"Why?" Dave asked.

"Power changes those who wield it," Cedez replied, her voice tinged with a hint of sadness. "You'll become something else one day when your skill outlives your body."

Dave's frustration bubbled to the surface once more, "If you wield so much power, why not use it for good? Why not put an end to the injustice that plagues this city or even this world?"

Cedez looked into his eyes, the burden of her power etched into her eyes. The sun rose higher in the sky, casting its gentle warmth over the park and lighting up her face.

"It's... hard to be a God,” she uttered. “There are so many prayers and demands and wishes. Everyone wants something. There's just not enough of me to go around."

"What do you do exactly, other than pretend to be a simple foxgirl during the day and slap monsters away from the city at night?" Dave asked.

"I help people," she said, her voice small and defensive. "I protect them. I listen to them. I give them advice. I give heroes my aid."

"Heroes? You've helped Steve get a harem of slaves in exchange for a goddamned latte recipe!" Dave snapped, his anger flaring with righteous indignation. He stepped even closer to Cedez.

The foxgirl nodded, her silver-blue eyes downcast.

Waves of positive, warm, kind charisma radiated from the girl on the bench, but they simply washed over Dave as a thousand microscopic ghost shards vibrated in his soul like a swarm of angry bees awakened from their slumber.

The swarm of shards shielded the sweetness and trust she was projecting, replacing the feelings with anger, hatred and pain of their last moments of life. The biggest shard belonging to Lord Alaster Rim broadcast pings of paranoia and mistrust across the others, adding fuel to the rising inferno of anger that Dave was feeling. Sherlock's violin became muted amidst the white noise of the others that formed a defensive phantom barrier between Dave and Cedez.

[ Level 3 Phantomancy Skill Unlocked: Multi-Phantom Barrier Shield. ]

The dark bracelet flashed with a notification. Dave ignored it, drowning in a ocean of indignation and mistrust.

"What about Remicra's wishes to be free? Why did I have to be the one to break her chain?!" Dave demanded. "Was it not your idiotic Shadow-law that turned a girl who was simply defending her village from invaders into a slave?!"

He towered over Cedez, his body trembling with the force of his cascading emotions. The park around them seemed to recede into the background, leaving only the two of them locked in this heated confrontation. Dave’s terror of the monstrous shadow turned into fiery rage focused on the lithe foxgirl. He suddenly saw Cedez as the one responsible for Remicra's torment.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Are you the Shadow Empress?" Dave growled. "Is this not your domain?!"

"I am the Shadow Empress and this is my domain," Cedez flinched at his outburst, her bravado crumbling under the weight of his accusations. "But..."

"What the hell?!" Dave barked, interrupting her words. "Why did you lie to me about everything?! Simple foxgirl, my ass!"

"I... I am trying," she stammered, her voice choked with emotion. "It's not as simple as you make it sound."

"Trying?!" Dave yelled, his voice rising in pitch as his frustration grew. "Is that what you call it? Turning a blind eye to the suffering? Enslaving orphans? Letting people be treated like property and playthings? You gave some idiot a harem for a latte! What kind of twisted sense of priorities is that?!"

Cedez recoiled from his words, her tail curling protectively around her legs as if to shield herself from his verbal onslaught. But she didn't have a retort, no clever comeback to deflect his criticism.

“Steve was a hero that Shandria needed,” she finally whispered. “Almost two decades ago he…”

"Are you kidding me? How can you sit there and pretend to care about your people's well-being when you've done nothing to stop their suffering?!" Dave continued, his voice growing louder. "You allow terrible things to happen right under your nose, and yet you have the audacity to call yourself a god?!"

His words were like a barrage of arrows, each one piercing through Cedez's defenses, leaving her vulnerable and exposed. It was clear that she's never been yelled at before. As Dave's tirade continued, she could no longer hold back her tears. They streamed down her face, leaving shimmering trails in their wake.

“I’m not omniscient,” she said. “I’m just a…”

"You're a bloody useless goddess is what you are!" Dave yelled, his anger reaching a boiling point as a chorus of a thousand ghosts sang for vengeance in his soul. "Just beyond these mountains, millions die, summoned by the fat pretend-emperor, and yet here you are, doing nothing except for having a laugh at my expense!"

"I... erm... I'm…" Cedez stammered, lifting her hand to her face.

Sherlock’s violin was trying to say something, but Dave wasn’t listening, the static of the shield buzzing noisily around him. He remembered Lillianne’s blood-covered face, the field of countless corpses he crawled through, Remicra’s screams of pain when Overseer Princess turned the knob on a gray, stone-textured wrist.

Dave grabbed Cedez’s dark wrist with his. He stared into her eyes, the intensity of his gaze almost palpable.

"You suck, goddess," he said with a snarl. “This world would be better off without monsters like you who wield absolute power.”

The dark, furry hand wrapped in his fingers danced with sparks that stung it, as if his skin was a tongue tasting a fizzy drink.

"What's happening?" He blinked, as he felt a ripple of fiery sparks, a tingling sensation rush up his fingers to his wrist and then to his heart.

"Absolute charisma," Cedez whispered, the galactic spirals in her silver-blue eyes accelerating their spin.

As the sparks blossomed into a firestorm, Dave felt an inexplicable, impossible, unwieldy pull towards the spirals of her eyes, a magnetic force that seemed to defy reason.

Dave felt his ghost barrier shatter and soul tear asunder with an ethereal snap.