The infinite expanse no longer existed. The pale firmament, once covering the world with gentle rays of hope had fragmented, shattered into countless twinkles amidst the unknown darkness. Only a forlorn island floated in the middle of the invisible, confined in a dying heart.

Besides a fractured boulder, whose body split as fangs towering like a worthless throne, was a lady in black. She leaned on the cracked rock while holding her other half, whose beautiful face stood still, locked in its ethereal beauty. She only stroked the slumbering cheeks before she lifted her head.

Her tearless eyes couldn’t brighten, nor could her dry mouth curve into a greeting smile. She spread her black feathered wings, fluttering their tattered state to welcome her guest.

Iris dispensed with her human disguise. She knelt before the black-feathered angel. Her focus didn’t leave that pair of warm eyes despite the coldness drenching every part of its gaze.

“We’ve finally met,” the angel said. “You don’t need to kneel before us. We knew this would happen, although not who it would be.”

“How may I call you, Miss?” Iris carefully placed her hands on top of the angel’s. “Should I still refer to you as Duality?”

The angel shook her head. “I alone cannot be Duality. I am but a nobody—a mere half of our existence. Please refer to me as the Angel of Black Light.”

“A magnificent title, Lady Black Light.”

“It used to inspire fears throughout the Eastern Continent, along with the Devil of White Decay.”

“Her name, too, befits her visage.”

“She’d be even more beautiful when she opens her eyes.”

Iris could not speak up. No excuse could convince her, let alone leave her mouth. She sat there, waiting for the silence to wash away the conversation. The voices submerged within the wall of darkness, but their aspects haunted her, clutched her heart, and squeezed it until the pain became unbearable.

Black Light folded her wings around Iris. The roaring quietude bounced off those withered feathers. They protected the most delicate maiden of this world, but they could not heal her wounds.

“Why?” Iris said. “You’ve done too much for me.”

“What we did, we did of our own volition.”

“Knowing that there was no chance?”

Black Light shook her head. “We understood the power of the Supreme Ones more than anyone. Even if it were merely her fragment, she remained out of our reach, out of yours.”

“Our pact is transactional; you have no reason to risk your lives.”

“Because we wear the same dream on our sleeves, the same crown on our hearts.”

“If you couldn’t accomplish it, how would I?”

“I . . . don’t know. What I know is that you . . . are special.”

Black Light raised her right hand. Her wings folded behind her. The faint sparkles in the sky flickered rhythmically like a song honouring the dead. Lines manifested on her palm and connected into layers of circular diagrams. At the middle was a floating ray of black light.

Anything that touched it darkened and merged with it. Its aura twisted the fabric of reality, rending even the void that housed this incorporeal realm.

“We’ve come too far to change our destiny,” Black Light said. “My legacy will be but one of the many steps toward your ascension.”

Iris smiled. She held Black Light’s hand before she gently pushed it away. The insignia returned within Black Light, whose eyes brightened with surprise.

“Are you denying our help?” Black Light said.

“I’m denying your recklessness.”

Black Light did not argue. She leaned closer to her sleeping devil, whose white hair spread over her lap, covering her like a pale wedding dress. She sniffed her lover’s scent, a scent that grew fainter and fainter as time passed; she was sinking into a restless depth where no rope may reach.

“We made a promise, together in death, together in life.”

“You’re not fulfilling your promise. You’re running away.”

“What about you, Iris?”

An eternity could have passed, but nothing would interrupt this conversation. There existed only three beings in this empty world, and only two who may continue this conversation until the end.

“I will save her,” Iris said. “No matter what, I’ll save her.”

Black Light narrowed her eyes. Her lover’s silhouette overlapped with Iris. A white-haired devil, fiery and proud, passionate and cunning. She looked so alive back then, with a halo of hope highlighting her air.

“We expected no reward or respite,” she said.

“I can no longer leave you two be.” Iris touched Black Light’s face and forced her to look into her eyes. “Our relationship may start as a transaction, but it’s developed beyond mere acquaintance.”

“You’ll regret this.”

“Either I won’t, or I’ve already become numbed to it.”

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“I could take over your body and use your soul to nourish her.”

Iris let go of Black Light, closed her eyes, and widened her embrace. She casually waited for Black Light to do something, but she wouldn’t do anything. How could she harm her pupil, her inheritor, and her lover’s hope?

“The feeling of helplessness is quite familiar, isn’t it?”

Iris did not reply. She pierced through her chest and reached for her core. The Shadow Heart Core trembled before a sliver of pure brilliance seeped out. Iris’s mind blurred, her body losing strength, as she grabbed the tangible ray and offered it to Black Light.

Black Light didn’t even have the time to refuse. Iris was shaking. Her soul was screaming, her heart squirming with the intense desire to devour that part of her, to assimilate what she had lost, to fill the unknown void within.

The sliver of Faith, mixed with a hint of otherworldly power, slithered toward White Decay. It soundlessly entered her chest. Her fleeting presence solidified, her scent no longer dissipating. She shifted her posture as if sound asleep, although she remained in a wakeless slumber.

Iris covered her eyes. Tears leaked through her fingers, but she uttered no cries of pain. She retreated from the devil and the angel, offering them space and herself a break.

A sequence of inhaling and exhaling false air placated her. She regained control over that sense of hollowness. What she did was reckless, but it did it nonetheless.

“You seem to have everything within your grasp,” Black Light said. “Have you . . . remembered how we escaped her?”

Iris shook her head. She looked at Black Light with expectant eyes.

Black Light forced a smile. “That memory of ours has been scattered throughout our existence. I alone cannot retrieve that terrible past.”

“All the more reason to bring her back.”

“What she needed is beyond your current capability.”

“Divinity, is it not?”

Despite her feeble appearance, Black Light held her lover and stood up. Her wings spread to cover the entire island. One pair turned into two, two into three. A dark, dripping halo manifested above her head. She looked skyward, where twinkling stars dared not flicker too brightly, lest they attracted her terrifying attention.

A series of symbols crawled out from her chest, opening a rift within which lay a ruined landscape. Collapsed pillars and dilapidated domes gave way to the most precious treasure at the centre of the forgotten kingdom.

Only a mere moment was enough. Torrents of information, from the birth of the stars to the end of the world, flashed through Iris. Her body melted and reformed as she struggled to maintain her rationale.

Countless chants of unknown spells, of forbidden rituals, of muted whispers, echoed in a long corridor, whose end of the line was the altar of immortality.

A thunderous clap brought Iris back. She returned to her human appearance, to her prim long dress she used to wear during her exclusion to the temple of The Lord.

Black Light didn’t ask about Iris’s vision, nor her sorrowful expression. Only Iris herself could understand what she saw, for it reflected her inaccessible authentic self.

After closing the gateway into her destroyed Heavenly Kingdom, Black Light retrieved her halo and hid her wings, keeping away her overwhelming divine presence. The familiar frailness reigned over her.

“After the Ascension, one leaves behind their mortal shell, becomes divine, and separates themselves from the governing reality. They wield unlimited might, gain enlightenment through comprehending the world, and create within themselves their ideal.

“The Heavenly Kingdom is their heart, the divine throne their Destiny. But the heart itself is nothing without the soul. Their culminating experience, from their birth, through their defining journey, resides within their deepest part. Even if their Heavenly Kingdom falls, their body scattered across the planes, they will remain.

“For the Divine Essence is their being, shielded by Faith, moulded by Divine Flames. It contains their totality, their secrets, their laws and nature—to inherit their essence is to assimilate their existence, becoming the goddess of their Authority.”

Something within Iris resonated with those words. She gazed inward, at her Shadow Heart Core. It reflected nothing; the reverberation came from elsewhere, deeper than she could reach. Its faintest tremor revealed itself only for the briefest of moments. She refocused on Black Light.

“Did . . . her Divine Essence got eaten?”

“A part of it got contaminated. Only the Divine Flames of a Deity could resist the plague upon The Essence.”

“Where can I find it?”

“At the Heavenly Kingdoms, deep within the Forbidden Grounds . . . or through a living Deity.”

Iris stared at Black Light, whose murky eyes dimmed. Black Light silently contemplated her choice, although she yielded to Iris’s persistent watch.

“Our Authority has yet to recover; our Divine Flame has been extinguished.” Black Light touched her chest. “And even if I could reignite it, you wouldn’t help me, would you?”

“She wouldn’t want me to.”

“There is only one final way.”

“I won’t go against her will.”

“I’m merely trying to help.” Black Light extended her hand. “It’s time for you to practice what I taught.”

“Will this harm you?”

“I’ll have to expend parts of my Divinity; this little price is nothing compared to the reward.”

“Time has changed. I’ll leave myself in your care.”

“Your success is our goal, Iris.”

Iris took Black Light’s hand and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. Golden rivers of light flooded inside her body through the connected hands. The radiance flickered between golden and black, exuding the holiness of a Deity as well as the oppressiveness of an overlord.

Suffocated, Iris dug her fingers into her chest. Purple tendrils burst into existence throughout her membrane. Eyes, bulging eyes, bloodshot eyes, squirming eyes rapidly manifested around her. Shadows of eyeballs darkened the island, stripping security and privacy from the world.

The darkness surrounding the island trembled. Space cracked into multiple rifts, whose shapes resembled sneers. Gigantic claws held open the cracks and widened the gaps. Crimson eyeballs peered through reality.

Their gazes landed upon Iris, whose body slowly dissolved, her slime turning into bloody mushes. Pain radiated from her mind into her soul. She opened her mouth but the blood blocked her throat.

Gurgling noises bubbled around her. She did not stop. Pairs of tattered wings covered her presence. The eyes lost their target; the pain subsided.

“Do away with caution, Dear,” Black Light said. “Prolonging this will only harm us both. My power is yours to wield, to crush your opposition, experience what it’s like to be transcendent.”

Iris only concentrated. Her hand, connected with Black Light’s, tightened its grip. Her purple tendrils faltered. The golden and black light flowed within her, circulating into an array of shifting symbols, of layered rituals.

Incorporeal wings manifested behind her. Towers of colourful halos stacked above her. A monumental tree, whose branch sprouted countless elemental orbs and illusory flowers, materialised within her soul.

Her eyes, clouded by her feelings, snapped open. Black Light retreated from Iris while hugging White Decay.

The ghostly eyes, the demonic hands, and the unholy pupil gazing through reality quivered. An invisible pressure wave rushed through them.

The world stopped. An otherworldly hymn played for Iris. An infinite cathedral overtook the lonely island. Countless statues of the most beautiful goddess decorated the unending hall, looking down at the sinner whom their goddess had deemed unworthy of salvation.

The demonic hands pulled back, but the void itself rejected its existence. The pupil too couldn’t leave. It forcibly shook, but invisible chains bounded its movement.

Although Iris did not know what happened, she knew what to do. She gently lifted her right hand and, smiling, lowered her palm delicately.

This motion was unfamiliar; it revived itself from the recess of her existence, the mark etched unto her soul.

But it was completely hers.

The Curse of the Eyes lost its hold over Iris. Masolis cried in pain as a stellar lance pierced through its pupil. A rain of mutating blood rained on the cathedral but did nothing to the golden floor, leaving not even a trace of filth on the holy path.

Iris knelt on the ground in silence. The cathedral vanished from her vision.

It had been so long since she felt so free.