Ophelia stood tall as she lingered on the riverbank next to the cadaver dam.

It had been over a month since her descent, and she'd met Leila — she'd been using the people thrown over the waterfall to mark each week. Unfortunately, she'd been unable to save the three as they died on impact — with two of the three being her parents…

She was at least able to fish the bodies out of the basin and give them a proper burial. Though having to watch her parents die in front of her eyes only increased and solidified her hatred and increased her desire for vengeance.

That month, an equal amount of tears and sweat was shed…

In any case, the current day was the coming-of-age ceremony. Meaning, it was also the day she'd make her first move.

Her progress at first had been relatively slow… she didn't think she'd achieve her goals by the designated day. But lo and behold, she stood now having transfused the two cores inside of her after training to be able to sense Aether.

Also, she was making good headway in her understanding of her Soul Scripture, which had been streamlined the moment she'd formed the core.

By meditating and closing her eyes and sending her Aether through her mind and then to the back of her eyelids, words would form that she could roughly make out.

᪥᪥᪥

Name: [Ophelia Withergaiden]

Title: [W*t**ed Ro*e **o*ms *nc* Mo**]

Aspect: [Kindness]

Class: [Virtue]

Core Rank: [Nascent] - (34/700)

Traits: [Gift of Kindness] [Thorny Path] [Nemesis]

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And by focusing on each word, the words on the back of her eyelids would whirl and transform into an incomprehensible string — It was forming unfinished descriptions.

[Kindness] - [Shattered … Hope … … nestles … share with … once more… bring Kindness back … world …]

The Aspect was the most shattered and unintelligible one, but more words would naturally form as Ophelia got stronger and her understanding improved.

Next was…

[Gift of Kindness] - [Spread the Kindness once lost … nurture the lands with … breathe life into that once lost … be not sparing in your grace … … … it is this gift which … …]

Ophelia didn't understand much from the words she saw, but what she did learn from Leila was that Kindness's main power was mending. This Trait seemed to be the healing aspect of her abilities brought by Kindness.

It was also the foreign power that acted on its own to keep her alive.

[Nemesis] - [Envy is powerless in the face of Kindness. Greed wants to give up their possessions and run. Wrath wants to forgive and forget.

Don't let them.]

This Trait was the one that nullified Envy's power, alongside weakening Greed and Wrath. Though the 'Don't let them' seemed a bit harsh for Kindness… not that Ophelia disagreed with the sentiment.

Next was the last Trait, which was the one she'd gotten from her own experience, regardless of Kindness' influence. It was also the Trait that was the least fragmented in its description.

[Thorny Path] - [You walk a path of thorns. With each step, your heels sink deeper, and the river of blood grows thicker — the dripping blood which floods the river forces a perpetually terrible path. The only way to … yourself from drowning in the … of blood is to create and choose the thorns that pierce your feet.

This ability… was much more understandable than the other two.

Its main feature was the ability to form and control thorny roses from the ground around her.

While it didn't sound like much, she could imbue these roses with Aether and grow them to be unnaturally tough and large. Of course, her proficiency wasn't the best yet, and her reserves were pretty limited. Although she did accomplish making a dress of roses and thorns to help repair her tattered clothes and hold the stands together.

She also managed to make a sword from a sharpened stem of an overgrown rose.

It didn't look all too deadly, but it was rending through the Nascent Aberrant beasts, which occasionally passed by her, with absolute ease.

Plus, her roses didn't take Aether to sustain, so once they were created, they remained.

Finally, there was one more odd change she'd gone through in the past month…

Her curly hair had straightened. It was an odd phenomenon, but apparently par for the course for beings of Aether. It seemed curls didn't hold well in bodies sustained by Aether.

Well, speaking of her body… she'd gone through a metamorphosis of sorts and, while nothing outwardly happened other than her hair changing, her body was no longer human. Or at least, it was on the path of leaving its humanity behind.

When she breathed, she breathed in Aether alongside oxygen, and soon, it would become just Aether.

Not that she knew what oxygen was, but Ophelia could tell that how her body responded to the natural world had undoubtedly changed.

Ophelia took a long breath and cast her gaze up to the side of the gorge as the sun barely peeked over the ridge. Yet, in front of the sun, a lone teen was slowly pushing themselves off the edge with a rope tied around their waist.

Soon, more and more began to appear and begin the descent.

Ophelia, all the while, waited at the edge of the basin in a chair made of roses. All around her were uprooted Lilac Liora'fen, which would never bloom again.

Ophelia watched with dismay as the kids barely younger or older than her kept struggling in their perilous descent. She had already helped in the way of clearing out beasts, but there was no way she'd be able to protect each one on their journey.

So, as Leila had suggested, Ophelia left their survival in their own hands — up to fate.

A couple of hours passed when the first descender reached the bottom of the gorge and was now beginning to navigate the talus and approach the plunge basin.

When they completed the arduous journey, their eyes settled on the one thought to have been dead.

Ophelia stared back into the boy's eyes.

'Ezekiel… So, it's you.'

The boy with an odd sparkle in his eye tiredly staggered to Ophelia's rose throne. And inspected the girl's face to see if he was hallucinating.

Ophelia smiled at Ezekiel, then said:

"The Goddess has chosen me. You all are to accept her will…"

Ophelia paused for dramatic effect, then continued:

"And she has a mission for you."

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