1 Prelude 1 : Perspective of a Divine Outcas

"There are no beautiful surfaces without terrible depths."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

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"Men are doomed to damnation! We can't let them live any longer!"

"What? Are you saying that we should abandon all hope and plunge them to the deepest pits of the abyss? Just like that?"

"Unacceptable! That would by far, waste our eons of efforts for their deliverance!"

"Then what are we supposed to do? Let them continue committing these abominable sins?"

Arguments like that came ricocheting right inside a luminous, and quite grand heavenly headquarters where 333 deities and Magistrates, all in charge of governing natural laws are gathered together to discuss a critical controversy that none of them can afford to be lenient about. It's whether they would let humanity continue striving, in a hope that one day they would embrace repentance in their own initiative, or let them sever once and for all to obliterate the amaranth immortality of sin.

Yet, seated at the edge of the large rectangular table encrusted with both gold and silver... the same place where the ecstatic crowd is loudly contending, is a deity who could not care less towards the point of the congregation. She is the Goddess of Disambiguation, "Dea Lacrimosa" in her usual black and noble apparel that makes her seem like an outsider in the very sacred and perpetual scene.

"This is a waste of my time... Wait, why did I even approve to be here in the first place?" She interrogates herself seeing how prosaic the conference is and how tedious it is just to listen to the endless concussion of arguments that she finds superfluous. Then, without any sense of the proper decorum that one is subject to display when around the other Divinities, especially with the revered magistrates present on their thrones, she decides to stand up from her medieval-themed seat and leave the argumentative charade for good.

"Creak!!" The sound of her chair as she stood up echoed through the room's vast space, making everyone cease their clamors while taking a moment or two to look at her with piercing glares.

Moreover, the goddess, completely ignoring why it got silent all of a sudden begins to leave the presence of the Divinities, dauntlessly.

"Lacrimosa, where are you going? Are you planning on going astray again?" A virile and low-pitched voice from one of the table's edges reacts, seeing her leaving the congregation in her own brazen accord. The intrusive voice came from a member of the magistrates, who are tasked to keep track of the deities, their decisions and of course, the order within the Divine Realm.

Usually, deities would not even dare showcase the most diminutive, uncivil acts in their presence and yet, Lacrimosa is the only exemption who fearlessly can...

And as she starts to head towards the one and only exit, some of the 332 chose to pretend not even seeing her, some begin to cower in fear for comprehensible reasons while some, chose to throw words with sharp edges, words that the Goddess herself has grown accustomed to.

"At it again, huh?"

"That's so like her."

"Sshh... Quite! You know that she is in the higher ranks, right?"

"Of course we do. I even heard she climbed the Divine hierarchy in just a few years!"

"Right. That's why she can do whatever she wants with no one stopping her. There's even this rumor that her points of authority are even enough to rival the Magistrates."

"Eh? Doesn't that make her dangerous?"

"Yes. But look at her, all sad and alone. I don't know why but she always pushes the others away."

Statements like that bombards the place which fortunately are from the heretic deities, and Lacrimosa's prowess is not so limited that she could not hear what everyone has said, and yet, for her, arguing is nothing but trivial. All that has been said are true anyways.

As she is about to opt outside through the room's aristocratic and surreal door, slowly opening with an unseen force, another voice echoed, addressing the lady...

"Lady Lacrimosa, surely you know that we can't let such risque behavior sustained on our watch. "

"My, my. I know. It's just that, taking commands from you guys is too monotonous. I'll come by around if the decree of assembly is from the 'Highest' himself. For now, I'll take my leave while you continue on your little feud... Later."

She left with as little as a graceful hand wave as an alternative form of bidding farewell, while the doors as she made it outside, shut in its own vocation.

That's right... She is an outcast. It's not that the 332 others actually consider her to be one, but the emblazonment was decided by herself alone. A divine life of isolation, away from any forms of significant contortions. An introvert so to say, but an elevated and a divine category

Moreover, her life was not always like this...

Once, she was just a lowly spirit residing in the third realm gifted with the innate prowess to manipulate negative forces and to turn it to a power of her own. The ability, however, was fated to alter her once lowly life ullaged in candor and demureness.

The same day the magistrates heard of her unique ability, she was then cardinally promoted to the Hierarchy of the Divines and was sent to the second realm 'Earth', for her first divine errand...To get hold of despair, sadness, and any ill emotions altogether from the new creations called 'Men'.

Prior, she also received discrepant warnings that she must always take heed when dealing with the creations and as well as with the fallen that runs to and fro in that realm, especially with that one figure whose name's utterance alone would cause panic for the lower deities. However, she was adamant about the promotion and just ignored the counseling statements.

She was to set on a pilgrimage as a novice divinity on the lowest hierarchy and live a candor life on Earth. "Humans would call out to me and I would answer them without falters", she thought.

She accepted the task presented to her by the same magistrates without waivers and yet, little did she know that the favored realm is a dominion that she least expected it to be and that, it was all made proven the moment the actual day of the official commencement of her pilgrimage, came forth like a devouring lion...

She arrived on the appointed realm only to see a very discrepant world from where she grew in, and her first steps were all that it took to crush all of her early prospects for the realm. A deity's connection to a man is very limited that they can't even speak with each other vis-a-vis, without special reasons. The use of paradigms for leisure is banned and magic is non-existent, and the world was so grotesque and was like the depiction of hell before the unquenchable inferno came in.

Violence. Crime. Despair. Sadness. She could all see clearly and vividly as it never ceased to rule the hearts of the majority. In other words, the realm is and had always been Dark by Default... and these, however, spelled more power for her unique ability, slowly turning her into something which she was not.