It was almost midnight. The sky was clear, filled with the sea of twinkling stars and the twin moons shining brightly. Ariana was standing on the top of a tree, concentrating with closed eyes, while Ren was floating beside her, watching her carefully. Not far away from them, something was twisting and swirling in the air, as if a shapeless being was fighting, struggling to finally crawl into reality from nothingness.

"I can't do it." Ariana breathed out suddenly, opening her eyes, as everything immediately went back to normal. "I can't maintain it! My powers are not enough to form a full body! Yet back then, I did it! I don't get it, Master!" She looked at her with worry in her eyes.

"Something must have triggered it," Ren said, thinking with crossed arms, still looking at where the air was twisting a moment before. "It did give off some unnatural feeling. Try forming just the hand."

"Yes." She nodded, concentrating once again. Soon, from the darkness, a black hand stretched out, and Ariana could move it like her own.

"Interesting. This has a normal aura around it, as it is a part of you. Nothing feels… off." Ren murmured, watching the spell work without any problems before them. "Yet previously, I sensed something strange when you tried to form a complete body. It wasn't like this."

"Do you have any ideas, Master?" Ariana asked, dispelling it.

"I do. Multiple, in fact. But I want to narrow the possibilities down at first! Let us find a beast, and you'll perform the same spell on it."

After half an hour of searching, they finally came upon a suitable snake beast that was almost 9 meters long and just as wide as Ren herself. Its instincts told it to run and hide, but it was already too late. Ren mercilessly held it down, immobilizing it from thrashing around with her powers while Ariana performed her spell once again. Ren immediately felt the strangeness that was occurring inside the snake, but she did not let it go. She just drew back her powers, releasing her grip on it while the long snake opened up, and a similar, shadowy figure crawled out from the dead reptile. Just the same as the spider she had killed previously.

"Can you keep it at bay?" Ren asked, looking at Ariana with one eye. She just nodded, but she was already sweating profusely. "I know what is going on…" Ren whispered, walking around it. What was even stranger was the conjured being following Ren with its blazing, red eyes. It was watching her every move. "How hard is it to maintain control?"

"Very hard!" Ariana gasped, her hands trembling as if she was trying to hold something that was immensely heavy. "It's… It's trying to fight back! As if it has its own thoughts!"

"Because it does have its own will." Ren smiled, watching the red eyes of the constantly morphing, swirling figure before Ariana finally couldn't keep up and canceled the spell.

In that brief moment, when the apparition was free from her control, it quickly snapped its eyes toward Ren. A deep voice echoed out from it the next moment. It was old, ancient, raspy, and damaged as if someone with a crushed throat tried to speak up, forcing air through his destroyed lungs and ruined vocal cords.

"You again…" It whispered but said no more before it dissipated into nothingness.

"M-master?" Ariana gulped, completely spooked by hearing it speak. She tried to take deep breaths, but they did nothing to stop her voice from trembling.

"Don't worry, it can't hurt us. It is just a minuscule residue of the consciousness of a God."

"That…" She blinked her eyes so quickly it looked like she suddenly had a stroke. "That does not help my nerves at all, Master!" She moaned loudly after a brief pause, turning deathly pale, tugging on her own hair.

"Ahahaha, you are something else, girl!" Ren laughed, grabbing onto her shoulders and pulling Ariana into a hug with a grin. "Your affinity draws its consciousness to the surface! Probably, your ability to siphon out negative emotions resonates with him! You make him wake up when you summon him like this!"

"How can you laugh so freely, Master… hauh… I envy your confidence!" She whimpered, ready to cry, afraid to use her own powers once again in this forest.

"It's just an old ghost, fuck him! Don't worry about it!"

"Ugh…" Ariana gulped again, twitching her mouth, hearing her Master's not-so-unexpected words. "Easy for you to say, Master…"

"Relax! He is buried under a prison made by other Gods. Even though the formation was weakened, I reinforced it when we met last time. It was before the Sect was established." She explained the event to her briefly. How she and the rest of the gang stumbled upon the buried God Crystal when they went to help Kang's tribe.

"So that is why he recognized you? And… how did you reinforce a formation like that?" She asked as she furrowed her brows, having dozens of questions she wanted to ask now.

"With sheer luck. Don't worry about it, he can't get out! He is imprisoned inside his own crystal. He was barely able to absorb the needed energy and souls to reawaken just a little. If he were completely awake, you would have already been taken over the first time you used the spell on the spiders."

"Okay! I won't use this spell again! Never! Nah! Fuck this!" Ariana threw her arms up, showing a side of hers that greatly amused her Master.

"Now you are acting like Isha… have you been spending time together?" She tilted her head, giggling, before pinching Ariana's cheeks. "Relax, my little scaredy cat~."

"Imf nof a caft!" She stomped on the ground repeatedly, trying to speak, while Ren just stretched her cheeks even further, turning them bright red.

"Sure, sure." She chuckled, letting go of her. "Think about it this way, Ariana; Your spell resonates with a defeated God's consciousness! A part of it is drawn to you, and when you fuse it with a beast or a demon, it consumes the poor bastard's life energy and probably its soul, too. It is what makes it take a form that you can control for a short period of time. For the God, this is like dreaming while sleeping. For him, it's a fleeting state of existence between being awake and asleep. It can't hurt you. If he would be fully conscious, you wouldn't be able to control it, not for a second."

"..." Ariana just closed her eyes, slowly going through Ren's words again and again before finally speaking up. "So the spell only turns out this way if I use it in contact with a demonic being?"

"Or probably against a human opponent, too. So… yes. Also, this wouldn't happen if you used it outside of the forest."

"Because the God is buried here."

"Exactly." Ren nodded, caressing Ariana's cheeks, who was wearing a worried expression. "This God has been buried here for a really long time. Eons, maybe even longer. I have zero knowledge of who he was or how this even happened. There are no records of him. We have records of the Gods who existed long before anything, yet this one never makes an appearance in any of the tales. Not in hearsay, not in legends! Either it is so ancient that there were no intelligent people around when he roamed this realm, or…" She explained it to her slowly.

"Or everything was erased." Ariana finished her sentence for her. "If he is sealed by the others, it must be what really happened!"

"I think so, too." Ren agreed with a half-smile.

"Are you not interested in what he… has to say? It seemed like it wanted to speak with you, Master!"

"I don't care." Ren shook her head. "Whatever it has to say has no meaning and does not matter anymore. Especially now that I want his core. It is a perfect thing to store souls in…" She murmured, biting into her own lips. "Also, I won't restore his powers! I wouldn't be able to kill him if he managed to heal up, even if just a little! Plus… I'm not interested in an ancient being's revenge or sob story! Most importantly, you can not trust a God! Remember that well, Ariana! NEVER trust anyone who calls himself or herself a God." She said, completely serious, looking into her eyes. "Anyone who thinks he or she is a being above everybody else is a delusional nutjob! Thinking like that leads to ignoring everybody else around you! It breeds the mentality that only what you are saying is right, as it MUST be correct… because you are GOD… and God is never wrong! If anything you choose to remember from my lessons, let it be this! You may grow stronger than everybody else around you, but that does not mean you are also wiser than them." She said, holding her head with two hands before slowly smiling and releasing her disciple.

"I'll… keep this in mind, Master." She whispered, turning a bit shy suddenly, looking down at her legs.

"That is all that I ask of you. As for this God, don't worry about it! If everything goes right, he will be gone in a year or two. You can keep casting the spell! You can't help it; he was buried here for a long time. His essence is completely integrated into the land on the subconscious level. What you need to be cautious about is if he attunes himself to your spell and starts speaking to you. Take it as a candyman trying to pick up a young, virgin schoolgirl for a ride on his fancy horse."

"I-I-I'm not a schoolgirl anymore!" Ariana protested, turning from white to fully red.

"Think about it! He is a gazillion years old man, yet you have not even had your first kiss! He may want to steal it!"

“M-m-master!” She protested as she puffed up her cheeks, turning her head away with a pouting expression.

"So be aware of the old fuck who is looking to enjoy your body! Both inside and outside!"

"I'm not listening to this anymore!" She shouted, storming away angrily, leaving behind a laughing Ren who slowly walked after her.

"Ariana, you are going the wrong way!"

"I know!" She shouted back again, turning around, ignoring Ren, who just giggled playfully as they ventured back to the base at the bridge.

…
….
…..

Around a week went past as the defensive line was reinforced before the main bridge. A contingent of different demons guarded it 24/7. They were accompanied by Ren, who was now living here, making her home in a tent with her disciple.

"Moooooom…" Kyu arrived at her tent with a moan. She was now doing scouting work, helping them out, and she had just got back from one such long-lasting mission.

"What?" Ren looked at her, standing up and finishing her cultivation session. "Is it your tummy?"

"Uhum!" She nodded, looking like she was about to cry while her belly was exceptionally huge. As if she was pregnant with triplets.

"Geez, what have you gobbled up now?" Ren rolled her eyes, looking at Kyu.

"Um…" She tilted her head, trying to remember, but in these past days, there had been so many beasts roaming the forest that she had forgotten how many of those had ended up in her tummy. "I don't remember!"

"Show some restraint, girl! I'm not ready to become a grandparent yet!" She joked, walking up to her and placing her hand on her belly.

"Mom?"

"Blame yourself!" She grinned as an electric shock penetrated her. It made Kyu yelp out while her mouth opened up. It was grotesquely wide, and the whole corpse of a rhinoceros started to appear from it. "Shit!" Ren shouted, but it was already too late. The tent got torn apart while the huge body, covered in saliva, quickly got 'birthed' out from Kyu's mouth.

"Hauh!" Kyu moaned, snapping her mouth closed, hiccupping heavily, but her belly finally shrank back to its normal size. "Thanks, Mom!" She said, wiping her mouth clean.

"Start chewing your damned food!" Ren moaned, climbing out from under it as she was 'crushed' by the sudden appearance of the beast.

"Master!" Ariana arrived worriedly as she saw the tent collapsing and a demon appearing from nowhere.

"It's okay, it's just Kyu!" Ren answered, shaking off the slimy saliva from her body, looking like someone who had a bath with a slime girl.

"Oh. Okay." Ariana answered, immediately relaxing and understanding the situation. "How do you swallow one that is this big? Your mouth is not even wide enough for it…" She whispered, watching the gray-colored beast, which was completely intact and its giant horns still glistering with power. "I do not wonder why your tummy was upset! These must have been poking you inside…" She gently touched its tusks, but what happened next scared her to death.

The supposedly dead rhino's eyes snapped open as it stood up. I was completely confused, afraid, and terrified. When he turned and saw Kyu, his eyes just rolled up and collapsed once again, looking dead with its tongue sticking out.

"You ate one… alive?" Ren placed her hands on her hips, questioning Kyu with slanted eyes.

"Um… I don't really remember… There were many of them! Oh, yes! That is why I hurried back! They are coming!" She said with a smile, but soon, a small slap landed on the back of her head. "Kyah! Mooooom!"

"Idiot! Start with that, not with your tummy ache!" She shook her head, looking at Ariana. "Sound the alarms! They are coming! Call back the rest of the scouts before they are overwhelmed!"

"On it!" Ariana nodded, disappearing, while Kyu just rubbed her tummy, still hiccupping once in a while.

"Get yourself ready!" Ren threw a pill towards Kyu, who caught it with her mouth, swallowing it without question as she transformed into her true form.

"No worries, Mom! I'm full of energy!" She stood on her hind legs, patting her giant, white belly like war drums, echoing far and wide.

"Heh, I can see that!" Ren grinned before taking a deep breath, watching the thick forest before them. "They deeply underestimate us if they think this is going to work…"

…
….
…..

"Are you sure about this?" Letty asked, crouching next to Tylvana, who was standing on a small hill, watching Toothie and Zazuba herding the beasts as the tide was gaining speed, going towards Ren's outpost.

"Yes," Tylvana answered with a serious voice. She was watching Toothie from far away, not even considering the many beasts. "This is our chance. If they withstand this test, we can do it."

"There is no coming back from it; you do know that."

"I thought you would support me fully." Tylvana looked at her calmly.

"I do. But you are young; I do not wish to see you die."

"Everyone dies." Tylvana shook her head. "I have no family and attachments back there, so he can't threaten me with killing anyone close to me. Because everyone who is important to me is here." She smiled softly.

"Haaah…" Letty sighed, standing up and gently stroking Tylvana's hair, who continued with a determined voice.

"I endured for long enough; it's time to act."

"If they survive," Letty added quietly.

"Yes. If they don't… we go back to waiting…" Tylvana murmured, still watching Toothie with hidden, murderous intent deep inside her eyes.