Several hours earlier, during the previous night.

At the deepest part of the chasm, a trio of young Candidates were gathered around a small circular basin. It was two meters in radius, and half a meter in height. The basin was built from bricks of a strange volcanic stone and mortared with a thick, black mud. The stone was black and glassy, with a greasy sheen that subtly swayed like oil on water. The rectangular bricks seemed to have been cast from molten rock, their surface uneven, with the forms of bubbles and waves undulating across the bricks' surfaces.

An ominous, unsettling energy surrounded the basin, making those around it feel like they were being constricted by twisting barbed wires. A thick, brackish liquid nearly filled the fountain to the brim, its surface perfectly still.

In past decades this cavern had served as a mining location for earth crystals. However, this cavern had long since been mined out. The active mines were further out from the village, and in normal times these youth would be out there with the workers, using their Exalted powers to sense veins of crystals.

But recently, the priests had been bringing in these bricks and pungent mortar and instructing them to build these basins.

Asano, the village Chief's son, looked over to his two friends. They were the son and daughter of the village's mining elder. Their expressions were solemn as they removed a set of candles and a number of materials from their packs.

Following past instructions they quickly set up the ritual to Yuima on the edge of the basin.

"What time is it?" Chiyo asked, looking over to her brother.

Tachi closed his eyes and tapped into his Nature powers, replying after a moment, "Just after sunset."

"Let's begin." Asano said softly, kneeling down on a woven blanket and bowing his head. The others followed suit on either side of him.

In an ancient language that they did not understand, they spoke the memorized prayer, extending their spirituality into the candles that were placed in equal distances around the basin. The orange flames flickered with spirituality as they began burning blue, lighting the surroundings in an ethereal light.

The thick black liquid in the basin absorbed the light completely, its surface undisturbed by movement or reflections.

The three youths were so concentrated on their ritual that they did not notice the soft strands of white hair that glimmered in the periphery of their vision.

~

Hours passed. As each candle burned down, one of the youths stood and replaced it with a fresh candle. They felt their energy slowly being sapped into the black pool, drawn in by the ritual.

They were young and full of vitality, but after a few hours their backs were bent and weighed down by the exertion. They had conducted this ritual several times in the past, though this was the first time they were doing so without a priest.

"Why are you doing this?" A soft voice whispered into Asano's ears. It was so quiet and subtle that he didn't know if he was imagining it, or if they were his own thoughts.

"To pray to the Goddess to bless us with crystals for conducting this offering ritual." Asano replied silently to the voice after a moment.

He paused, then continued, "The ritual pool is more full than it's ever been, and so surely this offering is more than enough to appease Her."

A little later, the voice returned, asking, "What are you going to do with the crystals?"

Asano tensed at the question, before muttering quietly, "We conduct this ritual to please Yuima, and nothing else."

In another timeline, the voice managed to tease out another reply. "We just want to save our friends… We only need a few crystals— If they're Exalted too, they can definitely help gather more crystals. Our devotion will be even greater!"

"What happens when the ritual succeeds?" The voice asked.

"The liquid is burned off in a holy fire, and the Wailing is cleansed from the village" Asano replied. He hesitated, lifting his head as he looked around for the source of the voice. He turned to his friends, who met his gaze, "Did you… hear a voice too?"

They shook their heads.

"I must be imagining things." He mumbled, blaming it on the strange energy of the fountain. "K..keep praying."

Hours passed still.

"Almost dawn." Tachi said softly, his voice strained. Sweat beaded on his forehead, the collar of his woven shirt was damp. All three of them felt that their spirits were under great strain, greater than they had experienced in previous rituals.

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Was it because they were doing it without the presence of a priest? Or perhaps it was because the pool was so full?

From their understanding, the black liquid was extremely valuable to Yuima, more so than even the crystals that they mined for their regular livelihood. This black liquid seeped out of the rock deep in the chasms within the earth, and with the help of these stone basins, could be gathered in these small pools over time.

They did not know what exactly this liquid was, only that their spiritual intuition told them that it was deadly to touch. Truth be told, they didn't question what it was, letting themselves be reassured by Yuima's priests. They were doing something important for their Goddess, and she in turn rewarded them with crystals. That was enough.

Dawn marked the end of the ritual, and as the first rays of light crested the horizon outside the surface of the black pool was broken by a single bubble rising up from the depths. This bubble slowly grew in size, until it popped, releasing a thick black gas into the air.

One by one, more bubbles drifted up from the depths as the pool slowly began to boil.

This reaction was expected, and the trio were about to celebrate when Chiyo said suddenly, "Something's wrong!"

Previously, as the ritual neared its end the liquid would light aflame and a cleansing feeling would fill the air. However, no flame appeared. The pool began to boil violently as the gas billowed in thick, noxious plumes.

"Don't breathe it in!" Asano yelled.

The three of them scrambled away from the basin instinctively. Even so, they were slightly too slow. They began to cough uncontrollably as their lungs began to burn. With reddened eyes they looked up at the smoke which, rather than spread out in the air, congealed into floating black figures.

"Those are… shades?" Asano's eyes widened. He glanced over to see a shade materialize behind Tachi, who was staring up at the smoke as well, "Watch out!"

The warning came too late. Numbness shot through the left side of Tachi's body as an icy hand grasped his arm. The young man tried to pull away but fell straight into the shade's body behind him.

"Tachi!" Asano yelled helplessly as he tried to scramble toward his friend, who slumped to the floor unconscious.

He had no weapon, but grabbed the lantern next to him as he leapt to his feet. He dashed forward to swing the flame at the shade above his friend but before he was even halfway there, a flash of light sliced across the shade.

~

Throughout the morning, Yuzu had been focused on two distinctly separate pieces of the tapestry, but now in this moment they had come together. The three youths had conducted a ritual to Yuima, and though Yuzu had a bad feeling about it, her caution toward the Nature goddess kept her from interfering.

Now, with the formation of the corrupted Knot of Fate, it seemed that she should have followed her intuition and stopped it before it even reached this point.

It grew so fast. Yuzu frowned as she manipulated the threads. Did the corrupted energy of the ritual prevent me from reading the knot on the tapestry ahead of time?

Not hesitating any longer Yuzu deftly threaded a black Chaos thread through the knot.

In the cavern below, Asano watched with wide eyes as a girl in pink robes soared gracefully through the air, her long black hair flowing behind her as she bisected the shade above Tachi with a glowing white sword.

She skidded across the ground as she landed, then leapt again toward Asano, blade slashing toward him. He screamed, too slow to dodge, but the blade swung high, taking out a shade that was descending directly upon him.

Asano's heart skipped a beat as he looked up at the beauty that stood valiantly above him, her eyes focused up at the smoke that still gathered above them. The long, thin sword buzzed softly in her hand, pulsating with a powerful energy.

"Did I get them?" Char Char asked, still looking up. The shades seemed to have dissipated from her attack, but her spiritual intuition told her the danger was still present.

"These were only the shades that were previously lingering in the cave." Yuzu's ethereal voice spoke to her calmly. Her eyes glimmered, reflecting the twisting tapestry as she frowned, "Stay away from the smoke and don't breathe it in. Something isn't right. I can't tell exactly where the danger is."

"Let me have a look around." Char Char replied, leaving Asano's side as she circled the basin with a wide radius.

A sense of unease was growing in Yuzu. Despite a number of the shades' threads snapping from Char Char's attacks the corrupted knot still didn't dissipate. The knot was quivering wildly as corrupted energy surged through the cavern. The energy disrupted the tapestry, making it impossible for Yuzu to read the future on the threads.

The threads of the three village youths were blackened from corruption as if covered in a layer of sticky, tarred soot. Getting them to safety was Yuzu's top priority, especially since they seemed to have an energetic connection to the out of control ritual.

Shooting pain shot up Yuzu's arms as she yanked their threads up toward the entrance, counting on their departure to simplify the situation.

"Asano, let's get out of here!" Chiyo ran up to her friend, pulling him to his feet. Together they grabbed Tachi's limp body and quickly ran toward the exit.

"Keep running! Don't look back!" Yuzu's ethereal voice spurred them on.

The trio rushed up the path, not noticing as they passed the shadowy figures of Firuzeh and Kai who were staggered at different distances from the bottom of the cavern where Char Char was scouting.

They were in such a panic that they didn't notice the two Chaos Exalted. Nor did they notice the lone figure of Yuzu standing quietly at the side of the path as they rushed up to the mouth of the natural cavern.

Yuzu didn't even glance at the youths as her eyes were completely focused on the tapestry. She paused, not in a hurry to descend to the bottom of the cavern herself as she carefully read the blurred vision in Char Char's Chaos Domain thread.

"There's nothing else here." Char Char's voice reached Yuzu after she did a full circle around the stone basin. She had taken out a number of the frail shades, who continued to be drawn toward the ritual site from deep within the earth.

The dread in Yuzu's gut intensified as she saw that the situation hadn't improved despite sending the youths out of the cave. What's worse, the Knot of Fate seemed to only be growing in size.

The thin, quivering threads of the shades tangled up and made it difficult to read the tapestry, which was unpredictable and changing by the moment. However, despite their growing number the shades' threads were weak and thin. Their presence wasn't enough to distort the tapestry into its current shape. Yuzu had expected a monster of some sort to appear but there was nothing down there.

Wait, the centre of the knot has shifted… Yuzu's eyes narrowed as she realized that something was terribly wrong.

Yuzu turned sharply to look up the path to where the youths had run. Chiyo's scream pierced the air as a wave of corrupted energy burst out from Tachi's body.

This is… a Corrupted One?!

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