It did not take long for the gods to settle down, Death was really distraught by whatever Yunan managed to achieve, Hephaestus was simply looking forward to what the future would bring, Apophis was thinking about how to test this oh so ordinary little mortal, meanwhile, Fortuna was just tinkering with her gauge, turning dials and measuring god knows what.
While the gods were still making noise, Yunan winked at Mary and the two snuck away, they each went to the open arms awaiting them, they were hugged, fussed over, punched and pinched, but ultimately they took everyone to the baths, Yunan was especially handled gently thanks to Ophelia's threats and warnings.
As the kids went away, the gods changed the subject of discussion as if keeping a secret. "So, the old dude is coming back from his stroll, to think it would trigger the kid this far ahead of time". "We all know why he is coming back, he did not make any attempt at hiding the rift and the planet residing inside, even the minor ascended have felt them".
"The old fogies at the council are very restless and afraid, this was not supposed to happen yet, this universe does not have enough faith in it yet, even interstellar exploration has not taken form yet, this is too early, it does not matter, however, the rift seems to be still collecting faith to cultivate the planet into a world"
"Do you think the old fogies will try to hijack fate earlier than they planned because the creator is back early?", "probably not, they can not risk it, even though it is just a fragment of a primordial, it is not easy to deal with, fusing with it is still beyond them, but with the creator back, things can get unpredictable", "as chosen by the primordial fate, we sure are in for some unsavoury events, but we have a trump card, someone outside the scope of fate".
"Listen here geezers, hubby is not a trump card, he may be outside of fate in this universe, unaffected by it, but he is still mortal, fragile and weak, I like him, seriously, therefore you must tread lightly when this subject is at hand, we don't even know what kind of thing the creator has made the rift for, and we probably may never know, not until it blows open in our faces, let's do our best in our job, protecting the fate of this universe is our mission, and Yunan is the key to that"
"To think from all the gods out there, he chose the four of us to be his companions, Fate is really something isn't it, driving all of us toward the man who managed to convince all of us to respect him, look at us, a crone born to fate before the creator, a smith with a better talent than the creator, the avatar of null and the avatar of all, how did we all acknowledge the same person, I could never comprehend that".
"Well not every universe can be as fun as this, even if it is too early to make any judgement, it is nonetheless very intriguing, with the other avatars now focused on the rift, maybe this boy can grow into something fierce sooner than we expect".
Outside of the planet Burkan, a round table was floating in the endless expanse of the void, the council members were for one all alert and discussing something with zeal. It seemed like an argument between political parties, each member advocating for something or the other, but all had one thing in common, panic.
"Why did he return now, we were so close, only a few more millennia and we would have finished the preparations, do you think Death told on us?" A visibly decaying sphinx-like creature spoke, the whole table was in chaos thanks to the sudden arrival of the rift, even the avatars planted by the primordial beings were focused on it, they too were surprised by it, why would a creator suddenly do something like this.
A creator was someone like Hephaestus, a great smith, engineer and artisan, born on a planet under the jurisdiction of a primordial, each creator will build a universe, each batch of universes would be set against each other and only the strongest universe would be rewarded with the oracle of a primordial, successfully becoming subordinate to said being, each universe would supply most of its faith to their primordial as a form of payment for letting them live, any universe that doesn't generate a minimum level of faith cannot be chosen to the culling, however, if it takes too long to reach a certain threshold it would be destroyed or absorbed by other universes.
The rift that just happened to announce the return of the creator; of the very immature universe where Burkan exists, was usually a sign of the culling tournament, however, this particular universe did not even have enough population, the number of life-supporting planets was still in the lower end, not to mention interstellar travel, there has not been communication between two different planets as of yet, if we take Burkan as an example, thanks to the help of Hephaestus and other ascended, they had a decent amount of faith generation, but the world was currently dying to the mana corruption, its residents have yet to feel the need for colonies in the stars.
The arrival of the rift means that the creator was up to something, the primordials would not care about this little universe even if their avatars died in it, it had no value, thus it would be left alone until it was mature enough, meaning the council had to contend with whatever the creator wished to do and survive it, they were given a chance by the primordial beings to prove their worth, this was an experiment they designed to be spared when their universe was destroyed. They made a bold claim to the primordials, if the fate of a universe is consumed, it matters not if the universe was mature or not, it would provide the same nutrition as any other universe that reached the requirements for the culling.