The Weaver of Life and the Dual Core

In the world of Ky'lar, beneath the light of the twin moons within a forest clearing, two surreal scenes were unfolding in parallel...

(¡GZZZZZZZT—TCH-TCH-TCH!!!)

On one side, a silver-haired young man massaged two living statues of panting goddesses on the ground, generating a thin layer of electrical voltage that coated both his hands with extreme precision and care.

("You can do it, Mom!")

"Go for it!"

At the same time, he was being cheered on by a small set of silver armor holding a handkerchief, alongside a lively little fairy.

("...Haaaa... haaaa...")

However, at the very same moment on the other end, a small golden straw doll remained suspended in the air, exhausted, swaying with a fragility that bordered on the agonizing, while her small golden fiber limbs emitted a dry groan at the slightest movement.

(¡¡Creak—Ssssssstch!!)

At that moment, Goldie was finished.

"...I can move... I—I’m alive..."

Before her, the final piece of the "inventory of disgraced souls" had just completed its metamorphosis.

"It’s a miracle!!"

What was once an inanimate rubber object and an inert skin suit was now a young woman with the appearance of a schoolgirl, whose new skin still glistened with an artificial moisture.

"Haaah... haaaah! Ha-ha... haaa-aaa-aaah! Huuu-uuuh... ha-ha-ha... haaaaah! Haa-aaah... ha-ha!"

Immediately, her hands sank into the damp earth of the forest while her violet hair, tied in twin pigtails that fell over her bare shoulders, trembled violently.

"Huuu-uuuh... haaa! Ha-ha-ha-ja... haaa-aaa-aaah!"

At that moment, as the figure sobbed with a mixture of euphoria and extreme relief, she looked up, laughing...

"...T-thank you... my lady... thank you..."

Through her vermilion-rimmed glasses, the warrior who had just been snatched from the jaws of oblivion raised her gaze, her eyes filled with reverence focused on the small silhouette of the golden straw doll as if she were a god...

"I swear my loyalty to you!!"

...And with that, she prostrated herself in reverence.

("...One... last one...")

Nonetheless, already accustomed to such acts, Goldie simply tilted her head, her button eyes flickering with a wavering golden light in confusion as relief washed over her.

("...I’m done~")

She was utterly exhausted.

"Oh, divine... divine creation! Look at her... she rises... her sacred straw glows in the air... she is perfection itself..."

"Give us your blessing, oh celestial figure... blessed be your swaying dance... guide us in your infinite silence..."

"She is so beautiful... my eyes are not worthy of beholding such a miracle... oh, great spirit of golden straw..."

Her hybrid core—fueled by both cursed and divine energy—throbbed with an erratic rhythm.

"Silence... listen to the whisper of the wind through her threads... she speaks to us with her majestic balancing... we prostrate ourselves before you..."

"Praise be to you! Praise be to your fragile and sublime divinity! We are nothing before your golden light... cleanse our souls..."

As she was praised, she was unable to avoid absorbing and integrating the faith and belief being directed at her, even though every fiber of her being begged her to stop.

("...What should... I do...?")

However, the sight before her was so overwhelming that her childlike, inexperienced processing capacity was completely unable to keep up with the events.

"Look at her... she sways for us... she moves with the grace of the gods! Oh, blessed be every thread of her being..."

"Do not breathe... her sacred balancing cleanses the air... we are your servants, oh doll of light... guide us in your absolute silence..."

"She is so glorious... her golden straw eclipses the very sun... we do not deserve to stand beneath your divine shadow..."

"Oh, great provider... your fragile dance sustains the entire universe! We prostrate ourselves before your perfect and immobile will..."

"Look at how she floats... it is the purest miracle... Praise be to you for eternity... receive our eternal devotion!"

Behind the girl with the violet pigtails, the forest no longer belonged to nature.

(Thump! — Thump! — Thump!)

Instead, what stood in its place was a tide of hundreds of female bodies, comprising a legion made up of all kinds of women of unreal beauty—all in various states of nudity, forming a mosaic of submission that stretched as far as the shadows of the trees devoured the light.

("Why... prostrated...?")

Not understanding how to deal with the situation and guided by a genuine desire, Goldie tried to extend a hand to ask them to stand up...

"Everyone, attention!!"

But the simple gesture was interpreted as a silent blessing.

"PRAISE BE TO THE WEAVER OF LIFE!"

And as a result, the cry, born from Clotilda's throat, resonated, inciting the rest to follow her.

""""PRAISE BE TO THE WEAVER OF LIFE!!!!""""

To which, immediately after, the cry was replicated by the other thirty who had formed the first circle of "salvation," releasing a wave of faith that slammed into Goldie's chest like a physical shockwave.

(¡¡Bzzzz-shhh... zzz-vrrr... zzz-shhh...!!)

Meanwhile, in the distance of that very same clearing, a bluish vibration and the hum of static intensified as Mireya, completely oblivious to these events, massaged away.

("...It's... scary... but... they are... happy...")

Because of that, no one was able to stop how Goldie—trapped between her terminal exhaustion and the pressure of a devotion she did not understand...

("...It's so... hot...")

...Was beginning to evolve.

("...Haaaa... haaaa...")

Intermittently, a wave of suffocating heat began to surge from her hybrid core, spreading through every single fiber of golden straw.

("...Heavy... it burns...")

As a result, she began to experience an exhaustion of cosmic proportions and a leaden lethargy that weighed heavier than lead itself.

(¡¡Creak—Ssssssstch!!)

In the grand order of the cosmos, deities were structured into a strict ontological pyramid divided into four major echelons: the Low Rank, also known in the annals of the multiverse as Earthly Gods or Gods of Lesser Manifestation; the Intermediate Rank, universally baptized as Gods of Laws or Guardians of Planetary Order; the High Rank, feared across any plane as Conceptual Gods or Pillars of Reality; and finally, the absolute apex of the Creator Rank, known as Supreme Deities or Architects of the Whole.

("...It hurts... don't... stop...")

Each ascending step was not a simple title, but a massive accumulation of concentrated faith and pure energy.

("¡Uuuh... it's too much... heat...!")

Because of that, the restrictions for a God to manifest in the mortal plane became increasingly severe with each rank.

("...Sleepy... I want to sleep...")

The fabric of mortal reality was far too fragile; therefore, if a high-ranking divinity attempted to cross over without the proper conditions or vessels, the entire plane would collapse under their mere presence. For, after all, among all existing forms of energy, divine energy was the most powerful and destructive.

("...Sleepy... so... sleepy...")

However...

(¡¡¡THUMP-THUMP!!!)

At that moment, a violent, dull, and deep heartbeat resonated from the deepest recesses of Goldie's own core, jolting her straw structure with a shock so intense that it forcefully awakened her dying consciousness.

("?!")

Her button eyes flared to life once more with an erratic, golden glare, for divinity was not the only thing that comprised her existence.

("!!")

Curses.

("...It burns... It's burning... It hurts... It burns...")

On the reverse side of creation, cursed energy shared a dangerously similar hierarchy, structured with the exact same implacable rigor.

("...Mmmgh... ach... it burns... so much...")

Among them, the Low Rank was universally known as Binding Curses or Curses of Residual Grade; the Intermediate Rank, baptized in the dark planes as Conceptual Curses or Law Deforrmers; and the feared High Rank, whose members were called Curses of Disaster Origin or Living Catastrophes.

("...Ah... M—Mom...")

Nonetheless, unlike the gods who nourish themselves on orderly faith, curses possessed the capacity to engineer themselves through two completely different forms within the fabric of existence.

("...Haaaa... haaaa... it hurts...")

The first of these was born from a direct act: when one being curses another. This process triggered an immediate distortion—a bond where cursed energy wove a cause and an effect in return. It could originate passively, fueled by surrounding resentment, obsession, and rancor accumulated over eras in a specific location, or it could arise from an individual powerful enough to shape and control cursed energy at will after fulfilling certain conditions and restrictive vows. Depending on the potency of the emitter, these curses set themselves in motion, altering the state of things and rewriting reality to a greater or lesser extent based on their rank.

("...Ugh... No...")

However, on the other hand, there existed the second variant: conscious curses.

(¡¡Krrr-ack... vrrr—haaa...!! ¡Mmmgh...!)

These were not simple effects or binding loops; they were living beings. Entities born directly from the massive accumulation of the very cursed energy floating in the environment. Monsters possessing an ego, a will, and an insatiable hunger, which nourished themselves on the torment, pain, and negative emotions of mortals. Creatures that utilized that suffering as a constant fuel to produce even more cursed energy in an endless cycle, allowing them to grow, evolve, and propagate like a plague across worlds.

(¡¡¡THUMP-THUMP!!!)

Because of that, Goldie's core contracted once more, trapped in the violent crossfire of these two absolute forces.

("...I w—won't... fall... I m—must... help...")

With a subtle whimper that she choked back in her fiber throat, the doll maintained her floating posture, swaying weakly while holding her breath so that no one present would notice.

("Justice!")

And trying to hide her pain, she began to strike a pose.

("...A-Ah... M—Mom... it's burning... inside...")

She, in her most primordial origin, had been born as a curse.

(¡¡Creak—Ssssssstch!!)

However, due to the exact nature of the emotion that engendered her, her existence was radically different from that of any other aberration in the cosmos. Since she was still in an early, malleable, and pure stage of formation, the intrinsically negative and destructive nature of cursed energy itself had been largely suppressed, granting her a consciousness entirely clean of malice.

But then, the delicate balance shattered.

("...N—No... control... ugh...")

Some time ago, upon starting to assimilate and integrate divine energy in a completely incidental manner, her very existence was altered.

After becoming a hybrid—a forbidden existence that defied the laws of creation—Goldie experienced an absolute ontological contradiction. For pure divinity and purged cursed energy were never meant to coexist; both forces were locked in a constant, violent, and implacable friction within her being, clashing like two titans in search of absolute dominance.

(¡¡Krrr-ack... vrrr—haaa...!! ¡Mmmgh...!)

As a direct result of that internal war, her rate of growth and evolution accelerated to insane levels in a vicious, monstrous cycle: whenever divine energy attempted to assert itself to purify her core, cursed energy grew in parallel, expanding forcefully to suppress its counterpart and avoid being erased. And whenever the curse gained ground, divinity responded by multiplying its density.

("...Haaaa... haaaa... Goldie... hurts... h—head...")

Because of that, that endless clash between sacred order and residual chaos was pushing her mind to the absolute limit, bringing her to the brink of a conceptual madness where her tender sense of reality threatened to shatter into a thousand pieces.

(¡Fwup!)

But at the most critical point of that internal fire, just as the conceptual friction threatened to drag her mind down into the abyss of madness...

"There, there, little one... Everything is alright. Good job."

...A hand gently rested upon her head.

(¡Frott-frott-frott!)

And immediately, the agonizing distortion clouding her vision began to dissipate.

"You must have been so uncomfortable, right?"

That hand began to rub her straw crown with utmost care, making rhythmic movements filled with a tenderness so genuine that the residual pain seemed to freeze dead in its tracks.

("~")

At the same time, with a delicacy that defied her own lack of inertia, Goldie felt her body being lifted into the air and gently placed upon a familiar shoulder.

"Hey, you all, don't scare a baby like that!"

Upon hearing that calm, comforting voice—possessing a soft, clear, and strangely androgynous tone that radiated unwavering peace—Goldie's core skipped a beat with sheer relief.

"B-but—?!"

For the small doll, the presence of her "mother" was the ultimate anchor.

"No buts! Can't you see you were scaring her?"

To maintain her sanity and avoid being devoured by the storm raging within, Goldie was forced to constantly suppress her own essence in a perpetual internal struggle.

"To begin with, you can't just act so arbitrarily without taking the other party's feelings into consideration..."

Part of that rigorous self-control consisted of strictly limiting her liberated humanoid form; she flatly refused to unleash that appearance, preferring at all times to remain in the guise of a small, harmless straw doll to contain the overflow of her dual energies.

"...Besides, if you were paying attention, it was obvious she was trembling."

However, in her day-to-day life, there existed only two sacred exceptions capable of soothing the friction of her core and restoring her peace.

(...M—Mom...)

The first was her red blanket—the one tied around her neck like a cape, acting as a bond of trust.

"...Oh, right... Very well... get some rest, Goldie."

And the second was the shelter of her home: the simple act of being close to her "family."