Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1329 Are mortals unchangeable?
The cold, eerie blue rain continued to fall, pattering against the surface of the void, producing fragmented yet hollow echoes. The mere presence of the Goddess of Darkness caused the entire space to groan under her unbearable weight. She had replaced the concepts of light and darkness, becoming the sole core of this world. Her dark eyes, like the core of a burnt-out star, hung limply, devoid of any emotion. Wherever her gaze fell, even the falling raindrops seemed to freeze, captured in a silent painting, a moment that became eternity.

Saint Charlotte looked up, her calm expression finally replaced by solemnity, perhaps even tinged with a deep-seated sorrow. For the girl of destiny, Wang Quan, using the power bestowed upon her by her mother to kill someone was already an unpleasant experience. But the fact that the person she killed stubbornly resisted death, preferring to abandon their own soul in order to continue the battle, made the situation all the more frustrating and tragic.

Does a battle like this truly offer any meaning? The shepherdess had pondered this question countless times. However, Caraboss, having reclaimed her original power from the deepest darkness, didn't give her much time to think. This was, after all, a battlefield—a place where people replaced reason with swords, communication with fighting, and understanding with mutual harm. Perhaps reason would return after the blind passion dissipated, and two people who were mortal enemies just moments before would reconcile and make vows after the battle—plots often seen in novels and plays. But Caraboss knew that day would never come, because she was someone who would resolutely continue even if no one understood her.

Of course, now it's not her, but Him.

Raise the scythe high, and darkness soars.

There was no howling wind or rain, no earth-shattering explosion.

There is only silence.

A deathly silence enveloped the world. The azure rain of data seemed frozen in mid-air by an invisible force. The churning black sea ceased its roar, solidifying into a deathly black mirror. Even the serpent of fate, rolling in the clouds, paused for a moment, like a reptile embedded in amber, lifelike from the deep sea ten thousand years ago to the forest ten thousand years later.

The Goddess of Darkness swung her black scythe, and in the blink of an eye, the universe gave birth to immense darkness, which now became her power. Saint Sharia was the only one who could maintain her thoughts and actions in the frozen spacetime. She subconsciously withdrew her fingers, plucking the threads of fate in the void. The giant serpent sealed in amber, heeding the call from its master, twisted its mountain-like, sea-like body, turning like a wheel. The rumbling sound was slow yet resolute, like a carriage traveling through a deserted wilderness. As the wheels rolled over it, the creatures clinging to them were like insects, always repeating the same cycle, and the tracks left behind were their destiny.

Fate is irreversible and therefore unstoppable. Even if darkness prevails for a time, and fog and haze, like dust, obscure the road ahead, it will still break free from all constraints and continue to move forward steadfastly.

However, it can be deceived.

The giant scythe fell, narrowly missing Saint Charlotte's skirt, cleaving a bottomless chasm in the deep clouds. Then, in the next instant, it reappeared from an incredibly strange angle, mercilessly slashing at the tiny figure. The giant serpent weaving its net in the sky witnessed a single thread snap abruptly, as if fate had suddenly slipped from its grasp. Its massive body swooped down, writhing and twisting, trying to mend the broken destiny. But as the proverb goes: the unexpected always arrives sooner than tomorrow.

The scythe, burning with jet-black flames, slammed violently into the pure white figure.

"Well!"

A suppressed groan escaped her lips. Her long, blue hair whipped wildly in the invisible impact, and her white skirt was instantly torn in several places, revealing skin beneath, seemingly ethereal and battered by countless jumbled characters and symbols. Saint Xialia was flung backward like a kite with a broken string, her toes tracing long, eerie blue streaks across the frozen, dark sea. She tried to steady herself, the chains of fate on her fingers thrashing about like startled silver snakes, instinctively weaving a new destiny.

The threads intertwined, negation and resistance, reconstruction and inheritance, stripping away Saint Sharia's fate of being struck by the scythe, replacing it with a new destiny of evading this onslaught. When old and new destinies clash, the world must choose. But this world is built upon the shared foundation of a young man's faith and a young woman's imagination, and their emotional inclinations determine the world's inclinations. Therefore, the choice it will make is self-evident.

The world froze, and then fate began to rewind. A shower of light rose into the sky, the dispersing clouds receded, and visible data streams surged back, resetting the world's state. A phantom scythe swung from the giant scythe in the dark goddess's hand, grazing Saint Sharia's skirt. This time, the girl wasn't struck, and the world acknowledged this destiny. Her torn clothes were mended, the chaotic data returned to normal, and even the blue-haired girl's pale face instantly regained its color. Her aura was so vibrant, no different from a minute ago.

But the true scythe did not succumb to this fate, stubbornly flying towards the edge of the world. Wherever it passed, space silently annihilated, leaving behind a deep, void scar that seemed to connect to the chaos before the birth of the universe. This scar greedily devoured everything in its path: solidified data raindrops, surging giant clouds, even a part of the incredibly resilient, massive body of the Serpent of Fate, woven from threads and chains... Everything that touched the scar instantly turned into the most basic particles of nothingness, completely assimilated and erased by that absolute darkness, as if it had never existed.

The horrific wounds even tore apart the barrier at the edge of the world, tearing a visible crack through countless 0s and 1s. Purified dark magic, like raindrops, poured through the crack onto the battlefield. Those who had been temporarily protected by Saint Sharia through data manipulation, upon touching this dark magic, felt as if they were touching the reality of this world. They gradually detached from their data state, their flesh and blood reforming, and stood bewildered on the blood- and flame-splattered battlefield.

Neither the garrison of the Seventeenth Army nor the soldiers of the uprising could comprehend what had just happened. Just as they could hardly fathom the will greater than a storm with emotions smaller than ants, they simultaneously saw each other's presence, noticed the weapons in each other's hands, and recalled what they had been doing in the moments before losing consciousness.

Fight. Only fight!

The fleeting fragments were not enough to extinguish the flames of hatred, and the brief ceasefire was merely to allow the story to continue. Without verbal encouragement or psychological awakening, both sides were almost guided by instinct, raising their weapons and charging at each other. The roars of beasts were deafening, and the clash of steel and fire reignited in the ruins. And as far as the eye could see, such scenes were everywhere.

Saint Charlotte, witnessing this scene, suddenly felt sorrow. Her intention was to stop the battle, for at this point, the victory or defeat of the war was no longer determined by the soldiers, but by the two celestial maidens. Even if the rebels annihilated the resistance of the Seventeenth Legion and even captured the governor's mansion, their gains would vanish in an instant if Saint Charlotte were defeated. Similarly, even if the Seventeenth Legion held Suarez and launched a fierce counterattack against the rebels, their resistance would be like water trying to pierce stone—perhaps possible, but utterly meaningless—once Caraboss was defeated.

When the course of war is no longer in our own hands, when victory and defeat are no longer intertwined with life and death, and even when fate is no longer controlled by weapons, what meaning does the battle hold? Saint Charlotte did not want to see any more pointless sacrifices. When she accepted the young man's faith and resolved to step onto the battlefield, she thought to herself, if this war was destined to produce another victim, then she would choose between herself and Carabosse. As for the others, they could live.

Or rather, they were meant to be alive.

Whether this idea is too arrogant, ignoring the will of mortals, or whether mortals are simply incapable of understanding with the mind of gods, they are always overwhelmed by emotion, so much so that even knowing such a battle is meaningless, when consciousness returns, limbs regain movement, and the wind from the battlefield fills their noses with the smell of blood and the acrid stench of flames, they will still subconsciously label the person in front of them as "enemy," and then, like a mechanical execution of the most rigid instructions, arrive at the simplest conclusion: since they are enemies, then we must fight.

why?

Why...do it this way?
Saint Charlotte did not understand war because she did not understand mortals enough; Carapace did not understand mortals enough either, but he could understand war.

"We... are not gods." The Goddess of Darkness stood silently, wielding a giant scythe, her ethereal and distant voice echoing like the tides: "In the eyes of mortals, we are... storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions—all natural disasters, destined to come and destined to go. Even if a storm can overcome a tsunami, or a volcanic eruption can withstand the power of an earthquake, what meaning does such a struggle have for them? The battle between natural disasters, whether won or lost, is ultimately irrelevant to them. A battle is to defeat an enemy that can be defeated; if one encounters an enemy that cannot be defeated, then it is no longer a battle, but... fate."

From His mouth came a word that Saint Charlotte found incredibly ironic, yet she knew deep down that it might be the right answer. Mortals attribute all that is insurmountable to fate and allow it to control them, but beneath fate lies the enemy they fight with all their might to defeat, the enemy for which they are willing to pay the price with their lives.

Therefore, they remain indifferent to the battles between gods, knowing it is fate and that neither prayer nor resistance is of any use; therefore, they continue to engage in brutal battles with their enemies on meaningless battlefields, because at least this is a victory or defeat that mortals can decide, and they cannot find any other reason to stand there.

“Now you understand… Saint Charlotte…”

The goddess of darkness, Calabos, spoke slowly, her voice indifferent yet grand: "Mortals cannot be changed. The only thing we can change is... this world..."

The witches had long understood this principle, and through countless setbacks and failures. Whenever they tried to give mortals more trust, they would always reject all knowledge worthy of understanding and all emotions worthy of empathy with their shortsightedness, ignorance, fanaticism, and stubbornness. In their lives, they always so clearly distinguished between concepts like good and evil, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, light and darkness, ignoring the possibility of reconciliation and balance. So in the end, the witches no longer hoped for a sudden awakening from mortals. Since you see us as a natural disaster, then we will act as if a real natural disaster has struck, without caring about the lives of others, without caring about your feelings, acting on our own, changing the world, changing the living environment of mortals, and consequently changing all their perceptions and behaviors… and still be able to achieve that grand plan.

Whether this theory is correct or not, the witches have been following this path. However, they have not been without hesitation and confusion along the way. The more they come into contact with mortals, the greater and more ruthless the natural disasters become, and emotions begin to take over their hearts. Therefore, Times is reluctant to go to the battlefield because of her soft heart, and even secretly uses her authority to prevent others from going to the battlefield, as if doing so can slightly reduce her guilt; so Perec devotes all her time to building charitable hospitals and free clinics, creating killings behind the scenes while saving countless lives, as if the two can cancel each other out; even Tentis, who initially proposed this plan, tacitly allowed Bai Long to leak the research results of the power of faith, even if the consequences were a split within the society and the potential for future internal strife... When natural disasters develop emotions, it seems that even mortals are stronger than them.

Carabosse was the only one who wouldn't.

Throughout it all, she was the coldest and most ruthless of all the young queens.

Just like darkness itself.

　Give me some cats
　　(End of this chapter)