-What do you suppose it would do if you press it?
Rueben was currently staring at a button, just near enough that he could press it again and again. The voice suddenly sounded out on his bead when he just found the button.
Hearing that voice again, Rueben stared at the button.
"...It'll probably explode?"
-Explode? What is that?
The voice asked with an innocent tone.
Rueben looked at the button, pursed his lips before saying, "Where are you talking to me from?"
-...
The voice didn't answer. Rueben tried to ask more questions, only to be met with silence as the voice seemingly dissappeared.
He waited for a few more moments to make sure that the voice refused to answer before shaking his head and let out a sigh.
He flipped the bedsheets from a bed and found nothing.
***
Annatella took a sip from her teacup as she stared at Hershey holding a doll on her hand.
The doll looked identical to the little girl, except it was far more smaller than her petite body. Hershey stared at her "Past" self, a doll, a vessel in which she had threw all her past into and only left the "Present" and the "Future" for herself.
She abandoned her "Past" long ago and have since tried to move past the "Present" and find her "Future". Although it made her incomplete, without the burdens of her past, she was stronger.
But now....
"If you really are planning on killing that huntress, you must be in your optimal condition. Mother will put restrictions and barriers around her to protect her from any harm."
Annatella raised her chin as she put down the tea cup in her hand.
"My job is to distrupt the "Flow" of "Space" by showing it "Illusions". The restrictions and barriers will treat reality as "Fiction", thus enabling you to bypass it."
Hershey stared at her and prompted her to continue by nodding her head.
"I am nowhere near Mother's level of power and control of Concept, but i should be able to disrupt it for a few moments, atleast 10 seconds."
Annatella stopped, and leaned forward, her face full of gloom as she spoke.
"You have ten seconds to bypass the secondary restrictions and barriers that Mother will be puttng. You might also be dealing with a third or a fourth, maybe even more but if you give it your all, this plan might work."
Hershey glanced at her, before turning back to the doll who was looking at her straight in the eyes.
Then she turned to Annatella, "What would you gain from all this? To be thinking of betraying Mother, you must have already entertained such thoughts in the past?"
Annatella looked at her with a self depreciating smile.
"Even i have my limits. I want to die, Hershey. To be free, to escape from this never ending labyrinth of rebirth and death. A cycle of despair that perpetually spins for eternity."
Then she moved her head to look up and sighed, "Even if i die, i won't truly "Die". Mother will only reform me later."
She then turned her eyes back to Hershey.
"Mother seems to regard the huntress with high expectations, her affections overflowing. If we managed to kill her, Mother will surely get mad and there would be a high likelihood that i would finally be erased."
Her eyes hollow as she spoke, "I have too much things to lose if we fail this. Not just a chance but an opportunity to finally rest."
Hershey stared at her, "But none of these will work if Mother have already imprinted her soul–"
"She won't be coming back." Annatella cut her off.
"..."
"Mother is not in her optimal state, no, her body is crumbling. I know this because this is the reason she is trying so hard to find a Successor, someone or something she could pass her powers to. She can barely disrupt the force on air, much less put an Imprint."
She continued, "Besides, she had changed conditions in exchange for the labyrinth to be hidden from every senses. Anyone can enter and that those who died will revive infinitely. These two conditions in exchange for hiding this labyrinth. Being able to put an imprint is just a side effect of the second condition."
"..."
Hershey stayed silent as Annatella stared at her
Then she softly sighed and grabbed the head of the doll and broke it into pieces, she then compelled herself to calm down as memories, pain, guilt, regrets and all kinds of negativity drilled into her head, trying to reclaim a place once lost.
Hershey grunted and gritted her teeth from the seat as Annatella observed her movements in silence, trying hard to not disturb her from becoming complete.
Her eyes then turned to look up before closing.
"Give me a few moments." Hershey spoke clearly as sweat dripped from her forehead.
Annatella just nodded her head.
Her eyes opened, and she found herself staring at the ceiling in silence.
"The day has finally come." She muttered softly as she closed her eyes once more.
Hershey stared at her as she grew in height. Her body became mannequin like and less doll like as she grew.
Annatella closed her eyes and grabbed the tea cup, then drank from it.
***
The woman sensed something and looked up, at you. Then she smiled and looked forward, to Gwynne who was floating in the air, naked in a fetal position.
Her hair was stretched into a wide arc with impossible geometric shapes connecting her to the ground.
Hershey and Annatella was behind her with their eyes closed, their arms under their belly as the stood there silently.
The woman stared at the two of them with a smile before turning towards Gwynne.
[Tommorrow. As soon the the stars align, we shall hold the succession ceremony. Hershey, Annatella, i need the both of you to quickly gather the remaining Visages i bled out. They're need for this child's succession.]
Hershey stared at her before bowing her head in submission.
"By your will."
She softly said before she dissappeared while Annatella bowed slightly and muttered, "Thy will be done.
Then she too dissappeared.
The woman then turned around and sat down on a stool, watching Gwynne's body as it slowly changed.
The woman's eyes turned green for a moment, before a smile wide enough to form a river appeared on her face as countless worms crawled from underneath her skin.
[Impressive!]
Then she held Gwynne's hand and softly carassed it with her palm.
[Witch of Black Chaos, quite an impressive name, don't you think?]
***
Far away from the lands of Victorian Continent, a land which spirituality and Phenomenons rules, a being opened its eyes.
Shrouded in darkness as he stared at the moonlight that lit his entire abode.
The being stared at the skies for a moment, then his long ears the size of half a meter twitched. The being arose from his position and turned to look at another direction.
"....Imperiality?"
He muttered as he felt the twist of strings on his shoulder tighten even more. Another being appeared behind him, this being had 8 long horns from the back of his head that stretched to atleast a meter.
He turned around and looked at the being who had appeared suddenly.
"Have you felt it?"
The long eared nodded his head as the horned being stared at the sky.
"Corruption has taken root. At the center of the world, a new order will be established and the false prophecy shall become true."
The long eared listened before his entire being felt chills from the depths of his soul. The horned being itself also shivered as it felt a sense of terror from something.
"We are being watched."
They simultaneously looked to the side as they felt the barriers of the different realms slowly shift.
"..."Aclypiusthese"—" The horned being muttered before his entire arms bursts from the sheer force of gravity that was suddenly brought upon him.
He kneeled down on the ground while chanting a spell, he stopped the bleeding as the long eared individual kneeled down to check on him while sweating.
A smile formed from the void as it watched the two of them.
The horned being had cold sweat running down on his back as he gazed at the being from beyond the void. The being only smiled as the horned being bleed out from all his orifices.
The attention that he had willingly brought to himself dissappeared. He breathed a sigh of relief as the long eard individual tried using a spell to help regenerate his arm.
"It is of no use. I have already been corrupted by an evil god." The horned individual smiled depreciatingly as he stared at the long eared individual.
"She" has already warned me." The horned individual muttered to the long eared person.
The long eared person closed his eyes as he gritted his teeth.
"It seems the Fae'Shar's rule has come."
"So it has." The horned being nodded his head in agreement.
***
The woman chuckled before entirely forgetting what just happened. She looked at Gwynne before chuckling once more.
Then she raised her arm up in the air, before slicing her wrist with a sharp piece of a dimension. Blood sipped from her wrist before it floated up. Black ink was then sucked in by the blood like a black hole as the woman's body shriveled up.
[It is time.] She muttered as Hershey and Annatella looked on.
Their eyes communicating as they stared at the woman's back.
The woman looked at them from behind her eyes and smiled brightly as she saw the entire world distort into black and white zigzags.
The Concept of Illusion.
Annatella's Interpretation: Illusion that tricks your brain into thinking that what you are seeing is real, and thus treating that Illusion as reality when it is not. Even if one does know that they are under an Illusion, their brains will never be able to process such information and treat the incoming Illusions as Reality.
The woman smiled before pushing the entire clot of blood towards Gwynne.
Hershey dashed forward and tried touching the blood clot but soon found that she couldn't touch it as her hand only passed through it.
No. It was more like what she was seeing was but an aferimage of the blood clot. As soon as she processed this information, she swiftly turned around and dashed towards Gwynne.
Annatella took off her veil as she raised her arms up to the woman, the woman only gazed at her before raised her cut off wrist that still had blood flowing out of it to the blood clot.
Then she straightened her palm and pointed it to Annatella's direction.
The entire space in that particular direction was sliced with the length and width of her palm.
Then she pointed towards Hershey and smiled but her entire vision suddenly blurred. When she regained her eyesight just a moment later, she found her hand pointing to herself.
She turned to Gwynne, who already was choking herself.
The Concept of Compelling.
Hershey's Interpretation: It compels you to do a certain action that you would think as something that you would do. It directly tells your brain to do a certain action and the brain would find it to be a reasonable action and thus act on that action.
Hershey stared at the woman with fear and hope as she tightened the clenching of Gwynne's hand from her neck.
Hershey then fell down on the floor, her head rolling as she stared at what the remains of her body falling down to the floor.
Her arms stretched towards Gwynne fell down as her two feet was firmly standing up.
Her entire torso and thigh had dissappeared.
Her shook as Annatella screamed out.
"It is done, Hershey!! The first restriction can be bypassed!"
When she heard that, Hershey appeared to Gwynne's side and compelled the woman to unlock the other restrictions which the woman only did.
Annatella screamed in excitement as she saw Hershey near the huntress.
Then Hershey raised her arms and tried to stab through Gwynne's chest and dig up her heart when Annatella suddenly coughed up blood.
Then she turned around and saw Rueben looking straight at her with a sharpened bone on his hand. Then he turned to Gwynne as Hershey dug her hands into her chest and pulled out her heart.
Rueben's eyes went wide as he swiftly ran towards her. Hershey clicked her tongue as she slashed at Rueben with her hands, only for it to pass through. Hershey stared at the disappearing visage of Rueben and turned to the woman, who was smiling.
[That is one of the paths.]
Hershey suddenly coughed up blood as she felt a stinging pain from her chest and looked down to see a knife stabbed through her. Then she turned her head and looked at Rueben, who had tears running from his eyes as he twisted the knife.
She swiftly swung her arm to Rueben, who also dissappeared like the other one.
[That is also one of the paths.]
The woman smiled.
Hershey stared at her as she saw another one, it was herself. She was standing behind the woman before her eyes glinted and used her hand to stab through the woman.
The woman only smiled.
[This is another action that you would take in the path.]
She then turned around and saw Annatella choking her from beside the woman.
[This is also another.]
The woman stepped towards her as she smiled.
Another visage was of Rueben and Hershey stabbing the woman in the head and the chest.
[Also another.]
She took one more step closer.
Hershey stared at her as she coughed up more black liquid.
The woman was standing infront of her, looking down at her with a wide smile and glowing crescent eyes as she stared down at her.
[Thank you, my child. Your sacrifice shall aid your youngest sibling.] She softly muttered
She patted her head as countless scenes flew past her mind. Hershey stared at them in shock as she found each and every possible actions that she and Annatella would do. There were even some scenes that made her find help with the Hunter.
Other scene of betraying the Hunter and Annatella, other of her and Annatella succeeding by dying, others by using the Hunter...
Millions, billions of scenes of possibilities ran past her mind as she stared at the void in shock.
This....
This was planned.
Their entire plan was planned.
The woman smiled as she stood up and turned at Gwynne.
[Now without a heart..] She then took out Gwynne's brain and consumed it. [Without a brain.]
Then she grinned as Rueben opened the door, the entire labyrinth shaking as it was absorbed into the blood clot that was already forming above Gwynne's chest.
[The Body.] She gestured to Rueben.
Then she turned to look at the woman beside Gwynne.
Rueben's eyes shook as he screamed out her name, "Sara!!"
The woman then pointed her palm at Sara.
[The Heart.]
Then she pointed to herself with an open palm.
[The Brain.]
She smiled and turned to Gwynne before pointing at her.
[The Soul.]
Then she raised her two arms high up in the air as the entire space around her distorted. Then the dimensions broke apart and mirror images of themselves was duplicated infinitely.
[All the parts have come! The stars have aligned!]
Rueben gritted his teeth and held the knife on his hand and dashed towards the woman.
[It is time to create the Witch!]
The woman smiled.