Sister Cloud looked at Brother Marrow, who was still dumbfounded while he held the body of the woman who had presented herself as Blacklight. Her strange clothes were a sign enough that the summon had been successful, but what caught her attention was her crimson arm. It was made of metal.

That was going to be a huge problem, but future Cloud would have to deal with that. Right now, there were other priorities. Like getting to a safe place alive,

"Brother Marrow." She called, but his attention was transfixed on Blacklight. He had called her the return of the Hunted Goddess. The fool. Good thing there were no Fathers or Mothers to hear that kind of declaration, for he would have been in for a world of suffering.

Not that their future looked very bright either way, even without the sacrilegious declarations.

"Marrow!" Sister Cloud screamed, snapping him out of it. "We need to move. The other will catch up soon, and I'm in no condition to fight." She pointed to her wounded leg. "Whatever just happened, it didn't fix my leg. The one you cut, remember? So I'm gonna need your help getting out of here before we are found."

"I... I don't..." He finally looked up at her, deep shame on his face. "I killed you. No, I murdered you. In this holy place."

"I got better," Cloud answered nonchalantly with a shrug, grimacing from the pain the open wound in her leg gave her. She was quite weak after losing so much blood, even after getting resurrected. The things she had seen while she was... gone... they couldn't be true, right? If they were, then...

She shook her head, pushing those thoughts away. Cloud would have to deal with that once she could concentrate enough, but she couldn't afford to waste mana on using that technique at the moment.

"She resurrected you. I saw the whole thing, it was just like in the murals of Heartroot! The prophecy has been fulfilled, the Goddess has taken human form, and she will guide us in the Final Cycle!"

The bleeding girl responded to his religious jumble with a look of pity and disbelief.

Great, he's in shock. I'm the one who just died and came back to life, and he's the one who loses his head. As if I wasn't doing my best not to lose mine at the moment. After all, he's saying what any devout member of the order would after what just happened. Good thing I'm not the greatest follower of the teachings, or I would be rambling with foam in my mouth alongside him.

Playing this straight would get her nowhere. She needed to make use of his current level of fervor in her own favor.

"Listen. What do you think will happen if we are caught? I was the one who summoned her, but we both know those who captured your beloved aren't going to stop just because I succeeded. They were willing to go this far; why not get rid of her, too? And you just made a Core oath to serve her, didn't you?"

"I did. And I meant it. Those rootworms may be willing to go against the teachings, seeking only their own power and glory, but I haven't abandoned my faith in the pursuit of their greed!" Marrow boasted proudly as he got up, Blacklight carried in his strong arms. "I will keep her safe."

"And by extension, me. I was the one who summoned her, remember? You also kind of owe me for trying and succeeding in killing me." Cloud pointed with all the tact of a girl recently murdered and revived in the last 10 minutes.

Marrow nodded in agreement, climbed the stairs, and after changing Blacklight's position to over one shoulder, took Cloud on the other.

"You are surprisingly light," Marrow remarked as he started running away from the sanctuary, carrying the two women with him.

"I wasn't given the name Cloud for nothing. Path of the Breath." She responded as if it were explanation enough. Sensing that he hadn't caught on completely, she decided to spare him any further embarrassment. "I can make myself lighter, is one of the first things I learned. Now, hurry up, we need somewhere safe so I can shift my focus from that to healing my wound. All this movement is making it really hard just to keep myself from bleeding out completely. I feel dizzy."

He grunted in acknowledgement, his strength concentrated in carrying them both as safely and quickly as he could. He was no doubt reinforcing himself for the task, drawing from the natural energy of mana around them. With both of them channeling natural mana at the same time, the effect of their techniques would decrease by half, given how they were both at their Second Ring.

The dual line that surrounded her neck like a collar, forming a perfect pair of circles, would be the same as the ones Marrow would have, somewhere else in his body. Sister Cloud was pretty sure that for the particular path that Brother Marrow followed, his double ring tattoos would be located at the base of his spine.

"Hold on. I know a place nearby. Is in ruins, but it should serve as a hideout." He said confidently.

And he wasn't wrong, for they arrived at their destination soon after, and the place chosen as refuge by Marrow had certainly seen better days.

It could barely be called a structure, much less a building, but at least there were walls and some roof left in it. He had led them to an abandoned fruit farm in an overgrown orchard. The sweet smell of overripe fruits hanging from the trees filled her nostrils, as well as the tinge of rot of those that had fallen to feed the soil above their roots.

Just a couple of hours away from the city, but that could easily be equal to a couple of weeks for all its inhabitants were concerned in these trying times. The further one travelled from the safety of the city's protection, the more danger they would be in. That was always to be expected in a journey away from one's home, but things had gotten progressively worse in the last couple of decades.

Where one could feasibly travel out of the valley in relative safety, now even the forests around their home had become a hostile environment where monsters dared to go ever closer to them. The elders would have to announce the Selection sooner than anticipated at this rate. The Cycle Pilgrimage needed to start as soon as possible, before they lost so much of the valley to the growing monster population that they could no longer feed all those who had given up their homes and taken to the city to seek refuge of their own under the direct protection of the order.

Tension was high and stomachs tight enough as they were now, Sister Cloud didn't want to think about how much worse it could get if people started getting really hungry. She had read about the kind of things that happened in previous Cycles. The depths of depravity that desperate people would fall into to survive.

Monsters could be lurking around, but turning around would lead them back to their pursuer. It was a damned if you, damned if you don't kind of situation. Nevertheless, the numbness and cold in her leg told her what she needed to know. There was no other choice, unless she was willing to amputate the leg.

Even if the place was practically falling apart, it was better than nothing.

"Take us inside." She said, worried about not being able to feel her leg up to her knee anymore. "I need to start healing immediately."

Marrow did as told, not bothering to call attention to the fact that it was his fault in the first place. He was surely feeling ashamed enough as he was.

Once inside, the sight was rather disturbing. They had entered what had been a home once, a simple single-room house, where there was a table with plates still ready for dinner. A couple of small skeletons sit in chairs fused to the ground by the intensely green mold growing over everything like a dense emerald layer of unchecked life.

They were in the same place they had been while they were waiting for the third skeleton, this one standing over what once was the kitchen, probably making their dinner. If they went outside and checked around the orchard, they would probably find the spouse of this unfortunate parent somewhere in the derelict fruit farm. The moss growth had been explosive and sudden, feeding on their death, just like the rotten fruit fed the same trees that grew them outside.

But this was not part of the natural cycle. There was nothing natural about what had happened here to these poor unsuspecting people.

Mana was getting wild across the lands, causing all sorts of disasters and calamities, birthing or transforming both previously peaceful creatures and peoples into monsters. The world was falling into utter chaos, and humanity was seeing the end of this last Serenity, a promised time of peace after every Cycle Pilgrimage was completed.

But this was wrong. All the readings had originally given them a few more years. If this truly was the end of the Serenity, it would mark the shorter reprise of the relentless coming of chaos that had ever been recorded by their order at just 21 years. There were still many alive who had lived through the last Strife, the time between the end of one Serenity and the start of a new one.

They remembered what it was like, all that was lost and how hard it had been to rebuild after the last Saint's Pilgrimage failed, just as all the other Saints and Saintesses before him, to find the Hunted Goddess to put an end to the Cycles once and for all. It had been thousands of years, and every Cycle of Serenity and Strife kept getting shorter and shorter every time. Soon, there wouldn't be enough time to rebuild civilization across the world.

There would be no separation between Serenity and Strife. And then, the end of all things would finally arrive for humanity.

It was their sacred duty to avoid that. Everyone was counting on them to select a new Saint of Saintess to start the Cycle Pilgrimage. And Sister Cloud would be the one. She would find the Hunted Goddess, free her from her prison, and then, she would look her in the eye as she killed her. Cloud's hand would not tremble as she took the life of the divinity and became the Saintess of the Final Cycle, exactly as the prophecies foretold.

The one that breaks the cycle will free the Hunted Goddess from her prison of black. She had recited that particular verse of the prophecy obsessively during her whole upbringing. It had become a mantra for her, guiding her towards the ultimate conclusion.

And yet, there was that vision. The one she saw, or rather experienced, while she was dead. One that showed an impossible possibility.

One where druids were no more and the world was left guideless. And yet, it had endured for long centuries after they were gone, just for ruin to come again in the end, when the people of that future had believed themselves to be above the inevitable.

Sister Cloud had seen buildings taller than any she had ever seen, almost tall enough to scratch the clouds themselves. She had seen streets paved in strange black rock and lights, so many lights everywhere. And metal. Almost everything else was made of metal. Even the people could be made of metal there, walking around like it was normal.

Which could only mean one thing.

The Wraith King had won. The wrong prophecy had come to fruition. And if Sister Cloud had become the Saintess whose Pilgrimage had led to that future, she had failed worse than any other before her.

As she focused her Core, absorbing mana from the air around her and the life thriving over the ruined home of the poor family that once lived there, she sent the natural energy to the wound in her leg. Accelerating self-healing was not one of her specialties. Marrow would be far better at it than she. Visions and prophecies, lofty matters, were her area of expertise. She had studied the signs, read all the records, and memorized every prophecy made public and even those that had been labeled as forbidden. Sister Cloud had done her due diligence as an apprentice seer, one of the highest callings among all druids. She had managed to reach her second ring and become a full-fledged Sister. She had earned her druid name to mark her particular calling in her chosen path.

Marrow saw her struggling to heal her leg, so after leaving the woman who had called herself Blacklight resting nearby in the soft moss-covered floor, he went to help her. He focused his mana and touched her wound directly, not bothering to ask for permission. It wasn't necessary anyway; his mess, his responsibility.

Severed tissue and bleeding veins were being sewn back together bit by bit, so she could focus her own mana into other things in the meantime. She looked at the blue sky through the open holes in the broken ceiling of the overgrown home and searched for the wisdom of the heavens.

Her eyes went pure milky white as her consciousness ascended the moment she locked eyes with a lonely cloud. Images and sounds, smells and sensations appeared in her mind in succession. A myriad of stimulations that send her brain into overdrive. The druid focused, searching among the noise and confusion, trying to find sense in what the breath of the world was telling her.

She let herself float in the storm rather than fight against it. This lesson had been one of the hardest to learn for her rebellious spirit, but she had become a master once she managed to let go of control.

Her spirit was pulled through the infinite storm of chaos, over the silent thunder and the dark lightning, fighting to obfuscate truth among possibility beyond the edge of creation, far away from mere mortal eyes.

But she was no mere mortal. She was the next Saintess. And the secrets of the Goddess wouldn't be secrets for long once she started her journey.

Sister Cloud's mind became razor sharp, cutting through the storm of chaos and into the absolute black. A place where no other druid seer ever dared to go. They were too afraid of the kind of prophecies that they could receive here, terrified of what exactly would be given to them. Or who, to be more precise.

Fools all of them. If one wanted their prophecy to be real rather than just fancy poetry, what better place to go than the source herself?

A woman made of golden light, held by chains connected to nothing, lost in the void. Four spears pierced her chest, pure golden blood dripping into the endless darkness. Her ragged breath came out as a fog of rainbow colors, like every exhalation birthed a nebula. The purest, most absolute mana.

The elemental origin of all magic.

The Aether.

"Sup, Big G," Said Sister Cloud to the eternally tortured Goddess of all creation. "It's me again. Sorry to bother you so much lately, I know you are busy with the whole cycle of suffering thing, but I need to ask you something. It's important. I think I saw the future while I was dead. Or at least a possible future. I have to know. Was it... real?"

The Hunted Goddess stirred in her prison, gurgling on her own golden blood as she tried her best to answer.

[yEs]

[WoULd yOu lIkE To mAKe anOtHEr inQuiRy?]

There was no voice, of course. The uneven words went directly into her mind, like every time before that. The Goddess' erratic and pained communication had gotten much worse than her last consultation. Which could only mean that the Strife was almost here. Soon, she wouldn't be able to do this anymore at all, as her pain and suffering would drive her mad once again, turning her from friend into foe as it happened every single Cycle.

Sister Cloud considered this her last chance to talk with her until they finally met face to face. When she would free her and allow her to finally die.

The day Sister Cloud would kill the source of all magic in the world. And she would do it gladly for the only friend she had ever had.

"I'm sorry, Goldie. I know it hurts. I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it. I will find you, and I will set you free."

[oTHerS mAdE tHE sAMe PrOMisE]

[hUManS alWAys LiE]

"Not me. Not to you. You were there when my parents died. When I was alone in the streets. You saved me, and I'll save you." Sister Cloud struggled with her feelings as she asked her next question. "Are you sure you want me to... kill you? I could just break your chains when I find you. You could do whatever you wanted!"

[nO]

[i wANt iT tO eND]

[pLEasE]

[lET mE cEAsE]

[iT HUrtS sO mUCh]

[alL of iT]

[ALl oF YOu]

[aLl ThE TImE]

[dELetE mE]

Sister Cloud sighed, a deep pain in her heart. "Okay. I gave you my word, a promise on my Core. I will end your suffering, one way or another. I know we... may never be able to talk again. I want you to know that you were everything to me and that I will never forget your kindness all those times I needed a friendly ear to hear my woes. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you."

The Hunted Goddess stirred in response, rattling her chains of sunlight with the echoes of supernovas, moving the four spears inside her chest to spill more of her golden blood into nothingness.

"I do have one final question. I'm sorry to ask you to use what could be your last moments of sanity left for this Cycle on this, but I must know. The woman who resurrected me. She had a spear with her. Just like in the prophecy. I died, and she somehow resurrected me. That's supposed to be your power. Only yours. My question is this. Who is she really?"

There was a terrible pause followed by the sound of something hard clattering. It took Sister Cloud a moment to realize that it was the Goddess' teeth. She was trembling. The most powerful being in creation was afraid to answer. As if something worse than her maddened self lurking in the dark of her eternal prison would hear her if she even dared to think too loudly.

A single word was transmitted to Sister Cloud's mind. Barely a whisper, and yet the most clear answer given in a long time.

[vessel]

And an image. Of the same woman that she had just met, along with an unequivocal feeling. One so pure, so basic, and yet, so very, very human, that Sister Cloud couldn't help but shed tears as her mind was expelled from the dark place beyond the sky and back to the land below.

Love.

The Hunted Goddess loved this woman with such tenderness and sincerity, such softness and protectiveness. It was almost like...

"Cloud!" Screamed Brother Marrow as someone was grabbing her from behind, a sharp knife appearing right on her neck.

"I'm gonna ask some questions now. You'd better have answers, or I'm gonna start cutting throats, starting with this one."