In the monochrome library, silence stretched like ink across the endless aisles of books. Lady Keter sat cross-legged atop a floating stack of tomes, her figure bathed in the pale light of nowhere. She had been watching, of course, she always was.

  A low chuckle slipped from her lips, curling through the still air.

  "They misunderstand so beautifully.", she whispered, her voice clear and pure like always.

  Her gloved hand traced idle circles in the air, every movement painting faint fissures of white across the bckness. Her smile sharpened as she leaned back, eyes half-lidded with amusement.

  "A husk? No, not quite. They cling to the obvious answer, the corpse theory, because mortals love tragedy. It makes the divine easier to swallow.", she tilted her head, voice softening into a purr, "But is there another possibility? A quieter one, one they never dare consider."

  She tapped a finger against the book at her side, 1984, its title shimmering faintly in the dim light.

  "What if the Chalk Princess isn't dead?", her words bled into the silence like a secret escaping, "What if She has simply not yet cimed Her throne? A god in waiting? An heir to a seat she simply denied?"

  Her ughter swelled, hushed but giddy, echoing between shelves that had never known sound.

  "Ah, the little Bathory would weep if she realized. Lea would cw at her skin at the prospect of becoming a real Apostle of a god...", she trailed off, eyes narrowing with delight.

  Lady Keter snapped her book shut, the noise booming like thunder in the still void. She rose, her coat stirring in a breeze that shouldn't exist, and murmured into the dark as though to someone standing just beyond sight.

  "Mashhith, wouldn't you agree? The throne is empty, but the Princess... oh, She's still waiting. And that makes all the difference."

  At those words, the air shifted. Something in the monochrome quiet tilted, a presence swelling like chalk dust in the lungs. "Miss Mashhith" did not speak, but the Goddess of Time understood.

  Lady Keter's lips curved slyly, her eyes glinting with mischief.

  "Ah... you sound almost wistful tonight. Almost as though you were remembering something.", she paused, letting the silence bloom heavy, deliberate, "Or... someone."

  The shelves groaned faintly, whispering in tones that almost resembled prayer.

  Keter only chuckled again, brushing the sound away like a cobweb, "But no. That would be far too easy, wouldn't it?"

  Miss Mashhith lingered a moment longer, her presence chalky and thin, like the ghost of a diagram half-erased. The faint scrape of invisible lines scratched against the bck floor, sketching something incomplete, then the lines shuddered, stilled, and were gone.

  The monochrome quiet swallowed her whole, as if she had never been there.

  Lady Keter lowered her gaze to where the marks had been, her smile sharpening.

  "Always vanishing mid-sentence. I do so enjoy your little vanishing acts.", she murmured, brushing her fingers down her sleeve, "But the curtain never closes for long..."

  And then the air shifted.

  The monochrome void quivered like an overturned mirror, and one by one, chairs unfolded themselves from nothing, carved of bone-white and ash-bck, circling the long obsidian table.

  The first to appear was Eric - Rasputin, his frame draped in the shadow of a tattered cassock, likely from whatever madness the Saintess put him through.

  Then Jim - Zorro, seated quietly as he reins in his thoughts. In Lady Keter's eyes, his complexion had become better; she could feel the eagerness in testing his power.

  Dawn - Bathory, arrived next, wearing a light noble outfit. Her eyes were molten iron beneath their softness, sharp and heavy as she fixed them on Lady Keter. The weight of her demand had already arrived, even before her words.

  Lea - Dantes, appeared st, coughing faintly as the monochrome world pressed against her chest. Her eyes flicked nervously around the table, still raw from her recent dream.

  Bathory's voice broke the hush before anyone else could speak.

  "Enough games, Keter."

  Her tone was velvet stretched thin over steel, every sylble weighed and sharpened. She leaned forward, fingers brushing the pale chain at her throat, the crimson gem of her neckce pulsing faintly like a captive heart.

  "You know it. The Chalk Princess does not simply appear in a dream without cause.", her eyes, glowing even under the mystical suppression of the monochrome world, fixed on Lady Keter as if to pierce through her yered poise, "Tell me what it means."

  Lady Keter kept on smiling, reminding her, "An offering for an answer, that is the rule."

  Dantes was feeling quite squirmish, thinking back that she didn't give the Lady of the Library many offerings... so what did the Lady take? Or was her suffering enough for payment?

  "Fine.", Bathory pulled out a handgun from her waist, pcing it on the table, "I offer my personal weapon."

  With a snap of her finger, Lady Keter made the gun vanish.

  "So, be more specific about what you asked. I dislike answering vague questions.", but she enjoys giving vague answers.

  Bathory trembled, knowing the Goddess of Time before her was toying with her feelings. It feels so irritable now that she was the target.

  After a brief moment, she calmed down, still gring at Lady Keter, "Please tell me the current condition of the Chalk Princess, if She, the original, is alive or not."

  "See, isn't it better to ask calmly and straightforwardly?", she chuckled, "As for the condition of the Chalk Princess... well, what if the real Chalk Princess isn't dead, and that husk is Divine Body waiting, wandering around for its original to merge with it?"

  "What if the Chalk Princess had yet to cim Her Divine Throne?"

  "Or a walking corpse finding its Soul?"

  "Every possibility could be true. So, which do you want to believe in?"

  Bathory sat down, quietly thinking. If the real Chalk Princess is still alive, and Her Divine Throne is wandering around acting as if nothing had happened... the motive is clear, to either find the Chalk Princess or Her soul. Lady Keter is quite bad at distracting, what she said should be the truth, albeit twisted...

  She gnced at Lea, who the Chalk Princess came to. Actually, Bathory had seen the Goddess of Technology before, or rather, Her husk, coming to Dawn in her childhood, as if chosen, marked as the Blessed of Technology and Progress. Knowing now it was simply the Divine Throne, why had it chosen her or Lea?

  Then, her eyes widen in realization... one which makes her tremble. The Divine Throne of Technology was neither a husk nor was it seeking the real Chalk Princess...

  "The Chalk Princess' Divine Throne... it was seeking a new host, a new deity of Technology..."

  It makes sense to her.

  In her youth, she was a genius, making up stuff that she would realize ter in her life. The Divine Throne saw potential in her, so it appeared to her.

  As for Dantes, she chose the Path of Divinity, and her faith and mind were shaken by the Tome of Light. It was honestly downright evil, preying on someone already in a vulnerable state...

  "That could be it.", Lady Keter nodded, "Tell me then, if that was the case, would you cim the Divine Throne of Technology?"

  With a gulp, Bathory leaned in, "What do you mean by that?"

  "An empty Divine Throne that had yet to fully manifest the Divine Body - the persona this world needed for its necromancy ritual is still incomplete, still maleable, still capable of being taken.", her smile deepens, "So, do you want to cim the empty Divine Throne of Technology?"

  Bathory's fingers tightened around the edge of the table, the remnants of her pulse echoing through her chest.

  Lady Keter's words swirled through the monochrome library like smoke curling into corners no eye could touch... an empty Divine Throne... a Divine Body not yet cimed... maleable... capable of being taken.

  Her mind raced, a storm of possibilities colliding with memories she had buried, the faint chalk dust in her childhood dreams, the way the Goddess of Technology had hovered at the edges of her life like a ghostly mentor, the spark of ambition that had always driven her beyond the limits others imposed.

  Cim it?

  The thought twisted and coiled in her chest. She could feel it, the weight of potential, the allure of absolute power tempered by the thrill of creation itself.

  A god's throne, waiting, calling, a force that could reshape the world not as it was, but as she envisioned it. And yet, the stakes were incomprehensible.

  To cim it would be to bear the responsibility of divinity. Failure would not be an option, and yet, perhaps... perhaps it was the challenge she had always craved.

  Her eyes flicked toward Lea, still pale and trembling from her dreams.

  She could see the ghostly imprint of the Chalk Princess in the girl's gaze, the sense of being chosen, of being marked. A pang of sympathy, almost guilt, brushed at her heart, tempered immediately by the steel of ambition

  If the Divine Throne had sought her, it would be because she was ready. Because she had the mind, the vision, and the will to wield it.

  The air of the monochrome library pressed closer, thick with anticipation and unseen forces, but she felt... exhirated.

  Fear was there, yes, gnawing at the edges of her consciousness, but it was no longer the controlling voice. The thrill of potential, the intoxicating taste of power, surged in its pce.

  She leaned back slightly, taking a slow, deliberate breath. Her eyes gleamed like molten iron, reflecting the infinite darkness around her.

  She could feel the threads of fate winding through her, pulling her toward something immense, something uncimed, something hers if she had the courage to seize it.

  Her lips curved into a small, almost imperceptible smile.

  If this is what it means to be chosen, then so be it.

  With measured calm, she met Lady Keter's unreadable gaze.

  "Then... I will cim it."

  The words were quiet, yet absolute. Bathory's chest rose and fell with steady determination, her mind already racing through possibilities, contingencies, and designs. The thrill of creation hummed beneath her skin. The ambition that had in dormant, restrained by protocol and prudence, now burned unrestrained.

  Lady Keter's smile deepened, sharp and satisfied.

  "Very well, my dear Erudite. Let us see what you will do with what is offered."

  For the first time, Bathory felt the full weight of expectation, of possibility, of power... and she welcomed it.

  She would cim the Divine Throne of Technology. She would shape it, bend it, become it. And the world, for all its fragile certainty, would bend with her.

  And in that instant, the monochrome library seemed to exhale, as though the infinite aisles of knowledge and power themselves acknowledged a new contender, a new hand on the wheel of divinity.

  Bathory's pulse quickened, excitement mingling with reverent fear, and she allowed herself a thought she would never admit aloud...

  This is just the beginning...

  The rest of the meeting went on as normal, members requesting items from others, and advice given by the Lady of the Library. It seems as though Lady Keter enjoys giving revetions about the world once per meeting...

  At the end, she dismissed all of the Argonauts except for Bathory.

  "For the Divine Throne of Technology, you only need to gain either Creation or Tribution. And your Fifth Step ritual will be easier..."

  Her hand traced the air, her nail cutting through space itself, bending the darkness of this world to her will, taking out a... small, ft, and rectangur, its surface impossibly smooth.

  A dark pane that swallowed the faint pale light of the library and reflected nothing yet everything. Symbols shimmered faintly across it as she rotated it in her fingers.

  "It isn't of this world.", Keter murmured, as though answering Bathory's unspoken question, "It was not born here, yet it carries the essence of connectivity, of instant communication. This is knowledge distilled into touch and gss from another world entirely. Observe it."

  Bathory leaned forward, eyes narrowing as she took in the device. It was impossibly elegant, foreign, yet instinctively familiar. She could feel the hum of potential emanating from it, a pulse almost alive, a heartbeat of innovation frozen into a single object.

  Keter continued, letting the object float closer to Bathory, "This is your Fifth Step. Your task is to recreate it, and to be able to mass-produce it. That is the Rite of Creation for the Throne of Technology."

  The words struck Bathory with the weight of inevitability. The implications were immense: replication, influence, dissemination, shaping the world itself through the miracle of invention. And yet, she felt no fear... not yet.

  Only the thrill of purpose.

  "You understand that in doing so, you will be forging a path that cannot be unmade. Every act of creation will bind your will closer to the Throne. Every replication will tighten your grasp on divinity. And yet, every misstep...", Keter said, her eyes glinting with that same mischievous, unreadable light.

  Her smile darkened, slicing through the air like a shard of bck gss, "...every misstep may rend the world in ways you cannot yet conceive."

  Bathory swallowed, a shiver of anticipation running down her spine. She could feel the threads of fate knotting themselves around her fingers, weaving her future into a ttice of possibility and consequence.

  She reached out instinctively, letting her hands hover just beneath the floating object, feeling the pull of its potential.

  "I understand...", she said finally, her voice steady, though her heart hammered like a forge, "I will do it. I will recreate it. I will make it mine, and through it... I will cim the Throne!!"

  Lady Keter's smile widened, sharp as a crescent moon. She flicked her wrist, and the object hovered directly into Bathory's hands, weightless yet impossibly dense with meaning.

  "Good.", Keter purred, her voice echoing like distant clockwork, "Then begin, little Erudite. The Fifth Step awaits, and the world will bend to the one who wields the power of a god."

  Bathory closed her fingers around the device, and for a brief moment, the monochrome library seemed to hold its breath.

  "When you feel the completion of the ritual, just chant..."

  "Entelechy of Light;Unfolding Law of Circuit and Mind;The Architect who creates the Future."

  The shelves leaned in, shadows stretching toward her, the infinite volumes of knowledge quivering like spectators in awe.

  She exhaled, a slow, controlled breath, letting the pulse of ambition surge fully through her veins. The Fifth Step was hers to command. And with it, the Throne of Technology would awaken.

  Finally, the Lady of the Library dismissed her along with the strange device.

  It was only then "Miss Mashhith" appeared with its soundless voice grating as the library creaks in its wake. Lady Keter merely shrugged.

  "True, I should've given her something easier than a smartphone. But where would the fun be in that?", she chuckled softly, summoning another book with a snap of her finger, summoning a book with the title 'Transformers Exodus', "I wonder how she would feel..."