On a place far away, located in a corner of the world untouched by mortal civilization, an island drifted, a single island. Flowers of different bright colors filled the entire flat-shaped landmass, its view a neverending grassland.

Beautiful animals thought lost or extinct roamed the island, nibbling gracefully on the rare and exotic fruits littered everywhere. A Deer with furs as black as night with long bone-white antlers that curved smoothly over to its muscled shoulders roamed near a tree with low-hanging branches. Its violet-roiling orb scanned the surroundings, finding another of its species not too far away and then hopping gracefully over to it. Griffins with silver and black striped furs rested on their nests up on the trees, some simply resting while others monitored the younglings. Overhead, a rainbow-plumaged bird soared past, guided by wings so large they created huge shadows on the grass-covered ground.

The bird, its tail feathers half the length of its full body, gently padded the air as it glided by. The bird flew through the skies, bullying past a flock of white little birds, dispersing them in panic. Soon, its flight took it over a valley situated in exactly the middle of the island.

This valley wasn't so different from the rest of the island, the only difference being the flora, which looked more controlled than the wild ones left to grow anywhere outside. Oh, and also the house situated on one corner of the valley.

Selyria Molei strode through her little garden, watering the ones which needed the nourishment and leaving the rest until it was their time.

She took in the beautiful atmosphere, her senses spreading wide and far, encompassing the entire island in an instant and going past that. However, she had little use for such distance, so she had to retract it a little as there was nothing aside from this little island for miles. It was like a black dot in a sea of white.

She smiled at the effects her perception had on the animals on the entire island, gently chuckling as all the predators immediately ceased their hunting, no doubt feeling the brief attention of something else, something far more than they could ever hope to attempt at hunting. A higher existence.

Unlike her peers, her ascended form wasn't restricted by the World Spirit from this planet; this, no doubt, caused a no small amount of grumbling from the others at the blatant favoritism the World Spirit showed her. But still, they couldn't argue, who wouldn't want a seer in their employ?

Every essence wielder at some point, whether they practiced it or not, develops some sort of skill at divination. More along the lines of preternatural prediction than actual divination, but still, it was far beyond anything anyone below Spirit King could ever hope to achieve. The basic divination skill was useful for correctly predicting future events, the distance and time depending on the level of the being. They couldn't get any deeper context to what they were searching for, though, but that was somewhat unneeded seeing as they needed to have acquired a certain amount of information for them to have any chance at getting a correct prediction.

Selyria was a seer, an expert at acquiring information about the future. There were very few things that could restrict her sight, and those that could, at most, could only block out the deeper context of the event, not the wider effects. That was why she had been able to see the effects of the doom that was foretold to occur, but not how it would happen.

The World Spirit, powerful as it was, was not as adept at far-seeing as she was. It could predict the outcome of certain events, but not to the same level as an essence wielder specialized in the arts. That was why she had been employed, her salary? A free, unrestricted movement anywhere on the planet. All she had to do was assist in predicting anything major that could impact the planet.

The continental-wide devastation that had occurred on the Norelane continent, now Desolate, had been one of her major predictions, and like what was soon about to happen, she hadn't been able to get anything more than a simple warning.

Done with the plants, she began making her way back to the small hut on the corner of the valley. It would take a while to get back, seeing as she was choosing the mundane way of movement, but she didn't mind. At times, it was always soothing to just move like the mortals.

"Welcome, what can I do for you?" Selyria said, glancing at a seemingly empty space a few feet to her left.

"You speak like I am a stranger," a voice replied, and soon enough, tiny motes of lights appeared in thin air, slowly drifting together until they coalesced into the form of a woman.

She was a beautiful woman with an extremely pale skin, almost pure white. Her hair was the color of snow and tied in a bun, same as Selyria's. Her frosty blue eyes could have made Selyria quake in fear had she not been of the same realm. And her dress? Now, Selyria knew she wasn't much for fashion, but even she had to admire the dress her fellow Spirit Queen wore. It was a dress with a thin, almost invisible, layer of fabric. The pale blue color, although lacking the intense beauty of a deeper hue, made the dress more beautiful than any other color would have. She lifted her eyes back to the wearer.

"One of these days, you'll have to make one of these dresses for me."

Aisene fondly rubbed the form-fitting fabric. "Only if you promise to divine the perfect man for me."

Selyria rolled her eyes. Aisene always did this. She was beautiful, one of the most beautiful and sought-after women on Zanderst—The Moon Cities. She certainly had no shortage of suitors bawling for her attention, but for some reason, she always turned them down, citing the need for a perfect man. In her words, a 'Knight In princely beauty'. Selyria, despite her far-seeing capabilities, still found it hard to comprehend that.

"How many times do I have to say this? You don't need my help in finding a perfect date, Aisene. If anything, you should be complaining about your overabundance of choices."

"Overabundance of choices? What choices?" She affected an air of confusion.,

"Don't play coy with me, Aise. I know for a fact that a certain handsome from the planet, Za, has recently proclaimed his love for you. We both know a lower status isn't a problem for you when choosing partners, so why don't you give it a try? I hear he's also a prince, and a knight too. Definitely a double package, that one."

Aisene made a gagging expression. "You lack taste In men, Sel. Otherwise, you wouldn't be encouraging me to date children."

"He's three thousand years old."

"And I'm seven times that," Aisene blandly replied. "Why would I want someone so young and inexperienced?"

"The novelty? Listen, Aise. If you want someone your age, then accept one of the other dozens of suitors waiting at your doorstep. Isn't one of them a priest of the Nature cult?"

"I don't care about prestige, Sel, I want true love. I want to be rescued from a tower by a knight with a princely beauty..."

"You're a Spirit Queen; I doubt you'd get anything more than a scratch if you were thrown down onto this planet."

"That's a lie, this body certainly won't survive it."

"'This body' is an avatar—not even your main avatar—that isn't even built for combat. You wouldn't have been allowed onto the planet, otherwise."

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That brought the woman up short. "Is it... Is it still angry?"

"You mean, Ra?"

She nodded.

"You do know that you basically attacked it, right?"

"Hey! In my defense, I was adjudicating; my authority would certainly have been questioned if I'd required the permission of another entity to carry out judgment."

"It was on its territory."

"And I've apologized. How many times do I have to say this?"

Selyria frowned, a tone of admonishment entering her voice. "That's not the point, Aisene. You, without permission, manifested a portion of your power down on this planet. Now Ra might be cautious, knowing that acting out would have led to a serious reprisal, but not every World Spirit is like that. You might not get lucky next time."

"You do know that it could have erased my manifestation had it wanted to. It let my influence onto the planet. Sounds like permission to me."

"That was at my advice. Ra wanted to wipe out a moon or two as warning, but I held it back, cautioning of unknown repercussions should the Cults take it as an act of war. We already have a possible apocalypse hanging over our heads, we don't need a certain one."

"Fineee! You're right. I'll ask permission next time."

A voice swept past, unemotional yet filled with restrained fury. "There will not be a next time."

Aisene looked up, even though she didn't need to, seeing as the influence of the World Spirit saturated everywhere. "How am I then supposed to deal out punishment when Solaris goes out of line?"

Her question was left in the wind, with no reply. That was answer enough.

Selyria shrugged as the other woman turned to her for help. "I guess you'll have to find another way, then."

"Ahh, the thing I do for justice."

"Justice?" Selyria snorted. "Aise, we both know that this has nothing to do with justice. You hate Solaris to the core."

The Other woman opened her mouth in a clear attempt at denial, but then she stopped and then shrugged. "Yeahhh, I definitely hate him."

Selyria slowed down, looking for the right way to word her next question. Finding none, she simply blurted it out. "If I may ask, why don't you simply kill him? I get that he's an investment the infernos are unwilling to simply let go, but let's be honest here: we both know they wouldn't go to war just for the death of a first domain King, not if that person was accumulating enemies he shouldn't have any right too."

Aisene also slowed down, matching Selyria's stride. "Ah, you don't know the end of it. Unfortunately, it appears Solaris has more importance than was previously speculated."

Her silence prompted the other woman to continue.

"You remember the rare affinity stone he found?"

Selyria nodded. That had caused a small stir amongst the Spirit King community. The sun-fire affinity, while not being on par with great affinities such as destruction, life, soul, and some others, was still a tier above the common ones. It was an affinity every fire user aimed to one day wield.

"Yes, I remember."

"Well, aside from the fact that he 'luckily' found that rare treasure at a young age, it seems his talent for the affinity is more than was previously graded... Which you already suspected, didn't you?"

Selyria shrugged, not willing to deny it. "It seemed obvious, but I didn't want to say anything. Besides, I thought you already knew. It shouldn't have been hard to notice. Solaris was already a genius with the fire affinity right from his awakening; upgrading to the Sunfire essence was nothing more than a power-up. Why's that the problem?"

"Well, the inferno's are already ecstatic about it, boasting about how they're going to make an Ascendant out of Solaris one day." Aisene made a gagging expression. "It's disgusting, really. This is a Celestial Cult for crying out loud!"

"Well, a potential Ascendant isn't something to scoff at, you know? What if he actually makes it?"

"That would only happen if he wasn't already dead from all the enemies he's made."

"You think he could win this war?" Selyria asked.

"His opponent is someone with a great affinity and a lot of question marks to his name, so I'm not really sure. Which is weirdly exciting."

"Damien Elason."

"What?"

"Damien Elason, that's his name."

"Why should I care about that?" Aisene said with eyebrows raised.

"Well, seeing as he's the only thing standing between Solaris and his goals...?"

The other woman snorted. "This war is nothing but an exercise to us. We might oppose Solaris' ambition, but truthfully, we don't really care. The only would-be losers are those little Spirit lords who'll soon find themselves ousted and their territories taken. Even the Great families, the worst they could suffer is being slowly isolated from each other as Solaris conquers everyone else. The name of some talent with a weird affinity characteristic is as insignificant as the names of some of those Spirit lords."

Selyria didn't buy into it. "You've investigated him, haven't you?"

"Of course, we have! A young genius, by this planet's standards, suddenly comes along with an affinity for destruction. That's a great affinity, Sel. He might not have shown as much alignment as the other boy he seems to move with, but it's still a great affinity. There's no way we wouldn't have investigated."

"And what did you find?"

"Nothing. Short of the little discovery that he's basically an orphan with no knowledge of his parents, we found nothing. At first, we wanted Menoe to drag the boy somewhere for some questioning, but that was scrapped since he already had a motherly relationship with her, a relationship that had been there for years. She couldn't do anything to him now even if she tried. If he had been below Spirit lord, we could have sent someone else to 'talk' to him, but I no longer think that's possible."

"I didn't think you all would have given up after such a small setback?" Selyria said.

Aisene scowled at her. "Don't tease me, Sel. There was nothing else we could do short of descending ourselves, and I'm sure it wouldn't take much to predict the outcome of that. The only reason Ra allowed a combat avatar of Solaris down on the planet was because of his tier. The avatar of a first-domain King is nothing compared to that of a Seventh-domain, like me."

Selyria couldn't argue with that. The gap between tiers wasn't as large as those between realms, but the power of a Seventh domain and that of a first domain was like the distance between the earth and the sun. A Spirit lord avatar of Aisene could go toe to toe with Solaris in his true form and still stand her ground without any problem.

"Well," Selyria said. "I'll be glad to inform you that that 'insignificant' Spirit lord isn't as insignificant as you think."

"What do you mean?"

"There's something strange about that boy, I can't put my finger on it and neither can the World Spirit."

"Well then why don't you go question him? You aren't as restricted as the rest of us, and I'm certain that, even as a non-combatant, a mere Mid tier Spirit lord couldn't hope to lay a finger on you."

"No can do, Aise. Like I said, there's something strange about him, and I don't mean the simple mystery that could be solved by a couple of questions, I meant the one that could prove dangerous to someone like me, and even the World Spirit."

That brought the other woman up short. Aisene stopped, disbelief warring in her face, but Selyria knew she wouldn't dismiss her claim. Her credibility wasn't something to scoff at.

"I don't understand."

"Trust me, Aise, neither do we. When I met him, I'd already had half a mind to atleast get some answers I had questions for, but something held me back. As soon as I had that thought, I immediately felt a warning from deep within me telling me that the moment I take so much as a step towards him, something bad would happen..."

"And you aren't the only one who felt this?"

"Yes." Selyria confirmed. "The World Spirit has a different reason for wanting to 'question' the boy, but the warning is still the same."

"If this is only happening to Spirit Kings and above, why hasn't anything happened to Solaris yet? He's a Spirit King."

"I don't know," Selyria said. "Probably because of his avatar being somewhat on par with the boy? I'm not really sure. All I know that we can't go anywhere near him."

"Have you tried divining the answer?"

"Oh, I've definitely tried, but all I see is a Seer's welcome."

"What's that?"

"This is something between us Seers, a situation where we encounter some sort of shroud against divination—they come in different forms. The shroud isn't a complete blockage since all we have to do to get the answers to our question is simply to walk through it and out the other side."

"Like an open gate," Aisene said.

"Yes. But the warning to this is to never walk into that shroud, else you'll never come out. The shroud around the boy is in the form a gray mist. It didn't take any form of special skill to tell me that the moment I stepped into that mist, my death was already assured."

Aisene sighed heavily. "So what do we do now?"

"Nothing other than to simply watch. Solaris is going to trigger something he's assuredly not going to come back fr—"

Instantly, both their heads snapped toward the same location. They couldn't see anything with their physical eyes, but their senses more than carried out the task perfectly.

"A Domain... That must have taken a toll on his avatar."

They saw as Solaris made use of his domain to remove the influence of Space around him, and then while all those arrayed against him were completely frozen, he forcefully teleported Damien and his brother.

Selyria sighed, already feeling the dark clouds gathering. "And so it begins."