Once upon a time

"You should trust your instincts more. Just because something is ridiculous does not mean it is not true." Canaan chided gently.

Xara froze in shock, she wanted to point out the absurdity of his words and yet her own devil god instinct was screaming at her that he was right.

"She is not one of us. She belongs to the divine element, the demonic one an exists at the highest plane of the Celstial gods." Canaan reached out towards the girl, his palm covered In a haze crimson light.

His fingers touched the crystals surface and ripples spread out from it. Then his finger slowly phased through the solid crystal and came to rest upon the girl's forhead.

The abstruse gemstone that hung on his neck glowed subtly as he sang in a soft voice. "Child of the voice, tell me your story."

Then with his words reality fractured into a million different pieces."

Canaan returned his gaze to Xara and forged a soft smile amidst the collapsing space aroubd them. He didnt know it yet, but this image of him had already been permanently engraved in her heart. With an outstretched had, he said. "I cannot predict what we will experience from this, but I believe that you will find the answer you wish for....the question remains...are you willing to trust me?"

Xara didn't know how or why, but the strange compulsive force in in Canaan's voice caused her to unwittingly place her hand in his.

Canaan smiled as a dense wave of his power tore throough the outside world, causing it to fade away into nothing.

Then there was a loud explosion and a rush of wind, and an impossibly clear world suddenly formed out of nothing around him and Xara.

Canaan struggled to make sense of the strange world. His eyes focused on a certain snow white figure.

She was almost indistinguishable from the snowy world around her that was frozen in an endless blizzard.

Blood was dripping down her lips, and her robes were stained with crimson.

Even so, her palid complexion failed to diminish the beauty that couldn't be portrayed by the most talented of artist.

Both Canaan and Xara shared a shocked look; because the woman before them looked exactly like Rhea.

"Just how...." Xara said in a trembling voice, after all she was the one most affected by this.

Her muffled cry seemed to reverberate across every corner of this world.

The world round them may have been a mere construct, but at least she got to see her sister open her eyes once again.

The Rhea he was seeing was not the princess of the house of oceanus she knew, however. Her colder, more apathetic features and frosty eyes that contained a deep hatred marked her as someone from a different lifetime.

Today was the twelfth day since her birth by the Voice of creation.

She was born a female doppelgänger to one of the four Celestial gods, the god of order, her divine power was yet o awaken and all she possessed was the prenatal understanding of her identity and the world around her that the Celestial forge had granted her.…

At first she had been merely curous about the world, however across her short existence of barely a fortnite she had experienced unimaginable horror.

She was weak without having awakened her divine power, too weak, so weak that any of the divine beings of the world could decided her fate with a thought.

The primal energy of this world was unnaturally dense, and the people here were powerful beyond imagination for the current her.

She had been born a gold class goddess: s worshipped existence in the forgotten worls. In this place though? The very first two men she met had easily suppressed her with their aura alone.

Standing before her were two sun gods sent by the Celestail sun god Janus; the Celestial god of limitless power, and they, mere lackeys belonged to a realm of power that far outstripped the gold class.

Deity Class.

In the realm of the true gods, the Deity class was but the lowliest rank of true god power. However, to this young Celestial goddess, it was a completely unsurpassable wall of despair.

"Wow, such divine beauty she probably rivals even the legendary Goddess of life and Heretic empress," the man to her right said with a lewd smile as his body trembled with lust. "Senior brother, since our lord commanded us to exterminate her, will it matter if we have a little bit of fun first?!"

"Shut up, you fool. We are doomed if anyone happens to hear you idiocy," the male to her left rebuked his companion seriously. However, his lips quickly curled into a lustful grin. "I've seen many beauties, but one so fascinating… I dare say that even our lord would not remain unmoved in the face of this beauty."

"In a different place and time and with a different fate, she would have perhaps been honoured as our lords exclusive proeperty. But since our lord clearly said that she should be killed on sight.…" He looked at his companion with intense eyes, "Then you are right, we should have a taste of this delicate beauty before sending her on her way. Maybe shell be grateful to have the feeling of a man and thank us....hehe"

"She looks like she has a sweet voice, her moans alone must be a joy to listen to."

"Then should we take turns or.....you know what...since we found her together, lets enjoy her together, after all she has two holes, doesnt she?"

The two men exchanged an extremely ugly and lewd smile.

Watching this, both Xara and Canaan seethed, Canaan for one actually prayed thag these two mes existed in the present all so he could find them and give them the Konsul treatment.

The young woman slowly raised her blood-drenched arm and summoned a silvery white energy, within this energy there seemed to be embedded millions of pure white stars.

This was the signature energy of God of order, even in her current weak state it actually caused the previously sneering sun gods to feel a slight intimidation

This energy coalesced into a long sword which she held in her hand.

"Hehe, still dreaming of resisting?"

The sun god to her left disdainfully flicked a finger at her as if he was swatring a fly, he had only released a miniscule amount of his power, however.

Ding!

The energy sword she had condensed with the last of her reserves snapped in half. However she did not reveal a despairing expression but a copd cunning smile, having lulled them into a moment of carelessness, the jagged edge of the sword Rhea was holding traveled toward her throat!

This had been her plan all along, she had baited them into "helping" her end herself!

At the same time, she gathered all of her divine energy to detonate inside her body, completely destroying it.

Both sun gods let out shocked exclamations when they realized what was happening. How could they expect that she would decisively choose to end her own life without the lightest but of hesistation.

Both sun gods let out irritated cries and pounced toward her, but everything was happening too quickly. Deity class or not, there was no chance they would be able to stop her in time.

It was at this moment that impossibly terrifying sonic boom resounded from the northen sky.

It was the sound of space itself was heralding the appearance a supreme being.

At the same time, a pressure powerful enough to cover the entire world fell down from the sky.

Xara's sword edge froze before it could make contact with the soft satin skin of her throat. The divine energy she gathered to destroy her own body suddenly melted into nothing.

The pressure enveloping her entire body was completely irresistible. It froze her limbs and power so thoroughly that she couldn't move the a single hair even if she mobilzed her entire strength.

It was the same for the other two sun gods.

A lone figure floated in the sky like some sort of god.

He had the appearance a middle-aged man in silvery white robes with his hands clasped behind his back.

The active elements of the world calmed while in his presence, and the natural order of things was suddebly at peace. All the light in the world seemed to focus on his person until one could see nothing but him.

The aura of power aneound him made the two sun gods feel like dropping to their knees and kowtowing for mercy.

That wasn't all though. Strange glowing divine symbols levitated around him. He had done nothing to condense them though, his mere presence caused divine words of the primordial language to come into being around him.

Only one person could cause thus phenomenon: Krios, the celstial god of order.

Suddenly, the man on the bow shifted his gaze.

As if in response, a bright wave of silvery white divine energy surged into the space around him and flew towards the two sun gods and the frail girl.

The two sun gods never even got the chance to scream before they dissolved into ashes under a burst of silvery moonlight. And by the time the energy faded, even those ashes had become completely dissipated into nothing.

And he had not given the two gods even the slightest bit of his attention. From the beginning, he had watched the girl and te girl alone.

He was the one who had stopped her broken enegy blade and dispersed her divine energy

"What is your name?" he asked.

His voice sounded about as indifferent and dignified as one might expect from a great ancient deity, but no one knew that his heart hid a deep surge of emotion even he did not know he was capable of producing.

The frightened girl woodenly watched as the man who had easily destroyed the two villains with a thought, descended frome the sky and caused the the winds to still only with his presence. She had no doubt in her mind, that he was definitely a being who existed at the highest plane.

His eyes showed that he was a man of great power who vieweed any and all beings which existed on a plane beneath his as his lessers, and that if he was ever offended he would easily, and without the slightest hesitation, obliterate the one who had earned his ire. And yet… not only did she feel no danger from him, she even felt a great deal of a strange unexplainable trust toward him.

"Rhea." The girl answered uncertainly, the voice of creation had left this name in her consciousnes as her first possession.

She, who had been born with the maturity of an adult but was still a young child at heart had been thrust into dangerous situations the noment she was born, and now she came across a creature who could easily decide her fate with a thought.

Before his grand power she could not even decide how she wanted to die. Barely being able to understand what was happening, she rose to her feet and gathered her remaining divine energy into wisps, then she asked, "Who...who… are you?"

The man who stood before her didn't answer, rather a nostalgic look appeared in his eyes as they focused on the girl.

"She looks like one born of the celestial forge… the signature of her divine energy … and I can feel the scales of chaos and order tipping ever so slightly in her presence."

He muttered dazedly to himself instead of answering the girls's question, "For the natural order to be this disturbed, it can only mean that she .... she is one of us…"

For a mutual onserver it was impossible to tell if his expression was one of excitement or horror.

"Answer me this one question," he asked again. "Were you born within the past fortnight?"

The girl's eyes shook violently.

Krios did not wait for a reply, her expression had already told him everything. After some time he said finally. "Come. I will take you to someone."

"Don't worry, I have no wish to harm you. If I did, I would not need to go through this much trouble, I could easily kill you with a thought, do you beleive that?"

"You are able to refuse, just know that then you will likely meet a fate far worse than what would have occured had I not been present here."