The ocean was quiet at first.
Far beneath the waves, far deeper than any mortal or ship could go, Narisva Starisnova descended alone, cutting through the dark blue abyss like a comet. Her eyes shimmered like stars, her hair floating in the water. Down here, no sound existed. Thankfully the pressure of the ocean didn't exist here. She didn't need to breathe. Not because she had some special underwater spell or protection but because she didn't need to. Spheraphasians can hold their breaths for thirty minutes.
As she reached the second pillar, she hovered beside its massive base. The stone was a deep, ancient grey, weathered by millennia yet untouched by decay. It was unlike any natural stone, almost like fossilized Divinity itself.
Embedded into the stone was a single door.
With one hand on her scythe and another pressed against the ancient gate, she pushed. Her strength barely met any resistance as the stone creaked and groaned before giving way.
The moment the door opened, an explosion of bubbles emerged as water crashed into the hollow structure beyond. Narisva immediately stepped in and sealed the door behind her. The sound of rushing water faded. She stood in a colossal, dome-shaped chamber.
It was pitch black.
With a slow exhale, Narisva activated one of her Ascender Forms, Miniature Heavenly Body Creation. Her body glowed faintly, like the silhouette of a moonlit goddess. A small orb, no larger than her fist, detached from her palm and floated upward, pulsing with soft yellow light. A miniature yellow sun burst into radiance and soared to the top of the dome. It bathed the entire chamber in warm light, illuminating every crevice.
Hundreds of monsters were up on the walls, curled in pods on the ceiling, sprawled across the floor like statues. Each one had dozens of blue-glowing eyes, long semi-transparent limbs, and rib-like armor plated over skin that twitched with dormant life. As the light reached them, their eyes blinked open one by one. Heads twitched. Limbs cracked. Mouths opened without sound. Each was at least Divine Rank. Narisva didn't flinch. She didn't ask questions.
She twirled her double-bladed scythe into her hand. The weapon gleamed, its twin blades stretching far wider than usual. She scoffed, cocking her head lazily to the side.
"Cute wake-up call. Come on then. I won't even use my Divinity. Let's see what you've got."
They charged. The first dozen leapt with terrifying speed, twisting and contorting in the air.
She vanished using Sight Teleportation and reappeared behind them. Her scythe arched once. A vacuum followed her blade, collapsing in on itself. The air around her split, folded then imploded, drawing the monsters toward the epicenter before shredding them mid-air. Bones cracked. Flesh tore. The implosion popped like a bomb without fire.
Another group lunged.
She vanished again, this time appearing above them mid-spin, her scythe trailing stars behind it. The ground below them cratered. Their bodies disintegrated. Three tried to flank her. One aimed for her blind spot. Her scythe's hilt extended backward, impaling the unseen one through its jaw before she turned it into a full spin, dragging the corpse around like a wrecking ball and slamming the other two into the far wall. Another vacuum emerged, this time larger than five meters wide. Everything in its radius was dragged into a crushing collapse. Blood, limbs and claws all folded in like paper under her gravitational slice.
She danced through the dome like a specter of war. Her speed was inhuman. Her precision was divine. Every time her feet touched the ground, something exploded. Every swing of her scythe caused the very space to scream. Implosions shattered stone.
She didn't speak, blink or hesitate. And yet, she was smiling.
"Still too easy," she said to herself, spinning her weapon again and vanishing mid-air.
Dozens tried to attack from all angles but they never touched her. She reappeared between them in a flash and did a spiral slash mid-air. The room distorted. Space curved around her and then the center of the slash collapsed with so much force that the corpses around it were sliced before they even hit the walls.
The scythe stopped glowing for a second. She held it out, one hand behind her back, and exhaled. Dozens of the creatures paused and hesitated.
"Oh so now you're learning."
They roared and charged again. The sun she had made above burned brighter as her pace increased. Monsters turned to ash. Bones shattered. The air was thick with space dust and the metallic tang of blood. The last monster tried to flee but she caught it mid-air and slammed her foot into its skull. Its head caved in.
Narisva stood in the center of the now lifeless place, her scythe dripping with black blood. She looked around. There was not a single enemy left. She scoffed again and flicked her scythe, the blood evaporating into mist.
"Next time, bring a challenge."
And that was why she was the strongest Divine in the Sentina Erideae..
"You have passed the second test."
Narisva blinked. Her head tilted slightly.
"What?"
She turned her gaze toward the source but there was none. Her brows furrowed.
That wasn't a confirmation from the pillar. She knew how these tests worked by now. And this… this wasn't it.
"Oi, who the hell is saying that? Because it's definitely not the test. I'm not done."
No one answered. She clicked her tongue and looked around, slightly annoyed.
"Whatever. Maybe the gods are bored."
She rolled her eyes, stepped forward and took a proper look around now that the fight was over. Her boots crunched on dried bones as she passed them, her gaze sweeping over what looked like a carefully arranged collection of hundreds of skeletons. They weren't scattered like people who died violently. They were posed, kneeling into gestures of praise or prayer. Almost like… a ritual. Or worse, a sacrifice. Narisva's expression remained flat. She didn't even flinch. It wasn't out of numbness, just sheer lack of care.
"Meh, I've seen worse."
Her eyes landed on the source of the residual energy. Just five meters ahead stood a dim, cracked crimson crystal. It looked exactly like the one she felt in the first pillar. Except that this one was already broken. It wasn't absorbing her energy. It just stood there.
She walked up to it slowly, lifting one hand and gathering a thin ripple of spatial energy into her fingers. A glowing edge of starry light bent around her palm as she gestured lazily. A narrow spatial slash cut through the air. It touched the crystal and with a soft crack, it shattered into thousands of pieces.
"Yeah, no thanks," she murmured, wiping her hand on her pants. "Not taking any chances."
She turned, letting her scythe fade into silver particles behind her. She took a few steps toward the center of the chamber again before exhaling and sitting cross-legged on the ground. There wasn't much else to do. The plan had been clear before she came down here, She was not to destroy the pillar until all three were ready. She was supposed to wait for Peroncerea's spatial signal. Then, they would hit the three at the exact same time.
So now? She had to wait. That was why she took the strongest and most powerful pillar and it still bored her. She held out both her hands and focused on her thoughts. Small sparks of light formed in each palm. A miniature red sun blazed to life in her left, rotating slowly. In her right was a blue sun. She watched them flicker and spin, slowly switching between forms from red to blue, blue to yellow, yellow to white. Each time, she adjusted their density pull and burn rate.
She was understanding how her Spatial Manipulation worked wasn't about warping locations or teleporting faster. She still didn't know the essence of being a Celestial because she had no one to teach her how to be one. Even the Celestial sealed in her soul was always asleep so he couldn't help.
She narrowed her eyes, flicking the red sun into her other hand and balancing both on her fingers like weights on a scale. A smirk tugged at her lips.
"Who needs Divine Energy, when you have suns that act as solar nukes?"
And so she sat there, surrounded by the wreckage of her battle, her glowing mini-suns flickering in her hands, waiting patiently for the moment she would finally obliterate this pillar once and for all.