A Villainess Should Be Strong

"Naturally, you lost against a surprise attack. Something unexpected, something that came out of nowhere. From your perspective, you couldn't see why Ophelia wanted to hurt you, you didn't understand her feelings," Heine's eyelashes trembled as he sighed, as the next upcoming part was the hardest to accept for him.

"As a result.. You were killed by Ophelia with the aid of Chaos' power. At first, it was just your physical body. If that was the case, then you should've had the chance to return to the higher realms and receive a new body, because your soul would still be preserved. However, Ophelia desired more than just the death of your physical body. She learned of your divine identity, and through manipulating the powers of Destruction, she damaged the very essence of your soul. This was what caused your soul to become so destroyed that you couldn't return as the Goddess Estraea,"

"However, divinity cannot be destroyed. It can be separated, transferred, or charged with impurities, but it would never be destroyed. Could you guess where your divinity went? You were actually quite crafty, and who knew what you were thinking when you made this decision.. Sometimes, I wonder if the man himself had asked you to do this," Heine laughed depreciatingly, his eyes hooded and fuzzy. "If that wasn't the case, how could you actually think this far?"

"..What did I do?" Estelle already had inklings on what she did, but she needed to hear it from Heine.

"You purposely created a system that would propel your divine gift to enter Aleksei once you perished. This decision couldn't have been made on a whim, since it required a complex process. No one predicted that this could happen. No one thought that you would be capable of doing this. That time, did you sense that Ophelia was going to kill you? Or vaguely discern that a great danger was approaching? Whatever it was, it saved you.. It saved you, but it broke down your essence, the very thing that made up the Goddess Estraea in the first place,"

"Aleksei received your powers, but it wasn't all of it. It was as if he was a vessel for you, and you were going to rise back from the dead to collect the remnants of your divinity from him. You were incomplete, and the parts we managed to retrieve were only half of your essence. The other half laid within Aleksei, so he was accepted into the higher realms although all of us were grieving. The man was practically the indirect cause of everything, how could we bear to receive his attendance with a smiling face? We were furious, but we kept it down since he held your essence within him!"

"That time, with the powers of Chaos infused in her body, Ophelia couldn't even restrain herself from destroying even more things, causing a great havoc to occur inside the world. This made everything become imbalanced.. and sending it off to its eventual demise,"

"Everyone was enraged when the story was revealed. But the first thing they did was take the soul of Chaos back to the upper realms. Killing Ophelia was very easy, but her soul had actually managed to fuse with Chaos through unspeakable means. They became one. The Absolute Being chained the soul one more time, this time under a higher supervision,"

"The world? They were heading straight to downfall, and no one even tried to conserve it anymore because of how great the lasting impact had been. It would've been pointless to try and salvage it, because not even life will sprout inside that hellhole,"

"The Creation and Destruction are actually two sides of the same coin, but they heavily affect each other. They influence each other. If they were mixed as they should, they form the ultimate magic, Origin Magic. This energy is only held by the Absolute, and obtaining it is not as simple as just combining the two components. If combined wrongly, then it would fail and create a greater destruction than what each element can make up on their own," Heine looked upwards, finally meeting Estelle in the eye as the story was nearing its end.

"The battle within Ophelia and Aleksei, assisted by the upper realms' support, ended up in Aleksei's win. But it also tarnished the realm's essence and left it unrepairable. The Chaos was strong, it was much more ominous and domineering than the Creation essence. In theory, Creation should be stronger than Destruction. However, in this case, it was a challenge on who could overpower the other more. Ophelia bore the soul of Chaos directly, and in addition to Destruction's damaging quality, the half-assed Creation essence Aleksei received from you couldn't even compete,"

"Thus, the Underworld started to form, with Destruction being its largest influence. This did not mean that everyone down there would wield the power of Destruction, but it meant that once a Ruler that possessed this ominous power stepped up to the throne and governed over the world, that would be the only case where the realm could survive. Thus, the Underworld's Rulers have always been ones that could bear the power of Destruction,"

"About the plan we wanted to charge through, I'm sure that you are already somewhat familiar with it. Creating the various realms, creating 'Reina' and 'Estelle', in order to successfully heal your condition and draw out your powers bit by bit, supporting you slowly. The deviant schemes that occurred were out of our plans, but we had to somehow patch it up. And as a result.. Since you entered the body of Estelle Clareste far too early, our plans diverted a lot, and our preparations began to falter. My soul and Aleksei's entered the bodies we are in right now, and the game had to start,"

"As a result, our souls weren't ready to take the damage and ended up.. distorting our true sense. However, I am starting to recover my sanity.. I am now going to follow the original plan without any deviations. What happened back then.. was the product of my confused soul. I was blinded. I know I was wrong.. But could you find it inside your heart to forgive me?" Heine was practically begging, lines of tears dropping from his eyes as he wanted to approach Estelle badly, but knew that he shouldn't overstep his bounds.

Estelle's breathing got heavier as her heart palpitated faster. Her mind was spinning around like crazy, and the unsealed memories seemed to want to break free out of the locks forcefully, creating a painful migraine for her to suffer under.

She grabbed her head and clenched it tight, but the pain wouldn't dispel.

"..This isn't the time to ask for forgiveness. The matter of repentance is another thing. The true problem is that I will never be able to forget what you have done to me, be it because of the deviating lines or not. Unless you are able to revert the time and redo your actions, what can I do?" Estelle said with a gloomy smile.

She hated pain. Pain like the one she was experiencing right now. Why did she have to suffer all the time? Couldn't she just stop?

All of this deity bullshit, why did it have to matter to her?

It wasn't that she didn't want to forgive the man. In fact, from all the stories she had gathered, Astarte was a good child that followed her with a gentle smile. His eyes would always be filled to the brim with admiration for her, and he cared and loved for Estraea the most.

Estelle knew that the original plan should've been much more safer and smoother, creating a perfect path with just some obstacles for her to get back up into her Goddess state. However, everything has gone out of the place now.

It was far too late to revert to the supposed state, but she also knew that Heine was a key player in this plan.

Without him, without Minerva or Yulia, without the Constellation figures that she was supposed to gather about, she couldn't proceed.

With a heavy heart, she stood up from her chair and walked towards Heine, whose eyes burned with a hopeful light.

Estelle stopped in front of Heine, looking at the man with a pair of exhausted eyes.

"I'm not going to forgive you.. for now. I can't speak for the future Estelle. Maybe something will change, maybe nothing will. We don't know yet. However, I know one thing for sure. Even for all that you have done, I still have to work with you if I want to see the end of all this chaos. It's the plan you crafted for me, you must know how important your presence is. There's no way of clearing this game you've set up unless you are involved. So..."

Estelle let out a tired sigh, stretching her hand forward to offer up a handshake.

"I'm not that unreasonable as to refuse to work with someone I despise just if my life is on the line,"