Chapter 18: Chapter 16: Pulling the Gacha

A line of excited youths snaked around the entrance to the temple, some of them having waited for months for the Temple’s sanctioned Bestowal date. For Chris, it was a scene out of a dream—literally, since her past memories had recently begun to surface. Some of the more nosy individuals shot curious glances in her direction, likely mistaking her for a priestess because of her ceremonial robes. 

Thankfully, her hood prevented the signature blue hair of the Lorien bloodline from causing further uproar. To her horror, her family had also wanted to come and escort her to the temple, and it was only by some miracle that she managed to convince them to let her off with just the gilded silk on her back. 

Is this what a normal family is like? It’s annoying, but…. I don’t dislike it.

A priest welcomed them inside to a massive atrium hall lined with marble stone columns and intricate carvings and murals, each depicting the pantheon of gods and goddesses in various scenes from out of song and story. The crowd of children oohed and aahed, their eyes sparkling with awe. Someone politely coughed from their surroundings to remind them that they weren’t on a leisure trip.

They turned to face a man who was positively ancient, appearing at once dignified but also not imposing. His priestly robes were decorated with mesmerizing patterns that put those of her own to shame. She was sure she wasn’t the only one among their group whose eyes lingered on the long sagely beard flowing down his front, which would have given any of the “wise wizards” of fantasy on Earth a run for their money. 

The elderly man glanced over the gathered crowd of youths, his gaze landing on her and lingering for a while longer than normal. He graced them with a good natured, grandfatherly smile and entered into a full-throated speech that she wouldn’t have thought possible for one of his age.

“It’s good to see you all so lively. I am the High Priest Maxwell who presides over this temple. I act as the guardian of this sanctuary. For those of you who are so eager, I assure you that there will be enough time today for everyone to undergo their Bestowals.” The crowd stirred at his words, still buzzing with excitement. A few of the more bold kids among them raised their hands to ask questions, which the elder clergyman answered with great enthusiasm.

Of course, this Maxwell character was likely in charge of far more than preaching to children. The Temple was under a doctrine where it kept its doors open to all of mankind: giving alms to the poor and sending its paladins to exterminate monsters that threatened undefended hamlets and villages. High ranked officials had a great deal of responsibility in managing these affairs. There was no way that such an important individual was willing to take the time to guide a bunch of brats when any ordinary priest could have handled the task just as easily. 

If she was right --and this wasn’t meant to be arrogant-- then the real reason this old man was here might have something to do with her. And right on time, the man had turned to announce her presence to the entire room. 

“Your highness, as is customary, you will be the first to enter the Bestowal chamber.” Chris heard a few gasps resound in the open space before every head in the vicinity turned towards her. She resisted the urge to click her tongue, and nervously nodded under many gazes that prodded her senses like needles.

So much for laying low, she thought, although her choice of clothing made that task impossible from the start.

The high priest guided her down to the two large stone doors of the Bestowal chamber. She took the opportunity to analyze the old man more closely. 

[Name: Maxwell Seras]

[Affection meter measurement: 46%]

[Description: Current high priest, and guardian of the sanctuary located within the Lorien Temple. A man who has dedicated his life towards serving the gods, and acting to prevent the demonic forces from regaining their foothold on the mortal realm.]

Demons. I think it’s a fair guess that whatever happened to Christiana in the original novel might have been related to them. Maybe even to something that happened in this temple. Worth looking into further. 

She flinched when he turned to meet her stare. It wasn’t how his aged face contorted into a frown that scared her, but that his eyes held a frightening golden hue that was on par, if not more unsettling than Bertram’s. He mumbled something under his breath that she couldn’t make out. Then, almost as quickly as his expression had hardened, a good natured smile surfaced once again, as if all that was an illusion, and she blinked in surprise.

“Please relax, your highness. Remain calm, and just be yourself.” The priest raised a hand towards her, letting purifying light radiate from his open palm. An aura of holiness washed over her, calmness suffusing throughout her body, mind, and soul. She felt something being lifted off her shoulders, a burden that she hadn’t known she’d carried. 

“What was that?” She asked.

“A little bit of magic that every priest in the Temple knows, to help our believers rest easy in our care.” Maxwell explained, before smiling disarmingly. If he was lying, then he was damn good at it, as his demeanor was nigh infallible. 

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.” It was now his turn to act surprised, as he hurried to correct her.

“Oh no, your highness! You don’t have to address this old man with any honorifics. Just “Maxwell” will be fine.”

“Don’t be silly, it’s only natural for the younger generation to respect their elders.” Wisdom was something earned through the hard won passage of life, after all. She could afford to give that much respect towards other people. The high priest rewarded her with an appreciative smile. 

“It’s rare to see someone of your stature being this humble. Very well, your highness, I won’t keep you with me for any longer. The doors to the chamber of Bestowal are open. May fortune favor you, princess, and may your Will guide you.” He motioned towards the now open doors, and she felt a bone tingling cold wind swept towards her from the inside. 

She nodded as she walked forward, stiffening when her bare feet touched cold marble and unforgiving stone.  As soon as the priests closed the stone doors shut, an ambient silence took over her surroundings, with nothing but the faint arcane light in the Bestowal chamber to illuminate the path in front of her. Faint particles of dust flew in the air where her steps disturbed their rest. 

So close… there shouldn’t be anything else that pops up now, right? She remembered that the System had mentioned there being some combat related functions that could be unlocked after her Bestowal, and quickened her pace. A powerup sounded absolutely wonderful right about now. 

Step after step, she expected for there to be something thrown her way, a trial that the gods up high decided to throw at her before reaching her goal. To her relief, there was nothing all the way to the end. 

“Let’s pull the gacha.” She wasn’t going to spend time thinking about things. The more pressing concern at the moment was getting what she came here for: a badass spirit companion. And she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The girl walked up to the statue of Klet, stepping onto the circular dais where she was to be judged.

“So, what do I do now?” She wondered aloud, sifting through her memories for the next step in this ritual. Not a moment after she uttered those words, the arcane symbols on the dais lit up in a mystical glow, lighting up the room. Feeling something welling up within her, she closed her eyes to better concentrate on whatever was happening, thinking for it to be part of the process.

[Warning: Damage to soulscape detected. Performing emergency measures…]

Ah shit, here we go again.

On cue with her wishful thinking, her vision became seeped in an eerie fog, completely obscuring everything from view. Chris sighed, all too aware that her heavenly “patron” might have decided to play a last minute prank on her. She tried willing mana into her eyes to see if enhanced vision could pierce through the illusory barrier, only to realize that it didn’t work because the fog seemed to literally be plastered onto her eyes, and the world grew dark around her. The sound of reality being ripped apart greeted her like an odd welcome. 

“Hello?” She called out, but no one answered. To her pleasant surprise, her second journey to this black void wasn’t as jarring as the first, and she could still feel some semblance of “self” and “sense” in the mind numbing darkness. Perhaps it was because her soul was stronger now than it was before?

As she drifted, parts of the darkness dissipated to reveal the features of a man that she hoped to never see again. Chris looked into a reflection of her past: messy, unkempt hair, eyes sunken from sleep deprivation, and skin long divorced from the sun.

“System. What is the meaning of this?” She didn’t even realize that her tone now carried an edge of steel.

And for the first time, the Heroine Creation System didn’t answer.

“System?” Still nothing, the always present disembodied voice either unable, or refusing to answer her. There was only her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Larry stared emotionlessly at her as she walked, all the way until she stood only a few paces away from him. 

“I shouldn’t have pulled so many all-nighters…” she frowned at the opposing man’s gaunt appearance. Angling her head towards the sky, or at least what she felt was the ceiling, she spoke to the powers above.

“This is getting old. I’ve already moved on. I get that I’m supposed to accept who I was as part of who I am now, but honestly?” She raised an arm up, baring a closed fist to the watchful gods. A slim finger flicked out in a rude gesture to the heavens. If they even existed in this realm.

“I looked like absolute shit back then, so I would rather not.” She began to walk forward, letting the shadow of her past fade away back into the nothingness it came from. But the fog stubbornly held on. In response to her provocation, the apparition morphed into a new silhouette, one that she recognized as similar to her current form, but older in the years. 

Christiana. 

A cheerful look greeted her from behind blue locks, as what was a fragment of a soul spoke to her, the first voice to guide her in this dark void. 

“She’s a bit blunt, but hear her out, ok?”

“What?” And before she could say anything else, she felt the entire world lurch as her consciousness was swung to an entirely different plane of existence. 

Shaking herself from the jarring change, she found herself on a familiar ocean cliffside, the sounds of waves crashing coinciding with the sound of air being cut. Her soulscape. 

Directing her gaze towards the sound, she saw the figure of a woman practicing her swings with a single sword, locks the color of a cloudless sky swaying along with every fluid motion. From where her hands clenched the handle of the weapon, toned muscles were poised to carry her body from each movement to the next. Each attack was born from a cold and unwavering determination, and every whirl, twist, and swing was fast to the point of being imperceptible. 

She transitioned from being surprised to simply being in a state of awe. The image in front of her felt at once both intimate yet foreign, like she was meeting with a long estranged friend. As Chris deliberated, the ghostly figure stopped what she was doing to face her. The movement swept aside pale blue bangs, the light of the artificial sun causing her green eyes to glow. The woman called out to her. 

“You ate the flower? I didn’t expect that.”

“Wait, what?”

“You literally chewed up and spat my soul, or at least a part of it, here. What a turn of events. Wonderful atmosphere, by the way --I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“What?

“But I don’t think it’s time yet.”

“What?”

“You aren’t ready… definitely not in that sorry state you call a body.” And as the woman projected her disappointment, Chris felt a vein pop in whatever astral-spiritual state her consciousness was in. She was a floating mass of who-knows-what at the moment, who was this person to judge her!

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“Hey! Stop ignoring me! I’m asking you what’s going on!” 

“But you might actually be able to pull it off.”

“Huh?” The woman briefly smirked in what could only be called mirthful amusement before her mood and tone suddenly shifted into wistfulness.

“Ah well, I guess it can’t hurt to tell you.” She sighed. “I have a friend who I want you to help out. The stupid girl should be sitting there in that garden I created even now, after I’ve been dead for who knows how long.” She brought a hand to her face in frustration. “Ilias was always an overdramatic one. But she just doesn’t know how to let go. And I thought I’d beat enough sense into her thick skull.” The woman turned back towards her. 

“Get her out, please? She’ll be a bit stubborn, but I believe that, if you’re anything like the two I just kicked out, that you can convince her to leave me be and move on.” As soon as she spoke, she frowned.

“Nevermind, the girl was a sweetie, but the man wasn’t good company. He wasn’t even all there, just mindlessly staring off into space and offering only a word or two.”

“Eh? EEH?” By those two… did she mean… did this woman just...

“You’re one of my descendants, right? Go save her, and I’ll make it worth your while, I swear on my name.” 

“You, you are?”

“Amphitrite Rex.” She smiled. “At your service, at least until this part of me dissipates.”

Chris’s eyes widened. She heard the tearing sounds of the world being once again ripped apart. Frantically, she yelled out to the woman that she had only known from tales and legend.

“I’ll try my best!” The last thing she saw before being thrown out was a genuine smile gracing the woman’s face. 

“I’ll let those two back in-- we’ll help you out. Come back soon, and with good news, ok?”

The fog dispersed in a frenzied wind of mana, her mana, electric blue and aquamarine mixing in an exuberant storm, causing the hood of her robe to fall back and her long blue hair to fan out. She moved forward once more, her steps more sure and steady. 

[Notice: All reserves in the host’s mana well have been refined. Congratulations to the host for moving past their first stage of Awakening.]

But the Lorien princess didn’t seem to hear it. Seemingly in a trance, she guided her mana along the channels that appeared in her senses. Not forcing it, but rather directing the flow towards wherever felt right for it to go. The runes lining the dais hummed even louder, the stone supporting them shuddering and cracking under the sheer weight of magical pressure in the air.

“Come forth.” 

Righteous winds howled. A pale, slender hand reached beyond the veil of creation. Furious gales echoed. Thunder roared. A draconic limb clawed its way from its prison, violet scales gleaming in the arcane light. Two voices, one feminine, and one harsh and growling, announced their presence at the same time.

“This one greets their master.” One spirit kneeled in front of her. 

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!” The other shook in fury, his twin horns grinding against the ceiling. A magic circle marked where the lines between his torso and the ground met, hiding the majority of his massive bulk in some other spiritual plane. 

The silver elf, who Chris knew as Raisendel Etren, shot a glare at the dragon in the room.

“Shut it, you beast. Your voice is loud and grating on our ears. I will not have my chance to adventu-- I mean, to serve our master, be ruined because of your foolish tantrum.”

The dragon glared at her, two reptilian pupils glowing a pale and baleful yellow, promising to rain down its wrath. The volume of its voice lowered, not out of acceding to the other spirit’s demands, but rather in a low, threatening tone.

“Damned elf, do you not know who I am? I am Loch Segrios Gaoth Aldinn. I served beside the almighty Archdragon in his crusade against those who betrayed Heaven, while you rats scurried on the dirt and rubble left behind by our glorious conquest. And now you have the gall, the audacity, to talk down to me? I will crush you between my talons. I will snap your limbs like twigs. I will rip into your flesh with my fangs. I will make you wish for death before I disintegrate the very fabric of your being with my dragonfire. DO YOU HEAR ME?!” He roared out, shaking the room.

“Silence.” 

“Hmm? You DARE?! Mortal?” The dragon directed his fury towards the small figure before them, nostrils and scales flaring in outrage. A human girl, barely out of her mother’s womb! Commanding him? The sheer rage he felt coursing in his very being trumped all anger he felt throughout his eons of existence. His instincts screamed at him to squash this fool like the bug she was. Just as he raised his arm to flatten her, ethereal chains suddenly wrapped around him, bringing him down, making the ground shudder under the impact. 

Towards the roaring and struggling beast of legend that she had chained to the floor, Chris, or rather, the existence that came into being from the united fragments of its soul, muttered condescendingly.

“Hold your tongue, you lowly thing. The Contract has been completed before you even came to the mortal plane. I made sure of it. Your struggles are futile, since you are now bound by the laws of heaven.”

The dragon’s squirming figure began to shrink at an observable pace, steadily becoming smaller and smaller. The change only ground to a halt when, where there was once a powerful and awe-inspiring monster, there was now some wriggling, pale purple, lizard-like thing. 

The Union turned towards the shocked Raisendel, pointing at her with a raised hand. 

“You.”

“Y-yes?”

“Make sure that the lizard doesn’t speak of this, and neither shall you.”

“Yes, I’ll do so with my life, my master!”

“Good.” An enigmatic smile, befitting not that of a princess, but a ruler, showed itself on the girl’s mien. 

And not a moment long after, the girl’s eyes closed peacefully, and she collapsed into a heap on the cold stone floor. The two spirits, with their master no longer able to consciously materialize them, dissipated in fading bits of mana. The doors to the Bestowal chamber, right on time, were pushed open in a hurried manner.

“Your highness! What is going on, are you alright!” The priest who entered gasped in shock and horror when he saw the destruction inside.

“By the gods…”

A procession of knights in gleaming full plate armor trooped through the city streets, the sounds of their march signaling their arrival to every citizen. Children stopped their playing to gaze in awe and wonder. Commuters, merchants and bickering housewives turned their heads and glued their eyes to plumes and capes decked in the royal blue colors of Lorien.

At the front of this parade was a royal carriage driven by two white-maned warhorses. Its inner chaos hidden by closed curtains.

Elenoa caressed the sleeping princess’s face, remembering the scene of chaos that occurred at the Temple when she went to pick up her baby girl. Children and priests, young and old, milling about in confusion. Her daughter’s body being carried out by priestesses on duty.

There were rumors that the young princess had failed to contract a spirit, and that it had lashed out and rampaged in the Bestowal chamber, damaging the surroundings and causing the girl to lose consciousness in the ensuing chaos.

The only saving grace to this situation was that the chamber, and all of its ancient enchantments, remained intact for everyone to use it as if nothing happened, the only memory of the incident being carved in curious grooves onto the surfaces of the room’s floor and surface. However, Christiana’s reputation would take a dive for it. The queen sighed.

And this just had to happen right before her daughter’s birthday celebration. The noble ladies will surely peck at her in a storm after this. 

Maxwell Seras stroked his long beard with one hand. He had immediately received news of the royal princess’s accident, and had felt the remaining traces of mana in the air when he arrived on scene. The sheer depth and magnitude of the power he felt, even after the event had long since passed, gave him a shock that rattled his old bones. There were not one, but three mana signatures, each one of abnormal strength.

However, he also had much worse things to worry about. The shred of darkness that he felt on the girl when he examined her for the first time with the Eyes of Providence could have been only left behind by one type of being.

A demon. And an old one at that. Powerful enough to present a threat to not just Lorien, but the continent at large. How the princess had even met the demon, let alone survived to live another day after encountering it, was something that was better asked to the person in question.

He motioned to a nearby scribe, a junior priest in charge of communications between the sanctuary branches of each Temple.

“Call together every paladin, every high priest in every Temple location in Irudeia. Write up a letter to his majesty, and tell him that there may come a time for a meeting between world powers.” 

He had wondered whether it was a good or bad thing that a girl so young now possessed power equal to three high ranked spirits. But the looming conflict would require every able bodied fighter they could get their hands on. 

Thus began a new chapter in their never ending battle against the demons that desired to envelop the world in their hate for the gods.