A Villainess Should Be Strong

This wasn't the real world. The things that happened here wouldn't mirror the actual condition.

[Don't worry, this is an artificial world.] Estelle assured herself. She was used to caring for the consequences of her actions. She had forgotten that this was actually just a simulation to reproduce the experience she had gone through in the past. She laughed internally. It turns out that her worries weren't needed at all. She was able to go ballistic, full force, with no lingering consequences.

Estelle laughed, almost in a maniacal way. She no longer looked at the monster as a dangerous creature, but rather something that could be used to her own advantage. Something to acquire experience and knowledge from. A test subject. It was very fitting for the creature to appear right now, it supported her purpose.

"Come, I will use you as my test subject, then," Estelle's eyes glimmered with determination as she began to cast a whole lot of her energy balls. Combined with it, she tried to figure out the suitable measurements she could use to weaken the enemy the same way she had came up with when she handled the immobile energy back then.

However, it was much more harder to find the pattern this time. It was because the creature was too bizarre and she couldn't inspect its nature by a whole lot. She could only take a wild guess with her instincts and draw conclusions she thought were plausible and test it out directly. She didn't know yet, but this type of testing actually began to improve her ways of wielding the magic and built up the familiarity she had.

This would severely impact her performance back in the Surface, but she didn't know that yet for the time being.

Using all of her machinations and capabilities, she attacked the creature and went into a battle frenzy, fighting without a single care of the people down below. They were indeed people, but they were a simulation made for her. Even if they disappeared or died, nothing would really change.

She immersed herself in battle. Dodging, attacking, and defending at the same time. The world below was practically in ruins by the time she looked once. Those who stayed inside the town would all probably be dead right now since she took her time off defending the land and focusing on fighting this creature.

The fight was going well, and it seemed like she had the upper hand. However, this sentiment was soon to be changed. As she dodged one poisonous attack by a hair's breadth, she suddenly felt an ominous presence lurking around.

"RAE! BE CAREFUL!" Right then and there, a loud shout resounded from below her, making her jolt and instinctively dodge from her previous position. Indeed, the warning proved to be useful as the very next second, a shadowed attack came to fruition in that exact spot. It consumed the area around the place.

"TO YOUR LEFT!" Another shout came. Hearing those words, and knowing that it was because of the previous shout that she was able to evade in time, Estelle hurriedly went to the right side. She dodged another phantom attack, which was just as frightening as the previous one.

She rose up high to the sky, flying above the creature and constantly getting behind its body so she could manipulate a blind spot. She took a breather to process the two attacks she had just evaded from.

"What.. attacks I can't see?" Estelle frowned. If that was the case, then it would be much harder for her to continue fighting this creature. She looked down below and saw Aleksei with a concerned face. She immediately understood the severity of his power and how necessary it was in her current situation. The ominous presence that flashed upon her mind when the first attack was about to hit was felt strongly by the man. The second attack was also detected by him, whereas it went unnoticed by her.

Clicking her tongue, Estelle realized that this damned thing couldn't be a test subject anymore.

However, with the phantom attacks, none of it actually went under her radar. They could only be reported by Aleksei. Was Aleksei's power this strong? How could it be? She looked down again and noticed another thing that was off. Aleksei was still alive.

Right. Why was Aleksei alive? The entire town had been burnt down to a crisp. Dissolved. It was a horrendous sight. Ophelia's corpse was clearly there.

So.. why is this man alive?

Estelle couldn't bid more time on that thought as she hurriedly lunged down to the ground and talked with Aleksei.

"Aleksei, come up to the sky with me. I need your help. Are you ready?" Estelle asked.

Aleksei was a bit nervous, but he nodded as he latched on to Estelle and was brought up to the sky. Estelle cast magic on the man so he could fly on his own, and the man showed strange tendencies. He wasn't phased by his new ability and could freely manipulate it like he had been an expert flyer for years. Someone who was flying for the first time couldn't have had these sort of reactions.

Estelle's resting suspicion began to surface more and more as the man kept surprising her with abilities that shouldn't be held by someone who was just a normal human, unless he was given some sort of additional power.

With Aleksei's help, Estelle was actually able to fight better. The battle from there was smooth sailing.

The fight ended, and it resulted in to Estelle and Aleksei's victory, but she still couldn't shake off how the suspicions in her mind were starting to come true and proved itself over and over again. She looked at Aleksei with a complicated expression, dropping the man on a safer land.

Why was this so convenient? Again, what was this uncomfortable feeling?

"Aleksei.. Listen, I have something I need to do, and you can't follow me. I trust that you will be able to survive even if I leave you here. Am I right?" Estelle asked. Her heartbeat was jumping up, and she couldn't wait to leave this man right this very second. It was because of a thing she realized.

The attacks that were made by that creature really couldn't be detected by her. The creature made more of those types of attacks later on, and she could only rely on Aleksei for those.

In this timeline, Ophelia was dead. Aleksei was still alive.. and the ominous presence she felt in that fight still stayed intact even after everything ended.

Why was that? Because.. the presence she sensed was Aleksei?

She had to go back to the Absolute. To find answers. Irritated, she didn't even wait for Aleksei to reply to her words before she flew up high, leaving the man in the wasted, barren lands all alone. She didn't look back at all. She went back to the higher realms and arrived at the Absolute's place, her breath strewn all over and disorganized.

The being was there. Sitting in his usual place.

"You came back?" The Absolute questioned with a gentle smile, welcoming the woman.

"..Indeed, I came back. I think there's a lot of explanation that you need to do," Estelle stated.

"Did you finish gathering up the questions you want to ask? Come here and sit down with me, I will answer them as best as I could. Although.. judging from your current state, I think I know what your first question is going to be," The Absolute spoke with a hint of amusement.

Estelle became irked with the being's attitude, which made him seem like he knew everything, but just hid it from her and watched as she believed in false information and claims.

"Right.. so tell me, why does it feel like Aleksei himself is the embodiment of Chaos and not Ophelia?" Estelle asked with a pained face. The man that swore to love her. The memories they had spent together.

Were they all fake?

There was something that made the suspicions rise in the first place. A trigger, you could say.

A trigger to her memories. When she killed that creature, a burst of memories and emotions surged up.

In that short time span, she had received the brunt of something much worse than physical pain. It was emotional pain, one that she would've never thought was possible. It was comparable to nothing. The anguish, sadness, stress, all of it piled up and attacked her at the same time the moment her memories were triggered in a strange way.

It didn't reveal everything, but it seemed to have revealed a pivotal thing. Something about Aleksei, the man she apparently loved. He caused something. Something that made the past Goddess Estraea break down. It wasn't necessarily Ophelia. There was no way the soul of Chaos could've been brought down from the upper realm that easily, right? Not even Ophelia's negative emotions. It wasn't that simple.