The massive figure emerged, looming over the entire land before seeing the remains of it’s soul shard. As the entire land started to fall apart, the great god merged with the speck of it’s soul, taking in all of it’s memories before plunging back into the gate in haste, unconcerned about the land itself. As it left, the rumbling died down and the entire land became silent as the gate door sealed itself shut once again. All of the god beasts that had been present from the beginning were now laying dead, either from wounds from the fight, or crushed beneath the power of the being that emerged. The strongest beast gods were now dead and while there were still several gods remaining, the fighting had decimated the beast tribes who, although they controlled the lands that used to belong to the empire, barely had enough members in their tribe to even inhabit a quarter of the land itself. At the same time, groups of humans began to emerge from their hiding spots all over, families with long histories had made safe houses for themselves and brought along as many servants and their families as they could. There was no point in surviving alone as they would lack the manpower to rebuild without their servants, something even the harshest of family heads acknowledged.

And while these powerful families made up a good bulk of survivors, there were actually many others who had banded together to survive as well in whatever places they could. Coming out from their hiding spots meant they would now have to survive in a world without government or law and order, but as far as they were concerned, they had survived.

Gangs and bands of humans quickly formed from the less savory types, preying on both humans and beasts as they could. Some of the humans who had been captured survived and were forgotten in the great retreat that had resulted from the chaos of the great being emerging on the land. When they regained their freedom, some went their own ways while many stuck together and began the process of freeing other trapped humans where they could.

Years later, a great leader of humans, a woman who had reached godhood on her own and carved out a new kingdom for her and her followers, stood looking at a sculpture she had carved by hand, an endeavor that had lasted for months as she ignored her duties to finally put an image in her mind into stone so that she could stare at it as opposed to only having it haunt her mind.

In graphic detail, Laz’s face and body was depicted at the time he had defeated the contaminated bear creature in the arena, surrounded by broken weapons but still standing strong as his bloody body looked up at the sky in defiance of the life fate had dealt him.

The woman stood back and looked up at the face she had carved, the one that had not only granted her freedom, but had given her a chance to reclaim her life. Along side her stood several women, both allies and elders of the kingdom she had created who had been the most worried when she had abandoned all of her duties to do this.

"Who is it?" One of them asked, an amazon of a woman with massive arms and a massive chest.

"My savior... and my only god," was all the warrior queen replied as she stared at his face. She had wanted to carve a face that she could look directly upon, but felt that Laz wasn’t someone who would ever look down on anyone. So instead she had carved him looking like he was about to fight another battle.

"Your highness... the delegates of the eastern and western tribes along with the southern kingdoms ask for your attention. They wish to make treaties with us, but wish for some sort of compromise in doing so..." One of the elders said as this had been going on for weeks while the queen had ignored it all.

"They wish for me to marry a man from one of their ranks, one who they can look at as a king, do they not?" The other tribes along with the alliance of southern kingdoms had wanted to ally with the Asura Kingdom, but they had concerns about following a queen. Therefore they were hoping that one among their ranks could marry the queen and take a place as her husband. They didn’t say that he would become the king, but once a man was in place and had their help, it would only be a matter of time.

"They forget their place it seems. If it wasn’t for us blocking the beast tides at their doorsteps, how would they have had time to rise to the power that they now have? Take a man from among them? The only man I will ever worship as my husband is this one right here, the Asura. I know you have all been worried about my successor, so let me find a child who suits the role, an orphan with no bonds to tie them down or hold them back and I shall make her my daughter. And after that... I will show those power seeking fools just what it shall cost them if they ever seek to manipulate us again," the queen said with acid in her words and rage in her voice. While some of the older ones seemed to sigh as the younger ones seemed to get fired up, the all knew the personality of their queen and knew that they would support her to the end.

Rain was the queen all of them had chosen to follow.

...

Laz floated along in darkness, but unlike the past, there were many lights in the distance. While space was a vast ocean of death, there was also stark beauty within in, not that he could see it at the moment. His body was encased within the protective armor Kat had covered him with as although he was considered a god level being, he still couldn’t handle exposure for too long. And even if he could, the effects to his mind could leave long term damage. Normally, he wouldn’t have seen the passage of space as jumping through the gate would almost seem like an instantaneous process. But as the being jumped back in right after it arrived, Kat had noticed this and push his body just outside of the space corridor, allowing the being the miss Laz as it’s focus was solely inside the corridor and then out of the other side of the gate. While this was like hiding between the wall and an opened door from a serial killer, it was effective if only for a brief moment.

Laz wasn’t completely out of the corridor, just far enough out to not be dragged along, but close enough to not be pulled out into space. It was a delicate position, but the only safe one he had.

As Kat was using all her power and keep him in this spot, she was unable to communicate with him after having only said, "Trust me."

So laying like he was, Laz could still see wisps of the corridor floating by, something unnoticeable had he not still been in touch with it. At the same time, the vastness of space was open before him as well and he could look out at that great nothingness. Even though he had become as powerful as he had, there was a humbling aspect to his current experience. Stars and large bodies shifted in the distance as strange clouds floated off somewhere on his right. On his far left somewhere, a great swirl of absolute darkness seemed to be twisting and growing as well, but Laz was hard press to say it was actually getting bigger. Either way, compared to the nothingness around him, he was glad there were some things to observe within his field of vision, otherwise he didn’t think he would be ok.

A strange light suddenly appeared a distance away, just barely catching Laz’s eye since it seemed to be flashing, sometimes blue, sometimes green and sometimes red. Had it not been changing color like this, he might not have even noticed it among the vastness and many colored stars all around him. While it was nice to look at for a moment, he felt something stir within him shortly after having began to observe it. The feeling was something akin to interest but then changed to extreme curiosity. Laz felt it weird to have these feelings at first, but he soon noticed the feeling seemed to be independent of himself and was suddenly hit with the sense that the feelings were actually his own.

Unable to do anything else but stare at it, Laz felt it stare back. Even worse, it seemed like it was now moving towards him and getting bigger in the process. As the moments passed, the speck of light in the distance grew to the size of a pea, then an egg, then a melon and it showed no signs of stopping there.

Just as Laz was about to spread out his spiritual sense to see if he could determine anything, Kat’s voice in his head sounded, "Let’s go," and Laz was pulled back into the gate corridor as everything went dark.