Now incredibly close to the ground, I could make out that we were plummeting straight toward the green blur of a dense forest. My trajectory was throwing me directly into the thick branches of a colossal tree. Right next to it was a lake of dark water, looking deep enough to cushion my impact. I reached out in desperation, trying to channel my inner Essence to bend the water and pull my body safely into the lake. I tried, with all my mental strength, but... nothing happened. My power was blocked; I couldn't feel it at all. That world wasn't answering me.

I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the wood to shatter every bone in my body. Suddenly, I felt a jolt against my back. I snapped my eyes open. It wasn't the touch of a physical hand grabbing me, but a powerful gust of wind cushioning my body in the air.

Ahria had used her power to brake our dizzying descent. However, the magical buffer lasted only milliseconds before her magic abruptly failed and vanished, forcing us to plunge again with the full weight of gravity.

The violent crash into the tree was inevitable. First, the soft leaves slapped my face and body, but they were immediately followed by thick, hard branches that battered me mercilessly as I broke through the dense canopy of the pine. The dark ground rushed up blindly, and devoid of any divine grace, I slammed brutally into the earth, rolling over and over through the dark mud and damp grass.

My entire body throbbed and burned from the impacts. I tried to lift my head from the dirt and saw Ahria a few yards away. She was kneeling in the mud, coughing up blood in agony. Her body contorted in painful spasms; her muscles were extremely tense from violent cramps, and the veins on her forehead bulged dangerously.

"Essence... in Primitia... is incredibly scarce," Ahria gasped, coughing as she let herself fall flat on her back in the grass, defeated. "I really thought we were going to be splattered on the ground."

Stella was a bit further away. She walked slowly toward us, limping slightly. She wore a deeply shaken, lost, and uncomfortable expression.

"We survived, Stella! What's with that face?" I asked, stumbling as I fought to stand on numb legs.

"My wings... failed. Even after summoning them on the way down, I couldn't keep them open by force, much less fly with them," Stella explained. Her eyes were locked on her dirt-stained palms, terrified by her own mortality, as if she didn't recognize herself.

Before any of us could process that terrifying piece of information, a dense black mist silently materialized behind Yae's back. The sudden drop in temperature and the biting chill of the air alerted my sister instantly. With a pure, bestial reflex, Yae stomped on the tip of a fallen branch in the mud, popping it up into her hand, and in the blink of an eye, aimed the sharp wood straight at the mist like a spear. Tenebris emerged from the shadows, raising both hands in the air, genuinely surprised by the mortal speed and precision Yae maintained even without the use of powers.

"Wow, your instincts are still sharp as ever, aren't they? But you can take that pointy twig away from my neck now. I'm not an enemy," Tenebris assured, her body language provocative and perfectly relaxed.

"How... how did you survive the fall without a single scratch?" Ahria asked, still panting on the ground, staring at the girl's immaculate skin.

"Does that really matter? Anyway, I don't think this is the ideal time for small talk," the goddess of darkness retorted, wiping invisible dust from her flawless cloak. "But I must admit... you guys don't seem to have had a very comfortable landing," she commented. She pointed her index finger at us, looking our bruises, scratches, and torn clothes up and down with an ironic smile.

Stella aggressively yanked at her torn skirts, adjusting her gala clothes that were now entirely stained with mud and damp grass. Without bothering to say a word, she started walking away from us, marching in the opposite direction, tearing through the bushes with frustrated, heavy steps.

"Not that way, Little Angel," Tenebris sang behind her back, before letting herself be swallowed by the shadows again, waving theatrically and disappearing completely.

"Stella, wait!" I yelled, forcing my scratched legs to move through the thick mud to follow her.

She ignored me completely, continuing to force her way through the dense vegetation. Her sumptuous dress, once the ultimate symbol of her untouchable status in the Greater Cloud, was now ruined forever, caked with dark dirt and snagged at the edges by twigs.

"Stella, please!" I pleaded, finally reaching her and grabbing her wrist hard.

She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to me. Her gaze was unrecognizable. The old divine arrogance and the sparkling sunlight had vanished in seconds, replaced by a bitter coldness and red, tear-filled eyes that she was desperately fighting not to let fall in front of anyone.

"Wait for what, Neiva?!" Her voice cracked for a fraction of a second, but she swallowed hard to toughen it right back up. "My wings failed... I feel... hollow. I feel like the core, most glorious part of my being was left behind up there! These mortal lands... this filthy dirt isn't worthy of carrying me and dirtying me!"

Yae approached slowly from behind. She was supporting Ahria by the shoulders. The goddess of the wind groaned and panted with every dragged step, her body still violently resenting the brutal magical toll she had to pay just to save us from the final drop.

"And what exactly do you plan to do, Stella? Walk alone on foot through Primitia until one of those dragons finds you and eats you?" Yae asked. Her voice sounded softer than usual; she too had realized the depth of our proud friend's trauma and reality check.

"I will follow my own path from here," Stella retorted. She raised her chin as high as she could, trying her utmost to regain her unreachable goddess posture, even though she was covered in dust and mud from head to toe. "I'll fulfill the damned duty the gods of Hyperion gave me as fast as possible, and return to my true home. I will return to that palace, which is where I never should have left and where I belong! My earthly deeds will be remembered, and I will be duly compensated." Her icy expression softened slightly as she looked at the three of us, her queenly pride making room for a silent plea of friendship. "If you want, you can come with me. Just the three of you. You are the only goddesses I truly trust."

Her invitation was genuine and painful. Beneath that fragile, cracking shell of wounded pride, Stella was terrified by the mere thought of being alone, grounded, in a world she didn't understand. I squeezed both her hands tightly, feeling the damp earth and cold sweat invading her delicate skin.

"Stella, we're all in the same dirty boat. If we separate now, with our limited powers and knowing nothing about this land, we will die," I said, my voice trembling slightly but determined to keep us united. "Tenebris disappeared exactly in that direction because, most likely, she already knows where the other girls fell. We need to be together again. All nine Primordials. Only then, together, will we be able to face the dragons and try to protect and survive in Primitia."

Ahria coughed, her knees nearly buckling, and rested her exhausted, silver head on Yae's stabilizing shoulder. "Neiva is absolutely right, Stella. With Essence so scarce down here, our magic and our own bodies are severely limited by rapid exhaustion. Alone and without wings, we are targets that are too easy and juicy. Let's try to find the other girls first... and then, if necessary, we discuss and set our own rules for the game."

Stella lowered her sad eyes, staring at her own scratched and dirty hands. Then she raised them and looked at the miserable, weakened state Ahria was in. She swallowed hard, her throat aching, and clenched her teeth to keep from shedding a single tear of surrender. Finally, she nodded slowly, in a sign of tactical agreement.

"Alright. Let's go. But let it be very clear between us from now on: if they prove to be nothing but a group of incompetents and dead weight slowing down our mission to return, I'll leave them behind and go my own way," she stated with cutting coldness, recovering her breath and attitude. She abruptly changed routes and began marching toward the gloomy shadows of the older trees, exactly the way Tenebris had pointed out in her malicious subtext.

Supporting each other as best we could, we began the long trek through the dense, dimly lit forest. The air in Primitia was much thicker and more oppressive than the celestial breezes. It smelled heavily of sap, damp pine, and freshly turned wet earth. With every step we took, the invisible force of gravity crushed our legs; our muscles ached with an entirely mundane physical exertion, and the body's fatigue was, for the first time in our centuries-long lives, lethally real. The peaceful era of floating through warm clouds was gone forever.

We didn't have to walk long before our ears caught the loud crunch of boots crushing dry branches and the distant echo of familiar voices arguing.

In a small, cratered clearing a little further ahead, amidst the vegetation, the rest of the group was gathered and intact. Gigroth—the imposing, muscular goddess with dry brown hair—was straining her trembling arms trying to lift a massive fallen trunk that blocked an old trail. Near her struggle, the energetic woman with hair like living flame was yelling at the two withdrawn twins, who cowered and shivered from the dampness and the unknown cold of the earthly climate. And there, perfectly leaned against the twisted trunk of a centuries-old oak, conveniently hidden in the thickest shadows of the foliage, was Tenebris, silently observing our pathetic arrival with her cynical, mysterious smile.

"Look at that, it seems the luxury royalty from the palace finally decided to join the plebs down here in the mud," the flame-haired goddess provoked immediately, crossing her arms with disdain upon noticing the disastrous, dirty state of our party of four.

"Good thing you didn't die crushed by the impact of the fall and the trees," Gigroth commented, dropping the heavy wood with a hollow thud on the ground, taking the opportunity to wipe the dirty sweat running down her forehead. "The density and flow of Essence down here is absurd. My raw physical strength is at less than half of normal. We are all severely weakened."

"And we're completely lost in this damp forest," added one of the fearful twins in a sharp whisper, looking nervously up at the dark, gray sky that could only be guessed at through the intertwined branches of the canopy.

Tenebris finally pushed off the gloomy oak and pointed gracefully, with the nail of one pale finger, toward the north.

"We aren't lost, actually," the shadow corrected, her voice dragging and soft. "While you were all busy whining about numb knees and mourning the state of your expensive clothes in the mud, I dedicated my precious time to scouting the outskirts. There's a thin column of black smoke rising into the sky, just behind that steep hill. It smells of burnt firewood, sweat, and mortality. There's a human village built right over there."

We all turned our faces in the exact direction she had just indicated. A village inhabited by simple mortal humans. It would be our very first direct contact with the harsh, unexplored reality of Primitian civilization, and more importantly, it would be a face-to-face meeting with the very people and victims we had been thrown out of the palace to act as shields for.

"Then that is exactly where we are going," Gigroth declared, advancing with strong strides through the grass, without asking anyone else, instinctively assuming leadership of our divine flock's formation.

I took a very deep breath in the face of the impending march, feeling a sharp pain expand my lungs, which, until hours ago, had only breathed the pure divine air of Hyperion. I looked closely at Yae, at Ahria who was still shivering from cold and exhaustion, and at Stella, who swallowed her tears of rebellion and walked with her head down, stripped of her invisible crown.

The veil of fantasy had been torn away. We were no longer the nine original divinities, majestic, immortal, and untouchable, used to living effortlessly and strolling through vast halls studded with gold. We were now, for all intents and purposes, simply creatures fallen from the skies. We were nine exiled girls, helpless, hurt to the bone and covered in earthly humiliation and mud, ready to knock on the humble door of mortals to beg for a simple shelter for the night.