Far to the south of Lucian lay the capital of the Slane Theocracy. Within a corner of the city stood a huge temple dedicated to the God of Water.
It was a beautiful structure, as if it had come straight from a painting. Its towering walls were adorned with intricate blue motifs, and countless streams of water flowed through channels carved into the marble floor.
Crystal fountains glittered beneath the artificial blue light inside, their gentle sound echoing throughout the vast temple. Every part of the temple will spoke to you the same theme: water in all its forms, calm, beautiful, and gentle.
Deep within the temple, far below the halls accessible to ordinary worshippers, a ritual was taking place.
The chamber was enormous, illuminated by hundreds of blue candles and suspended crystals. Rows of female priests stood around the room, their heads bowed as they channeled their magic in unison.
Almost all of them were divine magic casters of the highest caliber Theocracy can manage, each carefully pouring her mana into the ritual formation engraved across the floor.
At the centre of the chamber was a magic circle.
Only the most knowledgeable of magic casters would have been able to recognize it. It was a seventh-tier magic circle.
And standing within the circle was a beautiful young lady.
A blindfold covered her eyes, concealing most of her delicate features, but it did little to diminish her beauty. Her pale skin seemed almost luminous beneath the blue light of the ritual, and faint azure radiance shone through the cloth covering her eyes.
Around her head was an elaborate circlet shaped like a spider's web. Countless blue gems had been set into its delicate frame, while a large sapphire crystal rested at its center. The jewel pulsed faintly every time the magic was channeled by the surrounding priestesses.
She wore a thin, pale garment that left much of her upper body exposed. The cloth was loosely secured around her waist by a simple cord, its folds shifting gently whenever the magical winds stirred around her.
She was Ariele Orden—the Miko Princess of Water.
Ariele possessed a rare and extraordinary gift, one found in perhaps one girl in a million. Even in a nation as vast as the Slane Theocracy, finding such a person was a monumental undertaking. And Ariele, besides being gifted, was a genius among geniuses. Left to her own devices, she could already cast fifth-tier spells, a feat that placed her among the finest divine magic casters in the entire country.
Her true potential, however, could only been unlocked through the [Circlet of Sagacity].
This legendary magic item allowed its bearer to shatter the natural limits of human magic and cast spells up to the seventh tier—but only divine spells. Moreover, it could be wielded solely by girls blessed with the unique talent known as [Saint's Vessel], a rare talent that enabled them to synchronize with such high class item.
Yet, as with all things born of power beyond human reach, nothing great came without price. Humans who attempted to wield magic items far exceeding their natural capacity invariably suffer grievous consequences.
The side effects of the Circlet were as severe as they were cruel.
The first price was sight. Once the circlet was placed upon the wearer's head, it stripped its user of ordinary vision entirely — her eyes would remain open, functioning, and yet can see nothing at all, except for the brief moments when she casts a divination spell through it.
The second price was far crueler. Should the Circlet ever be removed from its wearer's head, she would lose every remaining sense in an instant — touch, smell, taste, feeling, even the awareness of their own body, all of it severed at once, leaving behind nothing but a breathing husk. A vegetable in truth, if not name.
It was for this reason that only the Miko Princess of Water was permitted to don the Circlet of Sagacity, just as the Crown of Wisdom was reserved solely for the Miko Princess of Earth. Both magic items shared similar effects and equally harrowing side effects.
This was made painfully clear when the Crown of Wisdom was recently stolen by a traitor—Clementine, a former member of the Black Scripture—leaving the Miko Princess of Earth a broken and maddened woman.
By all laws of nature, human beings should not have been able to cast sixth-tier magic. Yet, through the blessings of the Six Great Gods and over six centuries of accumulated knowledge and these magic items, the Slane Theocracy had perfected rituals that allowed multiple divine casters to combine their mana into a single vessel. With the aid of the Circlet and these sacred ceremonies, they could temporarily elevate an individual far beyond her natural limitations.
Still, no single person could bear the overwhelming burden required to cast a sixth-tier spell alone. That was why the priestesses surrounding Ariele had gathered in this formation, their hands raised in prayer, their power in unison. They were lending her their magical power.
Although her eyes were covered by the blindfold, a faint blue glow could be seen shining through it. At the moment, she was actively casting a seventh-tier divination spell, [Greater Clairvoyance].
The magic circle was constructed for sixth-tier magic. Although her vessel was still incapable of casting seventh-tier spells, she overcame this limitation through Over Magic Enhancement, allowing her to cast a seventh-tier spell with the precision and ease normally associated with sixth-tier magic.
This was yet another proof of how great combined effects of her magic items and her own innate talent was.
The Slane Theocracy did not perform such high-level divinations without a reason. This time, the matter was important enough to justify the cost.
The Sunlight Scripture had been dispatched to assassinate Gazef Stronoff, the strongest warrior of the Re-Estize Kingdom. The cardinals wanted to know every detail of the operation.
They trusted the captain of the Sunlight Scripture to a certain extent. But only to a certain extent. For that reason, the Miko Princess of Water had been assigned to observe the extermination group.
Through [Greater Clairvoyance], she watched the distant battlefield.
Nigun appeared to be confused. Then his expression changed. Shock and disbelief crossed his face as he shouted something at his subordinates. The magic casters immediately began casting spells, and a flurry of magical attacks was unleashed.
The Miko Princess watched in silence. Because of the spell's limited viewing range, she could not clearly see what they were attacking.
'Could it be Gazef Stronoff?', Her thoughts shifted almost immediately, or perhaps they are finishing off the villagers first. Then, a few seconds later, someone entered the range of her spell.
He seemed completely unaffected of everything as he walked.
A strange feeling arose in the Miko Princess's heart as she carefully examined him.
She didn't have a better word for what she saw. Divinity. Nothing else fit.
Then he raised his head. He looked toward the sky. No.
He looked directly at her, through however many miles of stone and sky sat between them, as if the spell ran in both directions.
The Miko Princess froze.
That should have been impossible! [Greater Clairvoyance] allowed her to observe a distant location. The people within the spell's range should not have been able to perceive her presence, much less identify her position and look back.
Yet those eyes found her without hesitation.
And then that figure smiled.
Green light flashed behind her eyes, and the last thing she remembered was the floor of the ritual chamber falling away beneath her feet.
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Where—
She was standing beside a bed the size of a small room, its coverlet stitched with something that looked disturbingly like phoenix feathers. She reached up on reflex and pulled her blindfold free.
And found a goddess looking back at her, sitting on the bed with her legs sensually crossed.
Black hair, long enough to pool on the floor. A gown that belonged to no fashion the Miko Princess had ever studied, in any kingdom, in any century. The woman's beauty didn't invite admiration so much as it demanded surrender.
"Hmmm." The goddess tilted her head, considering her the way one might consider fruit at a market stall. "Not worthy of him. But my dear does love collecting pieces for his board."
"Who… who are you?" Ariele's voice came out thin and trembling. "Where am I? What have you done to—"
She stopped herself.
The being before her was far beyond anything she could comprehend. Ariele had neither the strength nor the confidence to resist her, yet she forced herself to ask the questions that plagued her, even as fear threatened to overwhelm her.
"So many questions."
The goddess smiled. It was not a cruel smile, which somehow made it all the more unsettling.
"I did not give you permission to speak."
The moment those words left her lips, an invisible force seized Ariele.
Her entire being seemed to buckle beneath its weight. It was as though an incomprehensibly powerful existence had closed its grip around her very soul, leaving her with an instinctive, undeniable urge to submit.
She couldn't fight it.
She couldn't even imagine fighting it.
Whatever stood before her was not merely powerful. It was a being whose very existence demanded absolute surrender.
And then, just as suddenly as it had descended upon her, the pressure vanished.
Ariele staggered, drawing a shaky breath as the oppressive sensation disappeared without a trace.
And then…
A hand rose toward her cheek.
The Miko Princess didn't flinch back. She couldn't. Whatever instinct should have screamed danger had simply gone quiet, drowned under the sheer, dizzying weight of being touched by something this far above her. Her face became flushed, and her heart began to beat faster.
"From this moment, you belong to him." The goddess's nail traced a slow line down her cheek, and where it passed, a mark bloomed black against her skin — the [Vice Mark]. "To the one who will rule over all of you. All of us. Soon enough."
Her voice dropped, turning sickeningly sweet.
"From now on, you live only to serve Lucian Aeternus."
"Ariele Orden." The goddess said her name like she already owned it.
"You are no longer a priestess." Her eyes, already dark, went darker still — drunk on her own devotion to a being Ariele hadn't even properly met yet. "From this day, you are a [Pawn of Lucian]."
The room, or whatever this mental space was, began to pull away from her. The floor dropped out from under everything.
"Live only for his use," the goddess's voice followed her down, fading. "And count it a gift. You should be glad to be even a pawn."
And in the last instant before the dark swallowed her whole, Ariele saw him again.
The being she saw from her spell.
Divine in all his glory. And...
Already hers to serve and live for, apparently, though no one had bothered to even ask if she wanted that.
.....
"...my god."
That was the first thing Ariele managed once her own body caught up with her again. The ritual's glow died in an instant, the circle beneath her going dark and cold. Her knees hit stone. Her breath came in short, ragged pulls.
She looked down at her own hands.
'I can see them'.
Not through the spell. Not through a scrying window or a borrowed vision. She could actually see — her own fingers, the pale stone beneath her, the room itself, sharp and real, even with the blindfold still sitting heavy over her eyes.
She didn't say a word. Didn't let her face show what had just happened.
Every priestess in the chamber was already moving, rushing toward her at once, a dozen hands reaching to steady her before she could fall.
Ariele lowered her head as the priestesses gathered around her, attempting to help her regain her balance.
Her one hand slowly moved toward her cheek. Her fingers touched the place where the [Vice Mark] had appeared. The mark was still there, marking her existence as someone who belonged to him...
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[Picture of Miko Princess]