Solitude seemed to be a trend these days.
First, it was Darius and Tiamat, and now Thalia had also joined them in the endeavor.
After leaving Damien that day, Thalia found herself with a new motivation like she'd never had before.
As she acted on that motivation, she naturally lost the time to focus on other things.
Thalia had to break down what she knew about her clan's techniques and rebuild them from the ground up. It wasn't an easy task, but Thalia's understanding of those techniques surpassed that of even some of the elders.
She was the hunter who represented the village. Regardless of her young age, she managed to stand on par with the most experienced hunters and even show them up on occasion.
Every single day she went into the jungle, and every single day she got more and more experienced.
The basis of the clan's techniques was to convert barrakh into a purer form with weapons as a medium and utilize it from there.
Every hunter understood the inefficiency of this method. Weapons, at the end of the day, would only be a hindrance if one relied on them too much.
However, nobody had been able to find a way to purify barrakh internally. Even if they had an idea, none of them dared to attempt it because that would require breaking the clan's traditions.
Thalia didn't lose faith. Her conversation with Damien actually allowed her to gain a faith she didn't have before.
But she also lost the thought process that led her to follow that faith without question.
She was willing to ask the questions that needed to be asked and do the things that needed to be done for the sake of her faith, even if that meant deviating from its path.
The Gehenna Tribe needed to evolve.
They'd been stuck in their current position for too long.
Seeing Damien, a single man, eliminate the threat that haunted their entire tribe for generations, Thalia realized just how weak they were.
If they could just use energy with their bodies, if they achieved the versatility and power offered by that method, wouldn't they become something greater?
Her way of thinking was somewhat naive since she was just starting to grow out of her static mindset.
However, she was on the right path.
Everyone in the village could see it.
Many people wanted to know what she was up to, but none of them bothered her as they watched her diligently work towards her goal.
Some even went to Damien to see what he knew, but he feigned ignorance.
After all, Thalia's path was her own, and he was more than happy to just contribute to her growth silently.
Unfortunately, while her spirit was there, she didn't have enough time to make real progress.
It had already been several days. Damien's spectacles were definitely grand, but nobody forgot about the real reason behind his endeavors.
Gehenna would be welcoming visitors soon.
The Saintess had already proclaimed it. The youths who were selected to enter the realm would leave in five days.
Still, Thalia sat in her own residence, paper strewn across the floor.
Time?
She didn't need to worry about it.
She was already close to a breakthrough.
If she could make it there before Gehenna, then wouldn't that just be an added plus?
Life continued to move.
It continued to approach.
The day for everyone to realize the strange ways in which destiny worked.
***
Silence reigned in a small zen garden far separated from the tribe.
This place was odd in nature. While it did exist within the village, it was a place not even close to it.
There were several places in the massive jungle where space folded upon itself and gave way to connections that could take one to various different locations.
There were three such phenomena in the tribe's land, and the zen garden was by far the safest of them.
It was also the most hidden, both in its entrance and true location.
The zen garden was a place that no being could enter without express permission.
Therefore, for Tiamat, there was no better place than this to meditate.
Tiamat came out of seclusion for a few days after hearing about all the racket in the village, but she returned afterward since nothing of note was happening.
She wasn't really interested in Gehenna. Neither she nor Darius were given the right to enter because neither of them had the qualifications. Darius was disappointed about it, but she didn't really care.
She was obviously going to attend the realm's opening, but in the days before that, she was planning to continue doing what she'd been doing for the past year.
Tiamat allowed herself to be swallowed by the world.
One had to wonder what she wanted to see.
Ever since her youth, Tiamat had been alone. She never felt a connection to anyone or anything. In fact, the only semblance of the feeling she got before meeting Damien was the closeness she felt to the prison that entrapped her for over 10,000 years.
However, this world gave her that feeling.
She wanted to know why.
As for what came after that, even she didn't know, because she had little to no information about what she was actually looking for.
But the world was providing her with it regardless.
As if welcoming home a child it had dearly missed for a very long time, the world accepted her and allowed her to witness the things she was never meant to see.
They started as dark flashes of memory, just flecks that didn't have any real meaning on their own.
When Tiamat concentrated and exerted herself to dive deeper, however…
…those flashes expanded into something indescribable.
This world's energy accepted her.
Instinctually, she felt that this place was her home.
But…how?
She had never been here before. It didn't exist in her memories no matter how early she went.
Those flashes told a different story.
She saw herself, or rather, a version of herself that she didn't know.
A dark queen, yet a newborn baby.
An unbelievable monster born from inconceivable circumstances.
Lost in reality, trapped in the depths of her own mind.
A figure was there, a huge figure she could never seem to see the face of.
Something about that figure felt familiar.
As its hand approached closer to her, she felt what should've been warmth.
It was cold.
Extremely cold.
That being was not human.
That being was not living.
Yet it was alive.
And it terrified her.
From that being, she felt what should have been love.
But it was really the indescribable urge to tear her to shreds.
Her existence was a burden.
Her existence was a blessing.
What was she?
Not a single person knew.
Tiamat clutched her head.
It hurt, like thousands of needles were stabbing into her scalp.
She didn't understand what was flashing through her mind. The more she saw, the more uncomfortable she became.
She pushed on for the sole purpose of getting what she wanted, but the further she pushed, the further she seemed to move away from reality.
Yet…
The less "real" reality felt, the more she felt as if she was witnessing the truth behind the images shown to her.
For the past year, she'd only been experiencing spiritual chaos.
That chaos had been dying down recently, but it still appeared in the aforementioned form, a blob of memories and words with no semblance of rhyme or reason.
She wanted to see the bottom of it.
But for now, she had to take a break.
Not only to calm her own psyche, but to witness the event that everyone had been waiting for.
Gehenna.
It was finally time for Damien and the rest to enter that realm.
