Chapter 273: Chapter 272: Whom Iris was

Adorned in a saintly white robe, Elizabeth knelt before the statue of her goddess. Her dress’s glimmering tails flowed outwards like the purest water descending from the calmest mountain range. Star-like gemstones on it rustled with her movement, revealing in their reflections their owner’s grace.

Adorned on her angelic beauty was her unchanging nonsmile. Her indifference, concealed only by the thinnest veil, became perturbed only at the sight of The Lord, to whom she should be devoting her heart.

Her Holy Power radiated from her praying posture, its intensity brighter than the midday stars. A murky golden shield enclosed the prayer hall, isolating her from the one spying from the outside.

She took off her veil. Her flowing blue hair shone like sapphire for one moment and darkened like an indigo moon for another. It swept her silhouette as if revolving under her command.

She took a step forward. The chill marble floor pricked her bare feet. Her expression stayed still, for her mind focused only on that unmoving statue, the altar most holy.

“Lord, I now stand before you, as your sole Saintess Candidate,” she said. “All others have been judged, suppressed, and eliminated. Will you now give me my chance?”

Elizabeth held out and unfurled her right hand. Rings forged from purified gold and silver fell to the ground. Their cracked gemstones weakly glittered.

Only the one on Elizabeth’s ring retained its dignified glory. She caressed its smooth surface and pinched it. It trembled under her grip. Just before a crack manifested, she released her fingers while flashing her goddess a smile stretching unnaturally wide.

“Do you still consider me your favourite?” she said. “Those devout ladies lost their position to me, your chosen vessel. Not even the Ecclesiastical Tribunal could exact justice for them.”

The statue did not move, nor did any other voice resound.

“So long as I exist, there will be no more Saintess Candidate.” Elizabeth flung her hands to the side. “Am I still your favourite?”

“My Child, I’ve always been by your side,” a transcendent voice echoed.

Elizabeth lowered her head. Her eyes landed on the feet of the gigantic statue. An incomparable brilliance emanated from the divine maiden in a long, loose cloak waved from the threads of Faith.

As her eyes reddened, Elizabeth looked away. She couldn’t even glimpse her goddess’s soles. That flawless appearance remained outside her comprehension.

“One of the candidates refused to step down,” Elizabeth said. “Her faith in Your Divinity exceeds rationality. Should I have been fanatic like her?”

“My love demands no reciprocation.” The Lord smiled, though no one could see her. “And my commandments demand no absolute virtues, only inextinguishable determination.”

Elizabeth laughed. “But she still succumbed to my will, after I mentioned her brother.”

“Did their suffering ease yours?”

Quietude was her response.

“You only have to ask.” The Lord’s graceful tone stirred all emotions possible. “This world is your kingdom, this universe your domain.”

“Their worth matters so little, that you’re gifting them to me?”

“We share similar values, my Child.”

“I’m not you, never was, and never will be.”

“Your Blessing too is just as potent.”

Elizabeth clenched her fists. “My will is mine, my Destiny mine.”

“Is she, too, yours?”

Elizabeth lifted her head. Her eyes endured the burning sensation. “Lord, you’ve always been by my side. You know who I am, how I feel . . . and what I treasure.”

“And you know how similar we are.” The Lord settled down her veil. Her divine radiance softened until it no longer blinded her Chosen One. “Come to my side, Child, and your wish shall ring true.”

“It would be your wish, not mine.”

“Must you go forth on this path?”

There was no need for an answer. The Lord and her Chosen One understood each other too well. No persuasion nor bargain would change anything, yet they tried nonetheless.

“Is this not the reason you chose me?”

The Lord turned around to look at the statue of her likeness. Their elegance failed hers, but they captured something she lacked, something she had been chasing since the moment she crowned herself the owner of creation.

“I offer you an eternity, but you only want finality.”

Elizabeth laughed. Her voice crackled unlike her usually still, charming tone. Its broken quality resembled shattered obsidian.

“This memory of mine may have forgotten many things, but it still remembers enough.” Elizabeth glanced behind her, through the gigantic gates, at Herrifer, whose eyes failed to discern this conversation. “You placed her in my embrace, and I treasure her; she will succeed me, and I will succeed you.”

“Despite the futility of it all?”

“What can one failure do in the midst of everything?”

The Lord gave no answer. Elizabeth didn’t expect any.

“There is one thing I cannot fathom,” Elizabeth said. Her lips moved, but her voice became incomprehensible, her thoughts and expressions veiled in an infinite fog. Her reverberating speech eclipsed all understanding, all rationale.

Iris frowned. She had been watching this blurry scene unfolding as a spectator. Her spiritual body dove nearer to her past self, but she couldn’t penetrate the immense repelling between them. The Lord and Elizabeth were beyond her reach. This crucial memory, distorted and sundered into countless pieces, eluded her effort.

Their conversation rang unheard by all but themselves. The unending radiance faded when The Lord returned to her divine throne, leaving only the silent Elizabeth to stare blankly at the statue, whose quality seemed decayed and frail.

Elizabeth turned to stare at a wall decorated with azure stained glass. It depicted a lady whose hands uplifted angels and mortals alike. There was a familiar yet unknown presence there, though she could no longer sense it.

“I do not know who you are,” she said. “But that familiarity . . . it reminds me of—of something forgotten.”

Iris stood before her past self, whom she found unfathomable. “Maybe . . . I’m no longer you.”

“If our goals align . . . you must not lose your heart. Do not commit my mistake.”

Elizabeth shook her head. Her thoughtful expression melted away as if she were soulless. She paid no more attention to the stained glass and walked to the twin gates.

As she pushed the gate open, her little sister cleaned her golden-rimmed white robe and lowered her head, paying her respect to the holiest Saintess Candidate. Staying under Elizabeth’s gaze was enough to rock her tensed body.

“Congratulations, Sister,” she said. “Our Lord must’ve bestowed you endless blessings. Your ascension is all but certain.”

“Who allowed you to enter this sacred place?”

Herrifer shivered. “I . . . I simply want to see you.”

“What did you see?”

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“Bright light, angelic presence, and suffocating powers.”

Elizabeth couldn’t resist smiling. She lightly touched her sister’s head. “Work hard, Herrifer. I expect much from you.”

Herrifer embraced her sister, who let it happen. The two shared what felt like an infinite time stretched out towards nowhere. While comforting her sister, Elizabeth stared beyond her, at where Iris stood watching, and gave a discomforting smile seen only by herself.

The world quivered. The memory fragment swiftly disintegrated into patches of whiteness scattered along the chaotic current of emotions.

Dull, grey, churning clouds flooded the plane on which all bubbling memories gently fell. They merged with the swirling mist, the slithering currents of delicate structure. Their lightest presence broke into multiple streams when they crashed with Iris’s feet, enveloping her ankles before dissipating.

She covered her eyes and exhaled. She inhaled, breathed out, held herself back, and pursed her lips. That memory was real, yet she couldn’t remember it. She couldn’t see herself in Elizabeth, in that ruthless disposition unbefitting her noble birth.

Had she lost herself, or had she regained herself?

“Duality,” she said. “What did you do?”

“We’ve done nothing.”

Duality descended in front of Iris. Though her wings and attires remained damaged, her complexion had brightened. The spear penetrating her chest dimly glowed, its divine silhouette turned incorporeal, not enough to disappear but enough to lessen its presence.

Iris walked closer to Duality. Her eyes fixated on the spear. She reached for it. Duality grabbed her hand, caressing it.

“What you searched for isn’t here.” Duality shook her head. “Your enlightenment comes from the depth of your soul, the cry of your essence.”

“Are you telling me that . . . these emotions are mine?”

“No one but you know your own truth.”

The weakest breeze passed through Iris. Her blue hair wavered like her heart. The memory of her past life replayed in her mind, from the very first moment to the very last.

Her seamless recollection spun her head. She saw someone else living through her life, a beauty with her features, yet a stranger to her heart.

“Who am I?” she whispered. “Am I Iris, Elizabeth, or someone else?”

Duality patiently waited. What felt like years passed by, such that the landscape of shifting clouds changed its patterns, from a vast plain into a mountainous region. The mist covered the rising and falling ground composed of bubbles, which consumed Iris with their chaotic visions.

She swung her hands, bursting bubbles around her. Her Soul Power quaked the world, flattening the mountain range around her. Rubbles of shattered dreams lay around her like a self-made prison.

“Duality, will you help me?”

Duality let silence permeate. “We could never unravel your soul.”

“I shan’t perish. This little pain means nothing.”

“Our refusal doesn’t imply your fragility; it implies ours.”

“How?”

“You are no mere mortal, Dear.”

“Then what am I!”

Duality covered the right half of her face. “I . . . have no idea. You’ve yet to transcend your mortal shell, but you possess an immortal quality.”

“What kind of being am I?”

Duality sighed. She switched to cover her left half. “Does it matter?”

“I am me.”

“You are Iris, the current Iris.”

“Who are you, then?”

Duality frowned. She stopped covering her face. “We . . . are Duality, fragments of Chaos and Order, Divine and Demonic, Holy and Unholy.”

Iris smirked, “We might be more similar than we think.”

She drew her hands groundward. The illusory realm split open. A suit of cards gushed into the world and revolved around their owner. Their hazy fronts revealed only silhouettes of a noble lady, whose blank features resembled Elizabeth herself.

While the cards lit up and burned away, Iris closed her eyes. Her hands rested on her chest, forming a prayer gesture. No word left her mouth; only her Faith stirred.

Golden threads connected her with every card, whose faces gradually brightened.

They revealed ladies whose aura mimicked Iris, but those ladies walked different earths and trod different fates. They donned attires of a general, a pirate, a dancer, a noble, with only their lifeless eyes their common features.

Flames burst at the edges of the cards and devoured them. Each Iris, leading an extraordinarily colourful life, disintegrated into cold ashes whose blackness tainted forever this whitescape.

The cards wilted until remained the final one, of Iris donning her silky purple dress. That girl gazed skywards, her soft smile directed at herself.

Iris grabbed the card. It crumbled under her slightest touch. She hmphed.

“Congratulations,” Duality said. “Your mastery over the art of divination has blossomed.”

“And yet I still failed.”

“Others wouldn’t even know that.”

Threads of Fates, although fleeting, materialised as the smallest, faintest traces, like the invisible strings guiding all puppets to a fixed outcome. Iris could only glimpse at its vastitude, whose extent spanned beyond her imagination.

“Teach me your way.” Iris looked at Duality. “That promised reward, I’ll receive it now.”

Duality’s eyes brightened. “We’re glad. Our cooperation shall deepen until it can no more.”

The spear in Duality’s chest shivered. She grabbed its handle and exerted herself. Tiny cracks manifested throughout the blade, but it refused to shatter. The lingering Divinity healed and repelled Duality’s power.

“Observe well, my Iris,” she said. “This is how you devoured a Goddess.”

Irresistible light washed over the infinite plane, drowning the lost Slime Girl and the shattered Evil Goddess.

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