A Gatekeeper & The Celestial Sovereign

Argenti sat on her golden flame throne, with the ranking 1 across it. Her every move was watched. Only slightly parting her lips easily gained everyone's attention.

"I'm sure many of you are wondering why this meeting has been called. You're wondering what event could possibly occur that could cause us all to gather." Argenti's clear voice captivated everyone in the Grand Hall.

"The reason, is that after five billion years, one of the eight missing Gatekeeper keys have resurfaced."

As she said this the Grand Hall erupted into muttering and whispering.

"Really, good heavens"

"What does this mean?"

"Could it be them?"

"The outsiders you mean?"

"Yes, the outsiders."

The green skinned woman next to Mao Lu, audibly gasped, "A key has appeared, what could this mean? Could she be back but I thought we killed her!?"

Argenti waited patiently for everyone to settle down before she stated.

"For our newer more fresher Gatekeepers, you may not know the full situation behind the Gatekeepers keys, and may not understand the full implications of it all. So, allow me to enlighten you."

"Six billion years ago, my predecessor, the first ever Gatekeeper. Gatekeeper Dawn went against one of our sacred rules. He consummated with a woman and that woman bore his child.

When he realised this, he did everything in his power to hide that information and kept that child a secret. He couldn't bring himself to kill her even though he knew her existence was forbidden.

Do you know the reason why we are forbidden to have children?

One reason is because that child will inherit our Gatekeeper abilities, but the main reason is because this child will not be confined by our rules. Because this child won't be a Gatekeeper.

Someone with Gatekeeper abilities yet none of the restrictions. It is an existence with great power and no control.

The Creator made the 400 realms so that he could see the potential of life. To see whether someone could train to be as powerful as the Creator. Through hard work and effort.

Our Gatekeeper abilities are grossly unfair, but that is why we are confined as Gatekeepers, our role is to protect, not to pursue power for personal gain.

As much as our Realm is the source of our power it is also what restrains us. Cages us, limiting our growth."

Mao Lu was surprised when he heard this.

It made sense though and answered a question Mao Lu had had.

A Gatekeepers potential is suppressed by their Realm, duty and rules. That's why they could have such immense power.

Practitioners could become the Chosen One the Creator wanted, but a Gatekeeper could not. Since they could only be a Gatekeeper and were stuck in that role.

Gates had given Mao Lu the impression that Gatekeepers could become One's chosen one, but that wasn't the case. It was like Gatekeepers were scientists observing and protecting the Creators big 400 Realm experiment. They couldn't participate in the actual experiment.

"Dawn's daughter became the abomination that the rules were meant to prevent." Argenti continued, "She had our powers but with no restriction she began to experiment. She realised that there were more than the 400 realms, she knew that there was more out there, and she wanted to explore it, she wanted to control it.

She began creating life and destroying many as well. All for her growing curiosity and desire to become The Creator.

Realm 208, 169, and 2 still suffer the consequences of her experimentation and are still nearly lifeless wastelands with only essence remaining in them. She killed countless."

As Argenti said this, the Gatekeepers of the Realms she'd mentioned, all clenched their fists and gritted their teeth in rage. Obsidian had silent anger in his eyes.

"Her powers became nearly unstoppable, as she could use all essence as she pleased. She could wield time and predict the future and see our assaults against her far before they came. She could defeat us with but a wave of her finger.

For the 1 billion years that she was active it was a very dark period.

To maintain our secrets, we lied to public and told them that natural phenomenon was causing all these tragedies. Yet the lies only broke the trust we had with the public, as many sensed that this was more than a natural phenomenon.

The day it became extreme, or rather more extreme was when that bitch, made contact with the Outsider. Our enemy, those outsiders that we have been protecting the 400 realms from.

This crazy girl believed that the 400 realms were a mistake. That only she could create the perfect life and not One, our Creator.

She began devising a weapon with the Outsiders, called Judgement.

This one weapon could destroy all of us.

That's when we went to full out war. Many Gatekeepers were sacrificed in this battle. Many of the first generation gave their lives to fight against her.

An era was wiped out.

Dawn, in the final battle, gave his life to kill his daughter, regretting ever allowing her birth.

And somehow, despite great loss, we were able to push the enemy back and steal the keys that would start this weapon.

The 100 Judgement keys or known today as the Gatekeeper keys.

We destroyed 92 of these keys but somehow eight went missing.

Some believed the daughter survived and took them, or perhaps the Outsiders infiltrated us and stole them. How they disappeared, even today, I do not know.

But the point is these keys that have the potential to harm or even destroy our realms, are out there.

These eight keys don't just have the ability to allow someone to enter a Realm without permission. The key distorts reality. And has the potential to cause irregularities in a Realm that can lead to its collapse.

If all 100 were still around with the weapon Judgement, then all the 400 realms would be wiped out. Our homes would all be gone. We would be gone.

For many years we searched tirelessly for the missing keys and found no leads. We even told the public lies, calling them Gatekeeper keys, so that if anyone found one, they'd report it.

Yet 5 billion years passed by and nothing happened, and for a while, like many of you, I relaxed. I believed that maybe the eight keys had truly just been lost and would hopefully never be found again. But now we know that they are still around and only recently, one was used."

The atmosphere was heavy and sombre. Mao Lu felt nervous. Gates had only briefly mentioned the story of the keys, but not in full detail.

Mao Lu had had no idea that these keys had such big implications.

No wonder this was being treated as such a serious matter.

"Today we have with us the new Gatekeeper of Realm 145. The key user ended up in his Realm, and is currently in his custody. Gatekeeper Lu will now tell us the information he has on this topic so far." Argenti calmly gestured towards Mao Lu.

All the attention in the Hall immediately turned on him.

Mao Lu wasn't usually the type to get tense or feel nervous but right now he felt very pressured.

He forced himself to calm down and in the most controlled voice he could muster, he said, "Yes I am Gatekeeper Lu of Realm 145 and the key user has indeed ended up in my Realm and is currently in my custody."

"The key user is from Realm 348, the Star Realm. His name is Chàng Bo. He is the son of the Supreme Lord of Stars."

When Mao Lu said this sentence, the hall erupted into even further muttering.

"Star Realm, isn't that Gatekeeper Zither, ranked 10th's Realm."

"Chàng Bo, I've met that child before."

"Isn't he a genius practitioner that achieved immortality at the age of 39."

"I heard he recently achieved the Dao at only 100 years of age."

Gatekeeper Zither, a very gorgeous woman, with translucent skin and eyes that seemed filled with stars, parted her cherry lips.

"Recently Chàng Bo left the Realm. I was aware that he had escaped using a strange means, but I did not realise he used a Gatekeepers key. The fact that he had such an item and I did not notice is my own negligence. Forgive me" she stated.

Argenti glanced towards her, "Forgive you. This isn't about forgiveness Zither. This is about consequences. You have been a Gatekeeper for 1 billion years, yet you overlook such vital details. You should truly reflect before asking for forgiveness" her tone was icy.

Zither looked as if she'd say something, but in the end, she closed her mouth and chose to be silent.

"When I confronted Chàng Bo about how he attained the key." Mao Lu continued, "He told me that he got it from his Mother. Apparently, his Mother was a woman with a very mysterious background who vanished when he was a child and she gave him the key and made him swear to hide it, and only use it as a last resort.

Recently Chàng Bo was cornered by practitioners and framed for crimes he claimed he did not commit. Soon after he was poisoned, and his instincts told him that if he didn't escape, he would be killed.

The only means of escape he had on him at the time, was the Gatekeepers key. Which he used. And that's how he ended up in my Realm." Mao Lu quickly summarised the story.

"As far as his knowledge, he only believes the key was made by Gatekeepers and is a tool to go to Realms without permission. I don't believe he's aware of the true story behind it all." Mao Lu added.

"That's just your conjecture, you have no evidence to be certain he doesn't know the true story behind it." Argenti replied calmly.

She then turned to Zither, "Is his story true, did all these things happen to Chàng Bo."

Zither nodded. " I'm sure most of you know the story of Chàng Xing, marrying a slave that turned out to be a God Stage practitioner. At the time this story also took me by surprise, and I found his wife, Chàng An, very mysterious.

My Celestial Realm has God stage practitioners but not many. I thought she might have immigrated from another Realm but there were no records of that in my offices. So, then I thought she must be a native that trained up to the God Stage, but I had never sensed her existence in my Realm before. It was as if she'd just appeared.

I found her suspicious, but at the time I was preoccupied with training for the next meeting, and I wanted to improve my ranking. So, I ignored the peculiarity and decided I'd investigate it after the Annual ranking meeting.

I didn't think that less than six years later, she'd just disappear and vanish.

I was unsettled and I did investigate their household and interrogate Chàng Xing, but they were all just as confused and bewildered as I was.

In the end I didn't report it because I concluded that it was a problem for the normal practitioners and not us Gatekeepers. If I had known that she'd had a key and given one to her son I would never had remained silent about it."

Argenti scoffed, "If you had known? Don't give me 'If', you should have reported this. Don't give all of us excuses for your negligence."

Zither appeared angry but she swallowed it down.

"Recently the daughter of Lee Èmó, Lee Jingyi, was killed in my Realm. She was assassinated by one of her personal guards who killed himself shortly after. I do not know the cause for this. Since she was a native of Gatekeeper Vile's Realm, 349. He should know."

Zither looked towards a Gatekeeper with destruction essences across his clothes. He looked like a sagging pile of flesh and was extremely ugly.

Vile spat as he stared at Zither, "Lee Jingyi's guard was in love with her and she was soon to be wed to a Practitioner her father had chosen. Using that logic, I guess he killed her because he wanted no one else to have her."

Zither wrinkled her nose in disgust at Vile, "Yes so this Lee Jingyi was killed and a rumour spread that her murderer was Chàng Bo, since on the day of her death she was seen with him at the Eternal Lotus festival.

Chàng Bo was also framed for Stealing Ju Juan's static artefact from Realm 2, the Domain of deities."

"That was a peculiar incident" Obsidian spoke up, his sonorous voice booming across the room, "On a day that Chàng Bo was visiting Realm 2, Ju Juan's tier 1 heaven grade treasure was stolen. The Static artefact vanished from the vault.

I found this very peculiar because I could no longer sense it in my realm. I did report this matter and I was on high alert that perhaps my Realm was being invaded.

Who would have thought that half a year later that lost artefact would appear in Zither's Star Realm.”?

Zither's voice was solemn, "It did not just appear in my star Realm, it appeared in the Imperial castle in Chàng Bo's quarters specifically.

And was easily discovered by servants which led to Chàng Bo being framed for stealing the artefact.

And after being framed for this, just as Gatekeeper Lu stated, he was cornered by a group of practitioners, poisoned and forced to escape."

"Just to add, that the poison would have killed him without my intervention, and it appeared to have been within his system for many years. Whoever activated the poison and is behind this, prepared for a long time." Mao Lu added.

The Grand Hall became tense.

"We are being played with." Argenti finally said. "Whoever or whatever this is, they are going in and out of our Realms without any of us realising. At least the Gatekeeper keys are obvious when used, but this enemy can be right under our noses before we even realise."

"One thing for certain is that all of this is tied around Chàng Bo. His mysterious Mother, being given the key, being framed and poisoned." Obsidian stated, "I do not know what his role is in all of this is, but I'm sure it is important."

"Perhaps" The Gatekeeper with gills and webbed hands, that sat next to Mao Lu, spoke up "Those Outsiders are making a new plan to destroy us. I believe this Chàng Bo may be working with them, we need to kill him before he becomes a bigger threat."

The Hall erupted into even greater murmuring.

"Kill him!" Mao Lu was aghast, it wasn't like he'd given Chàng Bo his word or swore to protect him, but Mao Lu wasn't comfortable with just murdering him.

He quickly said.

"I think killing him could be the worst thing we could do!"

All eyes turned to him.

"That is because… by doing that we are playing right into their hands. I mean when I saved Chàng Bo from the poison his life really was in danger; he was about to die. If he had such a huge role in all of this, then why would he frame himself and allow himself to be killed? That makes no sense.

And if this enemy can go in and out of our realms without being detected then they have the advantage. By involving Chàng Bo and making him use the Gatekeepers key, we have all been put on high alert and have been made aware that something insidious is happening behind the scenes.

From my perspective I believe Chàng Bo's situation is a lot more complicated and he might be a disadvantage to our enemy. He may even be our way of understanding this situation better and defeating them. If we kill him now that would really be foolish on our part."

The Grand Hall erupted into fervent muttering again at these words.

The fishy Gatekeeper next to Mao Lu glared at him.

"Well spoken" Argenti said, her glowing white star eyes, sparked with interest towards Mao Lu. "You're a new Gatekeeper of Time, aren't you?" she asked.

This caused everyone to pay attention to his robes. The Gilled fish Gatekeeper next to Mao Lu gasped slightly as he saw the blue Time essences swimming across the fabric of Lu's clothes.

"Hmm I'm expecting much of you at the next Annual Ranking. After this meeting we should have a little chat together." Argenti said, a slight smile on her lips.

Obsidian's heart skipped a beat, "Damn he caught Argenti's attention." he thought in horror.

Mao Lu stood up and bowed politely. "I'd like that."

Argenti's smile widened some more before she turned solemn again.

"As Lu said, Chàng Bo may be someone very important to this whole scheme, killing him right now would be foolish, we must keep him close. But how should we punish him for keeping the Key without informing us, and how should we keep him under a tight leash? Any suggestions?"