“Ela, noooooo!!” Amara cried out sadly, banging her fist against Maven’s shield again and again in despair at the loss of Ela. She had failed to protect her charge not once, but twice, in a single day - it was positively maddening.

Saddened by the sight of Amara’s tear-streaked face, Maven took down the shield that had been protecting.

“What should we do, Maven?” Shayna asked with a levelheaded tone. “Ela has been taken to heaven knows where…… and we have no way of locating her. I have no idea where to even start.”

“Kannon, Henna, do you have any ideas on how to locate Maven’s new friend?” Fae chipped in. “I’ve never even heard of magic that could allow someone to move from one location to another before.” Ever-loyal follower that she was, Fae was hoping that the eons old goddesses would have some information that could help retrieve Ela.

Seizing on Fae’s comment, Maven turned to Henna for advice, “She’s right…… That boy wasn’t using Fire, Wind, Water, or Earth magic. I would also have been able to tell if he was using Light/Life or Darkness/Death. You told me I was the only one in the entire world who could possibly possess a new element, so what was that? How could he possess an element like that?”

“You’re right…… It definitely shouldn’t be possible. None of the elements we gods used to weave the world would allow for a mortal to do such a thing. Kannon or I could do it, but only with our true bodies and only because we’d be gods exercising our divinity in a world we created.” Henna said calmly.

“Is it really so difficult?” Fae asked curiously, not having a good understanding of how impossible it was to influence space itself. As someone who spent years in their organization, she didn’t have a good feel for the common sense of Avalon in some areas.

“If that so-called ‘Apostle’ truly is just a mortal acolyte and can still manipulate space, it can only be due to a god from some other world - a god with dominion over space itself.” Henna replied, thoughtfully tapping her chin as she spoke.

“I won’t let them get away with this.” Maven declared in a resolute voice. “It’s my fault that little brat managed to escape and take Ela. Since it’s my mess, I have to be the one to fix it.”

Wracked with guilt and blaming herself for not being able to stop the Apostle, Maven walked up to the spot where the three disappeared from and stretched her hand out contemplatively. She wanted to feel closer to Ela.

Maven was a literal demigoddess, one in possession of more power than any of the full-fledged gods of Avalon. She had even birthed a hitherto unheard type of divinity of her own, the full potential of which had hardly been explored. Even having all the advantages in the world, that boy still managed to pull one over on her.

“He was right when he called me sloppy…… I shouldn’t have let this happen.” Maven said mournfully, her hand just hovering in the exact location where the portal snapped shut.

“It’s not your fault, Maven.” Shayna said comfortingly. “You did your best. You should take comfort from that.”

“Perhaps there’s a way to follow after him.” Fae added, her voice conveying her endless love for, and bottomless faith in, Maven. “I believe in you…… There’s nothing my goddess can’t do! I doubt there’s a thing in this world that could hold you back, if you really put your mind to it.”

Comforted by her companions support and determined not to let the boy get away, Maven tried extending her magical senses to the space around her hand - hoping desperately to find some sort of hint or clue as to where they had gone.

Maven perceived no irregularity in the flow of mana and nothing could be seen or felt in the magical spectrum. She was at a loss regarding how to proceed, until she thought back to Henna’s words - that the boy’s ability to manipulate space came from a foreign god. That fact firmly in mind, Maven decided that she should rely on her divinity.

“Oooo, you’re getting pretty good, aren’t you?” Henna said, admiring the sight of Maven’s unique divinity radiating through the air in gentle, tightly controlled waves.

With her unique divinity, birthed from the fusion of multiple divine authorities and containing endless possibilities, Maven managed to find something the Apostle accidentally left behind.

“Well…… Don’t keep us in suspense, what did you discover?” Kannon asked impatiently.

“There’s a scar in the fabric of the world, left behind by our little friend when he vamoosed.” Maven said, reporting her findings. “It’s small, and vanishing quickly, but it’s definitely there. I think that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to rip it open again. Perhaps, we can follow that Apostle to wherever he took Ela.” Maven continued with a voice full of hope and determination.

“Really?? You can find the princess??” Amara yelled, galloping towards Maven with all the force of a raging bull. So caught up in the thought of Ela was she that Fae was forced to physically restrain her, else she interrupt Maven’s delicate work.

Maven did her best to tune out the ruckus going on behind her so she could probe the space scar with undivided attention. It was intangible, invisible, and undetectable even to the divinity of Kannon and Henna. The only reason Maven could find it in the first place was her mysteriously versatile personal brand of divinity.

Taking advantage of that versatility, Maven attempted to send a needle of pure divine power directly into the scar to pry it open. Unfortunately, the needle just passed through the scar powerlessly, as if the two were on different planes of existence.

“Hmmmm……” Maven murmured, disgruntled at the lack of success but determined not to allow this to hold her back.

Luckily, though her divine power had no immediate effect, Maven did feel something. Resolutely pursuing this lead, Maven wrapped the entire area of the rift with her divinity. Then, following her intuition, she tried to synchronize her divinity with the power left behind in the location of the rift.

“Gununununu……” Maven groaned, so deep in concentration that it looked like she was in pain.

It was difficult, mind-bogglingly difficult, to try and force her divinity to synchronize with the rift. However, Maven impossibly managed to power through the discomfort until some sort tipping point occurred and some sort of barrier deep within Maven’s soul just shattered to pieces.

The second Maven managed to imitate the Apostle’s space attribute power, some sort of impossibly loud pop that rang through Maven’s mind. It felt liberating, as if, just by successfully imitating this otherwordly power, some limitation on the size of her vessel were removed.

“Way to go, Maven!” Kannon and Henna cheered, both goddesses inordinately pleased at Maven’s success.

After taking a deep breath to enjoy the sensation, Maven turned to the others with a bright smile on her face and the power of space in her hands. Then, armed with renewed confidence and a new power, she said, “Let’s go save our new friend!”