[center][h1][b][color=ivory][b]M E L A N T H A[/b][/color][/b][/h1][/center][hr][hider=SUMMARY]
Melantha returns to find Norsvold pretty much exactly how she'd left it. There's some describing exactly how freaking barren the land is but how Melantha still finds it beautiful in its own emptiness. We see a glimpse of a few things that she likes doing on her spare time while she's in Norsvold. However, she is there to do something crucial, and as such she ends her little sightseeing tour in order to start her plan. She takes note mentally how good Katharsos was to her in helping her with her plight. She then starts up the whole shebang. Veery cool descriptions (IMO at least. if you find them disgusting please do tell.) of her mental state etc. We delve into her memories as she operates the soul burning ritual. We go back to the first day where all the gods first awakened and watch glimpses of the events of that time from a spectators point of view. Then we come upon Melantha asking the Architect why one more time (in case you'd forgotten) and then the big finale. I won't spoil and this is why I put the summary on top this one and only time. Don't click the MP/FP usage spoiler if you don't wanna be spoiled. HF.[hider=MP/FP Usage][h2]MP/FP Usage[/h2][color=ivory][b]Melantha [Darkness][/b][/color] - [color=1a7b30][b]10[/b] MP[/color] [b]&[/b] [color=00aeef][b]8[/b] FP[/color][list]
[*]-4 MP towards unlocking Oblivion Portfolio [5/5].
[*]-5 MP towards acquiring Oblivion Portfolio. [b][u]Current Portfolios:[/u][/b] [Darkness/Oblivion]
[*]-1 MP towards a one time use teleportation to a faraway place (Galbar ofc).[/list][h3]MP/FP Standings[/h3][color=ivory][b]Melantha [Darkness/Oblivion][/b][/color] - [color=1a7b30][b]0[/b] MP[/color] [b]&[/b] [color=00aeef][b]8[/b] FP[/color][/hider][/hider][hr]Norsvold had seen no changes during Melantha's absence to visit Katharsos' realm and as such, she found it just as she had left it upon returning. The same dark soil covered the land, not at all differentiating from the solid ground beneath it. No light fell upon these dark lands, no sound echoed through the valleys and canyons. There were no rivers, no lakes. The cold grasp of the dark ore that made up the floating landmass gave little to no chance for warmth to emanate from it. Nothing could take root and grow and thus nothing could really flourish in such a barren land.

And yet, Melantha always found herself distracted by the simple beauty of such scenery. At first, she would walk aimlessly amidst the rocky landscape, pondering on things beyond her control. She would do that for what would seem a long time to her, but to a mortal would be like thousands of lifetimes. Her walks would usually take her all over Norsvold, from its deepest crevices to its highest points, but there was one particular location she cherished the most. In the past, it had been the grandest peak of Norsvolds largest mountain range, but due to a particular event, it was reduced to a measly second-grade mountain with a peculiar flat top. Nevertheless, although there were higher peaks from where she could see more of Norsvold, Melantha liked this peak for this is where she had made her resolve to forget clear to herself.

Sparing one last glance upon the bare but picturesque to her eyes - now healed and able to see once more - land of Norsvold below, Melantha turned around and walked towards the centre of the tableland, having readied herself for what was to come. As she walked, the darkness around her thrummed silently as if it was alive and worried about her safety. It curled and coiled around her form, tightening its grip on her, softly urging her to not go through with it. Nevertheless, Melantha simply smiled bitterly, and after a split second of hesitation, waved the darkness off.

For the first time since her awakening, Melantha found herself completely naked. Although being a deity had its perks in that she was naturally impervious to many hazards that would kill mortals a thousandfold, the protection her coat of darkness provided had been more of the mental variety rather than something physical. It had been there for practically all of her existence since her awakening, not once leaving her side. It was a reminder and the last mental barrier she had to overcome before she allowed herself to continue with her plan.

Her slow and deliberate stride gave her a chance to reflect upon what had happened thus far. How she had visited Katharsos' realm and finding out about souls and the afterlife he had created, to revealing her secret ambitions to him in order to gain his trust and help, all culminating in her learning from him how to erase the memories off of a soul. Thinking back to it, Melantha could not help but imprint this favour of his to her heart. [color=ivory]"Once he decided to help, he gave his undivided attention to our lessons, something that speaks volumes for his character. Thanks to him I am now capable of attempting this with some measure of certainty, but just because he personally taught me doesn't change the fact that I can and may still fail in this endeavour..."[/color]

Soon Melantha came to a stop after reaching the center of the flat-top. She made a circle around herself absentmindedly, her eyes closed, her pitch-black hair flowing behind her lazily. In the end, when she realized that she could not stall any longer, she decided to just go for it. Her preparations were ample, her determination was set.

With a deep breath, she found herself hovering high above the mountain range. Her eyes shot wide open, pupils dilating so far as to cover the whole of her irises. She felt the energy circulating through her body, from her toes to her legs, to her torso and arms and finally, her head where her soul, the seed and root of her existence resided.

A deep and excruciating pain immediately erupted the moment she let the energy breach into her mind. Melantha gritted her teeth, however, and persevered through it. She knew that something like this was bound to happen as she had practised the same thing with Katharsos numerous times. A brute force attack to the soul's defences was needed in order for them to be weakened enough for the Pyres to infiltrate the soul and burn away its memories. Of course, something like that was already difficult enough to do with a normal mortal soul, much less one that had been inundated with divine essence since its birth. Such a soul, through the passage of time, would undoubtedly come to absorb and be moulded into a more resilient and more powerful version of its former self.

The exact moment the energy infiltrated her soul it started eating away at everything it came upon. Melantha followed the teachings of Katharsos and wielded her powers in order to reign in the rampaging energy, quickly taking control of it. Under her guidance, the now somewhat tamed energy washed over her soul, which had by now started faintly glowing with a faint orange hue, a sign of the soul burning process having commenced.

On the outside, a fine sheen of sweat had covered Melantha's body. The soul burning ritual's effects had never been tested on a soul with a live body, of course, and as such Melantha had no way of knowing what would happen to her body in this state. As she progressed deeper into her well of memories, the glowing of her soul increased in intensity exponentially, and so did the physical phenomena resulting from the ritual. Soon enough, the heat emitted from Melantha would become strong enough to vaporize her sweat into steam that would slowly rise up and spread around, binding with the dark energy of the Sphere to create something unexpected.

Nevertheless, the goddess of darkness did not have the luxury to think about anything other than maintaining her control over the ritual. She mentally materialized in form along the soul burning energy waves, flying one step ahead of them and scanning each and every memory cluster she passed, making sure to erect a protective bubble over the ones that were not to be erased by the ritual. The flames rushed over, quickly engulfing the protected clusters and battering the shields with force, unlike anything Melantha had ever seen before. Melantha felt both excitement at the prospect of finally being free of what troubled her, as well as a certain level of fear towards the power of what Katharsos had created. The principles of the ritual were very closely tied to the actual way the Pyres worked, just on a smaller scale.

Eventually, after a long, gruelling amount of time, Melantha finally reached the end as well as the beginning of where it all had started. After passing countless clusters of memories, protecting some while seeing others burn into ashes, Melantha arrived in front of the cluster that contained her memories of the first moments of her awakening. She plunged right into the memory bubble and was immediately returned to that time. She could feel, hear, smell and taste everything as if she had returned to the past, but her sight was dislocated from her body, placed high above where she could see everything that was transpiring, akin to what an outsider, a spectator if you will, would see.

The awakening of her fellow gods and goddesses was not something that had particularly intrigued Melantha enough to pay attention to at the time, but her mind still processed the sensory inputs from that time and stored them as memories, enabling her to now once more see the events as they unfolded. Narzhak, Urhu, Parvus, Li'Kalla, Vakk, Anzillu, Aelius, Kalmar, Azura, Seihdhara, Orvus and many more, Melantha watched as deities sprouted here and there, each and every one different from the other, each and every one with their own little unique reaction to their awakening. Image after image, Melantha watched them taking their first steps, meeting their fellows and forging relationships. And then there was her, alone and distanced from the rest of the deities. Looking at her past self's face, Melantha could feel those same emotions she felt at that time emerge once again. Overwhelmed by mostly confusion, as well as a sense of loss at what to do drove Melantha of that time to ask that fateful question.

[i][color=ivory]'Why?'[/color][/i]

Over and over again, that word, as well as the answer that followed it echoed through her mind. [color=lightblue][i]'What could you hope to know of such things? Your mind could not fathom what I am.'[/i][/color] The Architect's sole eye rolled around as he replied before addressing the rest of the pantheon. [color=lightblue][i]'My cause is beyond your understanding, but my instructions are not. When I give them, I expect that they will be obeyed.'[/i][/color]

Even though what she was seeing was nothing more than a recording of the past, Melantha could not help but mentally shiver at hearing those words once more. For a split second, she came very close to losing control of the soul burning energy, however after quickly regaining her wits and with that, her resolve to finish what she started, her ethereal form restructured itself and exited the memory bubble.

[color=ivory]"Enough doubting, it's time for action."[/color] With that affirmation in mind, Melantha steered the flames towards that specific cluster of memories, concentrating her everything in making sure to wipe it out of her mind for good. The flames rushed like a ravenous scourge towards the unprotected memories, quickly gnawing away at them, incinerating them into ash that slowly drifted away. One by one, the scenes of the gods' first steps disappeared from Melantha's memories, and while the burning of smaller, more insignificant memories did not put much mental strain on Melantha's psyche, this memory was one of the most fundamental memories that made her who she was. Understandably so, the moment the flames first licked the edges of the memory, Melantha was put under an incalculable amount of pain. A pain even worse than what she felt when Asceal and Aelius first lit up their creation that drove away half the darkness in the universe. Melantha let out a prolonged howl of anguish, her body instinctively taking over to abate the pain as much as possible.

Little by little, the flames ate up the memory. At the end, there was only one small part of it left hovering inside Melantha's mindscape, but by that time Melantha felt utterly exhausted and numb. Her sight was blurry, her eyes red from all the tears she had shed. In front of her mental projection was what was left of the Architect's towering body, his large, circular eye. Melantha stared at it with a deadpan expression on her face, and the eye stared back at her equally. And even though Melantha knew that the eye was nothing more than a figment of her imagination and of the past, she could not help but instinctively feel anger welling up inside of her. She did not know why she felt angry anymore, why this eye irritated and disgusted her. She only knew that she had to be rid of it, and fast. She drew upon every remaining ounce of power she had left and reignited the flames of soul burning before turning them towards the last remaining piece of the past she detested so much. This final attack took the form of a spiralling spear of mixed golden-black flames that was backed by both Melantha's power as well as the inherent memory-erasing properties of Katharsos' Pyres.

The impact was monumental. As the flaming spear smashed on top of the Architect's eye, a blinding flash of light instantly covered everything within Melantha's line of sight. Following this, an immense amount of force rebounded towards Melantha, instantly annihilating her mental projection. A shockwave rippled through her soul, vaporizing every and all memories the goddess had previously so naively protected. Outside, her body immediately slouched to the side, but as her Sphere lacked gravity to pull her down to the ground, she just hung there for a few seconds before rapidly fading away from existence. After the light faded out, Melantha's soul was nothing but a dark and empty space, the only thing remaining in it having seemingly replaced the eye, a cryptic set of words that soon faded away to nothing as well.

[color=lightblue][b]"I shan't be disobeyed..."[/b][/color][hr][hr]