Freya was in her chambers as she watched Nova fight off the F-rank wolves tactically. She lay on her lavish golden bed, hands resting on her stomach, feeling the fetus. Unlike humans, who took nine months, gods, angels, demons, anyone possessing divinity, usually took about five months. The divinity in the body helped the fetus grow tremendously; since more strength was required for creatures with divinity, the birthing took a huge toll.
Then, as she whispered to the fetus, excited for Nova and his companion to finish his first big accomplishment, the monster outbreak happened. Freya grew more worried, more nervous for Nova; her heart raced as she tried to telepathically contact him, but nothing was going through.
Although she could hear him telepathically communicate, it was as if she was on mute. She was startled by the current situation. She wanted to help him, but he had made her promise that she wouldn't, that even if he died, she wouldn't help him.
Mid-fight, Nova's mind reached for High Heaven, desperation clawing. "Freya," he rasped, blood bubbling on his lips.
Her voice, golden and warm, answered instantly: "Nova, I'm here," she said, concern sharp. "What's happening?"
Dodging a goblin's blade, Nova growled: "Why didn't you answer before? I was poisoned, Adam's half-dead, monsters everywhere. What the hell?"
Freya's pause was heavy. "I didn't hear you," she said, confusion turning to dread. "Something blocked us."
"Apollo," they said in sync, Nova's sneer mirroring Freya's unseen fury. The God of Light's meddling stank of this chaos: breached shields, rogue monsters, silenced bonds.
"Stay sharp," Freya warned, her voice fading as Nova refocused, the red goblin's fist grazing his jaw, blood and spit flying.
Freya rose swiftly, a surge of resolve propelling her to confront Apollo. But then, cognizant of her pregnancy, she tempered her haste; she eased herself from the bed with deliberate care, safeguarding the fetus. Once upright, she walked slowly, cradling her belly as if it were a fragile child, her hands interlaced for a firmer grip to ease her burdened passage.
Her fury toward Apollo betrayed itself in the taut grimace of her face, her eyes blazing with a quiet, seething wrath. With a flicker of telekinesis, she flung her chamber doors wide and veered right, stalking toward Apollo's quarters.
High Heaven unfurled as a realm of serene majesty, suspended in perpetual twilight where the sky blazed with deep gold, soft lavender, and radiant blue. The horizon, boundless, melded light and mist in a seamless cascade, glimmering like liquid stardust. Clouds drifted in sculpted formations, not vapor but silken light, luminescent and ever-shifting, pulsing with eternity's calm cadence.
The land sprawled as a floating expanse of meadows and hills, woven with silver grasses that rippled like water under a windless gust. Trees sprouted with crystalline trunks, their leaves refracting light into simmering spectrums, casting fleeting rainbows across the grit-streaked ground. Rivers of pure light arced through the sky and land alike, flowing gently, weightlessly, their soft tones a haunting chant as they coursed.
Mountains loomed like ancient sentinels, hovering effortlessly above the terrain, their peaks crowned in eternal twilight, slopes veiled in luminous mists. Flowers bloomed in impossible hues, untouched by decay, petals unfurling slowly as if in reverence. The air, rich with clarity, hung cool and fragrant with a scent akin to memory and dawn, alive with a quiet, gritty reverence.
In High Heaven's heart stood a castle, peerless, forged not by mortal hands but by divine light and celestial accord. Its walls shimmered with a translucent sheen, hewn from moonstone and morning mist, capturing and bending the realm's ambient glow into gentle waves of color. Towers spiraled upward like strands of light woven into form, their summits crowned with softly burning orbs, pulsing like stars snared in stillness.
The structure burgeoned organically from the ground, as if sprouted from the land's essence rather than constructed, its roots melding seamlessly with the silver grasses and glowing, rugged stone beneath. Bridges arched delicately between towers, thin as silk, unyielding as fate, their surfaces etched with shifting runes that flared faintly with each passing breeze.
Windows gaped wide and tall, open to the endless sky, framed in living crystal that breathed with light. The castle did not dominate; it beckoned. Its presence, serene yet noble, lingered still, more sanctuary than bastion, its scars of light and shadow a testament to enduring trials. At night, it mirrored the constellations; by day, it radiated the grit and warmth of a thousand dawns.
The castle comprised five sectors, cleaving it into two hemispheres. The first two sectors, Freya's and Nova's, lay adjacent on the left flank. Then, toward the right side, the chambers of Apollo, Orin, and Drael stood, contiguous, their walls bearing the faint, gritty marks of celestial strife.