Volume 8, Chapter 65 – Straight to the Lake Bottom

Without delay, Fia activated teleportation magic repeatedly, passing through the Land of Exile into the kingdom of the dead, heading straight for the immortal sanctuary beneath the lake of death. With Lucitine leading the way, the lake condensed from death energy parted as if it had a will of its own. Fia pressed her palm against the solid dark crimson metal door and slowly pushed it open.

The immortal sanctuary was still a pure white, the air eerily silent.

Her field of vision was slightly better than before. The moment she entered, Fia could see the place where the first Lucitine should have stood. The immortal sanctuary wasn’t an enclosed hall, but a world stretching endlessly, similar to the kingdom of the dead, except that besides white, there was nothing else in this entire world. It was an independent space.

Although she hadn’t contacted Lucitine over the past two days, she had still secretly entered the immortal sanctuary every morning and night to check. As a result, the Venexes within the sanctuary still hadn’t respawned, and she hadn’t encountered any suspect who might have killed them.

Now, there was no one at all.

She had a feeling it was related to that pure white fairy.

Fia had an intuition that the pure white fairy would appear again; suicide was merely her means of escape.

Lucitine was no match for the pure white fairy. To prevent the fairy from assassinating Lucitine again, she would have to keep a close eye on Lucitine until she completely figured out the other party’s true nature.

Thinking this, Fia lowered her arms from across her chest and sighed.

“They haven’t respawned yet. Now that the misunderstanding is resolved, I have some deductions to share with you, Lucitine.”

As she finished speaking, Fia turned to where Lucitine should have been standing beside her. However, she found Lucitine still waiting outside the door. Fia didn’t need to ask to know that Lucitine hadn’t entered because of her earlier declaration to the first Venex, “I will not return here.” She couldn’t help but feel helpless, putting her hands on her hips.

“They’re all dead. Even if you break the harsh words you said back then, the first Venex won’t know.”

“Even if the first Venex doesn’t know, breaking my vow would leave a stain on my heart. If I say I’ll do something, I have to do it. There’s no hierarchy between her and me. I’ll do what I want; it’s not her place to dictate.”

Lucitine’s tone was filled with resentment. She shifted her gaze away from Fia and curled her lip. She was of course not dissatisfied with Fia; in fact, having just reconciled, refusing Fia was a matter of immense psychological burden. If Fia absolutely insisted that Lucitine enter the immortal sanctuary, Lucitine would still force herself to go in. However, Fia’s tone just now was very casual, so she dared to be a little bolder and try to explain the situation to Fia.

Fia couldn’t help but find it amusing. She walked towards Lucitine, who was outside the sanctuary.

“You and the first Venex are clearly the same person. Why do you feel such a contradiction with her? Have there been unpleasant incidents in the past?”

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“No. I just don’t like her condescending tone. She’s already dead, yet she still wants to shackle me with rules. Fia heard it yourself at the time: she didn’t just use a commanding tone, she also threatened me. I hate that kind of self-righteous person. Just thinking about it makes me want to slap her.”

Lucitine frowned as she spoke.

“Moreover, she’s just jealous that I have a living body and she doesn’t. If I hadn’t experienced the wonder of being alive, I would have agreed with her at the time, thinking the Queen of Death should be dead. But after experiencing the wonder of being alive, I feel her words are full of hostility towards me. It’s like sour grapes—because she can’t enjoy it herself, she won’t allow later generations to enjoy it either. If the opportunity were placed before her, she would definitely do everything she could to take back this body.”

“The reactions of the other Venexes are the best proof. I shared my memories with them, and they immediately crowded around Fia. If they had a way to regain control of the body in their memory entity state, even setting aside the dignity of the Queen of Death, they would beg me to give them a chance to experience it. Without having experienced both the living and dead states simultaneously, one cannot understand how attractive a living body is to the undead.”

“The only difference between her and the other Venexes is the degree of desire. The other Venexes might refrain due to dignity, but she feels this body was originally hers; taking it back is just reclaiming what belongs to her, with no psychological burden. That’s why she used a commanding tone, using the established rules as an excuse to demand that I destroy the body myself. If she can’t have it, then no one should. For me to not despise her knowing all this is too difficult. I am the Queen of Death, not a saint who tolerates everything.”

Like someone who had finally found an outlet to vent, Lucitine poured out all her dissatisfaction with the first Venex in one breath. Not only did she raise her eyebrows, but even her pure pink eyes were filled with impatience. Fia couldn’t help but feel that if the first Venex stood before her, she really would punch her.

“Besides, her design of the replacement was entirely selfish. Fia saw it too: before I shared my memories with her, no matter what external stimuli, she had no reaction. That’s the true state of undead who have lived a long time: cold, numb. She foresaw her own future while she still had the strength. To avoid becoming a beast that had lost itself, she designed the replacement, preserving her memories in the immortal sanctuary, separating consciousness from body and soul. This way, she could slumber eternally in the sanctuary, not forgetting who she was like other undead who sleep and sleep, worn down by time.”

“And as for me and the Venexes in the sanctuary, we’re merely by-products she created to preserve herself. Someone has to control the body, both to rule the empire for her and to ensure her strength doesn’t degenerate. Moreover, through memory sharing, she can gain the combat experience accumulated by other Venexes over the long years. Although these are just my guesses, the first Venex has always been closing herself off, unwilling to share her memories, and always speaks evasively. It’s hard not to suspect her motives.”

Lucitine crossed her arms and let out a long sigh.

“Haa, these are just my complaints. Fia, you can take them as that.”

“No, this is exactly what I wanted to say.”

Fia walked out of the immortal sanctuary. Instead of hurrying up from the lakebed, she looked up at Lucitine’s face with a serious expression.

Lucitine read solemnity in Fia’s restrained ruby-like eyes, as if she was about to say something very important. She also became serious and stood up straight.

“What does Fia want to say?”

“Lucitine, who do you think that pure white fairy who attacked you was?”

“I have no clue…”

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Ashamed, Lucitine’s voice softened considerably. She was too embarrassed to tell Fia that she hadn’t even thought about who the pure white fairy was. These past few days, her mind had been completely filled with how to win Fia’s forgiveness, what to do if Fia didn’t forgive her, and then imagining a miserable future, sinking into pessimistic emotions.

“Haa, let me share my thoughts directly. Ever since I learned that Lucitine was born hating Chaos, I’ve been curious about the reason. Later, I also learned that the first Venex had never seen the Chaos beneath the kingdom of the dead, yet she hated them to the bone. When I asked her the reason, her answer was, ‘I won’t tell you; now is not the time.'”

“Combined with the rules of the Queen of Death’s replacement, I began to suspect that the reason Lucitine has hated Chaos since birth is because the first Venex also preserved part of her hatred for Chaos within the body. Two days ago, when I appeared in the kingdom of the dead and saved you, the reason was that I wanted to find the first Venex and try to understand why she loathed Chaos. As a result, I couldn’t find her, but coincidentally encountered you being attacked.”

“Combined with what Lucitine just said, if the first Venex designed the replacement merely to preserve herself, then could the pure white fairy who attacked you be the first Venex herself? At the time, the first Venex said to Lucitine, ‘Do you really think I have no way to restrict you?’ That was probably not an unfounded threat. Think about it carefully: if I designed ‘replacement’ to preserve myself, I would definitely leave a backdoor to conveniently regain control of the body at an appropriate time in the future.”

“She was unwilling to tell me the reason for her loathing Chaos, perhaps because there’s a secret we don’t know, and this secret is related to her regaining the body. Now that all the Venexes in the immortal sanctuary have disappeared, perhaps this is her action to cover her tracks.”

Fia’s long string of statements left Lucitine stunned for a moment, then she hesitantly shook her head.

“The person who attacked me that day did resemble me greatly. But the flesh, soul, and even magic power belonging to Venex are all with me. How could another me with identical strength out of thin air appear? Memory entities can only exist independently due to the special nature of the immortal sanctuary. The moment they leave the sanctuary, they immediately dissipate. In tens of thousands of years, there’s no record of any memory entity leaving.”

“Lack of records doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Perhaps the Venexes simply never tried to leave the sanctuary, which is why Lucitine has always believed memory entities cannot leave. Lucitine saw the attacker that day with her own eyes, didn’t she? She wasn’t a ghost.”

In fact, memory entities could exist independently outside. When Fia first met the pure white fairy, the fairy herself said she wasn’t a soul entity. Appearing in that form while not being a soul entity meant the result could only be a memory entity like the Venexes.

However, it was also true that all magic power resided in Lucitine. Ninth-Tier strength couldn’t out of thin air appear.

She still had to catch that pure white fairy to get the answer.

“So Fia means, the first Venex prepared a backdoor, crawled out of the immortal sanctuary to kill me, futilely attempting to seize the living body?”

“Exactly. Otherwise, it’s inexplicable how she knew I had the ability to create bodies. But this is just my speculation. Only when that attacker, identical to Lucitine, appears again can this conjecture be confirmed.”

“She’ll appear again? Didn’t she kill herself?”

Lucitine’s eyes flew wide open, her voice rising an octave.

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Fia waved her hand repeatedly.

“I told you before, Lucitine, that I encountered a pure white fairy identical to Claire. I saw her back then. She was killed by my sword at the time, but later appeared before me again. This means ordinary methods can’t kill her—we can discuss this later.”

Finally feeling like a major matter had been resolved, Fia’s shoulders relaxed, and a smile appeared on her face.

“More importantly, since the misunderstanding is resolved, shouldn’t Lucitine take me to the hall to sit down and explain things to the others? Also, regarding your identity as a living person, it’s about time you told everyone, isn’t it? Concealment is not good; I’m a prime example.”

“Well…” Lucitine’s legs suddenly clamped together, her whole demeanor becoming shy. “I already recognize my mistake, Fia, don’t tease me…”

“I’m not teasing you, I’m serious. Lucitine should seriously consider being frank with her subordinates. Compared to them discovering it unintentionally, proactively confessing is more acceptable. I know Lucitine is worried that revealing your living status might make your subordinates dislike you. But from my observation, the undead’s reverence for you is because you are the Queen of Death, not because you are the strongest undead. The pressure is engraved in your soul. So even if you tell them you’ve become a living person, they’ll at most be surprised; there won’t be any voices accusing you.”

As she spoke, Fia took the lead and stepped back the way they came. The soles of her shoes pressed into the sand and mud at the bottom of the lake of death, making a crunching sound like walking in snow—the lake of death wasn’t real water; there was no sludge at the bottom.

“Besides, Lucitine just said she would do what she wanted, that it wasn’t for others to dictate. You could completely stop being the Queen of Death and go experience the customs and cultures of the vast world in the world of the living. If you’ll pardon my bluntness, Lucitine, I think Ruth is more suited to be the Queen of Death than you are.”

“Urk.”

How rude.

Lucitine clicked her tongue inwardly. Saying to her face that she was inferior to Ruth was simply an insult to her abilities, extremely disheartening. However, since it was Fia who said it, besides being displeased, Lucitine could also earnestly understand the meaning behind Fia’s words.

Reality was indeed as Fia had said. Now that she had become a living person, she could leap out of her current life circle and move into a completely new field more suitable for her. The living should be in the place of the living, and it was also the world she had always longed for.

Lucitine caught up with Fia. After thinking for a moment, she looked up. Her sharply defined face was full of relief.

“Fia, I still want to stay here.”

“Why?”

Fia didn’t turn around, just walked forward kicking the gravel while turning her head.

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“Because it’s my responsibility. I do long for the outside world and have always found the undead world dull. But I was born here, loved and respected by all. I have a duty to protect this place. Recent events have made me realize I haven’t done nearly enough. As Fia said, even Ruth does better than me. Shrugging off my responsibilities is one solution, but it would make me feel guilty in the years to come. I want to live with a clear conscience. So I want to put in enough effort, until I feel it’s enough, before stepping down. Only then can I experience the outside world without psychological burden.”

Lucitine’s words were very calm. And precisely because of this calmness, Fia stopped. She looked at Lucitine with surprised, wide eyes, then smiled wryly and continued walking.

“I have to see you in a new light. Lucitine can be this mature. I’ve always been the one teaching others not to regret impulsive decisions, to live with a clear conscience. Lucitine is the first person to proactively say it herself.”

“I am the Queen of Death, after all. Of course I have that much resolve. What kind of image do you have of me, Fia?”

“Guess.”

“I can’t guess, but it’s definitely not good.”

“Correct.”

“Is that something you can just say…”

“To anyone else, I wouldn’t be this honest.”

Fia said with a gracious smile. She slowed down, came to Lucitine’s side, and with a smile, extended her hand to Lucitine.

“Let’s go up. I want to give Ruth a big gift. Since Lucitine has decided to stay here, Ruth should gain her freedom.”

“A big gift?”

Lucitine blinked, puzzled. But soon, as if she understood something, her expression instantly brightened. She firmly grasped Fia’s tender hand.

“Okay!”