Without Highfather, New Genesis had lost a major combat asset. Its top-tier fighting strength had dropped by roughly thirty percent. Even setting aside personal misgivings, Diana commanding Orion and Ugga still left something to be desired.
At the lower levels, ordinary soldiers needed time to transfer their faith from Highfather to Diana—that, too, was a gradual process.
In New Genesis's current state of upheaval, the strategic partnership with the Underworld was invaluable. The term "strategic partnership" didn't sound like much, but it helped that the two leaders' personal bond was ironclad.
The treaty was mainly there to keep the rank and file satisfied. If the need arose, it would instantly become an ironclad alliance.
Justice was weakened at the moment, but with the Neutral Faction backing it, even if every high-ranking demon in Hell came pouring out, it wouldn't be enough. And the demons were hardly in a position to try—they were still locked in a war of attrition with Apokolips. Apokolips had suffered enormous losses, and the demons had been battered just as badly. Fighting Apokolips, New Genesis, and the Underworld on three fronts simultaneously? Even demons weren't that reckless.
Thea's strength now comfortably exceeded Trigon's. If he dared come for her, the only outcome was death. In the current landscape, outside of God, the Great Evil Beast, Lucifer, Michael, and Destiny of the Endless, she had no enemy in sight. And she was on the verge of surpassing even Destiny.
After a stay of roughly ten days on New Genesis, Thea prepared to head home to continue growing her power. Diana had a web of relationships to untangle, and spending every day holed up in the palace for "deep discussions" meant neither of them was getting much actual work done.
"This is so annoying... are you going back to Earth? How do you even manage the Underworld?" Diana was reluctant to see her go but knew her own schedule was packed. She needed to focus.
God-Queen was a heavy burden. It pressed down on her shoulders like a physical weight, and she no longer had the bandwidth to keep tabs on Earth.
A God-Queen flying to Earth to tow cargo ships and lift airplanes—that was beneath the title. More critically, she simply didn't have the time.
The tangled, byzantine mess of administrative affairs demanded her attention, and she desperately wanted to know how Thea kept the Underworld running smoothly while still finding time to wander the world.
Thea blinked, unsure how to answer. The Underworld was a one-woman show—pure autocracy, nothing like New Genesis's endless deliberation and democratic theater.
One order, handed down: do as you're told. Simple. Efficient.
But she couldn't say that to Diana. Inheriting the tradition of ancient Greek city-states, Diana had always championed democratic governance, and New Genesis operated on a similar model. Rolling back to autocracy would undermine both her authority and the foundation of her rule.
Earth's meritocratic approach—promote the capable, demote the incompetent—didn't apply here either. Every important post was held by a New God, and ordinary citizens couldn't compete with them.
Thea racked her brains and cobbled together a few suggestions. You want democracy? Then go all the way.
Select talented individuals from the ordinary New Genesis population. Establish a constellation of committees with various mandates. Have them compete with the New Gods for power, diluting the gods' influence while building a base of popular support.
Diana could then position herself as mediator between the two sides, expanding her own authority in the process.
Back on Earth, Thea slipped into her normal routine. Sleep. Eat. Eat. Sleep.
No one knew that an immense reservoir of energy was quietly building. Everything she'd absorbed from Krona had been channeled into her world, and that pocket-dimension of round sky and square earth was changing by the day, feeding back to Thea as an endless stream of insight and power.
She moved as little as possible these days. Laziness was part of it, but the energy growth was so rapid that a moment's carelessness could trigger a catastrophe.
One month later, the energy reached its zenith. Thea looked around at the familiar scenery and knew the moment had come.
Second in the Death hierarchy. One step away from the top, and the step had arrived on its own—no great difficulty for her at all.
She didn't tell a soul. One quiet stride carried her beyond the universe, beyond time itself.
She released every ounce of control. The world that belonged to her alone began to compress. The World Will, holding slightly less than half the dominion, seemed to sense what was coming and thrashed in resistance. It didn't want to give up its current form of existence—once the world evolved into a true universe, it would transform into something else entirely.
Thea suppressed the consciousness with everything she had but didn't destroy it. In the future, it would absorb the Big Bang's energy and reach a new height. It represented the collective will of every life in the existing world—an ancient, primal form of existence. It would become the nemesis of the new universe's life-forms, but that was simply the natural order of things.
Without an opposing force, the constructive side had no foundation to build on.
The two were contradictory yet unified. This had nothing to do with good or evil—just a fundamental rule.
Her world, roughly equal in size to Earth's total surface area, began to buckle under tidal waves of energy.
The handful of living beings left in it wailed and cursed, railing against the heavens for their cruelty and the Creator for her heartlessness.
Thea ignored the grievances. Resentment was good—it gave the old guard motivation to make trouble for the new life-forms, and those new life-forms, tested by the pressure, would grow toward greatness.
Today's suffering could forge tomorrow's glory. She had nothing to feel guilty about.
The energy soon scoured every last trace of life away. Their wills were swept into the energy vortex, awaiting rebirth.
Land. Ocean. The rough outlines of civilization. The sun overhead and the stars beyond—all of it began to disintegrate, the entire world folding in on itself.
Thea decided the process was too slow. She thrust both hands across the spatial divide, reaching into the world and using her own strength to squeeze and accelerate.
The whole thing compressed like a ball of chocolate being kneaded into an irregular polyhedron about a hundred meters tall.
That's hideous. She stared at it, exasperated. Other people's worlds compressed down to a single point. Was the gap really that wide?
Nothing for it. Keep going.
Squeeze! Harder! ...Two-minute break. Squeeze again! Harder! ...Ten-minute break.
Time lost all meaning. The world shrank to fifty meters across, roughly spherical.
She stood in the void with her hands on her hips, panting. Nobody had ever told her that creation was manual labor. And physical endurance happened to be her weakest suit.
If she released it now and let the world explode, a universe would still be born—just with more impurities, feeding her slightly less energy. The fundamental outcome wouldn't change much.
Perfectionistic to a fault, Thea chose to keep compressing. She couldn't match God, but she didn't have to fall too far behind either.
If she ended up with a universe thin on energy and missing half its rules, she'd never live it down.
Compress a little. Rest a little.
Until the world reached the size of a tennis ball. No matter how hard she pushed, it wouldn't shrink further.