"Millicent, surrender now and you can still live!"
"There are four of us and only one of you. You have no chance of winning."
"Grab her first. Get the needle into her."
"Fourth Sister, come to your senses. Our destiny is to become Lady Malenia's weapons."
Facing the four sisters as they closed in from every direction, Millicent's eyes turned icy.
"Four against one? No. The four of you are surrounded by me."
Skyl watched invisibly from nearby. He had complete confidence in Millicent's personal strength. Her body was now in perfect condition and her swordsmanship had improved tremendously. Even according to the original course of history, when she had lost an arm, relied on a prosthesis, and carried Scarlet Rot within her body, she had still been capable of fighting all four sisters at once without being overwhelmed.
All five young women were intimately connected to the Empyrean Malenia.
And who exactly was Malenia?
She was the daughter of Queen Marika, god of the Lands Between. The strangest part was that her parents were actually the same being. King Consort Radagon was Marika's other self, and from their union with themselves came a pair of twins.
Perhaps because they were children born of a single god, fate played a cruel joke on the noble twins. Both Malenia and Miquella were born afflicted. Miquella was cursed to remain eternally young, while Malenia was infested by an Outer God's Scarlet Rot, turning her body into a breeding ground for decay and making her the Empyrean destined to embody the Order of Rot.
Malenia refused to become the Goddess of Rot. She resisted the infection with her pride as an individual, restraining herself through discipline and refusing to embrace the Order of Rot. That Order represented the cycle in which all flourishing things eventually decayed and were reborn, a principle that could bring devastating consequences to civilization.
As a Shardbearer who possessed a Great Rune, Malenia was powerful enough to sweep across the Lands Between.
When she fought Starscourge Radahn, who was hailed as the mightiest demigod, she pushed herself to the absolute limit and deliberately unleashed the terrifying power of the Rot, causing the Scarlet Aeonia to bloom.
After releasing the Scarlet Rot, Malenia fell unconscious and her body was enveloped by the Scarlet Aeonia. One of her most loyal Cleanrot Knights, Finlay, carried the sleeping Malenia all the way back to the Haligtree while fighting off countless enemies alone. It was the kind of one-woman battlefield legend worthy of a Medal of Honor.
After the Scarlet Aeonia bloomed in Caelid, Millicent and her four sisters were born one after another as orphans.
Their origins were mysterious, but there was no doubt that all five shared an intimate connection of blood with Malenia. Each of their personalities also overlapped with aspects of Malenia herself. In a sense, they could even be regarded as five fragments reflecting different stages of her life.
The foster father who adopted the five sisters was, in truth, a Kindred of Rot disguised as a human.
The relationship between the Kindred of Rot and Scarlet Rot was much like that between insects and flowers. The insects spread the flower's influence, while the Scarlet Aeonia created the foul environment that allowed the Kindred of Rot to multiply and thrive. Neither could truly flourish without the other.
Among the five sisters, the other four were incomplete buds. Only Millicent possessed the potential to blossom into a true Scarlet Aeonia. She was the most exceptional of the sisters and the one most deeply connected to Malenia. Their personalities and life experiences mirrored each other to an extraordinary degree.
Millicent's kindness had shown itself when she was barely clinging to life beneath the ravages of Scarlet Rot. Even then, she had warned Skyl not to approach her for fear that he might become infected. Skyl, in turn, had cured her Scarlet Rot.
Malenia had likewise been sickly from birth, and her brother Miquella had cared for her with painstaking devotion, tirelessly seeking a way to halt the Rot.
When Millicent feared that Scarlet Rot might corrupt her mind and drive her insane, she had decisively severed her dominant arm to stop its spread. That same courage and ruthlessness toward herself could also be seen in Malenia, who had lost not merely her right arm, but her entire left leg and the lower portion of her right leg.
There was even less need to explain Millicent's loyalty and gratitude.
She could offer her life to Skyl without the slightest hesitation. Skyl had genuinely never met anyone quite like her before, and such absolute devotion sometimes left even him unsure how to react.
Malenia possessed the same fierce temperament. She too would march to certain death without hesitation for Miquella.
That iron will clearly ran in the family.
The more Skyl cherished Millicent for the remarkable woman she was, the more he regretted what had happened to Malenia. It was not because he had suddenly become a devotee of Scarlet Rot. He simply found her tragedy profoundly unfortunate.
Malenia had bloomed once already, and now she was gradually drifting toward the Order of Rot.
Her heart had surrendered.
She had yielded to the Order.
She had fought against reality for her entire life, only to fail in preserving the dream she had once held. She had spent her life fighting upstream, only for the current of fate to finally overturn her.
Perhaps that was the regret shared by countless ordinary people.
No child grows up dreaming about mortgages and car payments. Most people begin life dreaming of something greater, only for adulthood to slowly beat that fire out of them.
Skyl disliked tragedies.
If it were possible, he would have liked to save every tragedy in existence.
But that was impossible.
Tragedy and joy were two sides of the same coin called life. Without the suffering they had endured, the courage that made Malenia and Millicent shine so brightly would never have become so apparent.
Skyl did not want to erase their tragic past.
He simply wanted to give them the best ending he possibly could.
Millicent was a piece of the past that Malenia had cast away. If Malenia could recover that lost pride through Millicent, perhaps she could find the strength to stand again.
As for removing the Scarlet Rot from Malenia entirely, that was impossible.
She was the Rot.
The Order was part of an Empyrean's very essence. Trying to forcibly tear it from her would only kill her, leaving behind a Great Rune condensed around the divine portfolio of Rot.
Skyl had absolutely no use for something like that.
The thing practically reeked of decay. Even Oscar the Grouch would have turned up his nose at it.
"Ah! No... this can't be... the end..."
One of the sisters attacking Millicent collapsed.
She had wielded a Treespear, one of the iconic weapons associated with Leyndell, Royal Capital. She represented Malenia's earliest identity, a noble princess of Leyndell.
"Why... would you reject... your own blood?"
The second sister soon fell.
She wielded a Halo Scythe, the signature weapon of the Cleanrot Knights. She represented Malenia's loyal followers and those who worshiped her.
Surrounded by four opponents, Millicent truly moved like a bird in flight. She leaped and twisted through the air while eruptions of sword energy filled the battlefield.
She was practically spamming the same devastating technique over and over.
Attack.
Cut.
Keep cutting.
She did not care whether she was injured in return.
The relentless assault left her four dear sisters completely overwhelmed.
"How... did you become this strong? Are we really... so far beneath you?"
The third sister fell.
She wielded a pair of Flowing Curved Swords, representing Malenia's swordmaster and the philosophy through which she had resisted the Rot.
Keep moving, and decay cannot take hold.
Only the youngest sister remained.
Her hair was soaked with the blood of her older sisters, staining her body crimson. She raised the Blade of Calling in her hand, a weapon symbolizing Malenia's inescapable destiny.
"Fourth Sister, you have always been the strongest among us, but you have also always been the most stubborn.
"Rot is the inevitable conclusion. Every plant that flourishes must eventually decay. No matter how desperately you struggle, our goddess will descend upon this world."
"I don't care how it ends."
Millicent's voice was cold.
"Now learn what it means to face Skyl's blade."
Her sword thrust forward.
It pierced straight through her youngest sister's chest.
One after another, all four sisters fell.
They lay scattered across the branches like four withered flowers.
Millicent slowly steadied her breathing. She took out a piece of white cotton cloth and carefully wiped the blood from her Shamshir, then solemnly returned the blade to its sheath.
She closed her eyes and reflected in silence.
The ripples within her Shehai gradually settled.
She knew this was not over.
The servants of Rot would not give up on hunting her.
But that was fine.
Once she completed her mission, nothing would bind her here anymore.
Then she could follow Skyl away from this hellhole called the Lands Between without a single regret.
Malenia was already close.
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