Chapter 1509
Has it never changed?
Can death be spoken of so easily? Perhaps it was so for Perec. Ovira saw no fear on her face, only relief and a faint regret. But what was she regretting? Was it failing to win this crucial battle? She herself had said that victory or defeat wasn't everything; or was she dissatisfied with her performance? As an enemy, she had been formidable enough, almost forcing Ovira to reveal all her trump cards. She simply lacked time. If Perec had been given more time to carefully plan, the power of the Plague Kingdom would be unimaginable to anyone…
A person stands on the battlefield, fighting with all their might until their body crumbles and their wings wither, yet never yearns for victory. This contradicts the instinct for survival, the dignity of royalty, and even any rational logical deduction. But only Perec said so, and Ovira chose to believe it, because this girl was truly not a good liar. She was insecure, weak, self-doubting, and easily swayed—arguably the most unsuitable person in the world to contend with anyone.
But she was born with a sensitive heart.
This heart made her question the teacher's legitimacy for the first time when she witnessed the wood elf boy suffering in the laboratory; this heart made her yearn for warmth that did not belong to her for the first time when she faced the outstretched hand of Tentis; this heart made her go against her mission countless times in thousands of years in the human world, reaching out to those lives that should have been eliminated, but never truly believing that she was kind.
She never truly believed it.
This is her deepest tragedy. If she were cold-blooded enough, she could comfortably play the role of the eliminated, regarding the deaths of billions of lives as an inevitable natural law, without feeling joy or sorrow, without any ripples in her heart; if she were numb enough, she could regard her own bias and selfishness as necessary salvation, deriving satisfaction from the praise and tears of those she saved.
Unable to remain ruthless, yet unwilling to choose numbness, such a person, if she were an ordinary mortal in the world, would be no different from any other; but if she were a young girl with the power to control the laws of creation, then she would undoubtedly be very tragic.
The weak, fearful, and pathetic Miss Perec had only one choice...
“Death.” She lowered her head and stared at her palms. The pale lines and withered germs were now disappearing like quicksand, worn away bit by bit from her fingertips, yet she felt no pain. The girl sighed, “It doesn’t seem as painful as I imagined.”
Amidst a soft sigh, the rain stopped sometime earlier. The wasteland, once shrouded in a massive smog covering 330,000 square kilometers, was once again bathed in sunlight, yet the oppressive atmosphere still made it hard to breathe, because a butterfly that had long since died suddenly began to wither.
The process was silent, without cries or even warning. Suddenly, in the still air, scales began to fall, initially just a few scattered specks, like withered leaves carried away by the first gust of autumn wind, swirling lightly into the still damp chill of the post-rain air. All the scales were silvery-gray, not the dark purple of disease, not the pale white of decay, but more like the color of some ancient creature, accumulated over millions of years in rock strata, earth veins, or amber. They peeled from the edges of the broken wing veins, hovering briefly in mid-air, as if checking the wind direction, or perhaps bidding a final farewell to the form that had dwelled there for so long.
Then they began to fall, until the first scale fell to the ground.
It was a scorched earth, soaked by rain, having endured the ravages of war, the ravages of disease, and the trampling of countless hurried footsteps. No one cared about the land's past, just as no one cared how the soil of a battlefield differed from elsewhere. But the moment the dust touched the ground, everything changed. The wind still blew, the distant sobs still echoed, and the last raindrops still occasionally fell through the clouds, but something more essential to life fell silent. The microorganisms deep in the soil ceased dividing, the dormant insect eggs stopped wriggling, and even the weak grass roots struggling to survive in the cracks seemed to hold their breath, as if afraid of being noticed by the world's most terrifying disaster.
More scales fell.
They no longer drifted away in scattered pieces, but peeled off in large swaths from the tattered butterfly wings, like ginkgo leaves in late autumn suddenly deciding to shed all their golden hue on a certain morning. Pere's butterfly wings, already withered to the point of being almost transparent, grew even thinner with the continuous peeling of scales, like two watermarks about to be completely washed away by rain. All the drifting trajectories were elusive; some fell vertically, like weary travelers finally finding a bed to lie on; some rose with the wind, tracing extremely beautiful arcs in mid-air, like dancing the last dance of their lives; some ascended, defying gravity, defying all the mundane laws of physics, drifting towards the gloomy sky, as if to trace back the flowing clouds, to return to that long-forgotten homeland.
Although, no one knows exactly where their homeland is.
Perhaps it was at the very beginning of the universe, the moment when the Plague King received his mission from his mother; perhaps it was thousands of years ago, the evening when the Wood Elf boy stopped breathing on the laboratory table; perhaps it was closer, right now, at this very moment, when she finally allowed herself to stop thinking, stop feeling guilty, stop deceiving herself with "next time will be better."
It was as if another rain was falling silently before Ovira's eyes.
She was reluctant to interrupt the scene, knowing that such a long and silent farewell would never again grace the world, like those unseen disasters or any signs that could be called miracles. But the truth was, she had to respond, for it concerned the future of the entire world, the fate of all living beings, and the rise and fall of a universe.
When the gods brought hope, Atorica's despair receded as promised, but Ovira knew that in other corners of the world, in those distant lands beyond her reach, beyond her protection, beyond the reach of the light of knowledge, new seeds were quietly sprouting. Silver-gray scales, like messengers, carried the whispers of the plague witch: Calm your mind, think quietly, do you see its shadow?
It was a disease yet to be defined, for it was born with the death of the witch. If despair is a perennial plague that even witches are susceptible to, an incurable disease, then what is currently spreading throughout the universe must be the witch's memories themselves. She liberated her soul, burned her heart's blood, and transformed those heavy, painful, profound, yet obsessive memories into a plague, infecting all living beings.
In that case, let's name it... "Last Wish".
Now that things have come to this, it is probably unnecessary to elaborate on what the plague witch's last wish was. As for the specific symptoms of this disease, there is no precedent in history, and the special nature of the pathogen makes it difficult to understand by magic or science. Only Ovira, as the Queen of Mysteries, can understand its essence.
For living beings, it would be a long nightmare, a dream in which they resonate, hearing the witch's voice, seeing her figure lingering on the edge of the abyss, yearning to be understood, yet destined to go against the fate of the mortal world, or drift further and further away. Perhaps the witch said in the dream, "I am a failure, and I am sorrowful"; and that obsession with unfulfilled desire ultimately infected all souls who had ever grieved for failure. The shared dream is like a terminal illness, finally giving a reason to give up to everyone in the world who had endured in silence, struggled in loneliness, and told themselves "just keep going" in day after day of despair. What if the plague's power also chose death?
Even the witch who governs the coldest, fairest, and most irresistible laws of the universe admits that she cannot bear its weight.
So why should I persist?
Holding onto this mindset, living beings sink deeper and deeper until there is no turning back. Unlike the symptoms of despair, which stem from external environmental influences, the former is a mortal's own choice. Since ancient times, humans have always simultaneously endured the trials of the external environment and the torment of their inner souls. Those who can overcome despair and continue forward are already few and far between; as for the latter, it could be said to be one in ten thousand.
People like that are called heroes.
Ovira can bring hope like a goddess, but she cannot help everyone become a hero.
And this is merely the symptom affecting living beings. For the entire universe, the plague monarchy, which holds the reins of evolution and elimination, extinguishing itself in such a decisive manner will cause the already fragile balance to collapse completely. At that time, not only will the plagues that have been defeated return, but the plagues that are currently breeding will become uncontrollable, and even plagues that could never have appeared in history and are only allowed to exist in delusional fantasies and absurd delusions will be spawned.
Civilizations crumble, species become extinct, all life of this generation is eliminated, and the universe falls into desolation until the next generation of life usheres in an era of evolution. It is no exaggeration to say that the Plague Kingdom possesses such power, or rather, each young princess kingdom, once completely freed from its limitations, can grasp civilizations, planets, and even the universe at will, shaping them arbitrarily. However, the price will inevitably be extremely high. Therefore, in the past, no matter how difficult the circumstances, even if betrayed by mortals, hated by all living beings, seen by all as witches bringing disaster, enduring hatred and fear… no one ever considered doing this.
Who could have imagined that it would eventually appear on the battlefield where sisters kill each other?
The story is destined to be a cruel joke, and no one can get the exact answer.
But Ovira still wanted to ask.
It wasn't for the sake of knowledge; at this moment, she had already vaguely guessed most of the answers. It wasn't for the sake of questioning; questioning an existence that had surrendered itself to nothingness was meaningless. It wasn't even for the sake of understanding; the more she understood, the more pale and powerless she felt understanding itself was.
The girl just wanted to ask.
I want to hear that person say it from her own lips. In her voice, in her tone, in that familiar, soft, sigh-like tone that she never truly sighs.
So she asked, "Why do you have to do this?"
Her voice was so soft, almost drowned out by the wind. But Perec still heard it. In that state where even the physical form had dissolved, in the rift between existence and nothingness, she still heard it. Or rather, perhaps it was precisely to hear and answer this question that she stubbornly lingered in this world, refusing to leave?
“You are the King of Mysteries, you guessed it long ago, didn’t you?” The witch smiled weakly, but she didn’t speak with her vocal cords and lips. Instead, she spoke in a more primal way, in a language she knew before the laws were born, before the Kingship acquired its mission, before they were merely innocent daughters under their mother’s knees. She whispered, “Tentis’s plan is excellent, and I want to help her achieve it; Sister Carapos has already done it, and as someone else’s sister, how can I back down? I have accomplished nothing in my life, so I don’t want to give up now… Aren’t these reasons enough?”
Ovira fell silent. She knew these reasons, for the Mystic Kings were all-knowing. The first step of Tentis's plan was to restore the full power of the fourteen young female kings of Chaos and Order, and then return them to the laws in their most complete form. This return meant eternal slumber; and eternal slumber, in the eyes of mortals, meant death. Therefore, when they first heard of and accepted this plan, the witches, including Perec, had already foreseen their own deaths; this was merely the confirmation of that prophecy.
Caraboss was the first to accept Tientis's plan and the most determined to carry it out. So when she fought to the death against the power of fate, she had no regrets, only some regret that she could not do better. Perec had always admired this older sister, just as she had always admired her omnipotent elder sister in the past. She imitated everything, but could not imitate anything. She could not firmly encourage and confidently move forward, nor could she gently comfort her younger sisters. So she could only prove in this way that she might also have something worthy of being called an older sister.
Throughout the long years, she remained unchanged, always believing she was rebelling, yet achieving nothing in reality. She rejected her teacher, unwilling to continue using her power to harm others, yet dared not truly defy him, questioning his theories and research; she wanted to save those suffering, unwilling to see them tormented by disease, yet accepted Tentis's Eden Plan and Reality Plan, destined to sacrifice billions; even in the very end, accepting her fate and choosing to face the battle head-on, it was only because she had lost the sturdy shell of the Skyship, leaving her with nothing left to disguise herself…
Ovira knew all of these contradictory, complicated, and ridiculous reasons.
That's why she said—
“Not enough.” The Mystic King said, enunciating each word clearly, “My question isn’t why you did this, but… why do you insist on doing this, Perec?” (End of Chapter)