Troubled

"You... Know my name?" Anne was shocked.

Stella shrugged her shoulders.

"So.... where did you come from?" Anne tried to strike up a conversation with her.

But Stella was still secretly holding a grudge against her for calling her small.

'Hehe, calling me a little girl, I'll make sure you never do that again. I must vent a little bit of my anger.' Stella grumbled.

"Me? I'm from a ghost town. I don't know its name though." Stella said with a husky voice as she released a terrifying pressure onto Anne.

"I'm a ghost."

However, the pressure she accidentally released was too high for a normal being to endure.

"Eeeek! Don't eat me. Please! I don't taste good, I promise." Anne shrieked. The suppression effect of the pressure was quite terrifying. She felt the space around her warp from pressure and the air started to freeze.

She was horrified.

Stella chuckled. 'Yup, she's too gullible. It's quite fun to bully her.' Stella quickly retrieved her pressure and tried to calm her down.

"I'm just joking. I didn't know the name of the area I came from."

"Are you really not a ghost? I... I have the Holy Blessing of the Church of Healing. S.... So I won't be very tasty if you decide to suck my soul dry." Anne kept rambling about being devoured. Her entire body was shaking.

Stella frowned.

'Does she have any kind of trauma about ghosts? She's reacting very oddly.'

'Aiya, can't even pull off a prank without frightening someone silly.'

Stella held Anne's body and gave her a strong jerk.

Anne momentarily got out of her stupor.

"I'm. Not. A. Ghost." Stella slowly said to Anne with a loud voice. "I'm not going to eat you. It's a joke. Relax."

Anne finally regained her senses.

"I'm sorry.... I... I just remembered something unpleasant."

Anne fell on her knees and started crying.

"Are you alright?" Stella was worried. 'Her state of mind seems very unstable. What did she experience? She seems to have a troubling past.'

"It's okay. I'll be alright in a moment." Anne replied with a muffled voice as she kept crying.

Stella felt vexed. She didn't realize a simple joke would escalate this far. She looked at her abilities to find anything that could help Anne.

[ Name: Stella

Title: Adorable Fluffball

Age: 7/14

Abilities:

• Infinite Regeneration:

Provides Infinite Regeneration to the body to recover from any wounds. A trait of your body.

• Infinite Strength:

Grants Physical Strength that exceeds all bounds. A trait of your body.

• The Gaze of ######:

Peers through the secrets from all of creation. Find any and all information about any object or creature. Detects all falsehood and deception. Reveals the true nature of all creatures and objects. A trait of your soul.

• Universal Comprehension:

Can Read, Write and Speak all languages ever created.

• Ultimate talent:

Can comprehend and learn all knowledge, technique, skill, and magic ever created.

• Absolute Protection:

Indestructible Body and Soul. Soul Damage Nullification, Mental Damage Nullification, Time-space manipulation Immunity, Mental manipulation Immunity, Illusion Immunity. This ability cannot be nullified even with ######.

• Nihility Computation:

The pinnacle of computation. Can calculate and predict without error.

• Void Speedster:

Allows passage through the extremely dangerous Void which is considered unapproachable by any beings. The speed that can be achieved in Void is unimaginable and unsurpassed. This ability is exclusive to Pri########.

• Apex Hunter:

Once your mind is set on killing someone, their position will be revealed to you and will always stay in your perception, no matter where they are, no matter where they hide. This is an ability exclusive to the Pri####### of Death and Destruction.

"The Apex Hunter is coming. Run, little prey, run."

• Fate Executioner:

Bring judgement to Fate itself. You are the Judge, You are the Jury, You are the Executioner.

• Debt Collector:

Collect the karmic debt of all living beings. Everyone has a debt to pay, no matter who they are. This is an ability that originated from the Pri####### of Chaos and Sin.

Concepts:

• Slaughter(1%) • Mercy(1%) • Sin(1%) • Fate(1%) • Karma(1%)

Absolute Authority:

• Space:

Spatial Movement, Teleportation, Space Domination

• Time:

Temporal Halt, Time Domination

Advanced Authority:

• Light:

Light Creation, Damage Reflection

• Holy Magic (Light Sub-Authority):

Corruption Suppression, Radiant Healing

Elemental Authority:

• Fire:

Flame Creation, Flame Manipulation, Flame Compression, Heat Manipulation

• Water:

Water Creation, Water Manipulation, Ice Creation, Ice Manipulation

• Wind:

Air Manipulation, Lightning Creation, Lighting Manipulation

• Earth:

Soil Manipulation, Soil Compression, Stone Manipulation, Mineral Manipulation, Metal Manipulation ]

She looked at her new abilities and her mouth twitched. 'Aren't these abilities.... a bit too extreme?'

Looking at her [Apex Hunter] ability, a chill ran down her spine as she realized she already had unlocked the path to be a cold-blooded and ruthless killer.

'An exclusive ability? I can't even utter their name. Huh? Death and Destruction? Isn't it the same person that's supposed to torture people who tried to influence me?'

She tried to get some information from [Gaze of ######].

[Yes, they are the same person. He said that he was extremely pleased with your first kill and how brutally you accomplished it. He also encourages you to use his abilities well.]

Stella was speechless.

'I'll deal with these later. Now's not the time.'

As she looked more, she found that she had a new category called Advanced Authority. It had [Light Authority] and [Light Sub-Authority] .

'It's quite different from Lynnette's Holy Magic. Is Radiant Healing better than Divine healing?'

[Yes. It is infinitely better. Radiant Healing doesn't need any Divine or Faith power to use. And even if it did, it would be irrelevant to you. And unlike Divine Healing, it can cure any kind of injury, abnormality, soul damage, mental damage, and so on. It can heal a being's body and soul to its peak state and improve their constitution to the limit. However, ultimately you will decide how much effect Radiant Healing will have on its target. Radiant Healing can even revive the recently deceased if the soul is still lingering around. Divine Healing on the other hand can regrow limbs and organs and stabilize souls at best.]

The [Gaze of ######] spoke.

'Wow. And I thought Divine Healing was impressive.'

Stella didn't wait and used [Radiant Healing] on Anne. 'I should stabilize her soul and calm her mind for now.'

A brilliant multicolored ray appeared on Anne as she immediately calmed down. She felt very light as if she was floating in the clouds.

"Ray...." She muttered something before laying her head on the ground and falling asleep from exhaustion.

*********

Two hours later.

"Ugh.... Wha... What happened? Where am I? It's quite dark....." Anne slowly woke up from her sleep.

She slowly looked around and found a little white silhouette sitting in front of her. She was munching on a weird triangle bread in the faint silver moonlight. However, the smell that emitted from it was heavenly.

As she saw Anne wake up, she stuffed the bread inside her mouth whole as if she was afraid of the notion of sharing it. Her small mouth bulged up as she tried to chew.

She managed to gulp it down her throat with some serious effort.

"....."

"....."

"How are you feeling?" Stella asked as she finished her meal.

"I feel... light. It's... It's a good feeling oddly enough." Anne replied.

"I see, that's great. I'm sorry about that earlier. I didn't think you'd react so strongly about ghosts." Stella apologized to her.

"It's alright. It's not your fault. You're still small so you wouldn't unders....." Anne couldn't finish her sentence as she saw Stella glaring at her with one of her eyebrows raised.

"Cough. Cough. So, what were you eating? It smelled amazing." Sensing danger, Anne tried to change the topic as she got up from the ground.

"Oh, it was a Pizza." Stella replied, still glaring at her.

"Huh, What a weird name. Can I have one? I'm quite hungry now that I think about it." Anne said.

"No. This food is made specially by someone and the amount is limited. I can't give you any. I'm sorry, it's for your own good." Stella shook her head.

"Huh? What's so special about it?" Anne was curious.

"It's so tasty that it's extremely intoxicating, like a powerful drug. Once any normal person eats them they won't be able to eat any other food. So you'll just starve and die." Stella warned her.

"Furthermore, if someone does manage to sneak off with one of my snacks, and then eat it, I'll kill them directly, for reducing my precious food." She said in a low voice.

"So.... You're addicted to this food?" Anne asked her with a weird gaze.

".....Yes." Stella shrugged her shoulders.

"So what happens when you run out of this food? Won't you starve and die?" Anne's mind was a mess. She couldn't get any heads or tails about this weird little girl.

"No, I won't starve." Stella shook her head.

"So, are we going to stay here the whole night?"

"Ah? No, no, I was just thinking about.... some things. Let's go." Anne replied.

They finally started heading towards Anne's house, again.

A couple of minutes later. They came in front of a small but well-decorated stone house.

"This is it! It might be a bit too small for your taste, but it's definitely cozy." Anne gave a small introduction.

"No, this house is quite nice." Stella felt that its design was good.

"Thank you." Anne giggled as she unlocked the door's magic formation and entered the house with Stella.

"This house is really well decorated. Did you put up all these decorations yourself?" Stella was genuinely impressed with the atmosphere and design of the house.

"Um... No, it was decorated by the person who bought me this house you see. She's really good at stuff like these." Anne moved into the kitchen to find some food to munch on. She was getting quite hungry.

She brought back some sweets and bread and started eating them.

"Here. You eat too." Anne shoved a sweet onto Stella's hand.

Stella stared at her weirdly. And mumbled something before putting it into her mouth.

Her face immediately contorted like she had eaten mud.

'This tastes horrible. The effects are amplifying.

How could food taste so wildly different? She looks like she seems to enjoy eating this sweet. This must taste great for a normal person.'

Stella couldn't gulp it down. So she willed it to directly turn into energy inside her mouth instead of her stomach.

The food immediately disintegrated into energy and went inside her virtual stomach.

'All the food I eat is directly converted into energy. All of my organs might be fake and just for show, but it has its merits too. I never had to use the toilet ever in my life now that I think about it. Hehe, and I actually thought not going to the toilet was normal until a couple of years ago. And in this era, I don't dare to imagine the hygiene inside them.'

Stella was quite pleased with her extremely mysterious body built with pure energy that simply ignored the basic needs of a living being.

'I don't need to eat, drink or sleep. But why do I keep doing them? To retain humane behavior?' Stella was deep in thought.

**********

Anne was watching Stella's change of expression throughout the whole duration and burst out laughing.

"So that's what you meant by saying, you won't be able to eat any other food. It's indeed true. What a bummer, this sweet is actually very delicious."

Stella woke up from her philosophical mood.

Black lines formed on her forehead.

"You gave me the sweet just to see my reaction, didn't you?"

But only the faint sound of laughter came out of the small and cozy house.