Animals

The God of Strength gazed down at the wounded animal before him, whimpering and scrambling back on all fours, desperate to get away.

It made no real noises, no pleads, and nothing that could be considered begging.

The Proclamation Against Secrets hadn't fully worked then.

The boy was still suffering.

Ran Ling gazed down at the child and wondered how badly he had been affected by the trauma inflicted upon him by his parents. He had seen that the boy was at least somewhat socially stunted, his inability to extricate himself from unfortunate social situations on full display within the town, his mind reverting to search for the child, as if he himself were one.

Raising one's voice and rearing their body upwards was enough to make the boy cower as if a beast was about to descend upon him and devour him.

Not a single word had been uttered from his mouth.

Ran Ling would have to keep an eye on him for any further developments and behaviours, but first he needed to send a message out to that conniving rat bastard Li Ying.

Pulling out a piece of parchment from his robes and his sword from its sheath, he nicked his right index finger and began tracing out the characters of his message.

There was no real reason to write a greeting; the blood of Gods specifically used to make the text he would write completely ineligible to all who were not of their high rank or divine classification, the very method a secret in itself: the perfect text for a God of Secrets to read.

Ran Ling carefully documented down his discoveries, from his discovery how the idiot God's techniques were not successful in transforming the child into the ideal messenger for the task, all the way to the boy's growing power.

The split second of cold, as the child had described, was not something that was supposed to happen at all. It was a rejection that was not calculated for, and Ran Ling forcefully bled even more onto the parchment, pressing his finger firmer into the fibres for the blood to take more deeply, emphasising those matters to the often flippant God.

He always thought that everything would work out in the end if everybody just followed his instructions and plans correctly, disregarding the complete immorality of his own actions and the actions he forced on others.

If Ran Ling weren't so steadfast in his principles aiming for a greater good and peace upon the planet, he might be declaring war over the God of Secrets and his often heretical methods.

The Gods were to protect and serve humanity, shielding them from the demons and the other evil forces which sought to consume them and destroy them.

Not make treaties with them, giving them concessions and forcing Heaven into the position of seeking out one of the Great Elder Gods, whose powers came from the world itself, not some manifestation of their human lives being granted the right to survive and thrive off some other higher being in a half hollow reward for their astounding achievements in life.

Ran Ling had never viewed himself as particularly strong, but was granted his moniker after supposedly his bodily abilities.

He had regretfully later learned that there, in fact, was a God of Resilience and a God of Loyalty, but he was only given the title of the God of Strength, due to the position being open.

Heaven was a bureaucracy Ran Ling bitterly learned, keeping his head down nonetheless.

The God of Secrets himself had praised Ran Ling the day he kneeled before the Jade Emperor and received his headpiece and a new divine sword: a weapon which could split into two upon request forced within the fires of a dragon and made within the most pure, enchanted silver that could ever be found.

Ran Ling had immediately shot back at Li Ying, snarling out that he didn't want to keep the company of a no good, compulsively lying ex-politician.

Li Ying just laughed out loud in return, tears streaming down his face as leaned on the wall, clutching his fan and some heavy, gold ornament for dear life, barely keeping himself from falling.

"I'm not a politician. I'm much, much worse," he had promised Ran Ling, poison dripping from his tongue and his lips stretching into a sinister grin.

Dark clouds had gathered in those eyes and Ran Ling was almost tempted to take a step back.

Almost.

And now, after over five hundred years of being allegedly allies, or even friends, and several Celestial Wars, Heaven's armies were now decimated and Li Ying was growing senile, leaving behind Ran Ling and some cowardly half human half God freak of nature and blasphemous to all things divine - that only narrowly beat out the child that was now crying in the remains of the village coffin house - to adequately assess the boy who they were supposed to be baby sitting and protecting.

The God of Deception was not meant to be here and would certainly be no match against the God of War.

The God of Deception himself was an inadequate match for all things divine.

His human mother had laid with scum and had produced him to lay with even more scum.

To confer the blessings of Heaven to those untested and may be unworthy was disastrous and spoke against all things that Heaven represented. But that bastard Li Ying had organised it anyway.

The God of Deception, a mantle that Ran Ling shuddered to even hold, was only for the shiftiest of individuals, and he certainly applied himself to the task, seemingly from birth.

The message that Ran Ling was recording, no matter his thought process and wandering mind, remained rigid in structure and points clear, as they ought to be.

There was no deviation from his duty.

And all his actions served the Heavens and the Jade Emperor.

Long may he serve until his scales grew and he, like all the newer Gods of the Earth, became the mountains, hills, and stars in the sky.