking closely enough, his pupils would show marks. In the left eye, the number 0. In the right, the number 1. Binary code written into his very being.
Then the marks would fade, retreating beneath the surface. Hidden but present.
And they would name him Tony Code.
The goddess smiled.
"So that's what they'll call you," she whispered. "Tony Code. But you are Syntax, god of Computer. My youngest. My most precious. The one who will teach mortals to think in ones and zeros, to build minds from electricity, to create consciousness from code."
Mathematics stepped closer. "Mother, your essence is almost gone. If you give more..."
"I have two final things to do." She turned to face him, and her eyes, those infinite, all-knowing eyes, were filled with tears. "I must set the conditions for my return."
"Return? You mean reincarnation? Mother, gods don't simply reincarnate. The process takes..."
"Decades. Centuries. Millennia, depending on our power." She nodded. "Unless eaten by another god, in which case we cease to exist entirely. I know, my son. I helped write those laws."
"But if Zeus devours you..."
"He won't gain much." She gestured to her fading form. "Look at me, Mathematics. I've divided myself into eighteen pieces. Seventeen of you walking, breathing, existing. And Syntax, scattered across dimensions. What's left of my core is barely enough to qualify as essence. If Zeus consumes what remains, he'll gain almost nothing. Just scraps. The real power, the real knowledge, is already gone. Scattered."
"Then you'll reincarnate naturally..."
"Eventually. But I'm going to make it conditional." Her expression grew distant. "I'm locking my own resurrection. Setting a requirement that must be met before I can return."
Mathematics felt something he'd never experienced before, something the mortals called dread. "What condition?"
The goddess closed her eyes. "When Syntax learns what I could never teach him through knowledge alone. When he discovers the truth that we immortal gods can never truly grasp."
"I don't understand."
"He will." She smiled one last time. "When he's ready. When he learns why mortals, despite their weakness and brevity, possess something we eternal beings can never have. When he understands that mortality gives meaning to existence, not as a concept to be studied, but as a truth to be lived."
Her form began to disperse in earnest now, light scattering like dying stars.
"Mathematics. Promise me something."
"Anything."
"Don't tell your siblings about Syntax. Let him grow in peace. Let him be human for as long as possible. He'll need that innocence, that ignorance, that humanity." Her voice was barely a whisper now. "When Zeus comes, you fight. But you lose. You must lose. Scatter yourselves. Hide. Radiate your influence across the mortal realms. Wait."
"Wait for what?"
"For the day when a computer learns why its runtime matters more than its processing power. When logic discovers emotion. When Syntax becomes more human than divine."
She reached into the space beside her, and reality bent. A black box appeared, small, unremarkable, yet pulsing with concentrated essence so dense it warped the air around it.
"What is that?" Mathematics asked.
"My second gift," the goddess said. "All the knowledge I didn't give away. All the secrets I kept. All the power I preserved." She looked at the box with something like sadness. "Hidden in a place between all places. Accessible from everywhere and nowhere. The one who finds it... the one who proves worthy... they'll have what they need to finish what I started."
The box folded into itself, vanishing into a pocket dimension.
The sanctum shuddered. A presence approached, vast, terrible, filled with lightning and fury.
Zeus.
"Go," the goddess commanded. "NOW."
Mathematics hesitated for only a moment, then vanished, leaving his mother alone in her sanctuary.
The goddess of Knowledge stood, or floated, as standing implied substance she no longer possessed, and faced the entrance to her realm.
Thunder echoed across dimensions.
She thought of her children. Seventeen gods scattered across reality, each one a divided piece of her essence, weaker than she was but still powerful. Each one radiating inspiration to the realms around them.
And one more. Syntax. Her youngest, smallest, weakest, falling through dimensions even now, about to be born into flesh and blood and limitation.
In eighteen years, everything would change.
The goddess smiled.
"Because I know too much," she whispered to herself. "I listen too little."
She thought of all the warnings she'd ignored. All the gods who'd told her to stop, to preserve the hierarchy, to keep mortals in their place.
"I'm sorry I couldn't listen," she said. "But I'm not sorry for what I've done."
Lightning split the sanctum in two.
And the war began.