Echoes of the Sacred and the Profane

The room was a sanctuary of contrasts, a place where the decay of the alley met a divine and dreamlike luxury.

(Fffuuu... hsssh... sssss...)

The air was saturated with a dense haze, a smoke that did not stifle but rather caressed the senses with the scent of exotic flowers and forbidden resins.

(Sssss... sss...)

Spirals of white smoke twisted in the air like silk serpents, dancing around the old wooden beams.

(Plip... ploc... ploc...)

In the corners, where the darkness was thickest, the sound of dampness reclaimed its space.

(Ting... plink... tong!)

Every drop of water falling from the copper pipes seemed to be tuned, striking strategically placed silver bowls to create a constant aquatic melody.

"Hahaha~!"

And amidst that hypnotic atmosphere, a crystal-clear and playful laugh broke the monotony of the dripping.

"What a delicious tea, darling! ?"

There, sitting face to face in a scene that seemed torn from a fever dream or a distorted fairy tale, were Melioris and the mysterious woman.

"It comforts me that it is to your liking, little one."

The table was a feast of fine porcelain, cakes of impossible colors, and steaming teapots that defied the logic of the place.

"The taste of perfection is the only one worth possessing, don't you think?"

The female figure, sitting with one leg crossed over the other, was the embodiment of absolute perfection. Her appearance was not the result of biology, but rather the distillate of human imagination: she possessed a skin of unreal clarity, free of any imperfection, which seemed to emit a soft glow beneath the shadows. Her face was a perfect symmetry; her lips, of a natural and fleshy red, seemed designed for seduction, and her gaze held the depth of a thousand fulfilled desires.

"In this corner of the world, everything that glitters... belongs to me, even this moment."

Every curve of her body, from the slope of her shoulders to the arch of her waist, was the physical representation of the supreme ideal that men sought in their deepest dreams. Her hands, long and slender, held the teacup with an elegance that made every movement seem like a sacred ritual.

(Fiiiiiiiiiiiiii!)

Dressed in her dark and translucent silks, the goddess tilted her head, observing Melioris through the steam of her cup.

"What a heavy thought for such a light afternoon!"

Melioris commented in response, glancing at her with a spark of amusement.

"I prefer to say that this moment is using us. Enjoy your treasure while it shines, darling, because chaos has a nasty habit of turning gold into ash just when you stop looking."

After letting those words slip with a languid smile, the young goddess let herself fall backward.

"Right?"

However, instead of hitting the floor, her body remained suspended in nothingness, reclining in the air as if the void were the softest divan in the world. She began to spin around in a lazy choreography, holding the porcelain cup with her fingertips as she moved it away from her face with a theatrical gesture.

"You are right, it certainly is fascinating, isn't it?"

Faced with the scene, the "goddess" replied with a voice that sounded like the brush of silk against skin.

"But what does it matter! Either way... this tea is delicious! ?"

But at that moment, Melioris cut the conversation short, spilling the liquid from her cup and, in turn, breaking every law of physics.

(Fuuuush!)

The tea emerged from the rim in an amber ribbon that, instead of falling, projected upward in an inverted cascade. The stream began to weave through the air, tracing a dizzying loop, like the twist of an invisible roller coaster.

(Sssshhhhuuuuuuuu!)

The liquid flowed with unnatural speed, gaining momentum in the void until, after completing a perfect turn over the wooden beams, it descended in a flawless arc directly into Melioris's half-open mouth.

"Glug, glug, glug~!"

She received the nectar with a sigh of satisfaction, while her body continued to spin slowly in that feast of non-existent gravity, leaving the Archbishop of Greed—inside the body of a goddess—as the sole witness to her brazen freedom.

"...."

The "goddess" watched in silence as Melioris held the porcelain, drinking the tea with an elegance that bordered on the inhuman, her movements so fluid they lacked the friction typical of living beings, nonchalantly ignoring the laws of reality.

"Tell me, little one... what brings you here?"

Finally, as she set her cup down on the lace tablecloth, she broke the silence with a question charged with millennial curiosity.

"Your existence is... singular, to say the least."

The "goddess" asked, narrowing her perfect eyes, fixed on the singular being floating before her.

"Singular?"

At the comment, Melioris slowly stopped drinking, pulling the cup away from her lips with deliberate slowness.

"What do you mean by that?"

She tilted her head innocently; with her heterochromatic gaze, which seemed to reflect an infinite void, she blinked as if she did not grasp the depth of the question.

"I mean how unusual it is to have you before me. You are a walking anomaly, a precious error in the tapestry of this world."

The "goddess" replied as her fingers stroked the edge of her velvet chair, her interest growing. But what the "goddess"—or rather, the Mage within her—did not say aloud was what the divine instincts of the body were screaming at him.

(What is she...?)

Even if the Mage's soul was that of a mere human, his body, on the contrary, was that of an entity born from the human collective psyche. Therefore, he was capable of perceiving pure Divinity; he could feel the weight of concepts and the power of essences.

(There is no doubt she is a goddess... But... I doubt that is all...)

Before her, Melioris was no simple girl, but a being whose nature vibrated with a unique sacred frequency.

(Her presence...)

However, what intrigued him most—and disturbed him in equal measure—was the subtlety of her presence.

(She is barely perceptible even now, despite being right in front of me.)

In spite of the immense divinity emanating from Melioris, her trace in reality was almost imperceptible, as if her being were made of the same substance as the air or the inconsequential things surrounding them.

(Sssss... hsssh...)

For the "goddess," looking at Melioris was like trying to catch smoke between one's hands.

(Ploc... plip...)

Her presence blended unnaturally with the constant dripping of water and the wisps of incense, becoming just another part of the inanimate environment.

(Truly... It is intriguing...)

That was the reason for her bewilderment: she had to keep her attention focused absolutely on every corner of the room, processing the smoke and the sound simultaneously so as not to lose sight of her. It was a presence so ethereal that until Melioris decided to introduce herself and make her presence known, the goddess had been unable to detect her—as if the girl were a secret the air itself tried to keep.

(Fffuuu... hsssh...)

With that recognition, the atmosphere in the room grew denser, almost elastic, as both measured each other in a game of courtesy and poison.

"Hm-hm-hm... ?"

With feline languor, Melioris began to perform pirouettes, lying lazily in mid-air. She rotated with hypnotic slowness, her silver hair unfolding like a silk net as her body spun horizontally, completely ignoring the floor.

"Ts... sssip... ...mm..."

On the other hand, the "goddess" raised her cup with impeccable elegance; her manners were a reminder of why humans had imagined her as perfection. She took a small sip, the liquid disappearing behind her red lips.

"Hey, listen..."

Then, breaking the tense silence that had formed, Melioris completed a full turn, ending up upside down while watching the goddess with a playful smile.

"I'm impressed by how well you know how to fake another identity~!"

Melioris threw those words out while staring fixedly at the "goddess" in front of her. Finally...

"Mmm-mmm... What are you talking about...?"

... She slightly cracked her disguise as the "goddess" arched an eyebrow. Her eyes shimmered with a desire she was unable to fully conceal.

"Pfff... hahaha! ?"

In response to that slight reaction, Melioris let out a small giggle and waved her hand dismissively, as if swatting away a bothersome fly, ignoring the tension radiating from the figure before her.

"Oh, come on. You can stop acting now. It's exhausting to look at a mask so... perfect, when the interior sounds so twisted."

At her words, a frigid silence fell over the room.

(Plip... ploc...)

Only the rhythmic sound of the water broke the calm, until a sudden gust of wind struck the room's windows.

(WHHHSH! CREEEAK!)

The wooden shutters flew wide open, letting in the cold night air of Flambell and making the translucent curtains billow like ghosts.

"Tch."

And it was in that instant that the "goddess" changed. Her posture, previously rigid and elegant, slumped into a vulgar and careless attitude. The woman crossed her legs abruptly, letting the silk fall open in an unseemly manner, and leaned her elbows on the porcelain table with a heaviness that did not fit her delicate appearance.

"What a bothersome brat."

The voice was no longer the velvet of a deity; it now carried the harsh and repulsive tone of a man who reveled in his own baseness. The goddess's physical beauty remained intact, but her eyes now reflected the psyche of a corrupt mage—a being who looked at the world through the lens of possession and consumption.

It was the Archbishop of Greed. A deformed soul who had given everything to satiate his desires, inhabiting the vessel of a goddess's body born from a human ideal.

"It cost me a lot to find this body, you know?"

Once his true personality was revealed, understanding that the entity before his eyes was capable of discerning the truth despite his perfect performance, the Mage manipulating the Goddess's body stopped pretending.

"But you... you are something that isn't in my ledgers. A divinity that walks without anyone noticing. Tell me, 'Melioris'... how much do you think your soul would be worth?"

Immediately afterward, he cast a look charged with repulsive greed, as the Mage's true personality seeped through every pore of the beautiful shell he controlled.

"Hehehe~"

However, in response to the revelation, Melioris let out a soft, almost inaudible laugh that cut through the air like sharpened glass.

"It's curious that you say that..."

Her voice was laced with a serenity that made the blood run cold.

(Fffuuu... bzzzzzt...)

Without warning, Melioris performed one last slow rotation in the air, but this time it was no lazy pirouette.

"You know, this is perfect."

Her feet touched the nothingness with absolute firmness and, in a fluid motion, she stood upright, remaining parallel to the goddess's shell.

"Honestly, I had another objective, but..."

In that instant, reality itself seemed to protest.

"This works too."

An intense pressure exploded from Melioris’s center, expanding like an invisible shockwave that enveloped every inch of the room.

"Not bad at all!"

It wasn't wind; it was the pure weight of her existence reclaiming its place in space.

(CRA-ACK! CRIIIICK!)

Under the force of that divine authority, the glass of the windows the wind had blown open began to crack. Fine lines like spiderwebs spread across the glass, while the porcelain cups on the table vibrated violently.

"Neither are you~"

Both stared fixedly into each other's eyes.

(Clink! Clink! Clink!)

The pressure emanating from Melioris did not go unanswered. Instead of backing down, the "goddess" widened her smile, transforming it into a twisted and grotesque grimace that deformed the perfection of her stolen face.

(VUUUUUUMM!)

From the deity's body, an opposing force erupted—a tide of dense, dark energy that crashed head-on against Melioris's authority.

"....."

"....."

The impact of both pressures in the center of the room created a sonic vacuum that stopped the dripping water for an instant.

(CRA-ACK! CRASH!)

The window panes, unable to withstand the conflict between these two powers, finally shattered outward, turning into a rain of shimmering shards over the streets of Flambell. The fine porcelain smashed to pieces, scattering tea and sweets across the floor while the structure of the building groaned under the tension.

(Iiiiiii-crack! BZZZZZT!)

Melioris did not waver. Her face, illuminated by the heterochromatic glow of her eyes, reflected absolute ecstasy. She was enjoying the collision, returning a smile of pure delight to the "goddess" before her. For her part, the "goddess" maintained a twisted grin, her eyes bloodshot with ambition.

"I give up."

She said it with a dry laugh, an abrupt surrender.

(Vum... silence!)

The silence returned so violently it hurt the ears. Melioris, who had been leaning into the weight of both forces, lost her balance when the resistance vanished and fell to the floor inelegantly, left sitting among the shards of broken porcelain.

"Boooooo!"

Her eyes widened in surprise before shifting into an expression of absolute disappointment as she jeered, waving both arms.

"How boring! We were doing so well! You're a cheater!"

Seeing the childish reaction to his decision, the Archbishop, still in the goddess's body, brushed the dust off the silk with a vulgar gesture and replied in a sharp tone.

"I'm not going to let you provoke me so easily, brat."

Immediately afterward, he forced his posture again, straightening his back and resuming that divine and artificial elegance he so loved to flaunt.

"I'm no fool. I know how to recognize when someone is just looking to have fun at my expense."

Then his eyes focused on Melioris again, but this time with a calculating coldness.

"I won't allow the other party to be the only one benefiting from this encounter. In this 'business,' either we both win, or we don't play."

Melioris, seeing that the moment of ecstasy was over, let out a dramatic sigh and began to float upward again.

"Tsk..."

She reclined in the air, floating lazily as she crossed her arms.

"You caught me... What a sore loser you are."