Chapter 1500
Should we not fight for trivial matters?
To describe a young queen as a monster would be too blasphemous, but Ovira really couldn't think of any other words.
She had seen Saint Charlotte awaken, her divine power emanating from the very source of the universe, a serpent encircling her, illuminating the destinies of billions of beings on earth, sacred and majestic. She had also seen the Dark Witch Carabosse awaken, her dark power opening its eyes from the flames of rebirth, wielding a giant scythe, scorning all light and heat in the universe, arrogant and aloof. But compared to these two, the awakened form of the Plague Power, Perec, was entirely different.
The cocoon peeled away layer by layer like festering viscera, and the first thing Ovira saw was the thought that had just flashed through her mind: monster.
She huddled in the downpour like a fledgling bird, so her back was the first thing to be seen. On her skin, which was as bare and ashen as if covered by the first snow of a withered forest, the lines of her spine were clearly sculpted, and it seemed as if one could see the bones beneath her body. That emaciated, pale, and empty creature reminded one of the bones buried for hundreds and thousands of years beneath the ruins of the Great Secluded Monastery of All Saints, and it also bore a striking resemblance to the ancient porcelain craftsmanship inherited by the ancestors of Yaras from the time of the saints. It is said that when people could not yet understand how firing clay could transform into such exquisite porcelain, they were already deeply captivated by its natural beauty and inevitable destruction.
On this humble and bewildered bone, butterfly wings are beginning to unfold.
There was no horrifying sight of flesh being torn apart. The enormous wings, as if they had always slumbered deep within her bones, now simply flowed out along the curve of her shoulder blades, like mist spreading out of a valley. At first, they were rather disheveled, as if drenched by a downpour, clinging tightly to her thin body; yet stubbornly refusing to succumb to such oppression, they trembled, stretched, and extended little by little, gradually revealing their form to the world's awe. At this moment, the rain passed through the wings and fell to the ground, no longer able to affect them in the slightest.
At this moment, all the creatures that witnessed this scene must be amazed or moved. What a beautiful yet blasphemous pair of wings they are!
The colors of the wings are difficult to describe with a single word. The part near the body is a purplish-black, like the dark side of internal organs, gradually transitioning outwards to vibrant and colorful patches: scarlet patches like roseola, copper-green stripes like the jaundice of someone with liver failure, and grayish-white areas like the final stages of lung decay. The variety of shapes and colors is endless. To outsiders, these wings seem to be alive, but only a dying life, undergoing the slowest metabolism to maintain basic physiological functions. Gradually, areas disintegrate into luminous dust, while new, darker membranes grow from the roots to replenish them, like a perpetual lesion maintaining a terrifying balance between decay and proliferation.
The final butterfly wings, so enormous that they cast a constantly fluttering shadow behind her that covered half the battlefield, had membranes as thin as the remains of a cicada's molted skin. Their translucent surfaces were covered with dark pulses like scattered raindrops. These were not blood vessels, but rather a map of the spread of plague: the trajectory of the Black Death spreading along trade routes, the arc of influenza sweeping across the continent with the wind, and the branches of cholera seeping into civilization through waterways... All the lines glowed faintly, as if the pus of history was flowing eerily within them.
The slow opening and closing of the butterfly's wings resembles the dying struggle of a butterfly in late autumn, yet possesses an elegant quality that evokes pity. The edges of the wingspan are fragmented, scattering transparent scales with each flap—memories also known as "illness." Memories of intense heat contain scarlet spots and a sudden, silent heartbeat; memories of extreme cold are filled with hazy illusions and uncontrollable hypothermia; and memories of ashen white are only the fading breaths that respond to the self. So many lives have perished beneath these wings, perhaps also from blindness, impulsiveness, and ignorance. In the most primitive times, people did not know how to treat illness, so the most effective, yet also the most deadly, remedies were often prayer, self-harm, and endurance.
As the butterfly wings gently unfurled, until their tips seemed to touch the clouds hanging in the sky, the girl in the cocoon slowly raised her head, opening her eyes for the first time to see this world that had been turned upside down. But now, those eyes held no trace of the pity and sorrow she once possessed as a human, not even any characteristics of mortal life. Only two swirling, murky nebulae remained; her left eye held the remnants of the raging fires in the crematorium during an ancient plague, while her right eye reflected mountains of corpses buried under the dense fog of a barbaric era. As her gaze slowly swept across the ravaged land, her eyes briefly left phosphorescent embers in the air, within which lurked tiny phantoms of coughing, high fever, and delirium.
The newly emerged goddess stood silently in the desolate downpour. Her body clearly exceeded ten meters in height; while not comparable to the colossal dragon phantom created by Ovira, she was by no means small, rivaling even the prototype machine god, the Taikong. Yet, strangely, she exuded a sense of frailty, loneliness, and desolation. This was likely because, despite her imposing stature, her physique was remarkably thin, as if she hadn't received sufficient nourishment while still in her cocoon before being forced into this world, inherently malnourished, leaving only an empty shell, seemingly about to be blown away by the rain and submerged in the depths of the tide.
What's even stranger is that all the characteristics she displays—whether physical or emotional, human or non-human, withered hair like dry grass, a face as sorrowful as late autumn, eyes as desolate as late spring, butterfly wings woven with pathological patterns, scales scattered like pathogens, bones as thin as lesions, and even the deathly aura emanating from within, like a dying butterfly, a struggling ant, or an insect that has never seen autumn or winter—all of this defies the basic definition of aesthetics for mortals. Yet, if you gaze at her carefully, observe her cautiously, and even set aside your innate fears and face her with courage that transcends worldly conventions, you will find her to be so…beautiful.
In the past, a wandering poet praised a young girl's delicate posture as "as if she were ill," perhaps reflecting this feeling; a painter, visiting a bedridden friend, was moved by the friend's furrowed brow and coughing posture, creating a masterpiece in one stroke—there's no reason why. People tend to favor the delicate; if so, perhaps the same feeling arises when facing this young girl?
But she was no ordinary girl.
It is the monarchy of plague, wielding the laws of evolution and elimination in the world. It can exterminate ten thousand species, yet leave them unable to find their enemy, dying in fear and anxiety; it can also overthrow a hundred civilizations, not by making them fight each other, but by using weapons more cruel than weapons, and slaughter more gentle than slaughter. You cannot fail to recognize its identity, because when you see it, the source of the plague has already silently entered your breath, heartbeat, and blood vessels. You gradually feel your breathing failing, your heartbeat weak, and an uneasy rhythm throbbing in your blood vessels, realizing that you will die, perhaps from the simplest cough and fever, or perhaps from some incurable disease. How you hate them, just as you hate tangible swords and intangible slander. These are all means of killing, but not as deadly and natural as disease. Yet, even at this moment, you still feel... that it is not ugly.
Though decaying, it is also thriving; though withering, it is also sacred; though desolate... it is also beautiful.
It sounded absurd, but only Ovira knew it was no illusion, nor was it a result of illness corrupting her reason and consciousness. On the contrary, it was a normal reaction. After all, no matter how blasphemous her appearance, how bleak her demeanor, or how lonely her eyes, she was ultimately a young queen, an agent of a supreme law of the universe. Perhaps the laws of evolution and elimination were too cruel, and the specific forms of disease evoked disgust and fear, but they still constituted the underlying logic of the universe, an inseparable part of it. One could even say that every substance and every living being was destined to be closely connected to it from birth, a connection that far exceeded natural blood ties, secular racial relations, and even psychological identification.
Without these laws, there would be no you. Therefore, it is only natural that you hold them in awe and deeply worship them. For example, natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, storms, and floods—while mortals certainly fear their power and hate the damage they cause, aren't they also captivated by their magnificence and yearn to possess such great power? This comes from the heart, like instinct.
The alien monster, decaying, dying, withering, bleak and desolate, yet so tragically beautiful, inspires both fear and sorrow.
Surprisingly, it was Perec who felt fear and sorrow. She feared her own power and grieved for her current state. Therefore, her first act upon awakening was neither to announce her return to the entire universe like the Dark Witch Carabosse, nor to pause and contemplate the fate of the mortal world like the Destiny Queen, Saint Sharia. She simply raised her hand gently, silently gazing at the faintly visible veins in her palm. After a long while, she let out a distant sigh: "What an ugly posture..."
The sound spread through the rain, ripples spreading across the ground, the soil and rocks quietly decaying, the sandstone and grass roots hidden in the soil turning gray and yellow before withering away. It's no wonder she felt this way; with the return of the complete plague kingship, it was practically a mobile source of infection. Just standing there, it constantly spread the seeds of plague, and even speaking could trigger an invisible epidemic, affecting not only the living but also the inanimate.
However, Ovira doesn't think so.
“I think you’re much better than the old one,” she said softly. “At least you’re real enough.”
"So, you think so too?" Pereike's expression was more bewildered than sad: "This is the real me? This is the me in my heart? This is how I should be?"
I was meant to be a witch who brings plagues, spreads misfortune, slaughters living beings, and creates tragedies, not a self-proclaimed compassionate healer who hypocritically believes that saving as many lives as possible can atone for her sins, yet remains indifferent to or even deliberately avoids the atrocities happening around her. Since you've always done this, doesn't it just show that your true nature is so cold and indifferent? Now you're simply returning to square one.
"Do not."
Ovira had long since realized that Perec's problem stemmed neither from past traumas nor from her later experiences at the Witch's Society; it was simply her nature—a person prone to overthinking. Although she hadn't been back in the mortal world long, she had already encountered many like her. In fact, it wasn't an exaggeration to say that she herself, when she spent her days alone in the castle, had been no different. Perhaps out of empathy, she wasn't trying to comfort Perec, nor did she resonate with her enemy; she simply wanted to tell her a very simple truth.
"I mean--"
She looked down at the torrential rain from Nibelungen, and at the bewildered figure in the rain: "Fighting in this way is better than fighting with too many trivial things on your back, for both of us."
Pereira fell silent for a moment. The things she had been struggling with, the things she had finally decided to abandon, and the things she had finally decided to fight for—were they all insignificant in Ovira's eyes? Normally, this might have made her feel slighted, but now, for some reason, she felt somewhat relieved.
She subtly understood what Ovira meant.
That's right. If you can abandon the past and disregard the future, and do everything in your power to restore yourself to your whole self, isn't that a signal that you're ready to fight to the death? If you can give up your life, then other things are indeed largely insignificant.
A faint smile managed to tug at the corners of the Plague Witch's lips, slightly dispelling her deathly aura and making her appear much more spirited. This didn't contradict her current posture; after all, the Plague Kingdom was merely a facade. It truly symbolized the laws of evolution and elimination in the universe. Those eliminated were undoubtedly decay and withering, but weren't those who successfully evolved also vibrant and striving? This kingdom itself possessed a strong duality; which aspect it manifested depended solely on Perec's own mental state—like facing disease, would you respond passively or proactively?
"I understand."
Pereira looked up, without speaking, yet her voice surged from all directions simultaneously, not through the air, but directly into the perception of all living things. The tattered butterfly wings fluttered silently, stirring up a gentle breeze carrying death and strife; scales rained down like an avalanche, and everything touched began to decay, rot, mutate, or, in excruciating pain, burst forth with a morbid new life—
"Then, please begin."
"This is a battle we will not fight for trivial matters." (End of Chapter)