Speed Is King

Baltamiros couldn't take his eyes off that little flame which was growing bigger and smaller in short bursts, as though it was a supremely fickle minded person being pulled by two very convincing arguments about the viability and impossibility of the God of Ages being a real God.

"Come on. Get bigger! Get stronger! I have a ton of blessings to distribute!" Baltamiros urged the little flame in his heart.

He couldn't say those words aloud because for as long as he could remember, not a single God was able to distribute blessings freely.

It was always, always a skewed transaction where the believer gave the god his or her faith and life force, and the god gave a portion of that gift back in the form of "blessings".

It was the gods helping them realize their short term goals in exchange for their long term well being.

And through that transaction, the gods would be able to maintain their power.

Yes.

Maintain.

Gods were aspects of life that had gained sentience through the needless but also endless worship of all life forms in the entire cosmos.

Those energies created by worship had flooded out of each and every universe, combining and separating themselves according to the different aspects they were meant for.

And through the eons, those energies became gods.

God of Thunder.

God of Fire.

God of Greed.

God of Love.

God of Lust

God of Fear.

God of War.

The list went on and on.

These gods were granted life by the endless energies of their followers, and thus they were able to impact those followers with their "blessings" and "curses" by manipulating those energies to give or take.

However these gods, once they came to life, found it impossible to power up.

In fact, it was all they could do to maintain their level of power!

Like the gathering of thick mists in the cold of early morning, the energies of their worshippers brought them to life.

But also like the fading away of those mists, they were constantly losing their strength and their form with the ebb and flow of their worshippers' number and fervor.

So these gods started to actively intervene in the lives of their worshippers to trigger more fervor within their hearts, and to gain more followers so that they could gain more inflow of energies.

But alas, no matter how many worshippers they get, and no matter how frenziedly fervent they whipped up their worshipers to become, they were unable to qualitatively increase their power!

Exactly like the mists of the cold morning, they were only able to increase their size, but figuratively, they were completely unable to qualitatively increase their density to become liquid form, much less solid form!

There was no next rung in the ladder, no next step in their evolution, no progress to be made.

They tried everything.

They attacked and devoured other gods, only to have them slowly reform completely and perfectly, with their memories and powers intact as though nothing had happened.

They have tried to instigate their followers to go on a holy crusade against other gods to destroy their power base by cutting the energy flow directly from their roots, but it was completely meaningless.

How could wars weed out worshippers of other gods? None can fathom the contents of a person's heart. Who would be able to know which god a person is secretly worshipping?

And so for endless millenia, the gods were just there in their various Folded God Realms.

They had given up trying to power up, and in fact, they have even given up trying to die!

For even though they were constantly bleeding their energies, they could never truly die. There was a bottomline, a floor on which their power would no longer drop no matter what they did or were treated.

They truly were tragic.

Whoever said that being a God was a good thing?

All they sought after was entertainment.

Sometimes they spend lifetimes hanging out in one world, sometimes they move in and out of the worlds in a matter of days.

And always, they were bored out of their minds.

They played and toyed with the lives of their followers to create entertainment for themselves.

Global kingdoms, star empires and universe superpowers rose into hegemony and burned down to ashes just for them to have a good, belly full of laughter at the end!

And that way for eons, the lives of trillions, no, quintillions, gazillions, were lived on the whims of bored gods!

None of them had ever thought that they would be able to power up. That thought had been left in the past, buried beneath miles and miles of solid rock.

Plus why should they power up anyway?

They were immortal.

Some gods may be stronger than others. But what benefit did that bring them?

Nothing.

But all that was about to change.

A million years ago the God of Ages, Baltamiros, realized that he was able to power up very, very slightly in a very specific situation.

A million years ago, Baltamiros was hanging out in a small world and living a life as a rich king of a small kingdom.

He was out exploring a massive forest one day when he chanced across another explorer, a kindred spirit!

Together they enjoyed themselves exploring the vast forest. Along the way after becoming fast friends and while they were resting atop a huge tree, Baltamiros revealed his status as king, and caused the young explorer to be in awe of him.

Alas, his moment of awe caused him to be slightly careless. He slipped and fell down from the tree!

"Jacob!" Baltamiros shouted in horror and he reflexively leapt down to grab hold of his new buddy!

Bam!

Baltamiros threw himself down to the ground, and allowed Jacob to fall on top of him instead of impacting the ground.

At that moment, Jacob swore in his heart that for as long as he lived, he would serve his King faithfully. And even after he died, he would still serve his King as a ghost!

And it was at that moment that Baltamiros felt it.

A portion of his power condensed into liquid form.

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