Chapter 101: Deathless Desire

They say that bitter medicine worked the best. In this case, Estelle needed to take on the worst ever feeling to get past her life crisis.

Estelle forced herself to remember that she was a respectable Villainess, and that this was just another life trial she had to overcome in order to successfully tread on the path of a Villainess.

The path was painted with lava and decorated with poisonous thorns that harmed her every so often.

She couldn't help but crawl down to the floor and bang her chest repeatedly to control the chaos. To avert her attention to another source of pain- a relatively well known method to bear painful experiences. Yet, the 'true' Creation Magic continued rampaging within her and wrecking everything.

The being mentioned that the True Creation Magic shouldn't have been wielded by the current Estelle. Estelle was the sole possessor of this magic in the past, but her current condition and vessel was far from enough to qualify for this magic.

Estelle understood it all because the unknown being had specifically told her to beware, and yet she was still unwilling to lose. Because she believed that if there wasn't a chance of her surviving, then the being wouldn't have approached her and purposefully guided her.

A farfetched guess. But she had to hold on to every single piece of hope if she wanted to get out of this ordeal alive.

Estelle dug her nails into her skin as she crawled back up and crossed her legs, getting into a meditative position. She had confidence in her mind, and attempted to distract the pain entirely by going into deep focus.

She imagined a still body of water. That body of water was her way of visualizing her soul's current condition. She had to calm it down.

Inside her mind, she repeated the phrase 'calm down' a thousand times. To ease the burning pain, she suppressed the rampaging magic as much as possible and prevented it from touching the insides of her soul and disrupting the body of water's flow.

Sweat dripped off of Estelle like never before. Estelle bit her lips as hard as she could, feeling uncomfortable even after she went into a state of deep focus.

[Calm down. Everything will be fine. I don't need to worry. I am Estelle, and not yet Estraea.]

The True Creation Magic was a major reminder that she served as the past Estraea's continuation. However, she hadn't assimilated with the original persona yet.

Whatever Estraea was, whether she was a Goddess or the first Creation did not matter to herself.

In her mind, Estelle will forever be Estelle Clareste, a dweller of the Surface. She didn't wish to reject Estraea's part completely, but her true self didn't have to be dominated by Estraea's presence.

Estelle believed that she could take charge of the matter. As long as she continued persevering.

Her current views were all ones that she liked. She had immense trust in herself. Because, if even she didn't trust herself, who would?

In terms of intimacy, Estelle had to say that she was the closest to herself. The best at understanding herself, more than anyone. Perhaps the mysteries that covered her were abundant, but that didn't deter her from holding her ground and not faltering from pressure.

The fate's flow was cruel.

There were so many times that she wished to give up because of all the painful experiences. But she always come out on top.

Why wouldn't this matter be the same as those times?

Estelle was someone that hated to lose, but she was flexible on top of everything. Her confidence had been battered up to a bad state, but she would recover.

Even if she did lose, she would only hate the fact that she lost and nothing more. She would simply stand back up and continue her journey.

Estelle scrunched up her face as she breathed out harshly.

Same process, over and over again.

She recalled her experience in the Eterna. The process she had mastered and gotten better at through constant hammering of experiences. Those moments where she found solitude and peace. No one else was there, just her.

Today, too, the situation was similar. Very similar.

Estelle couldn't believe that she would be put in this damned situation this early after the previous experience.

It hadn't even been one day yet. If she had known about this, she would've taken a longer rest at the Eterna.

She kept her calm as she began culminating the initialization with the True Creation Magic. It'd be hard at the start, but surely she could control it.

Estelle wondered. Before she left, her farewell with the Ruler was quite long. The omniscient, all-knowing Ruler, why did the being not warn her? Was it because it would wrong the world's karma?

Estelle didn't think of herself as a Samaritan, but she felt like she had done quite the fair share of good deeds.

The Ruler told her that the world's karma scales according to your worth and gifts. If you are talented, when you are blessed with many gifts, then naturally your requirements and standards would be raised accordingly.

Estelle's situation was like that. She was stuck in an endless cycle of spending her world's karma in an attempt to save her life.

To think of the forever tipping scale, it would be like raising her karma, getting into misfortune, and end up having to spend those karma points in order to save herself out of the peril. Then, due to her good luck after receiving her power, more bad luck would come. Her karma will be spent.

An unending cycle that needed to be ended.

Estelle snorted as she felt like the ridiculous situation shouldn't even exist in the first place.

She recuperated from the initial pain and began picking her pace up. She brought up her will to continue the stages, scaling the difficult staircase to her safety with great pains.

You wouldn't gain much if you didn't take the necessary risks and pains.

Her two newly gained magic intertwined with each other, mixing in smoothly. Estelle felt very lucky, because this was completely unlike when she was in the Eterna. Estelle thought that she would have to withstand great ordeals in order to successfully mix them, but the two elements were actually coming together on their own.

A bright smile laced with happiness appeared as Estelle was once again hopeful of her trials.

Outside Estelle's realm, Heine was beginning to sense that something was wrong.

Because Estelle herself had ripped her seal apart, Heine received the same result outwards. But somehow, he felt like the reason the seal broke wasn't the process he started up.

"The process isn't happening like I thought it would. Do you have any idea why this is happening?" Heine clicked his tongue, wondering if he had gotten something wrong.

He obtained the method he was using right now from his memories. He was sure that this could work. It comprised of a couple stages, and the first ones were already done. He was ready to move on, but he couldn't shake off the strange premonition he held.

He just had to let this method succeed and his sister would be returned back to him. They were separated for so long. He couldn't wait to reunite with her any longer.

But what on Earth was he feeling uneasy? What was happening.

"I do not know. Since you didn't obtain the complete information, maybe there was a slight discrepancy between the descriptions?" Duke Miller replied to the man.

"..I suppose that could be true," Heine mumbled, still feeling off.

There was an original plan. One that differed from what he was about to do soon.

It was intended to be a long and lengthy progress.

At first, he hid his negative sentiments because Estelle was indeed quite the peculiar target to offend. She possessed the soul of a Goddess, albeit not a complete one. It had been destroyed in the past, and in order to recover it, they had to endure a rigorous process of finding the Goddess' scattered remains for what might not work at all.

To help with that, there was a plan.

It was a ridiculous plan concocted by the very man who harmed Goddess Estraea and made her soul shatter.

Everything was done for that man. The reason why they were all in this difficult predicament was also because of him and his actions. As Astarte, who was suddenly left by his sister out of nowhere, he had an unconditional hatred towards the man.

But because everyone was partial to him, Astarte had to swallow his displeasure down. For the plan's sake. Because they promised that Estraea will return safely even if it would take a long time.

But what did he see? Suffering. Everyone suffered because of the long wait. Because of the plan to move Estraea to a mortal realm so that she could stabilize, she was hurt too. Because of the next stage that was to move 'Reina' to the Surface, Estelle was hurt beyond belief.

Countless pain stacking up to build herself to the point where she would be able to assimilate with her former self. A slow progress that tormented him when he finally regained Astarte's full memories and began to realize the truth.

Heine didn't exactly agree with his plans, but everyone supported him. Just because Estraea treasured him, just because Estraea's soul once laid within that wretched man.

Heine gritted his teeth as he felt Astarte's rage take over his rationality and cloud his mind.

He must do his duties. Everyone couldn't do it, but he could.

He could save his sister alone. Unlike the Absolute who until now was still restrained to the World Tree.