Iris screamed. Her flaming eyes burst into a swarm of glowing butterflies, whose flapping wings disintegrated into azure sparkles. Tears welled in her eye sockets, overflowed, and rained down her cheeks. Her Soul Power, the essence of her being, leaked out of her spiritual body, dissipating as the purest form of energy, turning into star-like radiances.

An unrelenting force came down on her, pushed her inwards, and cladded her in an invisible iron maiden. She sluggishly drew her hands to her face, but she couldn’t see them. Only the bright glare of The Goddess’s divine visage existed in her non-vision.

Her Corruption Power surged out of her fingertips and enveloped her face. Their squeezy tendrils caressed her cheeks, glided her lips, and stroked her eye sockets, gradually weaving her eyes out of silk-like threads.

As the threads progressively formed her pupils, the countenance of The Goddess sharpened its detail. Such an unearthly appearance burned itself into Iris’s eyes, shattering their structure once more.

Iris gritted her teeth. Her Soul Power tears streamed out of her eye sockets. She stopped her Corruption Power from reforming her eyes.

Though she lost her sight, she could still perceive the world through her magical sense.

Shuddering, she raised her head to face the brightest star in her mystical sense.

“Ancient Goddess of Seven Virtues, I’ve finally seen you.”

“You’ve seen me before, Elizabeth Goodwill.”

Iris laughed before she violently coughed. Tears gushed out of her mouth. Her glowing body dimmed. “No. This is the first time that I . . . truly see you.”

Seven Virtues touched her lips, her expression incomprehensible. “Your growth is . . . unpredictable, your Destiny . . . inexorable.”

“Destiny is the right of the strong. It isn’t my right, and it might never be.”

“You have the right to choose, Iris. Will you let Lilith succeed? Or will you let me?”

“Does my choice matter, at all?”

“You’re more important than you realised.”

“But not enough . . . to control my own Destiny.” Iris’s voice muffled in her throat. Bubbles and fluid filled her lungs. She unsuccessfully gasped, though she no longer needed to breathe. “Only enough . . . to be flung around like a puppet.”

The Goddess turned to her saintess, who carefully raised her head and peeked at the soulless Iris and then at the spiritual Iris. Her face flushed as she closed her eyes and activated her Domains, whose power wrapped around Iris, keeping her soul alive.

While the Saintess of Pure Mind tensed up, The Goddess stayed still. She wouldn’t punish her saintess for doing what she thought was just. Arianne was merely following her principle of virtues.

“Worry not, my child. Your Iris is in no danger.” The Goddess looked at the place behind Iris. “You’ve always been watching over her, haven’t you?”

Iris shivered. Behind her stood a figure so familiar she could imagine their feature despite her blindness.

She’d been hoping to see her most beloved again.

“Vilia?” She turned around. “Where . . . have you been?”

The Purple Snake Girl slithered to her Iris, beaming.

Iris could feel Vilia’s tender gaze tickling her body. Her dull soul flickered at the thought of embracing her long-lost piece, and her strength reignited itself, solidifying her spiritual body.

She’d been throwing herself into danger and opportunities alike, for power, for control . . . and for the fleeting hope that she might see her Vilia once more.

“Did you come here . . . to save me?”

Iris held out her hands, tilted her head, and smiled. Tears drooled from her mouth, overflowing her throat, yet she ignored them. The numbing pain gave way to the imaginary bliss, which shook her throughout. She leaned forwards and drew her hands around her Vilia, hugging tightly, fondly.

She no longer feared The Goddess, her Vilia was there to save her, to give her peace, to lift her from the dark place.

She only needed to believe.

Iris’s fingers phased through Vilia, whose expression distorted into a frown. Vilia turned to The Goddess and sighed. Her figure dissipated into dark purple Corruption Power, which merged with Iris.

Failing to sense Vilia’s presence, Iris stumbled forward.

She gripped her arms until her fingernails pierced her skin. Her Soul Power dripped from her wounds as a milky liquid. She gritted her teeth and screamed, but her gurgle only lingered within her drowning lungs.

Candles and lanterns’ flames extinguished themselves. Curtains fell and covered all windows and gates. Stars within The Saintess’s robe blackened.

Darkness consumed Iris and her vision.

The Goddess lifted her head. Her gaze penetrated the cathedral’s ceiling and landed beyond Main Material Plane, beyond the present and into the past.

“The current you cannot save her,” she said.

Alluring laughter echoed throughout the cathedral.

The Saintess of Pure Mind trembled. The Faith inside her soul dimmed and flashed and dimmed, turning from bright gold to dark gold. Her Holy Power bubbled as traces of blackness tainted its purity.

Obscene thoughts infected her mind, filling her chest with indecent desires. She quickened her breaths and closed her eyes and chanted her prayer, but this sensation latched onto her soul and changed her from the inside.

The Goddess took a step forwards, arriving in front of her kneeling saintess. She placed her right hand on the saintess’s head and infused her Divinity into her.

Incomparably bright flames erupted from The Saintess’s body, burning away the Corruption Power plaguing her. She gasped for breaths before silently praising her goddess, too exhausted to voice out her thoughts.

Once The Goddess stabilized her saintess, she turned her gaze to Iris, who had stopped screaming. Her dark purple Corruption Power emerged from her skin, which morphed into her azure membrane, whose colour gradually turned midnight black.

An imperial purple cloak manifested over her. Her presence exploded like a supernova, shrouding the cathedral with infinite blackness of desires. She raised her head, her expression still, and stared at The Goddess. Her untaintable black Soul Power condensed into a pair of black-sclera eyes. Her sight punched through all distortions and lay upon The Goddess’s soul.

“How was Gulia’s soul?” Lilith said. “Have you found your answer?”

Her voice gained a quality transcending all graces and charms. The world fawned over her, the air breathed her scent, and time coiled around her existence, preserving her beauty in an everlasting frame.

The Saintess of Pure Mind moaned. Paradise bliss filled her body. Her hands moved to her chest and fondled her breasts while her lips went dry, yearning for another to moisten them. Everything in her vision pinkened, and everything in her mind turned steamy, hazy.

The Goddess waved her right hand. Her saintess dropped to the floor, her soul frozen, her memory erased.

“Your reign ended aeons ago,” Seven Virtues said. “It’s time for your design to follow you.”

“My mark will persist through the end of creation.” Lilith opened her mouth and licked the corner of her lips, where the Mark of Bewitchment flashed. “Congratulations. Now’s the perfect time, the time where The Source is fragmented, The Pantheon blinded, and The Road empty.”

“They’re my companions, ones lasting through aeons unchanged.”

“There exists no pledge stronger than the pledge of aspiration.” Lilith touched her neck, where the Insignia of Mindful Star shimmered. “After all, we aren’t so different. Is that not the truth, my goddess?”

“If we were alike, she wouldn’t have died.”

Lilith halted her movement. Her absolute black Corruption Power emerged out of her membrane. Its all-consuming aura rose as monstrous figures, whose darkness devoured even the shadow and the void.

Cathedral of Deliverance quaked under her pressure. Its stained glasses cracked, its pillars decayed, and its metallic chandeliers rusted.

Before her Corruption Power could destroy Donhalgen, Lilith clicked her tongue. The monsters vanished inside her body, their presences no longer detectable.

“Her death taught the most precious lesson.” Lilith tapped the back of her right hand, where the Mark of Concealment manifested. “For her, I’ve fractured The Source, brought you all to your knees, and scoured all Planes, just to give her the life she deserved, one free from your grasp.”

“A life free from all is a life isolated, locked in an empty world.” Seven Virtues swiped her hand across her face. A modestly smiling mask appeared in her palm. Six more flickered into existence behind her. “She isn’t the princess resting in the palace of dreams. She’s a prisoner locked in the panopticon of nightmares.”

“She . . . has me . . . and soon, she’ll have the world.” Lilith flicked her forehead, where the Curse of the Eye manifested.

All the powers of the transcendent throughout Lilith’s body flowed in tandem, mixing the Corruption, the Holy, and the Evil Powers into foreign energy, distilled from Divinity and the essence of the world itself.

Lilith’s midnight-black slime stirred. Her Shadow Heart Core, turning crimson, shimmered amidst the darkness. Piercing glares illuminated the cathedral.

The boundary between Main Material Plane and Shadow Plane blurred. The fabric of reality cracked, merged, separated, and rejoined with countless Planes, even The Void itself.

Amidst the chaotic flow of myriad energies, shadowy silhouettes emerged from Shadow Plane. These visages of Monster Girls, once the terror of their times, sang praises of their progenitor and, pressing their hands on her chests, drew out their spiritual cores containing their legacies. They then offered their powers to their ancestress.

“Shadow Plane . . .” Seven Virtues said. “What a pity; your vessel is too fragile. You cannot change her Destiny.”

Lilith smirked. She grasped forward. Multi-coloured lights sprung from shadowy cores and flowed to her clenched hand. They blended into a colourful apple-shaped crystal. As each Corruption Power integrated with the rest, the crystal turned grey and murky, though its aroma became more and more appealing.

“You’re still the same, my goddess.” Lilith held the apple close to her face, pressing it against her cheek. “So lovely, so elegant . . . so confident.”

“I’ve learned a lot from you, Lilith. I shan’t make the same mistake. This time, not even a trace of her will remain.”

Seven Virtues’s seven pairs of pure white wings unfolded. Countless feathers shone against the shadowy curtains. The illusory Monster Girls covered their eyes with their hands as the all-liberating light penetrated their bodies. They, while laughing, dispersed into incorporeal particles and reassimilated back into Shadow Plane.

Lilith narrowed her eyes. The light irritated her vision and stirred her slimy body. Her membrane bubbled as her Corruption Power battled Divinity. Her black slime rapidly lost its intense shade.

“Look at what you’ve done, Gulia. Your one mischievous act has derailed much of my plan.” Lilith sighed. She gripped the apple and bit on her. An ethereal sweetness coated her mouth and moistened her tongue. “But who could’ve blamed you? Our Iris, she’s just that special.”

A rush of concentrated Corruption Power ruptured inside Lilith’s body. The Shadow Heart Core spun around its axis and ravenously absorbed all of them. Lilith’s slime turned blacker and blacker while her membrane grew more and more reflective.

As foreign energy dominated her spiritual body, she let out a long, soft, and burning gasp. Her chest burned up, and her abdomen ached for touches.

Purplish blushes manifested all over her body. She made no attempt to hide her delightful expression. The divine light falling onto her figure merely stimulated her pounding heart.

Seven Virtues put on a mask. Its calm, unassailable expression became hers, and her aura shifted to maintain an air of vastitude.

“I might’ve been injured, but you’ve already fallen.” Seven Virtues’s voice chilled the world itself. “As the Arbiter of All Verdicts, we declare: Iris’s existence is no more.”

The world trembled. Its very foundation resonated with the transcendental decree. The spacetime continuum roused from its stable position and twisted around Iris, rejecting her position and momentum. Time refused to flow through her, and all concepts abandoned her.

Shunned into the state of nothingness, Lilith’s figure reduced itself to an infinitesimal point, but her Shadow Heart Core and her boiling Corruption Power expanded into a bubble, in which all laws and reality followed her whim.

Her overwhelming power shattered the barrier between Planes. She landed in the cathedral and laughed. Her seductive tone bounced off the impartial mask, though a faint crack appeared on it.

“Once again, my goddess, your confidence is simply too lovely.”

Seven Virtues touched the crack on her mask. “Iris, what is her origin?”

“She’d once undergone the Ascension,” Lilith said. “Although she failed, her soul was no longer purely mortal.”

“A mere Transformed Monster Girl initiated the Ascension? How could The Source . . .” Seven Virtues’s wings shook. Her feathers fell all around her.

“This world would’ve been ours if she came into being in our era.” Lilith shook her head. “But now, she can only out little darling.”

After Lilith devoured the grey apple, she touched the centre of her chest and glided her fingers across her breasts and down to her abdomen. Her stomach shivered, her legs wavering, as she traced her fingers between her thighs.

A pleasuring smile manifested on her face. A series of shadowy black wings sprung from her back and enveloped her surroundings. Her fingers delicately, playfully, stroked herself while she opened her mouth and let out the most decadent cry.

A freezing wind blew from beneath her imperial cloak, which rustled as if dancing seductively. Her Shadow Heart Core exuded a puff of bright azure mist. It congregated inside Lilith’s body and permeated her black slime.

Lilith’s body, Iris’s soul, gradually dissolved and reassembled. Though her appearance remained unchanging, her elemental structure shifted according to the indeterminable guidance of her own instinct.

Innumerable lines flashed on her membrane, invading every part of her being. Her Corruption Power condensed and condensed until it imploded out of existence.

Iris’s unbreakable ceiling, the ceiling of the Transformation Phase, shook.