A Villainess Should Be Strong - Chapter 152

“As the plans grew awry, several characters that we have instilled into this plan began to deviate from the original script we created. About this… the characters that emerged from the Underworld are the ones who had it the hardest.” Heine drew in a sharp breath before continuing.

“…Including Arayle and Elias? Their predecessors? How long has these.. plans been going around for?” Estelle questioned.

“Including those two, yes. The plans have been going on for thousands of years. Only, I regained my memories late into the game,” Heine answered. “Before being transferred into Heine, I rested in the upper realms as Astarte, and watched over the plans being nurtured very carefully… Even though the end result still came up to be rather disappointing,” He gave a dispirited smile as he continued his story.

“The Underworld is very unstable, the negative energy around it is abundant and there is practically no life over there except for the people who occupy the space. That realm used to be like the Surface we are in right now.. stable and without the excessive negativity. However, there was a great havoc that occurred in that realm which thwarted its balance completely and left it unable to recover ‘life’. In the first place, the one who destroyed the Underworld.. is your past lover, who went berserk after he received your powers. He didn’t fight himself, however. The one he fought was the one who hurt you,”

Heine clenched his fists until blood was drawn from his skin, expressing his anger at the absurdity of the situation. He had to take several deep breaths before he could calm himself down. With a trembling voice, he continued to speak.

“It was actually a straightforward story… that got mixed into unfortunate events. Due to the Absolute creating you as an innocent and naive soul, you stayed like that even until you met Aleksei and fell in love with him. You were very fixated on the man, and he also bore good intentions towards you. Your innocence made you gullible and easy to manipulate despite your huge powers. If you two were the only ones involved in this story, then it wouldn’t turn out to be this bad, but the problem is Aleksei’s female companion.. whose name was Ophelia,”

[Ophelia.. the name sounds familiar.] Estelle rubbed the sides of her head as she started to feel like a locked memory was unsealing itself.

Aleksei, Ophelia, and her.

She felt a pang inside her heart, and her heartbeat rate increased. Sadness overlapped with anger, and the rush of emotions made Estelle clutch her chest in order to suppress the pain.

“Ophelia… was his childhood friend and someone who everyone and their families regarded as Aleksei’s future partner. Their fates have been intertwined together ever since birth, and they were expected to spend the rest of their lives together since they demonstrated closeness and favored one another. But instead of it proceeding smoothly, your existence came to light and drew Aleksei in farther than Ophelia could ever. You arrived to their town as a savior. You had used your power to dispel a disaster that was about to destroy the town, and you were hailed as a benefactor,”

“You got acquainted with the man named Aleksei.. and from that point on, you changed. You quickly had feelings for the man. Before, you visited the mortal realms once in a while, only coming down to check what was going on and occasionally lending your help. You visited various lands, not just one. But after meeting Aleksei, you kept visiting his town again and again, just in order to see him. You helped the town tons of times, and practically became an informal member of the community. Everybody liked you, and saw how close you were with Aleksei. Ophelia’s presence started to fade. Before, she was the most beautiful flower of the town, the one everybody admired…”

“But who could compete with you? You are a Goddess, one that was personally crafted by the Absolute. You were dazzling, sparkling, and overflowing with your divine aura. Of course everybody’s attention would shift to you. Aleksei was one of the victims, he also loved you very much. Only.. what happened to Ophelia, the one whose existence was slowly being cast aside and replaced by this new person?” Heine scowled.

Estelle pursed her lips, feeling like this memory was embedded somewhere within her head. It was locked behind more seals, ones that she couldn’t unlock just yet.

“Ophelia wasn’t just jealous of you two’s relationship, she also coveted your power. At first, she thought that you were human, but after various encounters, she slowly started to figure out that you were different. The breaking point came when you revealed it to Aleksei himself.. your true identity. Since it came from your mouth, Ophelia began to plot against you, wondering how she could take you down,”

Heine’s eyes narrowed as he felt disgusted by the series of events that elapsed. The vixen that ruined everything, the world he wished didn’t get created so that everything wouldn’t have happened. That his big sister would still be living happily in the upper realms and not here in the mortal realms.

He was also struggling. Conveying these story made him unlock the feelings that he had restrained to keep his sanity. This was traumatic for everybody involved, no one was unaffected.

“Of course, taking down a Goddess of Creation isn’t something that could be done just by saying it,” Heine said. “No matter how frustrated Ophelia was, she could only writhe in anger as you kept your safety intact, as she had little to no power that could go against you because she was nothing but a normal human,”

“However, she had one stark difference for you, and that made her the perfect vessel for ‘Chaos’,”

[Chaos?] Estelle’s eyes began to stung. The name seemed to be heavily familiar with her, as she felt a deep fear instilled within herself. Her heart trembled as she listened.

“If the Origin Magic were separated, you would get two sides: Creation and Destruction. The two factors that made up the Origin of everything. You received the ultimate power of Creation.. and do you know who got the power of Destruction?”

Estelle closed her eyes, as the topic of Destruction brought up by Heine didn’t actually just result in a painful pang in heart anymore, but rather extended as far as to give her a headache. She clasped her head between her hands as she tried shrugging the pain off.

Heine looked at Estelle’s condition, his eyes brimming with emotions before he continued as the girl didn’t give him any signs to stop.

“The Absolute never actually released the soul that held the power. The reason being.. Destruction was too unstable, and it could very easily incite unwanted scenarios. The soul wasn’t balanced, and if the Absolute was to put it into a vessel, they would go berserk in little time. Going berserk would mean that the power could go awry. Destruction was a power that did as the name suggested: destroying things. If not controlled, then the soul would make the owner go on a rampage and break everything in sight,”

“Thus, the Absolute chained the soul down until he could finally restrain it within a vessel one day. The soul was named ‘Chaos’, embodying its properties and characteristics. However, it was here that the Absolute made a wrong judgement: that was to not eradicate the stray soul right then and there,”

“Chaos liked negative emotions, the more negativity it gathered, the better the soul burned. You were constantly beside Ophelia, and carried the energy of the upper realms with you. Through that, those around you were also starting to be affected, and the town you regularly visited became infused with some of your powers. Your power was too abundant, so the mortal realms couldn’t process it properly and became the catalyst for the great disaster,”

“In the upper realms, Chaos slowly planned out an escape. It didn’t have a consciousness, but it was motivated to roam free and enter a vessel, just like a demon. It gathered power whilst simultaneously acting like nothing off was happening, but it was always waiting for the perfect chance to strike. When it could finally break free from its shackles and get its vessel,”

“The vessel it chose was precisely Ophelia, the woman who held the most negative emotions and laid inside the town you were in. The town had weaker dimensional barriers due to it being constantly applied with the upper realm’s energy, the one you brought down. Thus, the Chaos’ target when it got the chance to break free was precisely that town,”

“That soul successfully entered Ophelia. And that was when all hell broke loose. Creation and Destruction were supposed to be balanced, but unlike Chaos, you lacked the motivation to fight and harm others. You were just like an innocent child who didn’t have any negative motives, whereas Chaos always strove to destroy and fed off its actions,”