"What is it, my friend?" Melphie's hand tightened around the Shadow Chimera's paw, her emotions otherwise invisible on her skeletal face.

"Let me…show you." He gasped, each breath a struggle. He closed his eyes and his chest shimmered before a black soul light opened, revealing the shredded tangle of soul lights that lay hidden in his chest, and tangled within the remnants of his soul, a shining blue fragment of divinity.

"You have it!" Melphie's eye flames flashed violet. "What…" She found herself speechless. "If you held this, why did you not contend for the throne? Why did you support me?"

Grimoir smiled, grimacing through the pain. "I never…wanted it. The beasts…We are strong enough without…I didn't want…to turn us into something else. Melphie, promise me something, for all my help, for all I've sacrificed, for this fragment in my chest…Promise me you'll never turn beasts undead. We are too…proud already." He closed his eyes, his chest heaving with the effort the speech took him.

"I promise, my friend." Melphie said sadly. "And I'll do you one better. For as long I reign over Death, the beasts shall fall under my protection. I won't let your legacy turn to ashes."

Grimoir could only look at her, gratitude filling his eyes as he heaved one final breath, and then fell still.

In the void, watching the scene play out, I fell to my knees. Stunned, I put a hand to my face only to find tears there.

"Why are you showing me all this? What does this have to do with anything? I'm just an insignificant blessed from another world, what's the point in seeing all this slaughter? All this sacrifice?" I cried out into the void.

A figure appeared out of the mist and crouched beside me. "This is only the beginning of what I have to show you," the goddess said in a soft voice. "You are more important than you think, young summoned. I need you to see where I've been, to understand the game you've been pulled into. To choose your place, you have to understand the stakes, and the players. Hush now and watch till the end, you'll understand why I've brought you through this period of my life."

The scene once again morphed to show Melphie still as a lich standing in the middle of a massive burnt out crater, flames still rising from cracks in the scorched earth as if the very fury of the planet itself had been unleashed.

She crouched in the middle of the barren wasteland where three blue soul fragments were left strewn haphazardly across the ground. Silently she collected them, and with a turn of her robe vanished.

The fog morphed as the scene changed until a stone altar could be seen. Melphie placed four soul fragments into the stone table, each fitting into grooved places carved out for them. Placing her hand on the altar and closing her eyes, each soul fragment began lighting up one by one, shaking in their place as mana rose around her.

The stream of mana became an overwhelming tide, her cloak billowing around her as the mana poured into the air, rippling in waves and becoming so powerful it turned visible. Blue lines of power radiating off her figure as a halo of light started to gradually appear around her head.

The power rose to a fever pitch, and Melphie tilted her head back, becoming overwhelmed by the power coursing through her, before something snapped, and the mana went wild cracking the walls like whips, sending deep jagged scars into the earth all around her before the altar itself shattered, falling down and crumbling into dust.

Melphie's breath flew back into her skeletal lungs as mortality returned to her, only to send her into a flying fit of rage. "WHAT THE F*CK!!" She unleashed a chaotic spell of red sparks that demolished half the room.

"Ok, calm down, Melphie, calm down." She rubbed her hands against her scalp to brush back nonexistent hair as she paced back and forth in the small half-demolished room. "We were close, very close. There must be something I'm missing…something. Another divinity fragment! Six must not be enough! She spun on her heels, the four divinity fragments covered in rubble flying back into her hand as she rushed back out of the room.

The scene changed once more only to reveal another black and purple void that would have been indistinguishable from the one I sat in, except for the fact that there was a slight distortion or distance that allowed me to tell the difference between the scenes I was seeing and the actual reality around me.

Melphie sat in the middle of the void, in the lotus position, her eyes closed for a long moment before finally they snapped open, her eye-flames reigniting.

"Ok, so I seem to have entered my domain, that's a good sign." She looked around the void. "With five out of the six bonded, I guess I'm getting closer to my real powers. Now to find out if my hypothesis is correct, and there's another fragment hidden in here."

She stood up and began walking around, even calling out occasionally, but hearing nothing in return, not even an echo. "Ok, so truly seems to be formless and endless. Can I shape it with my will?"

She stretched out her hand and seemed to strain for a moment, but nothing happened. "Hmm," She pondered for a moment. "How about like this?" She closed her eyes and stood still for a moment, until a soul light began to shine dimly from her chest.

She opened her eyes once more, and attempted to extend her soul light into her surroundings. Gradually it began to flow out from her chest in a meandering strand, before happening to get a little too close to the ground.

The little strand suddenly became a flood as the floor of the void began sucking soul light from Melphie's chest faster and faster. "Whoah…what's…happening." She tried in vain to pull her soul back into her chest, but the void overcame her strength as she collapsed and fell into darkness.

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