Chapter 130: Michelle's "Death" (Part II)
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The wind blew all the dust from the mountainous road, echoed along was the neighing from the horses, making it sound like a sad little ballad played by a third-rate band in a village bar.
"You…..were the source of the curse."
After an awkward silence, the Bishop shut his eyes, took in a deep breath, then uttered this.
His expression looked like he was in pain. Even the two squads of Cleaners behind could feel this sudden wave of emotion, but they kept still, not daring to make a sound.
Emotions…..
To the Bishop of Saint Peter’s cathedral, it was a rare oddity.
"Yes, uncle." Thinking of this, Michelle suddenly felt a sense of pleasure from a avenging herself. She laughed satisfyingly, "You did not let me down, in the end you still found me."
She completely shattered the facade of the Bishop. At this moment, she suddenly noticed that she had longed for this scene to take place.
She thought about ‘revenge’ once more.
"You are Michelle." The Bishop opened his eyes, regained his composure, and looked at Michelle coldly, "Why did I not think of that? Michelle…...Michael…..you never forgot that stupid name your father gave you. I should have known."
Hearing this, Michelle tightened her right fist, and shuddered a little.
The Bishop…..should not have mentioned that name.
Of course, under the influence of such emotions, the smile on her face became wider.
"You are a high ranking priest, he was just a hunter. You never thought he was anyone significant, why would you even care about this masculine name he ridiculously gave me years ago?" She struggled to maintain her nonchalant tone, and said this in a soft tone.
How could she forget?
This was the source of her hatred.
From the day she was born, the Bishop’s gaze had followed her everywhere, and she could never get rid of him; it was deeply etched into her childhood memory---- the Bishop back then was not a bishop yet, but only a priest in a town.
Even though she was naive then, she knew, the Bishop hated her.
Because of her existence, it made her mother and father grow closer; because of her existence, the Bishop could not stop his own younger sister from being wedded to a hunter that had no future. She was like a demon that left a trauma in his world. The bishop hated her father, and her as well.
Of course, if it was only hatred, there was nothing much to it.
When she was five, Michelle’s mother fell sick and passed on, and her father managed to return home only three days later because he was out hunting. Her father who returned home could not even see her for the last time. He fell into great depression and started drinking. One year later, when he was drunk, he died after being rammed by a horse carriage.
Thus, Michelle became an orphan.
She recalled on the day of her father’s funeral, the Bishop walked to her side, knelt down, held her hands with his two thick hands that had warts, and told her, "All of this was God’s will."
The Bishop back then was not like this. He spoke gently, and comforted many of the broken-hearted townspeople.
The young Michelle stared at the Bishop’s hands and had herself lost in thoughts.
She remembered, one year ago, it was these hands that choked her mother to death in the room. As she thought of this, she looked at the Bishop’s mouth. It was this mouth, with a gentle and kind tone, that told everyone that her mother died of sickness.
She thought, was it God’s will, to make him kill her mother?
This explanation was rather farfetched even for a young child. She still remembered very clearly, on the day of her mother’s death, the Bishop and her mother argued once more because of her father. The Bishop was furious, and had his eyes opened widely, like those of a dead fish. He suddenly charged and choked her mother’s throat, and was mumbling something. After strangling her for about ten minutes, only then he slowly loosened his grip.
Her mother’s eyes looked like those of a dead fish; in fact more akin to a dead fish than the Bishop’s.
Michelle who was hiding behind the door saw all of this with her own eyes. The Bishop was probably over-emotional and did not notice her. She quietly left the house to hide in her neighbor’s wine cellar for a day and a night.
Michelle could not remember how she managed to live through that one day and night in that wine cellar, but that day completely changed her. She remembered clearly, when she stepped out of the wine cellar, she was as calm as a dead baby.
When her father returned, she did not say anything. She kept this secret as if allowing it to slowly ferment into a poisonous wine. After her father passed on, the Bishop looked at her and said that he wanted to take her to the capital. That moment she realized from his gazes that the Bishop’s hatred towards her was already gone.
Why?
Many years later, Michelle gradually understood, maybe because it was that she looked like her mother a lot.
No matter if it was out of regret or a change of heart, the Bishop started treating Michelle better, and fulfilled all of her needs, and let her participate in knight training, and even gave her the honor of becoming a Holy Knight…..The hateful gazes he had for the young Michelle vanished like a dandelion in the wind.
It was time for her to stare at him with hatred.
Like every child that had lost their parents, she became cold and matured early. In the beginning, she plotted revenge but after following the Bishop to the capital to join the Saint Peter’s cathedral, and seeing the Bishop slowly climbed through the ranks, she hid her hatred and what was left was just disgust.
She was disgusted with the idea of the Church.
She remembered, the day she officially became a Holy Knight. In the Church, the Bishop did the same as he did in the funeral, he clutched her hands tightly and said, "All of this is God’s will."
Thus, she knelt down in the Church, pretending to show solemn and devout eyes, and swore an oath under the name of "Christine", and became a holy knight.
All of the events that day were still vivid on her mind. The pure statue, the blinding candles, the surrounding priests reading the scriptures…..even until now, she could remember how badly she wanted to shatter the statue of a deity in front of her.
God’s will…..
What mockery.
The Bishop was not happy with her mother’s marriage, and choked her to death with his own hands, it was God’s will. Her father fell into depression, and died in a horse carriage accident, it was God’s will. Her ending up in where she was now, not really human, but not really a ghost either, it was God’s will.
Michelle felt that it was something really laughable.
Why would humans always try to find an excuse for their own foolishness?
After becoming a mage, she finally understood, what was "God’s will", and what it actually was. At that moment, she made an decision, she wanted to make those fools being held up by their own excuses to pay their real price.
In the ruins of the "Soul’s Fire", Michelle was shown her death for the first time, she almost resorted to accept it was God’s Will, as if cursing at the sky would make her feel better. But she quickly understood, what she needed was that "bad feeling".
It was that "bad feeling" that kept her fighting until now.
She did not completely fail the trial of succession, because she managed to reach the end. Thus, the mental energy that "Soul’s Fire" left behind all merged into her own soul. At that time, the whole cave was illuminated, and the blood she shed all merged together to form the shape of a human.
That surge of mental energy, and the "bad feeling" in her heart merged together to form the her now.
It was something unknown to anyone, she did not know what she was now, a revenant? A walking corpse? A buzzing sound would echo in her ears frequently, making her lose most of her feelings, and the ability to use magic, but she managed to learn even stranger things.
With this change, she made a new decision.
She could feel her own body deteriorating every second, this made her realize that she could not keep this state for long, and she would die for real soon. Thus, after sitting hopelessly in the cave under the lake for a day and a night, she returned to the capital.
There was not much time left, she could not afford to waste it.
When she reached the capital, and saw that giant Water Ball in the sky, she felt a strong surge of hatred and discontent. What was it? What was it that made that noble have the right to have this much of talent while she had to hide to silently die in this deep dark hole and being unable to do anything?
She was adamant that there was no one else in this world that would put their lives on the line like she did. She had carefully thought of every decision she made before executing them, and controlled her own desires, making the best choice in every situation….. She did all she could, but in the end, it looked like she still failed.
No one would be willing to accept this kind of failure.
"Christine, you really disappoint me." Suddenly, the Bishop said this.
Michelle came back to reality, and smiled while saying, "Really? I feel honored. But, my goal is not just to make you feel disappointed."
Her ideals, she could no longer carry out ---- she was dying, and together with great hatred and unfulfillment. Right now, she was just a deformed embodiment of hatred, pure blood, and mental energy. She had every right to hate this world, to hate all of the living, to hate the Bishop.
But she hated herself even more, hating herself that until now, her sanity was still suppressing her emotions; forcing her to think properly before acting on a decision, not allowing her to lose control.
-----How she wanted to let loose just for once.
Michelle thought of this, and shuddered. Suddenly, smelly, fresh blood, started to ooze out from her skin. Following this, she could feel her body soften, and it was slowly disintegrating.
"Christine, you….." The Bishop noticed the sudden change in Michelle, and showed the expression of shock once again.
The Cleaners all raised their longswords to prepare for any possible threat.
"Uncle, I know you killed my mother." Michelle used her slowly dissolving mouth, to try to force a crooked smile, "I knew all along."
Seeing the Bishop stunned to the point that he was unable to speak, she felt that she had avenged herself once more.
But, maybe it was not the satisfaction of revenge, but through self-destruction that she managed to break free, making the world that had always taken her lightly to taste the pain and suffering she had been through, and gaining satisfaction from that.
"Do you feel the pain? My beloved uncle, this is only the beginning." She swung away the tainted blood from her face, and said, "I will make Benjamin Lithur live, one day. He will destroy the Church that you have always been protecting. A Water Ball bigger than that day by a hundred and thousand times would fall on your face, and there would be nothing you can do. Hopelessness, asphyxiation, pain ... You will feel all that I have felt. You will witness with your own eyes, the destruction of the Church, you will no longer be able to sleep well at night, and all your remaining time will be spent in hatred."
She never intended to save Benjamin out of goodwill. To even imagine Benjamin thanking her in the future, it made her feel disgusted. Doing all this, was not to gain the favor of other people or to find comfort ----- from the beginning to the end, she was not a good person, she had never intended to be one.
Overthrowing the Church was not her noble ideal, it was only because her heart was filled with disgust and hatred.
"...What are you planning to do, Christine? How did you end up this way?" Seeing the rapidly disintegrating Michelle, the Bishop asked hastily as panic was shown in his face.
Michelle did not heed his words.
She felt the destruction of her own body, and enjoyed every bit of moment the pain inflicted to the Bishop. She entered a state of euphoria as she was struggling between being rational and letting go of her emotions.
But her body, was like an ice sculpture in the middle of the desert; it was rapidly dissolving.
"What a shame, I am unable to experience all of this. I am discontented, so, I have to bring something along." Slowly, half of her body turned into tainted blood, her head remained in the pool of blood, her two parted eyes were still staring at the Bishop, "You can criticize me for being evil, whether they are innocent or not, I don’t care."
"Farewell, my beloved uncle."
After uttering that, her final bit of shape exploded completely, and all of her turned into tainted blood and splattered all over the mountainous road. This scared the Cleaners’ horses and caused them to stagger back. The bishop could not help but conjure a shield to block off the tainted blood.
The Bishop was behind the holy light shield when he looked at the remaining tainted blood on the ground. His face was filled with an unspeakable expression, it proved how strongly burning he was feeling right now.
But what Michelle did was not just end her life right before the Bishop.
Her hatred required more to die along with her.
At the same time, in the capital, outside the capital on the main road, all of those that were cursed and contracted the "plague", all started disintegrating. They were like Michelle, blood oozed out of them; their bodies dissolved, and struggled in pain. At last, thirty thousand people, all of them let out screams under the gaze of their family members, and turned into a smelly pool of tainted blood.
This city that was nicknamed the Light of Heaven had never experienced such an event so full of tainted and smelly blood.
On top of the capital, the skies were blue, and the sun shone brightly as usual.