Chapter 1511
Did Chapter 1511 never exist?
Scales peeled off the edges of the butterfly's wings.
At first, it was just a few scattered drops, like the last withered leaf on a branch in late autumn finally unable to bear the weight of the wind, swirling lightly and drifting into the damp air after the rain, like memories sinking into the deepest depths of oblivion, or like those unspoken words finally finding their home at this moment. Pereike looked down at her hands, which were becoming transparent, the outline of her bones faintly visible, but what she saw through her pale skin was not a ravaged earth, but an infinitely vast, infinitely distant, yet infinitely silent world, as if she were looking up from beneath the surface of water, but above the water lay another place she could never reach.
The cold, empty space made me feel safe.
Presumably, that is the destination called death?
The morning mist dissipates before sunrise, the morning dew vanishes with the dream, spring flowers cannot bear autumn fruit, and the tiny mayfly cannot see the snow on the mountaintop… All these fleeting things illustrate how swift death is, slipping through your fingers in the blink of an eye. But if you look closely, you'll find it so slow; those transparent lines begin to spread from the fingertips, inch by inch, as if giving her enough time to remember.
Is this end-of-life care for death row inmates? Everyone needs a little time to reflect on their brief existence—not enough to call it a life, but merely an existence—to see if there's anything memorable worth carrying into the afterlife. But Perec has no interest in this, because she believes she already has enough memories, and more isn't necessarily better. If it exceeds a certain limit, not only herself, but probably even the reader of this novel would become impatient.
But it's strange, how could I compare my most genuine feelings and experiences to a novel? Perhaps the plots are equally dramatic, the characters are vivid and lifelike, and the themes are all about love and justice, but its ending is tragic. Stories aren't meant to bring sadness, so I naturally can't be its protagonist.
Fortunately, Perec never expected to be the protagonist. After all, being the protagonist is too exhausting; one always has to bear burdens others can't, shoulder responsibilities others can't, and ultimately, complete missions others would never accept. If you don't believe me, just look at the girl before you—the King of Mysteries. She shines so brightly, saving billions of lives on the land of Atorica in the name of God. Such a great and selfless person must be the protagonist in her story, right?
At the same time, they will also face the most difficult choices.
Will some people be grateful to her? And some will hate her, right? But she certainly won't care about their gratitude or hatred, because the protagonist must firmly follow the path she has chosen. The wavering and hesitation along the way are just interludes, because the ending has already been determined, so the details in between are irrelevant, aren't they?
I wonder if she was satisfied with the plot of the novel.
Anyway, Perec was satisfied, so it was time to bring everything to a close.
Scales are still falling.
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. The wings had long since withered to the point of being almost transparent; the vibrant colors that once reflected life and death were now reduced to a withered gray-white, as if soaked by time for too long, all stories fading into the background. Now, with the continued peeling of scales, the wings grew increasingly thin, like two watermarks about to be completely washed away by rain, or two pages of letters scattered by the wind, the words on them already blurred and unrecognizable.
All the trajectories are elusive.
Some fluttered down like rain, settling peacefully into the embrace of gravity, like weary travelers finally finding a bed to lie on, no longer needing to rush, no longer needing to escape, no longer needing to hide in the shadows before dawn. They fell to the ground, into puddles, onto the scorched earth burned by war, silently, as if they had never existed.
Some drift with the wind, like snowflakes scattering, tracing graceful arcs in the air, as if performing their final dance. They swirl, rise, fall, and drift, searching for a place to rest, constantly asking the world: Is there a corner willing to accept a homeless soul? But the wind doesn't answer, nor does the world; they can only continue drifting until their last ounce of strength is exhausted.
They landed on her shoulders, in her hair, and on her hands, which were now almost invisible. Each piece was so light it was weightless, and it vanished the moment it touched her, as if it had merged into her life, becoming an inseparable part of this soul that had turned its back on the world.
In the hazy light, what did Pereira see?
She saw her teacher standing not far away, wearing that eternally cold and indifferent white robe, looking at her with those unreadable eyes. The man named Metatron, the one who took her in and then imprisoned her, the one who taught her everything and yet taught her nothing at all. She had never pitied him, never felt sorrow for him, and even at his death, she had only softly uttered an "Oh." But now, she suddenly wanted to ask him: Did he ever regret it?
It wasn't that I regretted conducting that experiment, nor that I regretted taking in such a student, but rather that despite conducting that experiment, taking in such a student, and seeing through her true nature, I couldn't control myself with indifference. Instead, based on a moment of pity, I chose to turn a blind eye and let her stay.
But the teacher didn't answer. He just looked at her quietly, as if looking at a mystery that had been solved many years ago. As his figure gradually blended into the dust, Pereira suddenly heard his voice, but it was just a sigh that she had expected. She then realized once again that life was just a dream, which she herself had to fall into and which was then broken by outsiders.
She saw Tentis standing in the shadows, outstretched to her, just as she had many years ago. Perec wanted to gently grasp that hand, to tell her that she hadn't been afraid, but for some reason, she lacked the strength. Tentis looked at her too, her eyes holding something she couldn't decipher. Was it expectation? Pity? Farewell? She didn't know. Although Tentis never hid her feelings from others—what she wanted to do, what her goals were, how she would achieve them—all these, along with her past, had been entrusted without reservation to her sister. Sadly, no one could truly understand her heart. Then Tentis vanished, as if she had never been there. She saw Caraboss walking resolutely ahead of her, saw Saint Charlotte quietly weaving the web of fate, and sometimes saw Ovira gazing at her with sorrow and melancholy, but it wasn't out of grief for the deaths of her enemies, but merely a sense that destiny was approaching, and no one could escape it. She saw those who had died in the plague, ravaged like those caught in the rain, standing alone, no one blaming, no one questioning, no one even harboring hatred, for all of this was meaningless, even more empty than the pursuit of meaning itself. She saw those she had once saved, standing in the sunlight, waving to her, their smiles genuine, their eyes filled with sincere gratitude. They preferred to believe that the saint of the garden and the Grand Master of the Hospitallers were undoubtedly kind saviors, and their feelings were naturally genuine. Only the girl knew that she herself had been saved. If she had any strength left, she should have thanked them, but they had already vanished, like morning mist in the sunlight, disappearing without a trace in an instant.
In each falling scale, a familiar or unfamiliar person is reflected, a dull or sensitive heart is buried, and a story of insignificance or inferiority is hidden. They drift in from all directions, as if to bid her farewell, or as if to eagerly offer a pre-prepared eulogy. Her life flashes before our eyes: those she met, those she missed, hands that reached out and then withdrew, words that opened her mouth and then swallowed back… How will people judge her?
Not important anymore.
The body sinks, the soul rises; those who sink into the earth return to the foundations of the world; those who drift into the clouds eventually wander in the lightless sea. Witches need no tombstones; their destiny is the entire universe. But if she could, Perec would like to leave herself an epitaph. Of course, her life held nothing worthy of commemoration or boasting, nor did she intend to leave behind any philosophical pronouncements to provoke deep thought. It's just that at the moment of death, emotions inevitably overflow, making her want to utter a sigh—
"Cherish the time when you still have choices," she whispered, "because some things are ultimately beyond our control."
The voice was very soft, so soft that it sounded like someone who had never existed, finally admitting that they had never existed.
……
The world suddenly brightened for a moment, as if something that had been obscuring it had been removed.
The moment the battle ended, the colossal cumulonimbus cloud covering 330,000 square kilometers in the sky above Atorica crumbled in an instant, its collapse even faster than the darkness beneath the 8,000-meter-deep mine or the devastating floods on the surface. A torrential rain that had lasted for millennia finally fell its last drop. The sky had never been so bright; its azure surface, washed clean by the rain, reflected all the sunlight that had been lost and regained. Every ray of light fell on the ravaged land, on the puddles, on the upturned faces of those who had just emerged from despair… all of which Ovira saw.
The enormous butterfly of light, which had not yet landed, gazed silently at the collapsing sky, remembering that its enemy had once stood there. She had stepped onto the battlefield with the resolve to die, and should have been aggressive, but when she emerged from her cocoon, she was so frail, as thin as a skeleton. She remembered how the cold in the clouds had gathered and then turned into a downpour, dripping down her wings as if to drown the whole world. Then she remembered how the girl had curled up and trembled in the rain, and finally opened her arms to embrace her fate.
Even now, she still couldn't grasp the reality of the battle being over. What, then, made her so uneasy? The most powerful enemy had been beheaded, light had returned, bringing long-awaited peace, and she could even faintly hear the distant cheers of survivors. The creatures of this land were singing praises to their heroes, rejoicing that Atorica had not lost its bloodline and legacy since the hero who slew the dragon ten thousand years ago, the hero who fought for freedom three hundred years ago, and the unwavering hero a hundred years ago.
This is a land that produces heroes, and the Atoligans have long been accustomed to their lives of being protected and saved. They firmly believe that heroes are sometimes like veins of minerals deep beneath the rocks, which will never run dry, just as minerals are living things that can breathe and reproduce; and sometimes they are like the rainy season in the wilderness, when it comes, drought and desolation flee in panic, and when it leaves, it leaves behind countless lives and hopes.
Naturally, no one would consider whether suffering gave birth to heroes, or whether this land suffered so much in order to highlight the greatness of heroes. The cause-and-effect logic of things is always so clear, and the girl of the mysterious royal power never had any doubts about it. This was the only question she was unwilling to think about, because she knew that the answer was neither based on logic nor on the existing knowledge system, but was merely a mortal's emotional perception.
Why is this so?
She asked herself. Was it because her battle with Perec wasn't as intense as she'd imagined, like the battle between Xia and Carabosse, where both sides were acutely aware of the unprecedented difficulty of their lives, desperately wanting to defeat or even kill each other, leaving them feeling empty? Or was it because the Plague Witch's passing was too quiet, so quiet it didn't feel like facing a lost battle, but more like her choosing to say goodbye? Or perhaps it was because—
She looked down at her hands.
Not long ago, those hands had wielded the divine weapon known as the fairy sword Hydras, and had just received the faith of billions of people on this land, fighting against another kingdom not for ideals or beliefs. Even after this great battle, they remained stable, without any tremor, as if they could still hold a pen and continue writing the next chapter of a novel that ended here.
Naturally, they are the hands of the omniscient, the hands used to analyze and understand all things. How could they possibly lose such great power because of battle?
Unless, of course, their owners are in a state of confusion.
Confused, for while an enemy has departed, a new choice has arrived. (End of Chapter)