What Lies Between ✔

Lotus

12

"H-huh?" I stuttered in reply.

"After Demeter's departure from her realm, no other God would claim reign over the Living Realm. Some refused because of it's imperfections, some did not want the hassle of the constant cleansing of the Demon infested realm, others simply because it had been previously ruled by a Goddess." Sema snorted, but somehow it sounded elegant coming from her. "Heavens forbid any God should risk their ego by taking a Goddess' place in a realm." She started gliding away from the Tree of Hesperides.

"So there's no one protecting the Living Realm?" I stumbled after her, looking like a newborn faun next to a graceful doe. "But you said it was really young, so the Demons can enter it easily. Shouldn't someone be watching over the humans?"

"Yes. The humans are in danger. The only way to protect them was by using the Seekers and the threat of the Living Realm's Goddess. Demeter, against orders, killed the Demons she found. That was one reason war was declared last time. A God was retaliating against the Demons, so war was allowed to officially be established. The problem was, Typhon and Hades were not abiding by The Morals."

"The Morals..." I said, thinking of that mysterious hidden book, referred to over and over.

"Yes. The Morals are like the guidelines to being a God or a Lord. Of being a soul worthy for Paradise. Though it is not usually their wish to enter Paradise, even the Demon Lords must abide by them."

"What forces them to do so? If they are not interested in Purgatory as well as Paradise, can they not simply do as they please and forget the rules if they wish?"

"They could, but then the Gods would overthrow them of their position, and power is very important to Demons. Though the Underworld is a realm that is significantly apart from all the other realms, it is still just a realm that follows the orders of the Higher Gods. It is a partnership of sorts. They need us to send them tainted souls to eat," here, she paused to shudder, "and we need them to rid the evil out of all the other realms, so that we can send those who deserve to go to Paradise there without confusion and so that our realms do not become infested with darkness as earth is slowly becoming."

"A necessary evil," I repeated, beginning to understand the need for Demons a little more.

"Exactly," Sema agreed. "But, we do not condone the harming of innocent being sin other realms. Typhon and a slew of other unworldly evils were roaming the earth and sparing no human in their path any shred ofmercy. We could only beat the Demons back by using the Seekers who were not truly Gods, and warn the Demon Lord, who was Hades at thetime, to control his subjects. If we, the Gods, decided to takeaction on the Demon Lord's followers, then Hades would be free to declare war in the name of The Morals, which was his motive all along. He was purposely trying to push us to the brink of war, so that we would make the first move.

Strategically, Hades himself never made his presence known on earth. He sent his enforcers, mainly Typhon, to do all his dirty work instead. That way we could not, by the law of The Morals, overthrow him from his reignas Demon Lord because he himself never committed a crime against another realm's beings. He was waiting and goading us to make our first move. A God themselves would have had to step in to officially commence a war, so we depended on the Seekers, but they were not well-established at the time, not trained enough to handle a large-scale confrontation with the Demons. Still, we were chained to our position, only able to watch as the Seekers fell. If we so muchas killed one Demon, Hades could engage all realms in battle. If Hades conquered the battle on earth, he could move on to the nextclosest realm to fight its army and attempt colonizing there as well.Most likely he'd choose Purgatory, since it is the closestresembling realm to earth and second youngest. The victor of the warin one world, be it God or Demon, is allowed to battle the next closest realm and continue on to the one after that if they win that war as well. Likewise, a God could wage war against a demonic realm, but the only realm occupied by Demons is the Underworld. No God hasever decided to proceed to do this since the Underworld is greatlyneeded to contain the darkness of all realms. Plus, it would be a hellish task to fight the evils of many worlds at once, but no God has ever admitted their fear of that out loud, though it is obvious."