Chapter 1113: Arachne Is Finally Free
As Arachne's eyes slowly opened again, the girl felt... lighter than ever before. There was no longer a strong, overwhelming weight over her entire body, making her feel always tired. She felt the touch of her hand over the cold stone bed, and slowly sat down, admiring her surroundings.
Even though Sloth didn't deprive her of any of her senses, it felt like she was finally feeling them completely, for the first time through her entire life. She looked around her surroundings, the moonlight of Maria's Soulscape, the black soil beneath, the smell of dirt and plants, of nether and chaos.
It was all so new, so surprising, so incredible! She looked around, and then sensed her own body, her own soul, there was no longer anything there, no longer there was an annoying parasite forcing her to sleep, and she didn't feel sleepy anymore either.
"She's awake!" said Lucifer.
"T-The aura she had before, it's completely gone already?!" Partner wondered.
"Arachne! Are you okay?" Nyx wondered, running to see her.
The ritual had already ended, so it was safe to enter the ritual circle for now.
"I-I... I'm fine... Ah, but mama, is she okay?!" Arachne wondered, as she was hugged by Nyx.
"She's fine! Look, she's- she's waking!" Nyx quickly flew with her wings towards her mama after seeing her waking up. "Mama! Are you okay?!"
She jumped over Maria's face, pushing her down.
"Mguh...!"
"N-Nyx! Be more careful with your mother!"
Lucifer came running to see Maria, Partner too, and also Emeraldine, Jonathan, and Nia. The rest of the kids went to check on Arachne, finding out she was completely alright too. Celes was also ready to heal her.
"Maria, are you alright?" Lucifer wondered.
"I bet you can't!"
"Come on sleepyhead, let's play catch then!"
Arachne started playing with all the kids, as they began running around, she started catching them. Maria watched the scene with a big smile in her face, barely resisting her tears of happiness.
She had been taking care of that girl for a lot of time now, even more she created her village that she found her, so of course it was very moving to finally see her acting like she wanted, like a child.
"You did an amazing job, Maria! I can't believe it worked so well!" Nia said. "But how did you do it? I thought you wanted to become the sin's vessel... despite how opposed we were, you were doing it anyways... But I'm relieved it was destroyed, but how did you do that too?" Nia loved asking a lot of questions, despite her age, she was as very curious woman. "Well, it happened when I entered her Soulscape of sorts, the Sin already activated his powers, dragging me inside some sort of Nightmare Realm. I couldn't even negotiate with him before he shattered my soul and ate it!" Maria laughed. "So at the end I decided to kill him. I didn't knew it was possible but I did it anyways, seems like it worked. Might do the same with the other Calamities if I ever find the rest. They're in the other continents, right?"
"YOU WHAT?!"
Everyone panicked and became euphoric the moment Maria said her soul was shattered and eaten, that was something that had never happened to her before!
Well, her soul had been torn apart many times, even blown up into pieces as a ghost, but it had never perished because of that.
So she had to sit down and explain to everyone how it went, they listened attentively, while asking questions occasionally.
However, once she had fully explained how it went, they felt relieved it was still some sort of "plan" from her, and she didn't just get overpowered out of nowhere.
"Phew, well, I guess it was a good plan then, although you shouldn't be so reckless..."
Emeraldine sighed, hugging Maria, and kissing her cheek.
"Y-Yeah, it was my master plan..." Maria looked elsewhere.
The truth was that it wasn't exactly her plan! Sloth ended being much stronger than she
thought and she had to improvise a lot.
However, she didn't want to worry them, so she kept that a secret...