Chapter 389: Demon Queen vs Queen of Angels Part 2
"...[Red Amber Tempest]." Esther uses the magic she had previously recited against Qyraen. The attack completely alters the environment, generating strong winds as a sort of red dust falls from the sky, resembling a sandstorm.
However, each fragment of this red sand that touches Qyraen expands like thorns that pierce her body. Since there’s so much of this sand, a ball of thorns quickly forms, locking Qyraen inside.
’What a dangerous attack...’ The Esther Marionette just used an attack that covered a gigantic area and could decimate entire armies, but I don’t think it has enough power to kill Qyraen. As expected, small beams of Hikishin begin to pierce through the sphere of thorns.
But they are super concentrated and aimed at trying to get rid of the red sand near her. Seeing this won’t work, Qyraen simply expends a massive amount of Hikishin at once, generating a spherical explosion that destroys the red sandstorm. The Esther Marionette manages to protect me, but even she sustains wounds.
"Haaa... how frustrating, how frustrating!! HOW FRUSTRATING!! WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!!" Qyraen screams, running a hand over her forehead and throwing her hair back while her body is covered in blood.
’She seems so... desperate...’
"Was your transcendence really worth it, Qyraen? Do you think you became a god? If so, you must be the most pathetic deity in existence to be covered in your own blood like this." I mock her as I look at my chest. Her spear had pierced through where the thread dress doesn’t protect. I was wounded by a combination of her strength and my own bad luck, but she is far more wounded.
"Shut up..." Qyraen looks at her own blood-soaked hands as she gasps irregularly, her arrogant facade crumbling into considerable despair. It started after I said her husband was dead. She must have sensed that he isn’t around here, so she must have realized it’s true.
And now, even her great goal of transcending hasn’t placed her on a level as high as she expected.
"...I thought I was pathetic, but you are even more pathetic..." I look at her with genuine pity, realizing that Qyraen is someone who sank too deep into her own madness and is losing everything because of it.
The way she acted during the fight against Shizuka was already strange; it was somewhat erratic with slight emotional outbursts, and now it’s even worse. It seems like she has been slowly collapsing ever since we left the vault.
"Look around. You lost your kingdom, your people are being decimated, your husband, who was also your brother, is dead, and even your transcendence proved to be nothing special. You got stronger, and it cost you everything... don’t you think it’s time you just gave up?" She could surrender. She has nothing left anymore.
"Shut up... shut up!! SHUT UP, YOU WRETCH! It’s all your fault!! YOU!! YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!!!" She flails her hand as the magic leaking from her body cracks the ground around her.
"..." I taste her emotions. A deep despair joined by an extremely intense hatred directed at me. I had completely ignored the taste of her emotions this whole time because they made no sense, but now they’ve started to become too strong to ignore.
"Hahaha... it’s comical. You sank yourself into desires that took everything from you. This is the result of your choices!!" I laugh at her, which only increases the hatred in her gaze.
"I will kill you, whatever it takes!! I will kill you!! You ruined everything!!" I look around, noticing all the Hikishin in the area being pulled toward her.
"?!!" The Esther Marionette grabs me and starts to pull away as I see a core forming above Qyraen.
’I-Is this madwoman really doing it?!! She’s going to die!!’ Qyraen, drowning in her despair, as the core in front of her is fully formed and falls into her hands. She holds it as if it were a solution.
She looks at me, and her gaze is strange, a dark and disturbing void. She then eats the core. Hikishin molds the reality around it, which implies that, technically in theory, it can change many things about the reality around it.
Since Qyraen can’t use magic, she is betting everything on "transcending" again, like a monster that uses the magic stored in its cores to evolve.
But monsters were biologically made to evolve, angels were not! The sphere of magic that forms explodes in a large silvery flash as I witness Qyraen’s "evolution."
A grotesque sound of bones deforming arises as her body reveals its new form.
"...Grotesque... idiot... you condemned yourself..." I look at this pitiful thing. It’s like a 3-meter-tall humanoid with 6 pairs of black wings and no head. Its body has 4 arms and large, intense holes in various places across its body that let you see through to the other side. They aren’t really wounds, just part of its body.
Two of its arms are extremely deformed, while it has a large eye on its chest that glares at me with terrible hatred.
The joints of its limbs are a complete mess, while its ribs are literally on the outside, and its skin is a deathly pale.
"So this is what happens when someone tries to evolve like a monster..." She became a monster. She managed to survive, but she turned into an aberration. The eye on her chest sheds tears as the taste of despair around her grows stronger.
"Qyraen, you transcended again, and you ended up even less divine than the first time... you look like an abomination..." Honestly, seeing this abomination that cries for what it has become extinguishes all the will for revenge and torture I had.
I wonder why she wanted to transcend so badly. I didn’t think much about it, and I probably will never know the answer. All that’s left for me is to kill this aberration.
’If I... tried to evolve... would I also end up like this?’ I don’t know. I’m a nymph, which is a type of monster, and I have a natural core, so maybe I would actually evolve, but I don’t want to. Even though I hate my new form because it came from being forced into something, it’s still better than gambling and turning into a monster.
"Esther, let’s kill her. Don’t hold back." The Esther Marionette advances extremely fast toward this abomination, which runs toward her extremely fast. The eye on its chest stares at me, and a gleam begins to form in front of it.
But before it can fire anything, the Esther Marionette slams it to the ground. It lets out a grotesque scream of hatred, throwing a punch that hurls Esther far away.
"!!!" It runs in my direction, but I form a wall of threads. However, instead of trying to dodge, it literally slams into the wall and forces its body through, even though it gets cut.
Its blood drips down the threads as the threads begin to sink into its flesh, cutting deeply until they reach the bone.
I take a step back, seeing that it prefers to mutilate itself to get to me rather than retreat. The Esther Marionette returns in time and strikes it hard against the threads, slicing its entire body, and then fires ice magic, turning it into a statue.
"E-EVELYNNNN!!!" The frozen aberration screams my name as it breaks the ice. It flails on the ground, slamming my marionette against the threads with one of its hands. It’s a nearly childish form of tantrum as the shrill sound of its voice echoes.
"..." At this point, it’s become uncomfortable. Her tears, which won’t stop falling, make me realize that I destroyed her life. We were enemies, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did this.
Even with all the wrong she did, I was already kind of decimating her kingdom before. She was cold, vile, and a terrible person, but realizing that I destroyed someone’s life to this extent tightens my heart.
"Esther, just kill her..." I take a step back as she continues trying to get past the threads, screaming my name while crying. I put my hands on my head, feeling all her despair engulf me. The sensation of the taste of Esther’s emotions was terrible and suffocating, but Qyraen’s is worse.
Unlike Esther’s obsession, which was viscous and sticky, Qyraen’s despair is like a gloom that permeates my entire body and the environment, trying to consume me and erase everything around me.
Even with the Esther Marionette using magic, Qyraen’s resistance in this monster form has become too great. It seems to be converting all the Hikishin it has into defense while trying to get past the wall of threads, crying and screaming desperately.
Of course, if she tried to go under it or around it, she could make it, but her hatred and bestial irrationality are so focused on me that she can’t even think of that. She just pushes forward against the threads that slowly shred her body, pouring liters of blood onto the ground.
"I WILL KILL HER!!!!" She screams in a disturbing tone. It’s like a mix of a static hiss with a low-pitched distortion in her voice. The pupil of her eye trembles violently, looking everywhere in pure agony, until I’m so disturbed by it that I dispel the wall of threads.
The Esther Marionette slams her to the ground and runs to me, getting in front while forming a wall of ice. She also forms blood wings and grabs me, starting to fly.
"DON’T RUN!! EVELYN!!!" She puts her two hands together and points them in our direction. Without even needing to charge, she fires an immense beam of Hikishin. Esther manages to defend, but the attack completely clears the clouds from the sky while distorting the space around it.
"AAAHHHHHHH!!!!" She lets out a desperate scream that makes me cover my ears. My nymph powers go to their maximum, to the point where I can not only taste, but begin to see her despair as if it were something visible and tangible.
It’s like a black, semi-translucent mist that covers an entire region around us. The despair is also mixed with pure agony. Her new form seems to hurt a lot physically.
"Hey, Esther... can you immobilize her?" I look at my Katana, which has returned to my hand from down below.
"I... I really wanted to see her suffer for what she did to me... b-but this is agonizing... it’s pathetic and painful to see her like this. I want to put an end to this soon." Qyraen, down on the ground, tries to fly, but even with her wings, she can’t. She’s too big for the size of her wings, and her wings are too misshapen to even beat properly.
Besides, every flap of her wings makes her bones scrape against her back, making her bleed just from trying to fly.
"..." The Esther Marionette gives a nod, accepting the order. I start to fly with my wings as the Esther Marionette drops down below to do what I asked.
’...’