Alice in the Land of Steam

For the first time, Ietta realized that fighting to meet the expectations of others could be incredibly fulfilling. Being expected of someone is a constant need at every stage of life, and being expected of someone in an area where one is not skilled amplifies that fulfillment many times over. Ietta wasn't good at fighting; if she could, she would even want to avoid it altogether. But when she had no choice but to fight, when everyone's expectations rested on her shoulders, the girl would unleash an even greater power.

Ultimately, it was the deep affection from her companions that moved her. Without Ling's patient companionship, she might never have left that windmill tower house, forever confined to this lonely cage, withering away like a primrose in winter. Without Xia's meticulous care, her already confused and fragile heart would never have been able to escape the guilt of the past, let alone muster the courage to pursue her own happiness. And without everyone's careful attention, the seed that Ling and Xia planted in her heart would probably have been difficult to sprout and take root. Just as Grandpa Village Chief said, people are the easiest crops to grow in the fields, but without sunshine and rain, they cannot thrive and multiply on this land.

Love is sunshine, tears are rain. Between love and tears, the lonely angel rediscovered the emotions she once had as a human. Now, the seed has grown into a great tree, and in response to the expectations of her sower and waterer, it is time to bear fruit that will amaze the world.

The cyclones on its four legs roared, the vortices of its wings stirred up eddies, and one after another, giants born from the storm, guided by free will, surged toward the dark ocean, carving a path with their own bodies. The air pressure froze the seawater, the air currents tore apart the ice, and the oldest whales followed closely behind, parting the sea and riding the waves. When it leaped out of the sea on the largest wave, its dazzling posture made one think of its ancestor from two hundred centuries ago. At that time, the deep sea, though shrouded in darkness, was still full of life and vitality. It is said that all life was born from the carcass of a whale.

Looking down, Ieta saw that tiny figure, standing alone and proudly in the dark sea, as if the whole world existed for her. As her skirt billowed and countless black water droplets danced like petals, the angel was certain she had looked up at her. This brief eye contact made the girl a little nervous, but mostly excited, because she suddenly realized that her expression wasn't as terrifying as in her dream, and her aura wasn't as powerful as she had imagined. Perhaps this meant that she wasn't invincible after all?
If we defeat her here, the war will end, everyone will be saved, and I can finally fulfill everyone's expectations...

An unprecedented sense of mission spurred Miss Angel on. She took a deep breath, then controlled the cloud whale, diving down without hesitation towards the tiny figure on the sea. Just as the behemoths born from cyclones and currents lack biological instincts, and thus their fighting style is limited to the most primitive and brutal collisions, Ieta had no knowledge of combat. To her, combat was probably like summoning a storm to blow away mountains seven hundred years ago—it only required the simplest, most direct, yet most effective method.

In a sense, the creator and her creations are so similar that they are practically cut from the same mold.

Caraboss remained standing, motionless, silently watching the cloud whale descend from the sky. A hint of nostalgia seemed to linger in her eyes, or perhaps she was awestruck by the sight of the cloud whale leaping from the sea? The distance was too great, the contrast too stark, making it difficult for Ietta to discern her expression. Even so, the angel couldn't help but wonder: Was she lost in thought? Why didn't she move aside? Had she already given up the fight?
That would be wonderful.

If she were willing to surrender obediently, the war would end quickly, and no one would be hurt anymore. For Ietta, this would be the perfect ending.

Can you please not resist?

With such unrealistic thoughts in mind, the shadow of the cloud whale swept across the sea like the night, gently swallowing Carabosse.

But the night is, after all, the domain of the Dark Witch.

So, at the moment of impending collision, Ietta saw Carapos's smile, and this time she saw it clearly. The subtle curve was like someone who found a scene in a storybook amusing, but not funny enough to make him laugh out loud. He showed this faint, casual, but real smile.

The islands in the sky fall, and the whales on earth are about to return to the ocean.

However, the anticipated earth-shattering collision did not occur.

Just as the whale's head was about to touch the surface of the sea and completely engulf the tiny witch—

Carapos simply raised his right hand with utter ease.

Her movements were as casual as brushing aside a strand of hair that drifted into her eyes, understated and devoid of any worldly concern. Her slender, pale hand was so small as to be almost negligible in the shadow of the cloud whale that it blotted out the sky.

But this very hand landed firmly on the swooping cloud whale.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

The colossal beast that descended from the sky, carrying terrifying kinetic energy capable of collapsing mountains, was silently absorbed by a hand that appeared to be human. All the energy vanished, disappearing in a way that defied both science and the laws of magic. Thus, there was no longer the deafening roar of a collision, as if a piece of paper had simply floated onto another; there was no longer the tidal wave of a magical outburst, as if a breath had gently caught another; even the dark sea beneath the witch's feet only rippled slightly before returning to its deathly stillness, the deep abyss seemingly holding the weight of an entire world.

The contrast between the enormous and the minuscule, the violent and the still, is breathtaking.

Ietta's heart skipped a beat upon witnessing this scene. Knowing it was inappropriate, she suddenly remembered a fairy tale Ovira had shown her, a story of a brave child who, with the help of fairies, used magic to wrestle with a giant, ultimately defeating and driving him away, protecting his village and family. She remembered an illustration in the story depicting a giant taller than a mountain, while the child was shorter than a sapling; this contrast made their struggle so awe-inspiring, so unforgettable for Ietta. Later, she heard Ovira analyze that humans always harbor complex feelings towards colossal beings beyond their imagination—both admiring and wanting to follow them, yet also fearing and wanting to drive them away. This fairy tale embodied this spirit. But Ietta didn't grasp such profound meaning; she simply thought the child was brave and the giant terrifying.

Time slipped away silently, and fate, like a fairy's mischievous trick in a storybook, turned the scene in the illustration into reality. Ietta, however, couldn't understand why she was playing the role of the giant, while the dark witch Caraboss was the brave child. Did this mean that character roles had nothing to do with appearances, or did it foreshadow the outcome of this battle?
Once this association took hold, cowardice and hesitation began to take over again. From beginning to end, the Cloud Whale Sky Island didn't stop, continuing to crash into that tiny figure with the momentum of its descent, but it was always kept just out of her grasp, as if hitting an invisible wall, impossible to break through no matter how hard it tried. Karapos slowly raised her head, gazing at the cloud whale so close to her. It had no eyes, wasn't a real life, yet it could emit a long, drawn-out cry indistinguishable from a real whale. The roots of plants within its body resembled blood vessels, the surging soil like blood, the hardest rock forming its skeleton, and its most powerful breath condensing into its heart. From every detail, she felt the passion, expectation, and confidence her master had poured into creating it, and she felt gratified. But beyond that, there was an even more complex feeling.

"What you have—"

Her pale, thin lips moved slightly, her voice soft and delicate, yet chillingly echoing across the battlefield: "Decent strength, decent resolve, and insufficient awareness."

Determination and awareness are two different things.

It's good to be determined to fight for a reason, but if you're only pursuing victory, that's far from being a sign of true understanding.

“Kill me, Ieta.” Carabosse’s voice whispered like a ghost, eerily hovering in her ear, making the angelic girl shiver involuntarily. She had thought about and wanted to defeat someone for more than once; but the concept of killing someone for someone had never crossed her mind, because killing someone… was tantamount to stripping her of everything, wasn’t it?
"You can't do it." The Dark Witch looked at the Cloud Whale with regret, as if speaking to another person across this vast island. "Just like before. In that case, you can never be my match. Go, leave this place, let someone truly prepared be my opponent, let her—"

"She came to fight me."

Carapos knew that among this group of gentle, kind, and indecisive monarchs, only two could completely sever the ties of the past, treating the ideological differences of this life as an endless battle. Once on the battlefield, they would no longer hesitate or waver, their sole aim being to kill their opponents. One of those two was the victorious monarch, Hino, but the other was hard to imagine; he was neither Alice, nor Ovira, nor any other person who feigned ferocity, pretended to be cold, or thought themselves resolute.

But her.

The Dark Witch came for her.

That's why she used the Dyson Sphere as bait to lure Hino away from the battlefield, and remained indifferent to Ietta's attack. She had the clearest plan and the most lucid understanding: What was this war for? What was the purpose of the battle? And who should she be her enemy? These were questions her opponents had never considered, but Carabosse never forgot them from beginning to end.

and so--

"It's not you."

Karapos refused Ieta's offer. With a gentle push of her hand, the Cloud Whale Sky Island, frozen in mid-air and struggling just a moment ago, became a casually tossed pebble, flying backward with a slow, chilling yet undeniably resolute speed. The rock whale tumbled and receded in the sky, its shadow like frames frozen in time. In the first frame, it flew over the desolate sea submerged in darkness and death; in the second, it flew over the suspended ice shards and waves that looked like corpses; in the third, the shadow of the sky swept across Ieta's somewhat unfocused eyes. She hadn't yet realized what was happening, but at this moment, the world was turned upside down, and everything was about to be shattered.

In the final frame, the cloud whale plunges into the dark forest, stirring up a roaring wave. The ensuing storm plows through the entire forest, and the fallen and broken black dead trees seem to be drawn by some unpredictable force, collapsing towards the center of the fall. Dark leaves flutter in the air, spreading out with the dust and smoke, like scattered bird feathers at sea after a torrential rain.

The colossal whale from the sky lay sprawled on the ground, uttering no sound, yet one could almost hear its heavy breathing and weak moans. Its massive, heavy body, larger than an island, slowly sank into the deep sea composed of branches, mud, and decaying matter. Its rocky skeleton shattered and deformed upon impact, a gruesome sight like a stranded marine creature. The impenetrable darkness of the Black Forest, like a greedy sea beast that had caught the scent of its prey, rapidly enveloped and devoured its enormous silhouette.

Scattered all around were the long-collapsed metal wreckage, rusty skeletons half-buried beneath fallen blackwood, or leaning precariously in the soil, reflecting a faint light, like the phosphorescent eyes of a deep-sea behemoth, silently watching this belated fellow whale. It was an airship that had been driven here by a cloud whale and crashed here. It had thought it was helping its kind return to their homeland, never imagining that one day it would find itself among them. This might suggest that every whale shares the same destiny, but it wasn't their birthplace—not the sky, the earth, or the sea—but an ancient, mysterious graveyard, gradually forgotten in the oral traditions of whalers and sailors.

The wind whistled through broken branches and twisted metal, a mournful lament from the deep sea for these lost behemoths.

Things in this world that are both strange and familiar, gathered together and separated, accompanying each other yet never communicating.

They are called tombstones, but they are also known by another more common name: loneliness.

Just like the loneliness Ieta felt at this moment. (End of Chapter)