The figure stepped toward Capella. Just as she thought she might glimpse his face, the shadows thickened, cloaking his features in complete darkness—as if he had never truly emerged from the corner of the room.
His body, however, remained visible. He was tall and slender, his posture betraying the stiffness of age. Draped over a formal black suit was a long robe inked with white sigils—symbols of the Original Creator, etched like ancient scars across the fabric.
In one of his pale hands, he carried a gnarled wooden staff nearly three meters long. At its crown sat a weathered skull, yellowed and cracked with age.
'A death fanatic?'
Then her eyes dropped to his feet.
He was wearing… bedroom slippers.
'Did he just roll out of bed? So he's a lazy old man obsessed with death. How are any of these things going to help me here.'
Capella studied him carefully, silent, still. The man said nothing as he approached—until he stood precisely two steps away from her.
He stood there in absolute silence, like a monument that had watched over the rise and fall of eras. Capella could feel it—an intangible weight pressing against her chest—as though his gaze was peeling back each layer of her soul, threading through every memory, every secret, every sin.
Then, as if satisfied with his silent appraisal, the veil of darkness obscuring his face dissolved. What emerged was not the visage of a monster or anything of the like—but the serene smile of an old man, gentle and composed.
It was the kind of expression worn by one who had long since transcended human grievances.
His hair was a dignified cascade of silver, flowing like ancient script down his back. Every strand seemed to shimmer faintly in the ambient gloom, lending him a regal air—as if he had once worn a crown not of metal, but of destiny.
With a voice that no longer held the inhuman characteristic like it did earlier but instead rang with sacred sublimity, he asked:"What are the Beyonder ingredients you require… and for which Sequence Pathway?"
Capella's thoughts stuttered, disjointed.
'Beyonder… ingredients? Sequence?'
The words struck a distant chord. She recalled vague fragments from the novel she'd read—extraordinary powers and alchemical beyonder potions. But why was he asking her?
'It's a test', she realized. 'He's asked a trick question to test my claim.'
'You're trying to see if I truly am who I said I was. Well the bad news for you old man, is I have had years of keyboard experience to keep calm and rational in a situation just like this one. I just have to fake it 'til I make it.'
Her mind spun for a proper answer, calculating quickly. Then, with a faint smile and a deliberately serene tone, she said:
"I require no ingredients. The Lord has already anointed me with His divine power."
The old man's expression remained unchanged. The calm and gentle smile stayed, but something flickered in his eyes—an ancient curiosity, a razor's edge of scrutiny.
He raised his cane ever so slightly off the ground.
"Is that so?"
*Thump*.
Capella heard the sound before she felt its implications. Something had hit the ground with a soft, wet thud.
She looked down—and her breath caught.
Her right arm lay there, severed cleanly at the shoulder, blood blooming beneath it like ink in water. It stained the stone floor, vivid and arterial.
Yet… there was no pain.
None.
No sharp agony, no burning screams clawing up her throat. Only the gory absurdity of it, and the quiet horror it came with.
Her lips twitched as she fought the primal instinct to panic. Her cheeks flushed and the corners of her lips curled upwards, not from embarrassment—but from the suffocating strain of self-restraint.
But to any outsider, it would appear as if she enjoyed the sensation.
She inhaled deeply. Then, in a motion that felt both instinctual and alien, she summoned the Authority that slumbered within her.
Her blood ceased its flow.
From the glistening stump of her shoulder, white bone surged forth—unnaturally perfect. A skeletal arm sprouted like a flower in fast-forward, tendon and muscle twining around it, veins pulsating as fresh blood flowed. Flesh followed, blooming over the raw creation, sealing it whole.
In seconds, her arm had been restored. No scars. No tremor.
The old man simply watched—unblinking and gazed into the sky, recalling all of the painful and harrowing times in this city. "It seems all of our hard work has finally paid off, Bless The Omnipotent and Omniscient God, The Lord that Created Everything." He made a four pointed symbol on his chest that represented the sun.
The elderly man then cast his gaze back on Capella, giving a friendly smile before his body turned illusionary and melted into the shadows of the room - becoming one with the darkness.
Capella seeing all of this, was just left dumbfounded in this entire situation.
'This old man harmed a three-year old child! What If I didn't have any type of power and I was just lying, would he have killed me? And how did he strike so fast without me noticing?'
After several minutes of self-contemplation, the five adults who had been sent outside swiftly came back in.
Lara, per usual, was the first to run and grab Capella and ask if she was alright. And to be honest, she didn't even know the answer to that. Too many things had happened before she got a second to even ruminate over each situation.
Deciding that she needed to keep up the act of the 'Holy Child', Capella summoned a mature temperament.
"I'm fine, he just wanted to confirm there were no abnormalities with my current state."
Hearing this, Lara was taken quite a back, she assumed that her daughter would tightly embrace her and cry, not respond with such... apathy.
She inwardly prayed that by becoming the successor to God, her daughter would not lose her childhood, and more importantly her humanity.
Seeing the changes in his daughter Gareth was also put into a difficult position, but he knew whatever happened would be what is best for the city - not them.
"I think you all should go home, and the council will further deliberate on these matters." Collin was the one who spoke up this time and tactfully gave the family an exit from these matters.
***
At home in her bedroom, Capella felt there were some issues with her parents' current behavior.
She didn't ask what the problem was however, for she did not want to have that type of deep conversation right now in her life, and frankly - she didn't care. There were way more pressing matters at hand.
As she fidgeted with her bed robes, she deliberated over everything that happened today. Starting off, she wanted to gain access to that black space one more time.
She felt like one more trip there would be very beneficial to her, yet the re-entry method to her remains unknown.
'If I've learned anything over the time spent here, its that the simplest method always works.'
She then stood straight up and chanted in Jotun again, "Lust".
Her surroundings went hazy and she felt her spirit being pulled into some other dimension.
Once more, Capella awoke on her back, adrift in that same black void—an eternal night without edge or end.
This time, she didn't panic.
She rose steadily to her feet, the silence wrapping around her like velvet soaked in ink. Her breathing was calm and cold. This time, she had a plan.
'I still have my Authority here…Alright, Let's see what I can do here.'
As soon as the thought passed through her mind, her astral body; her very soul—responded.
Her right arm elongated, its skin sloughing off as it twisted into a coiling serpent. She extended it outward.
One meter.Two meters.Ten. A hundred. No end in sight.
The snake-arm slithered through the dark like a god's finger drawing runes into the fabric of creation. She retracted it with a thought, flesh and sinew spiraling back into her shoulder until her human hand returned—unblemished.
'Interesting, So there's not a definite limit to how far I can expand my body.'
Next, she whispered an idea to herself—and her body split.
A line formed from the top of her skull to her lower abdomen. Then, with an unnatural gentleness, she parted. There was no blood, and no pain struck her mind. Each half of her then began to regenerate and grow into two separate beings.
Two Capellas stood side by side with two different minds, but one will. There was no separation or anything that differentiated them. They moved in tandem like mirrored dancers in a twisted ritual no human should witness.
Both raised their left hands.Then their right. A soft punch met in the center with the force of a child's play.
They exchanged no words. And to be honest, they needed none. Their unity was perfect. Terrifyingly so.
They then slowly fused back into one, smoothly, like a zipper reversing itself on flesh.
Satisfied, Capella turned toward the unseen pull tugging at her mind. Her thoughts were beginning to fray; the longer she remained here, the more her mental energy slipped away like sand through glass.
A sense of exhaustion came upon her, but she pushed through it to get to the final part of her goal.
And then—she saw it.
The sprout, but It had changed.
Where before there was a withered, death-stained root, now there stood a thin stalk crowned by two cherry-red leaves. It pulsed faintly—no longer with death and decay , but something else entirely.
Desire.
It exhaled charm, allure, and an otherworldly seduction. The abstract longing clawed at her heart. Her breath quickened. Her steps slowed.
'Just a bit longer this time… I should be able to handle it.'
She approached the tree-sprout, her eyes locked on the ethereal plant, trying to hold her gaze on it without breaking down. Her head pounded. Her heart raced. But she endured.
Finally, she reached it.
Without hesitation, she made contact with it.
And with that touch, an overwhelming feeling of pleasure flooded her.
It was not mere sensation—it was spiritual and cosmic-like. Her nerves caught fire in rapture. Her body trembled. It was a high purer than anything flesh could offer.
She felt… and remembered.
Back as Kaito, once alone in a room, his hands fumbling with shameful ecstasy. That memory twisted and evolved—now magnified into something divine.
Capella felt as though she had been pulled into an ocean of depravation and addiction.
However, the pleasure soon soured.
Her eyes snapped open.
Agony poured in, slow and deliberate, like boiling tar down the throat. Her skull felt like it was cracking from within. Her mind folded in on itself. She tried to will her Authority of Lust into action, but it recoiled, inert.
Then, the entire scene shattered.
The void exploded into a thousand glass-like shards, and her soul was hurled back into her body like a stone breaking through glass.
She awoke but was sent back into a state of unconsciousness on the floor.
Her eyes rolled back into her head. A serene and fanatic smile curved her lips and combined with the wide-opened eyes on her face. Blood streamed gently from her nostrils, and Her limbs twitched like a marionette in a dying wind.
It was pure Silence.
Then, a sound—yet not from her lips. Her mouth did not move.
But her voice echoed in the room, low and cracked, rising like a chant from the bottom of a well.
At first, it was meaningless. Just incoherent, jumbled nonsense ravings. Then it slowed down and grew clearer. Like an old record winding into tune.
Three words echoed inside of the room.
Three sacred, forbidden words.
"Praise… the… Mother."