“Hehe. Hahaha. Ahahahahaha!”

Crazy laughter was booming through the forest. One could see that the source was a breathtakingly beautiful girl with blue hair that was dressed in a matching blue color. Behind her back was a majestic pair of wings like those on fireflies but they were radiating the same blue.

The girl looked like a fairy from the legends and the fairytales of the local folks, the only difference was her size. A fairy was supposed to be a tiny creature, the size of the palm of an adult human, whilst the girl would be considered rather tall by human standards. In fact, that girl was a fairy, a very famous, or rather infamous, among her kin at that. Her name was Tristeran Ark Benel, more widely known as Stella the Betrayer, the most loyal ally of the witch known as the Blasphemer, Aurora Regina Tertitian.

At least that’s how most people would recognize her in any other realm. No one in this realm would be able to though.

Stella had been running from her pursuer for a very long time and even changed many worlds and planes of existence to shake it off. Alas, it was all for nought. No matter where she would go, no matter how she would hide, no matter what traps she laid out, in the end, she would feel the presence of the mysterious entity that for some reason chased her across the universe.

That’s why, stricken with despair, she took a gamble with her life on the line. In reality, the physical form of a spirit in a world is determined by the influence they can exert in the world or realm they operate in. Usually they would gather in places that would be appropriate for their power level as living in a place with too high of a level would make them practically powerless and as for the smaller ones, those would offer a great amount of resistance in order to protect themselves. Not to say that realms and worlds and such have intelligence, it’s just the natural order of things.

That’s why a spirit trying to force themselves into a lower level plane is a matter unheard of. Though the gains would be great, the most likely outcome would be death.

And even if a spirit were successful they wouldn’t necessarily be the strongest on that plane. The resistance of the space would definitely take their power down a notch.

Still, in the end Stella was successful in her gamble, which is why she was so much bigger than before, though it would be more appropriate to say that the world was smaller. The being that was chasing her was absolutely much more powerful than she was, or any other existence she has ever seen, for that matter, so it was unlikely that it would be able to break through to where she currently was.

After a while, the excitement of her newly regained freedom had dimmed so the fairy began to wonder what to do. She never really had a taste for power so being undefeatable wasn’t any interesting to her. She needed to make preparations to search for the place Aurora landed on and make sure she was safe. Stella didn’t doubt her lover’s ability but if she attracted something from the River of Souls, who’s to say that the same didn’t happen to Aurora? While the witch was powerful and could defend herself from pretty much anything, Stella had the feeling that Aurora alone wasn’t enough against that thing.

Then she needed to find her by any means necessary! But how? On this plane she was only as free as a bird in a cage – the moment she came out, that being would seize her!

*Poof* She created a chair out of thin air and sat on it to formulate a plan. While time was golden for her now, she didn’t give in to anxiety. She knew this matter wasn’t something she could do quickly, so rushing would only get in her way.

A few days later she already had a plan. She didn’t know her pursuer’s identity, intentions, resources, anything. So calling what she came up with a plan was not quite appropriate, it was more of a gamble. She couldn’t account for any failures and had no back-ups, so it truly was a gamble. But she had no other choice at the moment.

Blue light began gathering around her with an insane momentum and in an instant enveloped her completely. It continued to be drawn to her in waves and pulses, like a heartbeat. The scenery around her soon began to change: the lush and rich greenery started withering, the skies turned red and the sun dimmed. The next moment *Boom* *Rumble* lightning stroke the place where Stella used to stand and she disappeared.

Somewhere where the concepts of space and time held very little authority a blue meteor flashed and flew away.

Finally in a magical place with many flowers the size of a tree and trees that could shoulder the skies the blue comet was about to crash.

Just before it hit the ground it ignored the idea of inertia and suddenly changed its trajectory without losing its speed and headed towards a majestic white castle with countless towers and smooth tall white walls.

Not a second passed and it crashed right into the highest tower leaving a sizable hole in it.

When the smoke cleared out and the many inhabitants of all kinds of different shapes and sizes managed to calm down the fairy responsible for the entire commotion was nowhere to be found.

And right after that happened, the entire castle turned red: walls, gates, windows and all. It all was only the prelude to what was to come…