Imagine if you will, a forest. Make it the most perfect image of a forest you can. The trees are lush with leaves, a soft wind rustling their branches, where birds, insects, and other animals join in a melody of ambient noises one would expect in a forest.

You got that? Good.

Now imagine a clearing in said forest. There are trees all around it, but the open space between them forms a field covered by the most beautiful flowers. Vibrant colors dancing at the tune of the wind, their movement drawing waves in the sea of petals that rise some of them up, plunging them to create a spectacle in the air. Petals riding the currents like fish in the ocean, their sweet fragrance filling the air.

There's a temple in said forest, specifically in the middle of said field of flowers, though maybe calling it like that would be too grandiose for its humble appearance.

For the bleeding girl, running for her life towards it, she would call it by a more appropriate name.

Sanctuary.

A long gash across her left leg made her run with a limp, breathing hard as blood kept gushing out from the wound. The two people responsible were hunting her down, not too far away behind her. She had been overconfident in leaving the city on her own, but this place truly was her last hope. If she didn't manage to do it there, her pursuers would become her murderers.

The small stone structure, a simple altar elevated over the field of flowers, with some stairs so it would be visible from a distance. It had walls to protect the summoning circle inscribed in it long ago by the hands of the ancestors, but it was so remote that it didn't even have a guardian.

Which was exactly why it represented her last hope of succeeding. No one there for her enemies to manipulate, threaten, or bribe into blocking her again. The shadow of a conspiracy born in envy had seen her banned from every other summoning altar she could get to by herself that she knew of. One less participant would only be beneficial for others, especially if it was her. If she failed yet again, she would gladly accept her fate.

The girl had made far too many enemies from a combination of high natural talent and a lack of respect for authority that made her too dangerous to let grow in the order. Many had seen her meteoric ascent as a direct threat to their chances in the upcoming selection, so of course, there would be secret talks.

She had been too careless, too focused on the summoning going perfectly. She had been looking up at the sky for guidance so much that she had lost sight of what was happening on the ground around her. By the time she noticed the weird looks the other candidates gave her as she attempted to use the first altar, it was already too late.

No altar would work for her. They had added an inscription on all of them to exclude her in particular. That must have been an incredible act of coordination and planning. Either hundreds had done this together, or someone high enough to demand a secret alteration to the ancient summoning altars had joined the list of her enemies without her noticing.

They had been expecting her outside the city. Another blunder on her part: not seeing that coming. She was a shame to her path, a mockery of her glorious heaven-given purpose. If she were to die by her failure to keep her eyes open, there would be no room for complaining. At least that's what the teachings had tried to teach her, but the girl had refused to see value in that sort of guidance.

But she refused to surrender to a fate dictated by others.

There was only one who could decide what happened to her.

And it was whoever she managed to summon.

She tripped, just a few steps away from the altar, cursing her luck. The wounded leg had all but given up on her completely. Her head felt dizzy from blood loss, her breath thinner, and her pulse slower.

The sound of feet walking behind her forced her to fight against the darkness that called her. She couldn't give up; everything depended on her.

It had to work. It just had to.

Crawling over the flowers, crushing them with her body weight as they stained her tunic, the girl approached the stairs of the sanctuary.

"You have given us quite the hunt, Sister Cloud. I commend you for your effort to protect life, even if it's just your own. Shame that you couldn't put the same amount of effort into fitting in among your fellow brothers and sisters." Said one of the two people, a man wielding a sword made out of the sharpened bone of some creature. The edge of the weapon dripped with her spilled blood over the crushed flowers as he talked.

"I get no satisfaction out of this, believe me. This is as much of a punishment intended for me as it is for you. Turns out, I'm not very popular either. But at least I managed to summon mine before they could do to me the same that they did to you. For what it's worth, I really thought you would be the one to fulfill the prophecy. I really did. You just needed to learn to be a better team player."

"You don't have to do this, Brother Marrow." She pleaded to try to gain time as she crawled and bled over the stone stairs to the summoning altar. She was so close...

The man sighed and stopped walking. The girl fought for every step she managed to ascend, her vital essence falling down the stairs as a crimson cascade.

The wind picked up, and the mana in the air felt charged with expectation and power.

"So much sight, yet so blind to the most obvious things," he chastised her, "Of course I have to do this. I will hate myself for it the rest of my life, which I expect not to be long, once they turn their target onto me next, but I have no choice. You never understood such a basic lesson: the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. You have no one to care about or care about you, but I do. I... I'm truly sorry. I can't choose your life over hers. They forced me to make a Core oath about it. Either I kill you, or I'll have to kill her. She's still too weak to escape on her own. If I don't return, they will forcefully bond her to another who will mistreat her. I can't allow that to happen. May the Hunted Goddess forgive me and grant me the punishment I deserve for such a sacrilegious act on this sacred site."

The girl extended her hand, stretching her fingers forward as she reached the top of the stairs. Power and intent sparked on her Core as she focused all of her mana on it. She was almost there, fingertips almost touching the ancient summoning script, when the man leaped in the air and plunged his bone sword into her back.

The sharp blade cut her Core in two, killing her instantly. She would be forgotten, nothing more than a mere memory as her body rotted and fed the flower bed as an offering of death at that altar to life.

But even though the girl had been murdered, her accumulated power in her hand didn't go with her. When her hand fell as her spirit left her body, it finally touched the altar and released her last act of magic.

The marking in the stone, older than anyone Brother Marrow knew, maybe with the exception of Grand Father Tree himself, glowed with mana as the summoning altar activated with the girl's dying wish.

He jumped back and prepared his weapons, waiting for his judgment to come.

A ripple in the air over the altar turned into a mass of mana sparks that grew into a sphere of power. Then, all color and sound disappeared from the world around it, like they had been drained from existence—just a pure black light in silence.

A portal opened, a tear in the rippling fabric of reality as arcs of black lightning emanated from it, hitting the flowers in the field around it, prompting an unseen transformation.

Brother Marrow was too fixated on what was appearing from the portal.

A woman in strange vestments, wielding a spear entangled by strange black vines and what looked like... leaves made of amber?

She had long, jet black hair, curly and wild. Her skin was the same color as the sweet crystals found in the long canes growing by the riverbanks. And while her clothes were certainly out of the ordinary, what truly captivated Marrow were her eyes.

One of them glowed a golden amber color, like she was seeing with the Lighteye on high itself. The other also glowed, but this light was blue, like the sky itself.

The woman stepped out of the portal and into the altar, finding the body of Marrow's victim by her feet.

"You really dusted her good with that thing of yours, didn't you, boy? Is she dead? She looks dead to me. I feel lightheaded. Why am I still talking? My mouth moves before my brain does. Am I alive, or am I the floor? Something is wrooooooong. I can taste her death. I don't like her flavor. I think I just ate her soul. Oh, dust me, I think I just ate her soul."

The portal closed, and, with a thunderous cacophony and a cascade of colors, the black silence was broken beyond her arrival.

Through all that confusion, Marrow stood at the ready, weapon forward and determined to fight for his life. He couldn't die until he went back for his partner.

The next second, everything was back to normal—the natural sounds of the forest, the vibrant colors of the field of flowers, the drops of blood falling into a small growing puddle, the red falling down the steps in a constant flow.

The woman blinked several times, looked at Marrow, then at the body, back at Marrow, then at the spear in her hands.

"No. This is wrong. Isn't it? I was supposed to be... earlier? Was I... what? I'm... who...? My chest... hurts..." She didn't make any sense, but the spear in her hand brimmed with power as it sent another wave of black light that swallowed the world.

Marrow felt his body move on its own as he flew in the air back to the altar. His arms moved to hold the sword just like before, plunging it once more into the back of the dead girl. The woman's eyes were brighter even than before; she looked almost in a trance, but Marrow was aware of everything around him, feeling trapped in his own body as it repeated all the same movements as before.

His sword left the back of the girl, and his body jumped down the stairs, where he had jumped to attack her the first time. Marrow saw the flesh of the girl and the fabric of her tunic close by themselves. A ball of light exited the strange woman's mouth and went into the girl's chest.

The black light ceased, and everything looked normal again. Marrow gasped for air and fell on his knees, fighting to breathe and calm his panic.

What was that? What had that woman done?

He looked up and saw that she had recovered from her trance as the spear in her hand crumbled into mana dust, blown away by the growing wind.

Sister Cloud gasped loudly, breathing again after dying, and even more incredible than that, having her Core broken in half.

She was alive again. To which Marrow could only give one very reasonable response.

"ROTTING HELLS!" He screamed at full lung, his eyes open in terror as his body didn't dare to move.

He had just beheld an impossible act of magic. One that was said to be only in the hands of one single entity in the history of the world.

Resurrection magic.

The power of the Hunted Goddess.

Marrow prostrated himself before this avatar of the divine martyr, fear and religious ecstasy mingling in his heart in equal measure. She had come back, as the prophecies foretold.

The Hunted Goddess was trapped no longer and lost no more. The world was saved. The pilgrimage was no longer necessary. Marrow could settle down with his beloved, let the rest in the hands of the divinity. Joyous cries filled his eyes with tears as he laughed between sobs.

"What is that puffer doing?" Asked the Goddess in a term that he didn't understand. Was it perhaps in the lost language of the dead gods? He didn't dare to look up, his forehead firm on the ground as he offered himself to her judgment.

Brother Marrow realized that he had spilled the innocent blood of a faithful follower in one of her sanctuaries. Not only that, but the one who had managed to bring her back after millennia of failed pilgrimages.

His fate was all but written. He was going to die. But perhaps, she would listen to an honest plea as his death wish. To spare his beloved, to save her from those who had captured her, to push him into this terrible act. Certainly, she was innocent as well and deserved her divine protection, whereas Marrow no longer did.

"Please. I beg of you, Goddess. Smite me for my shameful act upon your holy site, but save my love. She has been taken; her captors forced me to do this against my will. I know it's no excuse, but if my life freely given has any value, may it serve to buy the freedom and life of one that deserves both where I do not. This sacred oath I engrave on my Core, I'm now and forever your most humble servant until the end of all things."

There was a pregnant pause, longer than Marrow's heart could take.

"Is he puffed in the head?" Asked the Goddess out loud.

"He just bound himself to you for eternity as atonement for murdering me, apparently. Death is a weird feeling. I'll never get used to it."

"Huh. You seem pretty alive to me. Are you alive?"

"Of course. This is not where I die. Or rather, stay dead, most precisely. The heavens just showed me."

Marrow raised his head to see Sister Cloud offering her hand to the Goddess.

"I'm Sister Cloud. Not sure what just happened, but I do remember something I'd rather not. I'll have to fix that later. For now, let us make this official before we enter into the proper binding contract. What's your name, my Returned?"

The Goddess paused for a moment, looked at the blasphemous hand extended before her, and, giving a slight smile on her gorgeous divine face, shook it back with great emphasis.

"I'm Blacklight. Nice to meet you. Now, if you excuse me, I'm gonna pass out."

And just like that, she lost consciousness, her body falling to the side to crash on the stairs. Jumping forward, Marrow caught his Goddess on his arms before he could realize what he was doing.

He looked down at her, softly sleeping as Sister Cloud watched him, her face hidden by the same kind of wooden and bone mask as Marrow himself was wearing, and knew at that moment, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this woman was going to change the world.