I Was The Hero, But I Woke Up as a Phoenix Princess! – Chapter 1053

chapter 100 The Brilliance of the Sacred Sword
“Is it Ilis?”
Ig asked, seeing the girl nod, he immediately said, “Veer, let me go with you.”
Perhaps, at this juncture, he couldn’t do more for Verafia, but at least he hoped to be by his girl’s side, rather than letting her face it alone.
Verafia hesitated, a worried expression showing in her golden eyes, but seeing Ig’s persistence, a trace of delicate tenderness crossed her eyes. She clasped the young man’s hand and said softly, “Yes, we’ll go together.”
Their fingers intertwined tightly, invisible ripples gently spread around her, and soft white light carried them beyond the world. The girl who cut through darkness once again arrived before the Abyss.
This was a place where time stood still, where dark chaos condensed, unable to be illuminated even by the light of creation. Verafia witnessed infinite sins, the dregs of civilization, the sins of humanity, sticking like mud and accumulating here. This land of chaos, condensing the sins of an entire civilization, was enough to make any sage fall.
However, a slender girl stood in the depths of darkness and sin. Her soft, white hair gently brushed her delicate shoulders. Her white dress covered her ankles, like a pure flower in bloom.
“It’s you, the young man from back then, Lott’s successor…”
Her voice, soft and pleasant, was like the gentle, lingering breeze. The white-haired girl gently lifted her face, her eyes clean and clear, unstained by any dust. She looked at the girl who had come with Ig, her long eyelashes fluttering gently, and said with a gentle smile, “And Miss Verafia.”
“‘Saintess,’ Ilis.”
Verafia also looked at the flawless white-haired girl in the Abyss. She was the pure and kind Saintess of Light in her memories, and now, the mastermind of the Abyssal Church, the Abyssal Saintess who swept away all sins. But whether it was the Abyss or the Light, she was Ilis.
Unlike in front of Filir, where she felt coldness and anger, Verafia felt complex emotions. She didn’t find any extra filth on Ilis; she was as clear as ever, like crystal.
Even her casual gaze caused more emotional fluctuation in Verafia than Filir had done countless times.
“…Why are you here?” Filir had told her that Ilis had indeed joined the Abyss and, in the end, blessed her and ushered in a new era.”
Ilis’s fair face revealed a faint smile. She said, “Liya, I deceived her… and betrayed her. Yes, I implored her to usher in a new era, but how can that pure world be occupied by selfishness and ambition again?”
“…A pure world?” Ig said.
“An era where there is no sin or greed… *cough*, you’ve heard these words many times, haven’t you? But I promise you, this world, where all sins are gathered here, will indeed be a clean world.”
The white-haired girl smiled gently. She looked at the young man who spoke and said apologetically, “Ig, I want to apologize to you. Back then, giving you the Demon King’s heart was using you, borrowing you to overthrow Lancel, who possessed the Sacred Sword… But at that time, I didn’t know that Miss Verafia was Lott’s.”
Her gaze shifted slightly as she looked at the white-dressed, golden-haired girl. Verafia’s teeth lightly brushed her lips, and she opened them to utter a sound: “Ilis, what exactly did you experience when I was gone?”
The only possible explanation for the gentle and kind girl becoming such an extreme Abyssal Saintess was what she experienced after being betrayed and endlessly exploited by Moon, and after her identity as a Saintess was stripped away.
“It wasn’t an easy time. In short, I encountered things I had never experienced before, and it was the first time I saw the ugliness in countless people’s hearts.”
Ilis said it lightly, gently pulling a strand of her white hair. Her fair face was reflected in Verafia’s soft glow, as if reminiscing, “Injustice, oppression, greed, brutality. Civilization educates beasts into humans, and at the same time, it always turns them into more ferocious beasts.”
What Ilis described was within her expectations, but she didn’t know how to respond.
“Miss Verafia, do you think I’m too extreme, only recognizing the sins of the world and unable to see its beauty?”
Ilis instead said this, with a radiant smile, her clear eyes like a mirror.
Verafia remained silent.
Before, she hadn’t put much effort into persuading the girl because she knew that both she and Ilis had unwavering resolve by the end. Their conversation was merely an exchange of their wills.
But Verafia still wanted to say: “Ilis, turn back.”
The girl’s words did not surprise Ilis. The corner of her beautiful eyes curved into a gentle arc, and she chuckled lightly:
“Even if you are Miss Verafia now, you are still as gentle as before. But, Sister Vera, can you forgive me… everyone in this world that I have harmed, can they forgive me?”
“…” Verafia couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t answer either question.
But silence was the answer to the questions.
Ilis did not harbor any resentment. Instead, an even more relaxed smile appeared on her face, “So, let me bear all this sin.”
After saying that, she leaned back into the Abyss behind her. The countless dormant, solidified sins instantly boiled, like sharp fangs and claws, like sharp vines, tearing apart the girl’s pure white dress and crawling over her flawless, fair skin.
Verafia’s pupils contracted. She lunged forward and grabbed her hand, but Ilis’s hand slipped through her fingertips as if it were an illusion.
The white-haired girl before them was not Ilis’s physical body, but merely a reflection of her remaining at the end of the Abyss, meeting Verafia… She hadn’t lied to Filir; the Abyssal Saintess, who bore the sins of the entire world, had already thrown herself into the Abyss.
The girl’s eyes widened in shock. The moment Ilis fell into the Abyss, the darkness of the entire world and the sins of civilization collapsed. Beneath the Abyss, a terrifying darkness spewed forth!
“Veer!” Ig tightly grasped her hand.
“No, it’s not just the Abyss. The sin… Ilis, the light that was stolen is integrated here, wait—that’s the Sacred Sword!”
Verafia’s golden eyes suddenly narrowed. Amidst the surging tide of the Abyss, she saw the pure white Sacred Sword burst forth with incomparably dazzling pure brilliance.
What propelled this great tide of darkness was far more than the power of the shattered Abyss, but Ilis’s light, and even the power of the Sacred Sword.
However, with no time for a substantial reaction, in a blink of an eye, the Abyss encroached. Verafia gritted her silver teeth, shoved Ig away with all her might, and ascended. Her slender, delicate body stood before the Abyss and the Sacred Sword.