22th day of 9th month year 10440

In Nevadas and Marias room in Ice Fort, Maria was sitting on the chair made out of dark wood and behind the table. He was resting his right hand on the table and her head on that hand. She looked out of the window and let out a long sigh.

It had been about a month and Nevada still wasn't back. She knew that he went pretty far, but still she was worried. Two days ago, she could feel Nevada closing in, but yesterday, she couldn't anymore. She isn't worried that he is dead, because she could feel it, if Nevada were to die. She was more worried that he has been severely injured or even something worse.

She suddenly slaps her cheeks, to get that horrible thought out of her head.

"I won't get anything done like this."she mutters and gets up from the chair and puts on her travel clothes.

She is now wearing a black long coat with a black fur hood, a pair of black pants and a pair of black warm boots. She pulls the hood up and the next moment, she has disappeared from the room.

She then appears in a snowy clearing, where she looks around for a while, until she spots something from the distance. So she teleports there and looks at the thing. It's a giant white bird feather, which she picks up and looks at it. The feather is about two meters long.

"It isn't a giant hawk feather, it's too big for it."she mutters, as she observes the feather. She observes it closer and then remembers the drawings of this kind of feather. The colour is different, but the pattern is the same.

"The Phoenix Queen."she mutters, with a terrified voice.

There are two reasons for that. First is that the Phoenix Queen is one of the strongest monsters alive. Well was, which brings to the second reasons. All of the phoenixes were killed to an extinction five thousand years ago. They were hunted and killed off. Their eggs were crushed, before they could reborn.

"Could the Queen have lived through the Hunt?"she asks herself, as she looks at the feather. There was another question too"Why is the feather white and why is it here. Phoenix feathers are fiery colours and they hate cold."

She takes the last glance st the feather, before it disappears into thin air in her hand.

She sniffs around a little, before she could smell Nevadas smell. She walks towards the location, where she could smell it, but when she got there, she was afraid.

There was a broken tree on the ground and a pretty big chunk missing from the other tree, where she found Nevadas blood on it. She touched the blood and immediately felt, that it was frozen. She then looked at the ground, to a see a dagger on the ground.

She picked it up and immediately recognized it.

"It's Nevadas."she mutters and puts it away.

She observes the place and concludes'Nevada probably ran into the Phoenix and as there was no way to escape, he decided to fight. But it seems, it didn't go well. He was thrown and flew that tree and stopped, after crashing into this one. He must have dropped the dagger after the impact, but I don't see anything else here. The blood must have come from a small injury, If it were a big one, there would be more blood. But what is this?"

She asks herself and walks over to place, where a thing is sticking out of the snow. She didn't see it before, because it was hidden under the snow, but the wind must have cleared it now. So she walks up to it and wipes the snow off of it, revealing a bow with a blade attached to it.

She obviously recognized immediately, that it is her Nevadas bow, as he is the only one, who would order a bow with a blade attached to it. She quickly looks over the bow and only see a few scratches on it, but beside that, it is completely fine. She puts the bow behind her back and moves on.

If only there wasn't a big snow storm there, she would have seen the aftermath of the two Beats fighting there. But now, the snow had covered the land again and she couldn't see it.

She walked hours, until from a distance, he noticed a person. It wasn't Echo, as he didn't have any beastkin traits. And so, she approached him carefully and ready to fight. As she closed in on the person, she saw him clearly.

He had a black cloth as a eyepatch and purple marks sticking out under it. His right eye was gray and his hair ashen-blond. That guy was Despond. The man, who Nevada is forced to kill.

'Nevada missing and him being here, can't be a coincidence.'is what Maria thought.

Her expression turned immediately to a very angry on and she chanted.

"[Void Ray]"

Next moment, a ray of black energy was send out of her hand and towards Despond. The energy was so dark, that it didn't reflect any light and so, it looked very unnatural.

As for Despond, he turned his head and saw the ray coming towards him.

"What the fu-."he couldn't finish his sentence, before the ray hit him and his body, disappeared into the darkness. As for the ray, it went on and erasing everything in its path. For kilometers, everything that was in the way of the ray, was erased. It was only stopped, when Maria stopped it by herself.

She looked at the spot and then muttering"I should have thought that it won't be easy."

In front of her, a dark thing started to grow and quickly, it took a form of a human. In ten seconds, Despond was completely healed and his clothes had changed into a shirt, pants, a pair of armored boots, a trench coat and a scarf, all of it being black. In his back waist, he had a black sword and on his right thigh, he had a black hand cannon in the holster.

"What the fuck bitch!"Despond yells at her, but for his answer, he doesn't get words, but another ray. This time ten times stronger.

"Fucking hell."he mutters, before blocking the ray with his sword and sending it back towards her. It disappears before it could hit her.

"[Come Forth the Great Book of Void, Ether]."She chants and into her left hand, completely pitch black book appears, with both the cover and the pages being black. On the cover, there runes written in dark purple colour.

"One of twelve divine artifacts."Despond mutters, as he hears the chant and then seeing the book.

If it were a God Slaying weapon, he wouldn't have a problem, but a Divine Artifact is one. Artifacts are much stronger and can be in any non-weapon shape object. It can be a ring or in her case, a book.

Another ray is send towards him once again, but this one is too strong to block. So before it hits him, he throws a card in the air and teleports to it. In the air, he draws his gun and shoots at her.

The black bullet flies through the air, breaking the sound barrier, before hitting Maria and tearing her right arm off. She looks at her arm, without making a noise and sees, how from her wound, a black substance starts to form in a shape of a arm. Then it turns into her skin colour and she opens and closes her hand a few times, before chanting.

Despond, who lands on the ground, looks at her and seeing, how she is still okay eben after the shot, he is impressed for the first time in fifty years.

"[Void Queen.]"

Her entire body is covered by a black substance, which slowly is being absorbed into her. Once the substance is gone, Marias new looking is revealed. Her skin turned into a very light shade of purple. Her hair is black and flowing in the air. Her eyes are completely black, without any seeable pupils or anything. As for her attire, it is now a black skin tight clothing looking thing.

As for Despond, who sees that, he mutters"Well this is fucking ridiculous." Before he is grabbed by his neck and with a cold and hateful tone, she asks"Where is Nevada, Despond?"

"Nevada?"he asks"I don't know. I haven't seen him."

"Don't lie to me Despond!"she shouts, making his body shiver a little.

"I'm not. I'm not dumb enough to do that right now."he explains to her"I tell you. I haven't seen him. I was just looking for a weapon, which supposedly is supposed to be around here. I need this weapon, If Nevada wants Sola dead."

Hearing that, he lets go off him and Despond, who is smart enough, doesn't try to run. Because void is the most powerful and dangerous magic in the existence and If she is the Queen of it, it means that he has no chance.

So he gets onto his feet and starts talking"Nox already told me about Sola, her sisters plans. How he marked and wanted to send Nevada after me. Most cases, I would kill him-."

He stops, as he receives an angry face.

"-But because Nevada was a friend, I obviously want to avoid that. Sola wants me dead, because he doesn't like me being with her sister. So, her, being a whiny bitch she is, has marked hundreds of strong fighters for the past eighty years. All of them were told to go after me and all of them died, except for one, who turned against Sola, after she got some "action". But to get to point. I need four God Slaying weapons to kill Sola, as she is getting too annoying, and right now, I am one weapon short. So would you please be kind enough and let me search on?"

She doesn't say anything and just closes her book, turning back to her beastkin form.

"How do you know Nevada?"she asks him.

"I helped him in the past."Despond tells him.

"How did you help him?"

"You have to ask that himself. It isn't my place to say that."he replies to her and continues"If you do find him, tell him to go to Great Mountain of Ymor. On top of there, he can improve his kitsune powers. You don't have to believe me, but just tell him the location and tell him, that Echo Zain said that. He will decide then."

"You Are telling the truth. Now disappear, before I kill you."Maria tells him.

"Soon after I fi-."He couldn't finish his sentence again, as he was kicked by Maria so strongly, that he accelerated to so fast, that he just flew across the lands, sa his bones were crushed by the speed. He flew through a mountain, before crashing into another one and rolling down the mountain in great speed.

Finally, he crashed into the ground, making a small crater there. After a minute of healing, he got up onto his feet. He looked around and about two kilometers away, he noticed a mansion.

"Is that my fucking house?"he asks himself, before running there in a minute and stopping in front of it.

"It is my fucking house."he mutters."I just flew ten thousand kilometers in thirty seconds. How fast did I went?"

As for Maria, she has now calmed down and says"The weapon will go to Nevada and to no one else."

She teleports away from the place and back in her room, she takes off her clothes quickly, before collapsing from mana exhaustion. The Queen form drains a lot from her and in her rage, she used it. So right now, she is already asleep on the bed, dreaming about her Foxy.