The scene blinked as Melphie opened her eyes once more, but she was still surrounded by the void. She looked around only to find a blue divinity fragment hovering in the air before her.

"Is this…the one I hadn't bonded to yet?" She took the divinity fragment, looking at it puzzled. Suddenly the ground beneath her began to shake, and the void moaned and screeched as if something was tearing it apart from the outside. The divinity fragment shot out of her hands into her chest, but the ground only began shaking more violently.

Suddenly another divinity fragment shot out from her pocket and began trying to fly away, only for an unseen force to begin pulling it gradually backwards until, unable to escape, it was violently sucked back, also shooting into Melphie's chest.

Her eye sockets immediately flooded with golden light and she gradually lifted off the ground, her head tilted backwards as if she had been shocked unconscious. Mana poured off of her in waves, turning blue, purple, and then finally golden as the halo around her head began flowing outwards into the rest of her aura until she became so blinding that I had to close my eyes, white once more flooding the vision the void was showing me.

When the light faded Melphie found herself in the middle of a garden-like forest. A small creek burbled its way through rose bushes and sparse white-barked trees from a spring that rose up next to the lush grass clearing Melphie sat in.

She looked around only to quickly realize her arms were no longer skeletal. Instead she had taken on the human-like form that I had first seen the goddess in. Her lush dark brown hair curling down to her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face set with two lavender-grey eyes underneath long black lashes.

The resemblance to who she had been before her lichhood was unmistakable, though her beauty far exceeded that of her former self. "Have I…ascended?" She looked in wonder at her flawless porcelain skin and the lush woodland around her.

She closed her eyes, summoning her soul light, to see if there were any changes, only to open them in shock again as six soul lights fled from her chest, each settling into their own place on the grass lawn.

"Wha—"She started, only to be interrupted by voices.

"I'm free!"

"What happened…?"

"Damn that Vampire King! Damn that Lich! This has taken too much out of me!"

"Why are we just sitting around? Where are we?"

"I exist! Hahahahaha."

"Mistress…" All of the lights turned to the voice, and then turned to Melphie. "What do you plan for us?"

"Who…What are you?" Melphie looked confused, though as yet none of the lights seemed threatening.

"We are you, and you are us. But as the original soul, you maintain control over our body. As such you have authority over all of us." The light who had addressed her responded.

"Authority? You're me? What are you talking about? Aren't you clearly separate people?"

"When a soul rises to godhood, it expands and fuses with each fragment of divinity, creating parallel minds that are dependent on the original for their existence. We are each a product of a slightly different section of your soul, meaning that despite slight differences in our personality, we are still you. We can only appear separate from you, because your domain has summoned a soul scape in which we are able to persist outside of your body."

Melphie turned pensive and put a hand to her chin as she looked at the ground. "So that's what those texts on the nature of divinity were speaking of." She looked again at the soul lights surrounding her. "I thought you'd all feel more…I don't know, familiar, like extensions of my will rather than as separate entities."

"Perhaps because we are in your soul scape?" One of the other lights suggested. "In the outside world we'd basically be voices in your head."

"No, even then." Melphie shook her head. "I don't like this, you all feel separate from my will, rather than a part of it." She frowned.

One of the lights shifted uncomfortably. "So…What are you going to do with us then?" They said in a small voice.

"I don't know what the other gods do about this, but I'll do this my own way. From now on, you're not me, you're your own people. I think binding you to serve me for all eternity is the wrong move, even, or maybe especially if you're really me. I wouldn't want to treat others like that, let alone parts of myself.

"The world is vast, and I rule a domain now. I'm sure eventually we can figure something out to get you your own bodies. As for the rest, why don't we start getting to know eachother for a while. You should all have your own names, but that may take a bit for us to figure out."

"Yay! Names!" One of the lights rushed up to Melphie and nuzzled against her chest. "You're the best. hehehe."

"And who's this little one?" Melphie said amused as she petted the light in her lap.

"I believe she was formed from the divine fragment Grimoir, the Shadow Chimera, gave us. It's been a long time since undead of her lineage have walked the lands, but I believe in antiquity they used to be called the Night Mistresses."

I gasped and took a step back in the void, but the scene kept playing.

"Ooh stream!" The light turned and jumped off Melphie's lap to go jump in the stream, her illusory legs splashing in the waters.

"She seems a little different from the rest of you." Melphie looked over the other lights who had remained motionless and more or less silent except when they had something to say out of obedience to their original.

"Perhaps she was born from a more child-like section of your soul, or perhaps her divine fragment changed her more than most of us. Who can say?" Another light shrugged.

"Riviera." Melphie smiled, looking at the soul light playing in the water of the stream. "I think I'll call her Riviera."

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