The Slums

[YOLF]

Lubei

As Uria's face lit up, a shadow fell over his. So there were gods to blame for this realm. He snickered through a faint, displeased curve of the lips. "Voyeurism is a nasty hobby. You say she's only one of them, though. What of the others? How many gods have their hands in this world?"

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

Unfortunately, Lubei would not be getting his answer. "Hey, don't say mean things about her! I don't talk about that messy, nasty bird on your shoulder. Hmph!" They turned away at the end too, marching off in a huff of angrily glowing light and writhing tendrils.

[YOLF]

Lubei

He blinked. "The what."

Lubei's disdain was entirely forgotten in the casual revelation that an nigh-unbreakable rule had been not merely bent but broken. His shadowy passenger squacked. "Rude."

It took the demon king a moment to shake his head and stomp after her. "Wait, Uria! What do you know? How can you tell I am stalked?"

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

Bile bubbled up in the back of their throat for a moment. So they stopped, scrunched up their eyes, and made sure they weren't going to hurl before turning around. "I know because I know! Just like I know he's there because you did really, really bad stuff. Not just once, or twice, but again and again. But I didn't say anything about it! You shouldn't say bad things about people you don't know."

[YOLF]

Lubei

The demon was stunned into silence. The sound of his grinding teeth died in a terrifying wave of cold that blew from the ground, and his hands clenched into fists. Before he could abandon his thoughts or act on them, black wings fluttered to his shoulder and spoke instead.

"Your lives have made you disdain the gods, but what was true to you may not hold true here. Do not mistake an enemy decreed by providence for a thing to hate."

Fine mist came from Lubei's mouth as he unclenched his jaw. "I am already a slave to my karma, and that is how it must be. Shun me if you wish, but what I think of gods is what they have earned from me in this life!"

He then advanced on Uria, shaking off the icy dread that clouded his figure not a moment before. "If it affronts you, I'll keep it to myself until your Mother shows me otherwise," he said. In seconds, his voice had returned to a sharpened neutrality, and he continued to walk as if nothing had happened. "So you keep my matters to yourself. Now, let's find shelter."

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

"'Kay..." It was clear they weren't incredibly happy about the arrangement, but it was better than nothing. "She already showed you though. She led you to me, and she made that guy a really cool star dragon so he'll never be hungry or lonely again!"

Still, it wasn't like they could just leave it at that!

[YOLF]

Lubei

Uria wasn't lying. The demon king believed it. He believed the vulnerability behind those complaints, even if it wasn't mortal or demon. But to him, that simply wasn't enough. He imagined himself in her position and held back a growl, for his own worries were enough.

"Never lonely, hmm..." The words slipped from his lips unheeded, as though the repetition would have them make sense, and he moved on as if he hadn't said them. In the end, it didn't take them long.

Lubei stepped over a door that had fallen from its hinges, into a building whose outer layer had partly broken away to expose the brick and iron underneath, like an desleeved arm. Inside, a part of the roof had fallen in, but with a quiet breath, a window of ice covered it firmly. They found enough to make a passable cot where a room might have once been. A rusted coal heater rested in the center, the embers within long gone cold and unresponsive, and Lubei dragged a mattress and a bundle of cloths into a corner before pulling a creaky chair up from the ground.

"Tomorrow we see about the rest of these wretched streets," he said, stiffly sitting down. "For now, sleep."

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

Without a word they plopped down on the mattress, considering how to explain things to Lubei and his weird bird. "Hey Lubei, do you know what makes something alive? It's not if they can breathe. It's not if they can see, or hear, or touch. It's motion. Motion is the power of God. Without that power, everything is still. When things are still they sink away!" They waved their hands aggressively at that statement. After all, that was the worst thing that could happen!

"Even if you die, that's not the end of everything! But if God abandons you, you lose all motion. You will never come back. Ever! People will forget you because you're a still thing and just get lost! It's like a toy at the bottom of a box." They took a breath. Talking this much was hard! "But everything doesn't have equal motion, Lubei! Those people didn't have motion like you and me. They could move, but they can't move freely. Mother didn't care enough about them to do that. But my power lets me share Mother's motion because she loves me a lot! It's her gift to me to share with everyone else. They're almost still things now, but if we shared things with them they could become so much more!"

[YOLF]

Lubei

The demon's head jolted upright, and he listened transfixed to the stream of words that spilled from Uria's lips. It was the most extensive explanation that Lubei could ever expect to receive from the god-child. It was a struggle to find where his response should begin to a tale that sounded as outlandish as it rang true, like the speaker had been there to see it.

"The things you say... should be familiar, but aren't as I know them." On cue, the raptor that followed him like a shadow settled on his knee, waiting, and Lubei crossed it with a faint glare before continuing.

"There is without doubt, a weight that pushes souls from one life to another. And, they say, even gods are bound to its providence. But can a soul truly become lost even to the wheel of reincarnation? I don't believe individuals are equal, but I don't grasp how something so fundamental can be biased." He breathed in. "What I do know, is that merits and sins alike hardly amount to anything if you lack the luxury to live freely."

A slight voice floated in, its owner looking him in the eye. "Are people unequal, or do their fates differ because of circumstance and inevitability? Do you want to be equal, or to be fair?"

Lubei looked back, considered it for a second, then closed his eyes.

"If you wish to give those vagrants a choice," he said, firmly. "Then I will watch over that."

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

Nexus Time 5:00 AM

It was something like a devil. Or perhaps it was more like an angel? But it bounded through the slums at breakneck speeds, a wave rippling through the stillness of the early morning.

One hand was an elongated claw. Along it were awful eyes that moves across the skin. It gouged and ravaged. It tore and ripped. But what it touched was not destroyed. Bodies cocooned up into chrysalises made of a gentle darkness. The other hand held a great blade of light. It shone beautifully with all the colors of the rainbow. It sliced and pierced. It cut and slashed. Those touched by their divinity were frozen into glowing crystals brimming with radiance.

Like an angel of God, it moved over the land without discrimination. It chased those who walked the streets. It rushed into ramshack homes. It transformed the man sleeping restlessly on the ground, the woman trying to hide away in an alley, the babe sleeping in its cradle.

It was swift. It was powerful. It was inevitable.

Uria giggled in joy as they finished the last transformation. The slums were never loud except with a sudden attack, but now they were almost frighteningly quiet. Now it was beautiful. That was no exaggeration. Webs of pristine darkness interlocked with glowing crystalline formations. Light and darkness intermingled. And soon they were off again!


When Uria finally came back, they dragged Lubei to the tallest and least ruined building in the area! From there he could see it all, all the people that had been gifted with Uria's choice of motion. "Usually they should all start at once, but I think Mother let them wait to answer until you could see!"

All at once the scenery became something from Genesis rather than this world. The crystals erupted into purest light while the darkness ruptured, spilling its contents everywhere. Some were monsters like the first he had seen. Warbling silhouettes of burning light and howling beasts with blackened hides. Others were more akin to people. A women with metallic skin emerged as the crystal shattered, and a child with pale skin pulled himself from the shadowy pod he had been stuck in. Others were stranger yet! He saw a constantly shifting creature of protean moonsilver chase a spindly, thin creature covered in holes from which shadows poured. They made sounds one could almost regard as laughter.

But all was not well, was it? Some of the crystals dimmed, dark and soundless forevermore. The contents of other cocoons were empty or half done. It was not the most common thing. After all, there wasn't much binding these people to their current lives. And yet, some still rejected the offer. Amidst the glories wrought by the demigod, there was still the mark of ruin.

If you wish for indolence, choose eternal rest.

[YOLF]

Lubei

He had only left her for five minutes to lay down after she had somehow managed to blow herself up, but Uria had managed to give him the slip. He felt his blood pressure skyrocket like a cold geyser at that blunder. But in the time he was looking for her, he didn't expect her to manage this. To go and enact her designs without a single regard for the conversation they had just had.

Lubei smacked the back of her head in complaint. "Did we not speak about letting me follow before doing this? Did you somehow forget?"

Instead, the child had wilfully torn these slums asunder with a quake of apotheosis, and at this point there was little to do but gape angrily, and consider the awful mess these reborn creatures would be to manage. The spectacle illuminated and clouded the night like a symphony of holiness and desecration. Beings that were not demons, god, humans or beasts cried like newborns amid the missing elegies for those who had gone away in silence.

He could feel the raptor's glare like claws at his nape, and this time he had no motivation to glare back.

"You have no sense of pacing," he hollered, scowling erratically. "What are you going to do with this crowd, completely unused to each other or themselves? If they start fighting, what's the point? Should I read them a novel to calm things down?"

Despite the outrage, feeling in his chest grew numb. A single question echoed in his head that he truthfully wanted the answers to. How badly had he already screwed up?

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

"Hey! I know what I'm doing!" It wasn't as if hitting them was bad. Uria had even blown off their own head once or twice by mistake! All the lecturing was getting annoying though. "I did everything just right. I don't need you to watch every time I make something new" In fact, they were going to prove it!

Uria looked over the teeming masses they had changed. Things wouldn't all fall into chaos since they were part of them! They weren't all part of each other, but the boundary between the godling and her progeny had been eroded by the transformation. "Everyone, be quiet!" And then there was silence.

They gestured towards the still and quiet group, uniform in their obedience. "See? They listen good. Now you can read them the story too!"

[YOLF]

Lubei

He scanned the mass of Uria's progeny and hesitated. Then crossed his arms with a deep sigh. "I don't have one on me."

Even if he did, the trash he read for relaxation wasn't appropriate for a crowd. And why was she taking him seriously on this, but couldn't be bothered to listen to more vital things? Whether the god-child did everything out of a whim or cared childishly for everything, it was making nothing but distress for him. And yet, caution, sympathy, and an unknown sense of investment were slowly stacking into a wall that stopped his mind from boiling.

Lubei carried bigger concerns with him. But there was no idle moment to consider them since he arrived at this realm.

"We should perform passing rites for those who didn't... emerge." He said, casting a long and patient look at Uria. "Will you ask them to help?"

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

"Hmm..." They moved side to side, shifting more weight from one foot to the next as they thought real hard about it. "But that sounds really boring. It's not like they won't be back. Well, maybe they will. But if they are then they weren't really important anyways?"

The thought seemed to catch them on the backfoot, brow furrowing as they considered the implications of the statement.

[YOLF]

Lubei

"If they won't be back, that's all the more reason to send them off. If they will be, that's enough reason for it to matter, too." He said, furrowing his brow at her. Albeit they were humans, they had suffered. Albeit he was not their king, he had allowed their deaths to come, and that was enough to make him responsible for what came after.

"If you shared your power because you cared, then this should mean something to you as well. If not that, then just give your aid because I'm asking."