**Three years ago. That same day**
When the young girl and little Spirit God arrived at the church, they were welcomed with grassy fields, orange from the setting sun. The church was old and small, but cared for, as a small garden up front grew many flowers along the dirt path they entered.
The young girl shouted, "I'm home!"
A girl with silver hair, working in the garden popped out from a rose bush, shouting enthusiastically, "Oh! Sister Jo! You're back!"
The girl was wearing a habit, and both she and Jo had tails peeking out from behind them. Only difference was, unlike Jo's, the silver-hair girl's was pink.
"Just got off work… is anyone else home?" Jo asked.
"Only Sister Grace. Everyone else is out on their duties. They should be home before 1900 for dinner," the younger girl in the habit and pink tail said.
"That's fine. You're the one I wanted to see anyway, Lanette," Jo said.
"Me?"
As Jo explained the situation, her sister Lanette was in utter shock that she had brought home a Spirit God to their humble abode.
"IT'S A SPIRIT GOD!? SISTER JO, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?"
"Huh? No idea. And drop the 'sister' shit, we both know you don't talk like that."
"Ugh, you're so dense! Even merely seeing a Spirit God can grant you good fortune. It's one of the reasons people seek them out! If you—I help it… he may be able to grant us good fortune for our good deeds! Maybe even grant our wishes! Oh, this is the ultimate work for sisters like us, don't you think?"
Jo sighed. "Lanette, I don't care for any of that… just heal him, and he'll be on his way."
"Jo! You really are going to pass up this opportunity?"
She looked at the Spirit God, whom she did not even ask the name of, and observed it. When she had met it, it was fairly talkative and boasted about its power, so why now was it meek all of a sudden? If anything, it looked almost… sad.
"Yeah," Jo replied. "I just wanna heal it, and let it go. We don't need to worry about good fortune if our lives are meant to serve others, right? We are the Keeper's possession. And the Keeper will bless us accordingly, isn't that how our saying goes?"
"Yeah, but…" Lanette groaned, eventually submitting to her older sister's wishes. "If I do this, you have to help me care for my flowers tomorrow! Deal?" She giggled.
Jo gave her her infamous contemptuous look; it was more so the look of utter disgust, but she complied, and the girls and Spirit God headed inside the small church.
The place was fairly well lit, despite being sundown. Everything was clean and orderly. Not a speck of dust on any corner of the place.
"Sister Grace is praying upstairs. It often takes her a while, so we'll just heal you up in the next room," Lanette said.
An hour had passed, and after she patched up the little Spirit God with magic and wrapped its body in bandages, she let it try to move on its own.
"Sister Jo! Why haven't you changed into your habit yet?" Lanette whined.
"Because… I'm still looking after this thing." Jo pointed to the Spirit God.
"You've already been in the church for over an hour now! You'd best change, lest you want Sister Grace to see you in public attire… You remember what happened when you refused to change into your habit in a timely manner, right?"
"Keeper, don't remind me… And there you go with that 'sister' thing again, what a bother…"
Lanette gasped. "No using the Keeper's name in vain, please, Sister Jo!"
"What a pain…"
Moments later, after the Spirit God was finally able to move, it went outside with Jo so that they might at last part ways. The sun was finally setting behind the hills, and night was underway.
"You sure you're good to go? You know you can stay here a little longer if you need the rest. Lanette's healing magic is good, but even with the injuries you received, you're probably best staying until the morning," Jo said to it. Though she sounded dismissive, her words meant every bit of the kindness she was extending.
"It's okay. You've done enough. Thank you," it replied; the humblest it's ever sounded.
"Okay," Jo said with a shrug. "But can I at least get your name? You know… in case I ever see you again."
"I don't think we'll ever see each other again… but my name is Nyxaroth."
"Nyxa-wha?" Jo said, scratching her head.
"That's alright, I under—"
"How about I call you Nyx for short?"
It paused for a moment; the hollow sockets it had for eyes seemed to blink. "I suppose that's fine."
"Also, you're a guy, right? I didn't see a… you know…"
"Yes, you may refer to me as male."
"Gotcha," Jo noted.
The Spirit God, Nyxaroth—or rather—Nyx seemed to be happy in this moment. He didn't quite understand why… Spirit Gods don't make friends. But he was, at the bare minimum, pleased with this interaction with another living being.
"Well, in any case, thank you once again for helping me in my time of need, Miss Jo. Your kindness will not be forgotten."
And like that, Nyx wobbled a few steps and then vanished in a blink.
Jo stuck out a hand to wave, but it was too late. He was gone.
***
The next morning, Jo had gotten ready in the same uniform from the day before and headed off, grabbing her bicycle. "I'm going to work!" she shouted to her sisters in the church.
"Be back in time for dinner!" Lanette shouted back.
"Kay."
As she kicked up her bicycle and strode off, she noticed smoke at a grove of trees in the distance to her left, a ways from the path she was on.
"That's pretty near the church. I wonder what's going on over there…" she said to herself, but quickly disregarded it. "No, I'm gonna be late."
She strode for a bit, then abruptly stopped, head down, thinking of Nyx for some reason…
"Why am I hesitating? What are the chances? That smoke has to be something else. My sisters will take care of it if it becomes a threat," she said again, trying to convince herself.
She took a breath, remaining there for a moment. No thought crossed her mind.
And then, without hesitation, she strode her bicycle off the dirt path and headed toward the grove with protruding smoke in the distance, away from the town and her job.
When she arrived, the smoke had gotten thicker. The sound of burning trees became more distinct. And the smoke had made it hard to breathe, even as she stood just outside the grove.
When she looked up, the smoke was even starting to change the color of the sky… this was not normal…
As she entered, she covered her mouth with her arm sleeve and marched into the thick of it. She didn't know what she would find, or if maybe this had just been some bad fire, but something was telling her—drawing her there. Calling. Screaming.
When she finally reached the center, the smoke had become so thick that her eyes began to itch crazily. She cast a small spell to help tolerate it. Here on, she needed to be quick and quench this fire.
She stepped ever closer, finding herself at a thick wall of smoke. She didn't know why, but she felt the urge to enter; and when she did, she found herself in a wide-open clear space…
Jo didn't understand what was going on. The smoke still behind her stretched around and disappeared past a certain point ahead. The air was clear here, and the ground wasn't cindered.
"What the hell?" she spoke.
Then she saw something in the middle. It was small… and unmoving.
Closer she crept, being cautious… but when she saw what was there, she ran over to it in a panic.
"No! Nyx!" she shouted as she slid to her knees by him.
The sockets of that cute gaterdragon skull was always black… but this time, she saw no life behind them. Felt no life. He was dead.
"Nyx… Why?"
Then, through the swirling smoke that rose above from all sides, an ethereal voice echoed, "The cost of weakness."
Jo looked around, surprised by the voice. It was unlike anything she had heard before. Large. Powerful. Like one of woman and one of man interwoven into one ethereal sound.
Then, as she looked up, she saw it, hovering above her like looming death. Its large mouth and snout were inches away from her eyes. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. "What are you?"
The beast only watched. Its eyes seemed a distance away, but it was only due to its large face. It also resembled a dragon mixed with another creature, but she wasn't sure what it was. Its large, ashen eyes were larger than even the church in which she and her sisters lived. Its fangs were the size of ships. Her eyes twitched at the sight of it. And its size alone was enough to strike fear and paralyze.
"Spirit God of Ash. Druskal. A true Spirit God. Unlike this poor being." It sounded compassionate, but its deep tone and overpowering voice suggested otherwise. The sound, for some reason, made Jo cringe with each word it spoke. Goosebumps rippled throughout her body with each annunciation.
"Poor being?" she asked like a blizzard was forewarning within her. "What makes him so different than you?"
The Spirit God, Druskal, spoke, its voice sending shivers down Jo's spine. But she did not care. She glowered at it, still looming hauntingly above her. "Weakness," it said.
Jo's shivers stopped, and she became so still. Her nerves were frozen like she had made it so. She dared lower her head even as the Spirit God above her remained. Shadows emerged over her eyes from her black bangs.
"Weakness?" she uttered. "So you kill simply because he was weak?" Her aura was building. The ground beneath her began to freeze inch by inch.
Druskal, though the movement was hardly noticeable, raised his head ever so slightly from the aura she was radiating.
"Of course he's weak. He's small. Fragile. Like snowflakes…"—she set Nyx down behind her and rose—"but that does not give you the right to kill him." She dragged her head up, facing Druskal once more above her, daring to speak defiantly. "You are big, but are you strong? Because if you are weak, does that mean I can crush you too?"
When her emerald eyes met Druskal, they glowed bright, and the malice she emanated was something it could see with its very eyes.
It guffawed. Its bellow was like earthquakes as it reeled back its head, saying, "You, child? Crush a Spirit God?"
She took her time to reply, but when she did, there was no stumble in her words. "You all act like you're so mighty. Because people scour the land to find you, even for a glimpse, so they may receive good fortune, receive blessing, receive your power… You are nothing but creatures like us. Yet you like to think yourselves blessings from the Keeper."
"We are!" it roared. "And if there is any weakness that is born among us, we must carry out the duty of the Keeper to eliminate it. We are all-powerful beings. We could destroy your world in an instant if we wanted, but the Keeper keeps us bound. Keeps us to bless your feeble kind for balance and protection. And yet you question the methods bestowed upon us by the Keeper himself?"
"Duty? Methods? Are you sure these are the Keeper's and not your own? Because you fear the people will turn an eye away and no longer see you as all-powerful simply because a being such as him"—she looked back and glanced at Nyx briefly—"exists among you?"
"Foolish child. You dare question a higher being?" it rumbled.
"It is you who dares. Killing an innocent life has soured my opinion of you. You are not mighty beings. It is you who is truly weak. Not him." Her emerald eyes glowed like defiant beacons.
In a rage, Druskal charged a blast from its long neck. The light of it was as white as a hollow space, glowing out through its enormous mouth. "Sleep forever, child. You do not understand the works of this world. So, like the lifeless creature behind you, you are also not needed."
"No, I don't. Nor do I have the will to understand it," she said lastly. "But unfortunately for you… it is you who is not needed."
Druskal shot out the blast, and the smoke around them fused into it, creating a storm. The morning skies became shrouded in clouds, and the air was gray. Ash joined along with it, coalescing as it proceeded to fall onto Jo and Nyx unforgivingly.
And as it came, she clasped her hands into a hand sign.
Before the impact struck, another power emitted—like a massive glacier sounding off that was louder than the blast itself. A blast of frozen aura had engulfed the grove and reached up to Druskal—freezing even the air around it in the sky.
Seconds passed. Only silence was left, like a blizzard quelching a smoldering flame.
"How?" Its ethereal voice managed to say as it bore witness to Jo below the frozen ashen blast. "How do you have so much power?"
"I don't know. And quite frankly, I don't really understand why either." She turned around like there was no longer a threat and picked up Nyx, whom she had purposefully missed during that attack.
She then raised her head, observing Spirit God, Druskal, above where he remained. Still. Like time had forgotten about it. "But if there is anything I understand… it's that any teaching that enforces killing or forces one to be before being accepted, is no teaching I accept."
"Fool… You defy the Keeper, Dragonkin girl?" it struggled to say, false mightiness in its tone.
"No. I defy you."
At last, Jo chanted an incantation inaudible to Druskal. It was as if the hand sign and spell she had just cast were not yet complete despite her freezing him utterly—like what had been cast was not the true spell, but merely the discharge of her mana. And everything waited for her to speak like time itself had been frozen as well.
Druskal was then met with an infinite cold in a matter of seconds that even it could not best—completing its frozen stasis. The Spirit God of Ash glittered mightily as its ice body shone in the sky; A crystalized world tree reaching to the heavens.
Jo began walking, looking back no longer, knowing that the job had been done. She had killed a Spirit God.
There in this small, forgotten town of the Sky jurisdiction, a massive crystal tree had appeared from the ethers. The sudden emergence of it drew attention from all of the Sky jurisdiction, naming this small town with no name Isberra, meaning born of ice in the land's foreign tongue, months later.
***
When she awoke, Jo was lying on a bed at her church home.
"Oh, thank the Keeper you're okay, Jo!" Lanette shouted in glee, grabbing Jo and hugging her tightly.
"Keeper, Lanette… you're suffocating me," Jo responded.
When she focused away from her, her other sisters were there in the room as well: one with long blonde hair and a blue dragon tail, the middle child; one with red and black hair and a red dragon tail, the second eldest; and lastly one with long, tied-up black hair and a purple tail, the eldest. All in habits as they coddled in the room with their second youngest sister, Jo.
"You have some explaining to do," the eldest said, Grace.
Jo merely nodded, daring not to object her.
Grace was stern, but not unforgiving. When she received Jo's satisfactory response, she smiled and gleamed her round glasses from the natural light in the room.
"Wait, where is—" Jo spouted. But just as she was about to say his name…
"The mighty Nyxaroth?" a familiar high-pitched ethereal voice said out of nowhere.
"Nyx?" Jo asked in disbelief. "How are you—"
"Alive?" he injected.
Jo nodded slowly.
"It's because of you," he said plainly.
Jo gave him a confused look; a mixture of disgust entwined with it.
"Seriously! I was dead, and then I suddenly felt cold… and now I'm alive!" he said once more as he floated around her.
"That explains jack-shit…" Jo said boredly.
"SISTER JO, LANGUAGE! NOT IN THE HOUSE OF THE KEEPER!" Lanette chastised.
Jo rolled her eyes, and the other sisters laughed. The rest of the day, they all stayed home, skipping work and other duties, enjoying each other's company as Jo explained everything to them. Nyx still seemed uneasy as she did, however, he let her bask in her rare glee, nonetheless.
***
**The following morning**
Jo had dressed in her uniform and headed out. She hopped twice on one leg as she slipped her heel into her white, high-top sneakers. "Going to work!" she yelled.
"If you still have one… You ditched yesterday, remember?" the sister with the red tail joked, sight unseen…
Jo flinched at that and twitched her eyebrow as she proceeded to walk out the door anyway. "I guess there's only one way to find out."
When she exited the small church doors, Nyx had appeared from seemingly out of nowhere to greet her. "Gooood morning, Jo! Lovely day today!"
"Yeah… and what are you still doing here?" she disregarded.
"Well that's rude! First you run over me, save me, and now you're kicking me out!?" it shouted, floating and following her as she grabbed her bicycle and led it out to the dirt path.
"Look, you can stay at the church for a few days if you want, but after that you gotta buzz off…" Again, a disregarding tone.
"You're so cruel… why are you so negative all the time? Who hurt you?" Nyx accused, jokingly.
"Just born this way, I guess…" Jo tossed a leg over her bicycle and began striding off.
Almost automatically, Nyx floated behind as if he was being pulled along. He merely remained floating in place the whole time she strode.
When they got a few feet away from the church, she got annoyed and stopped abruptly. "Okay, why are you following me? I get that I saved you, woopty-doo, but I got work, and I can't bring any pets, unfortunately," she snapped.
"Pets!? Is that what you see me as? A fucking pet!?"
"Right. You are a measly pet, lousy Spirit God!"
"Again with the insults! This is now becoming partner abuse, you know?"
Jo sneered and laughed. "Partner? So, we're partners now?"
"Well, you did sign a full contract with me, so yes. We are partners. And I am your Spirit God."
A blank expression overtook Jo then. "Heh?" she blurted. "I didn't sign shit…"
"YES, YOU DID!"
She began thinking back, and when she recalled the event of yesterday, she had unleashed a devastating spell that killed the Spirit God of Ash. In the distance, the massive crystal tree remained, glittering even from as far as it was.
She looked at it, then back at Nyx.
"Hold on… when I cast my magic, did my mana flow through you?" she asked him.
"That's exactly what I was telling you yesterday! There's only a couple of ways to form a contract with a Spirit God: one is by offering something of great value—like an eye, or years off your life—dramatic things like that… even if a mage were to do such a thing, the Spirit God would only offer a fraction of its power to the mage—sometimes, and quite literally, an arm or a leg for them to use. Two is by reviving a Spirit God with one's mana. But that almost never happens because Spirit Gods have long lifespans, and when they die, no one knows their whereabouts. Even if you were to revive one, it would have to be after they recently died, and even then, a large amount of mana would have to course through their body to make it happen. If a mage attempts to revive it and the Spirit God does not recognize their mana or strength, then nothing happens. The task is almost impossible to achieve… but that's exactly what happened to me."
"But I purposely avoided you with that spell cast…"
"That doesn't mean mana didn't pass through me even as you did."
Jo tried to think of something to say, but couldn't find the right words, so she settled for, "What a drag…"
Without her realizing it, she had revived a Spirit God and formed a full contract with him.
"Be proud! Though I am quite young for a Spirit God—one-hundred-and-fifty, to be exact—you now have a contract with the Spirit God of Cold, Nyxaroth!"
"You're the Spirit God of what? Cold? So not even ice… just cold?"—she scoffed—"that's useful…"
"Hey! I am powerful, too, you know! I just haven't awakened my power yet."
"And you said you're how old? A-hundred-fifty? Why do you still look like a child?"
"WE AGE SLOWLY!"
They went back and forth as Jo started to stride off once again, heading over the grassy hill. But there, in the middle of the path, looking into the distance, a male in dark clothing stood. Black pants, black boots, and a dark jacket with fur along the trims of the hood, fluttering softly in the breeze. His back faced her, and the back of the jacket had a symbol of what looked like a—
"Hey…" he said to her without looking, standing nonchalantly; his black, medium-length hair fluttered in the breeze, along with his chiming, dangling silver cross earrings. "You know anything about that?" He pointed to the massive crystal tree in the distant grove.
Unbeknownst to her then, when Jo laid eyes on him, her face turned red, and she became elated at the sight of him. She didn't even know who he was… yet…
She fixed her flustered emotions before responding. And with pretend disregard written all over her face, she answered,
"Who wants to know?"