Chapter Three: A Sense of Loss
Welcome to the Land of Dragons, also known as the “Dragon Tomb.”
With a body like a mountain, and those grotesque tumors—ew, right? Then there are the all-consuming, bl**d-vessel tentacles, as if they could engulf everything in their path.
Yeah, this is it. This is the vibe.
Strange and absurd…
Unkillable and unfathomable. Just staring at it feels like being crushed by a weight you can’t even lift. Standing upright seems like a Herculean feat, a force so overwhelming that you want to bow down and grovel in terror.
That was my gut feeling when I faced the species known as “Gidales.”
And now—
Without a doubt, my body has transformed into something resembling that horror.
“…”
Well, it doesn’t look that big, does it?
I looked down at my hands in a daze.
My palms flipped and flopped like a fish out of water, long fingers dancing nimbly. I traced my fingertips from my chest down to my belly, feeling the smoothness of my skin—like glistening jade. It was all just as it had always been.
I turned and walked out of the bathroom.
[It tricked me…]
Closing the door, I stared at the empty bedroom. Suddenly, images of Miss Ailna’s bl**d-soaked, half-burned face flashed in my mind, along with her last words to me.
[So, when I came back, I also tricked it once.]
[I lied and told it that the Church destroyed my body, but I brought back a piece—a part enough to reshape a new deity, and that part is you…]
[You are the new deity.]
That heretical woman told me that my body at that time was already a pure “deity body,” refined by spirit essence.
It just needed some time to adjust.
To adjust enough to carry the complete power of a deity, that is.
[You need to use your chaos to devour that spirit essence gone mad—the essence belonging to the Goddess of Sin. You must obliterate it completely, turning it into your nourishment…]
She intended for this process to be gradual, but time was not on her side.
The arrival of the mightiest Pope Knight, the “Sword Saint,” wiped out all her hopes. There was no escaping, and she was already gravely injured. In her desperate state, she could only go all in.
She slaughtered everyone in Meiser Town, using their bl**d—and her own—as the new “medium” to grant my body a “rebirth.” To replace and devour the essence of the Goddess of Sin, she set this trap, praying that I would awaken into something she longed for…
I think the woman’s final wish was to create a “new deity” with human emotions.
Tick-tock, tick-tock—
Water dripped from my hair and body, splattering softly on the plush carpet.
Barefoot, I stepped toward the large mirror near the closet. As I passed the bed, I casually grabbed a white goose-down blanket and wrapped it around my slender frame.
In a sense, Miss Ailna succeeded.
The power I now possessed felt as vast as the ocean, limitless, and I had yet to touch its limits. Plus, my body was as immortal as a deity’s, all thanks to her.
In that blackened, decaying land shrouded in fog, where countless towering dragons lay buried, I seized and fused ancient relics from a sealed “divine egg,” using the bl**d of countless people as a medium—that bl**d pearl, the power of the “Tears of the Goddess.”
Looking back, many events seemed like accidental turns of fate. But if you trace it, that’s where all the changes started.
Despite what the pearl really was, Miss Ailna never clearly explained it to me.
But now, over time, I’ve developed my own understanding.
Tears of the Goddess, bl**d pearl…
No matter how you call it, it was meant to unlock the Land of Dragons and revive the goddess’s body. It had that special power.
And that kind of power clearly couldn’t be easily ignited by just human bl**d. No amount would do.
[With enough bl**d to serve as a medium.]
I remembered that Miss Ailna had vaguely mentioned this more than once.
She had never intended to explain seriously, perhaps never found the chance, but honestly, I think there were many things she, too, wasn’t entirely sure about.
But her words were the one thing I could believe.
Miss Ailna didn’t deceive me.
When reviving the goddess’s “body,” bl**d was merely a “medium,” and the real thing that animated the skeleton through this medium was the special ability of that “spine bone” stolen from the Royal City, which was part of the ancient deity’s remains.
That was the true “carrier” for reviving the body.
Using bl**d to break seals and reshape the flesh and bones for the essence of the Goddess of Sin—though I forcibly interrupted that process.
Yet, the deity’s form ultimately descended, sporting such a horrifying demeanor.
If we don’t dive deep into the whys, the hows, or where Teresa got her knowledge, that bl**d pearl, capable of “awakening” and restructuring Gidales, eventually got absorbed and fused within me by the power of chaos.
I think that’s the prerequisite condition for my transformation into something resembling “Gidales” now.
Otherwise, I might have perished in that explosion in Woodward Forest…
I stopped in front of the mirror.
Wrapped in the blanket, my expression cold, I gazed at my damp body.
Flawless white, soft and fragrant like jade.
I looked like a piece of art straight out of a painting.
My delicate skin gleamed, completely clear, showing no signs of the usual blemishes or acne that normal people have—no signs of metabolism, as exquisite as a lifeless doll.
Perfect—so perfect, it didn’t feel like a living, breathing person.
Didn’t feel like a living, feeling…
Human.
Well, at least it didn’t seem that way.
I never had this sensation before.
But now—
I figured the main reason was that I lacked certain things in my eyes.
…But so what?
This little detail didn’t stir any waves in my heart.
Expressionless, I just stared at myself, slowly loosening my hold on the blanket as voices suddenly echoed in my head.
[“Fill with the Language of the Abyss…”]
[“Destroy the barrier egg that put our kin to sleep, devour the bodies that waited in ashes for a thousand years, fill the void of chaotic fire…”]
Those were mysterious voices flooding my ears after I had fused with the bl**d pearl, like a tidal wave.
[“Awaken, Language of the Abyss…”]
[“Hilvigia Rabithermos…”]
[“Awaken, follow the divine will, and correct the world’s order…”]
Those phrases still echoed clearly in my memory.
[“This is the real you, this is how you should be… your most complete essence…”]
[“Come, accept her…”]
At that moment, I glimpsed countless illusions; that booming voice from above seemed to intend to guide me into accepting something deep within myself—accepting the other “me” hiding in my subconscious…
But back then, I refused.
[“Abyss, it’s not a force of destruction; it’s a force of fusion… a fusion of all things, even gods included.”]
I recalled the time in the Eastern Continent, as the calamity loomed closer, in a vague dream, she—the “other me”—had told me.
[“Look, you’ve long stopped resisting the power of the abyss, right?”]
[“You know who I am.”]
That was the last thing she said to me.
Then, during the crucial moment I transformed into a “bl**d egg,” annihilating the “essence of sin” within me, I had no other choice but to reach an agreement with the girl who looked just like me to fight against that powerful divine will.
I accepted her.
And fused with her will.
At that moment, I consciously realized that she was, in fact, the will of the abyss, the will of chaos…
Perhaps, it was also the will of the Mother Deity.
We united in the end and thoroughly turned Diana to ashes.
After that, I never heard the voice of “the other me” again.
And I…
No longer felt like myself from that point on.
I guess Miss Ailna didn’t foresee this coming.
She wasn’t an omniscient prophet; she was just an ordinary human, her understanding of complex beings like Gidales remained at a human level. When making decisions, she couldn’t grasp my real state, unaware that two consciousnesses had long been inhabiting my body.
She couldn’t anticipate this.
She thought my chaotic power was wholly under my control.
But the ultimate result was that I lost a significant part of my inner emotions—I neither became the reckless “Black Pei” of the past nor the hot-blooded, mischievous yet kind girl I used to be.
But…
I think at least up to this moment, I’m still me, right?
…
I stared at my reflection for a long time.
The blanket slipped to the floor, leaving my flawless, bare body exposed—slender legs, a flat belly, soft hills of flesh, everything looked just like an ordinary human girl, yet all these years later, nothing had grown, nothing had changed.
But it felt like everything had changed.
This body had been evolving.
From the initial “body of the abyss” to a blend of chaotic fires—more and more of it, and that explosion in Woodward Forest seemed to have shuffled it all again. After the Eastern Continent was “reborn,” all the energy had gone through another fight and recomposition, gradually reaching a balance, then stabilizing.
Though I hadn’t tried again, I probably wouldn’t grow any blue arms nor transform into an abyssal monster—my body had surpassed that strength.
Order, infernal fire, chaos—all three energies surged like a roiling sea within this little “deity body.”
But—
It still feels like something is missing.
Somehow, there’s a feeling of incompleteness.
I don’t know.
Just a vague sensation that something is lacking…
This “sense of loss” started creeping in after I devoured the bones of the old nun.
I don’t like this feeling.
I want to fill it back in.
