Every step Thalia took towards the pantheon became heavier after a certain point in time.
She felt a sinking feeling in her heart as if she was going to lose something important, but she had no way to identify the nature of those feelings.
Unlike Damien, she didn't even know there was an extinction-level event happening for the Gehenna Tribe right now.
Since she was young, she'd been told she was the Saintess' successor.
Her position had been decided at birth. She was chosen by the spirits.
Thalia never understood why.
She was definitely more talented than most people, but she wasn't fit to lead the tribe.
She was a hunter. That was her calling.
She always took the things she heard about her future as the Saintess with a grain of salt, barely believing she would ever actually get raised to that point.
But it happened.
She arrived here quite confidently because that was the mentality she held when going into anything and everything, but in reality, it was just now setting in the kind of responsibility that was being placed on her shoulders.
Was she ready for it?
'I'm not.'
She wasn't even close to being prepared to lead the entire tribe.
She'd shadowed the Saintess for years and knew exactly how much she had to do to keep the tribe stable. There were many threats that only the Saintess could deal with, things that threatened the tribe that the tribespeople didn't even know about.
She wasn't mature enough, nor was she stable enough in her own self to take the position that she was destined for.
Still, she pushed down the uncomfortable feeling in her chest.
No matter what it stemmed from, what was ahead of her was more important.
The second she entered that building, everything would change.
She wouldn't be able to live whimsically anymore.
She would willingly be trapping herself in a cage.
'But, that cage is the one I have chosen.'
She was a free-spirited person, so it was a hard decision to make, but she always knew the answer deep down.
She cared about the tribe more than anything else. For the tribe, she was willing to do anything.
She may have been able to achieve the position of Great Hunter easily and gained the respect of everyone, but if she wanted to bring her ambitions to reality, the Saintess role was her only choice.
If she wanted to bring the Gehenna Tribe as high as she envisioned it and introduce them to the wider world she saw through Damien and his peers, she needed the appropriate status.
Therefore, her hesitation was nothing but a fleeting feeling.
Her overwhelming confidence and the weight of her dreams allowed her to walk forward with pride, entering the pantheon to face her ancestors.
Thalia believed that she would see a bunch of heroic statues possessing souls, or maybe even the bare spirits of the ancestors themselves, but the pantheon was surprisingly dark and empty, almost as if it had been abandoned for a very long time.
The walls were covered in murals, stories of those this pantheon was created to worship. The ceiling was also decorated, however, it was in the image of the highest power, that being who governed all things.
The floor looked like it wasn't made of anything at all. Texturally and visually, it was no different from dirt.
This was a sort of symbolism, representing humanity's connection with the earth, its ability to create heroes, and its submission under the great cosmos.
Despite the beautiful decorations, Thalia still didn't see any hint of other presences in her vicinity.
'Could it be…that they have left…?'
She was wrong, but she had no way of knowing that. Ironically, Thalia didn't have much experience in the spiritual aspects of life.
Her instincts told her to stay where she was. If she left now, the opportunity awaiting her would vanish.
She could tell nothing else, and her environment showed no sign of hostility or danger.
If she took this as another sort of hunt, she could easily wait as long as she needed to.
Patience was a key skill for both a hunter and a leader.
Thalia had long grown used to waiting hours on end for her prey to show an opening. Waiting for her ancestors to acknowledge her was light work.
So she stood there for hours, waiting for any sort of response.
Unbeknownst to her, those same ancestors she was waiting for had been observing her since the moment she arrived at the pantheon.
"Her senses are incredible."
A man with hulking muscles and shining golden armor spoke, rubbing his chin in respect.
"Indeed. This Saintess is quite different from the others."
Another man, his peer, responded.
These conversations couldn't be heard by an average being.
There were tens of them in the pantheon, sharing opinions as they continued to watch Thalia.
Many of them were men, Great Hunters who'd accomplished miraculous feats for both the tribe and Gehenna itself.
A majority of the rest were women, Saintesses of the previous generations.
And unlike the men who were impressed by Thalia's qualities as a hunter, they all had furrowed brows and concerned expressions on their faces.
It was their job to bestow Thalia with her ability.
As such, they knew what kind of ability she'd be given.
"She already possesses a vestige of the past generation's Future Sight. If her own ability is compounded with that…"
A certain Saintess who lived almost ten generations ago spoke worriedly.
"...the current trajectory of the tribe…is it good or bad?"
A fellow Saintess finished her thought.
They couldn't tell.
Whatever Thalia became when she finished digesting her inheritance…
Whatever was happening in the outside world to provoke such a transformation…
…there was no way for them to tell whether it would be the tribe's fortune or its ruin.
"In the end, it is not our duty to decide. We can only grant her the power to persevere and watch over our descendant's journey."
The first-generation Saintess, the woman who originally allowed the Gehenna Tribe to form a connection with a Gehenna and become what it was today, she was the one who said those words.
And the others had no choice but to agree.
The fate of a Gehenna Saintess could be extremely cruel. They'd experienced it personally.
However, if a Saintess was able to persevere through that cruelty and come out the other side stronger…
Only one thing needed to be said.
There was a reason the Gehenna Tribe was once the ruler of the sacred jungle.
Thalia naturally didn't know any of this was happening.
She was still waiting for some sort of reaction from the pantheon.
She had yet to realize that something inside of her was already changing.
As the Saintesses of past generations blessed her qualities as a Saintess, and as the Great Hunters of past generations blessed her qualities as a warrior, a massive transformation started taking root in Thalia's body.
A power like nothing the Gehenna Tribe had ever seen started to bloom.
It was not a power meant to protect like most others had been, nor was it a power to foresee like the current Saintess had.
No, it was a power that showed only one future for the tribe Thalia would come to rule.
Conquest.
