Fairy Round Table Realm, Poem of Eternal Mist

But Belial quickly sensed something was wrong—Pepe was no one to die in vain. In the instant this thought flashed through his mind, a strange, purplish-black substance suddenly spread across his claws. This lifelike slime frantically eroded his power, his cells, devouring everything that belonged to him!

'Ughhhhhh!'

As if submerged naked in boiling oil, the excruciating pain caused Belial to writhe on the ground. The purplish-black substance seemed to possess sentience, targeting his most vulnerable nerves, like rubbing salt into wounds. Ritsuka, enduring the pain, wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and seized the opportunity to hurl a blazing fireball at Belial. The combined assault of the burning sensation and the excruciating pain from the poison finally brought this arrogant man to his breaking point.

'It hurts...it hurts so much! Ahhhhhh...!'

'Heh heh heh...' Pepe struggled to lift her head, blood oozing from the corner of her mouth. 'How does it taste... Belial? This is five hundred doses of Morse concentrated into a deadly poison... Do you think that's why I didn't show myself earlier?'

'Could it be that you...' Belial's pupils contracted sharply, '...all those samples from my lab...'

'Now you understand?' Pepe gave a bitter, triumphant smile. 'It's time for you to taste... this kind of pain!'

Belial was furious, his veins bulging. The toxin he had painstakingly developed had been used by Pepe as a vessel, sacrificing herself in this mutual destruction. This mistake was utterly fatal!

Meanwhile, Ritsuka, Mash, and Castor, having regrouped, surged forward like a tidal wave. A barrage of attacks rained down on Belial's shattered body; his previous arrogance had vanished. Seeing that all was lost, he finally roared in despair:

"Enough! I surrender! You win!"

Tormented by excruciating pain, Belial lost all will to fight. He smashed through the crumbling wall and fled in panic amidst the chaos. As the dust settled, everyone's gaze fell upon Pepe, who was leaning against a broken pillar.

His breathing was rapid and weak, and blood kept spilling from the corner of his mouth, spreading a glaring red on his clothes. As Castor raised his staff to cast a healing spell, Pepe shook her head with her last strength.

"Ah...did I fall asleep?" His voice was as light as a feather. "What a pity...I didn't get to see that bastard's pathetic escape..." He forced a smile, but it aggravated his wound, causing him to cough up a mouthful of blood. "Cough cough...Why are you all crying? Did I do something wrong?"

Looking at Ritsuka and Mashu, who were sobbing uncontrollably, Pepe felt a lump in her throat, but found she didn't even have the strength to cry. Perhaps they were blaming him for choosing such a drastic way?

'But Pepe…' Mashu's voice choked with emotion, 'why did you have to do it this way…'

'Is this the only way to win?' Ritsuka gripped his cold hand tightly. 'I don't want this ending! You said you'd form a new Group A with us and with Kadoc! How could you break your promise...'

Castor turned around silently, his shoulders trembling slightly.

'Oh...so that's how it is...' Pepe's pupils began to dilate. 'I just...did what I had to do...' His breathing suddenly became rapid. 'Promise me...I'll see Kirstalia soon...If you meet Debit in South America...please tell him...I can't...'

Another mouthful of blood gushed out, and his voice grew fainter and fainter: 'So sleepy... Is it already dark? Strange... Why... am I so tired...?'

A few minutes ago

'Cough...cough cough...'

Peperoncino knelt on one knee, his magical barrier flickering under the relentless onslaught of humanoid Morse. His magic was dwindling, while the enemy's numbers seemed to only increase. Gazing at these twisted creations, a mad idea formed in his mind—since Morse's venom was so corrosive, why not use it for his own purposes?

This plan meant self-destruction. But if it could save his companions, he would gladly do it.

'Death...of course I'm afraid...' He wiped the blood from his lips, a resolute light burning in his eyes, 'But if I can get them out of here safely...it's all worth it!!!'

His magic circuits reversed, shifting from defense to greedy absorption. The surrounding Morse emitted piercing shrieks, transforming into gushing torrents of poison that surged into his body. Each dose of toxin felt like a red-hot steel needle piercing through his limbs and bones, the excruciating pain almost stripping him of consciousness. But he gritted his teeth, letting the five hundred doses of Morse's toxicity surge through his veins.

As the last dose of poison entered his body, his vision blurred, and his legs trembled so badly he could not stand. Even so, he dragged his collapsing body step by step toward the culprit.

The instant Belial's claws pierced his chest, he revealed a triumphant smile. The migration spell activated, and all the toxins surged towards the enemy like a burst dam.

'Forgive me... Fujimaru Ritsuka... Leonardo da Vinci... Mash Kyrielight...' he murmured to himself, 'I'm a hopeless liar...'

'Looks like I need to go see Ophelia and... the captain first...' His consciousness drifted away. 'It's a promise... you guys absolutely mustn't follow me... otherwise... I'll get angry...'

In his final moments, his eyes, always brimming with a smile, remained bright. His head tilted slightly, as if in peaceful slumber, a satisfied curve still lingering on his lips. This man, who dedicated his life to aesthetics, maintained an elegant smile even at the end. But this time, he ultimately failed to keep his promise—

The Group A reunion they envisioned would never see this gentleman who loved beauty, Pepe Roncino.

Leziren offline - Fairy Round Table Realm, Poem of Eternal Mist

The history of the Fairy Kingdom has never been a hymn written on parchment, but rather a layer of dried blood and tears seeping into the soil. Even the purest of the Children of Paradise harbors within their souls a fragile crack, capable of destroying everything if triggered. It is not simple despair, but the cold and hardened "cognition" remaining after all kindness has been repeatedly torn apart and all hope has been extinguished one by one. Queen Morgan, the witch who ruled Britain with an iron fist, was not born with ruthlessness. As early as Vivian's time, the salvation of Britain itself was, in her eyes, a doomed error. Why did the first Children of Paradise ultimately choose to reign with tyranny and fear? The answer is cruelly speechless: because fairies, this race itself, perhaps from its very foundation, are unworthy of redemption, undeserving of forgiveness. Behind every laugh of theirs may lie scheming, and behind every tear may lie demands. Their so-called support is nothing more than a thin, self-deceiving sugar coating covering naked desire.

(At the end of the Fairy Era, the echoes in the Starry Sea almost disappeared.)

The icy rain mixed with even colder mud, soaking through Liliana's already tattered skirt. She huddled deep inside an abandoned mine, outside countless fairies searching with torches and shouts of hatred. Clutched tightly to her was the only relic left by Sophia, the aged chieftain of the Rain Clan—a rough stone pendant engraved with raindrop patterns. Her fingertips traced the rough lines of the stone, but she could no longer feel any warmth.

"Sophia's mother..." The hoarse whisper faded into the darkness, and no one answered.

Memories surged uncontrollably. When she first arrived in Britain, the sincere and curious embrace of the Rain Clan, Sophia's gentle touch on her hair, the glowing faces listening to her tell stories of the Inner Sea by the campfire... At that time, she thought that although the mission was heavy and the road ahead was difficult, the land beneath her feet and the creatures were worth it.

"Liars," she said to herself, her voice as soft as a sigh, yet as heavy as a blow to her heart. "They're all liars."

The blood of the Rain Clan stained the streams, simply because they had sheltered her. Sophia's dying gaze held no resentment, only deep worry and unfinished instructions; that look haunted her dreams every night, a gentler form of torture. Then came forced wandering, hiding like a rat in a sewer, until she met the halfling couple. They possessed no powerful magic, no illustrious status, only a humble hut on the edge of the forest, offering her yet another fleeting, bubble-like "home."

"Liliana, eat more, you're too thin." Her wife would always push the biggest, crispy piece of bread in front of her.

"Pilgrimage? There's no rush for that. Let's focus on living well first." The husband polished his simple weapon, his honest smile revealing undisguised concern.

They helped her search for clues to the Holy Lance, knowing the danger, yet they went without hesitation. Then, there was the collapsing, roaring bridge, and her husband's last breath as he pushed her to safety, his final shout before being swallowed by countless boulders: "Run—!"

She received the Holy Lance. The legendary lance that could save Britain. Holding it in her hand, she felt only a chilling cold and an unbearable weight. It was not glory; it was a sacrifice built from the bones of her loved ones.

On her pilgrimage, she tried to believe again. She rang the clan bell, demonstrating her power and proclaiming redemption. The fairies gathered, but their eyes gleamed not with repentance or hope, but with naked fear and scheming.

"If we ring the bell, will the calamity be averted?"

"Your Majesty, you will surely protect us, won't you? After all, we have acknowledged you!"

"The sins of the past? Those are things from a long time ago... The most important thing now is to survive."

There was no apology, no reflection. Only extreme concern for their own safety and the taking for granted their exploitation of her as a "tool." Every hypocritical cheer was like a dull knife, cutting back and forth in her heart. She began to feel numb, to respond to everything with a cold expression, and to suppress her surging grief and disgust deep inside.

Until her two most trusted fairy knights, Monica and Herlanders, were found brutally murdered in an "accidental" border conflict. The traces of magic remaining in their wounds clearly pointed to several small clans that had sworn allegiance to her.

At that moment, a string that had always been taut in my heart snapped crisply.

Liliana slowly raised her head in the mine. The torchlight occasionally swept across the entrance, illuminating her pale, ghostly face and her eyes, which were once filled with starlight and pity but now held only the emptiness and violence of an abyss.

“…Heh.” A short, almost broken laugh escaped from her throat.

"What...is the meaning of my existence?" she asked the darkness, her voice rising in a trembling madness. "Is it to be a joke, to be hunted down, betrayed, and to watch everything I cherish be crushed time and time again?! From paradise to this hell, all these years...have I ever had a single moment that I thought this 'could succeed'? That these...these creatures were worth everything I had to give?!"

She gripped the stone pendant so tightly it almost embedded itself in her palm.

“Approval? Support? It’s all fake! A layer of skin used to exploit me! They only care about themselves! Their desires, their fears, their greed… that’s their true nature!” Her breathing became heavy, and the last faint light in her eyes went out, replaced by a cold and resolute look of utter abandonment.

“Enough… I can no longer be that child of paradise.” She released her grip, and the stone pendant fell to the ground with a soft thud, rolling into the shadows. She stood up unsteadily, leaning against the cold stone wall.

“Since salvation is futile, mercy is foolish… then,” she slowly curled her lips into a cold, cruel smile, “let’s try a different approach. No more pleading, no more giving. I will… dominate them. Bind them with fear, crush them with power. Make them kneel, make them obey. Only in this way… only when they taste the bitterness of helplessness will I not feel that my life has been a complete and utterly pointless joke!”

Her heart was utterly broken. Starting from its softest core, it froze, darkened, and spread to every inch of her soul. Liliana, the first child of Paradise, the princess of the Rain Clan, ultimately crowned herself with a crown of thorns and ice amidst the ruins of despair.

Many years later, deep within the ruins of the palace, when she first encountered Ash (the future Vivian), a girl from the Inner Sea with clear, innocent eyes, carrying the same naiveté and responsibility as her former self, an extremely complex emotion gripped her. It wasn't simple sympathy, but rather seeing a reflection of her past foolish and pathetic self.

She almost obsessively sheltered Fan under her wing, using her already chilling power to shield her from the malice of the outside world. Her tone might have been harsh, her methods perhaps severe, but the protection was genuine. Because she knew all too well that this innocent and carefree child was about to tread a path strewn with thorns, soaked in blood, and ultimately leading to despair. She didn't want to witness such a tragedy again, even if she wasn't the protagonist of that tragedy.

“Follow me, and never leave Camelot.” She once said this to Ash, who was curiously looking out at the outside world, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the cold gems on the scepter, as if she could use it to suppress the turbulent waves in her heart that had long been defined as “useless.”

However, the wheels of fate cruelly rolled on. As she strayed deeper from the will of Paradise, her final exile arrived as scheduled. Power faded, the dynasty collapsed, and in the last moment before her consciousness was forcibly pulled from this world, what she saw was Ash's still pure blue eyes, suddenly filled with heaviness and bewilderment, as Ash was forced to accept the scepter.

I'm sorry... In the end, I left you to face it alone.

This is a broken, hopeless mess...

(Queen's Calendar)

The icy rain pounded against the broken window frames of the abandoned clock tower in Gloucester, and also against Ash's already numb heart. Her soaked white hair clung to her cheeks, but she felt no chill, for what burned in her chest was far colder than the rain and far more painful than flames.

The image of Yuther falling, Maib's increasingly unfocused gaze, and the pungent, nauseating smell of betrayal permeating the air... these images were like poisoned wedges, repeatedly piercing through the last line of defense she was trying to maintain.

"As expected... His Majesty was absolutely right."

She murmured softly, her voice dry and hoarse, like sandpaper scraping. Her Majesty Liliana, the First Empress who had grown cold yet still tried to protect her in her final moments—her words now echoed in her mind like a curse:

"Salvation? Ash, that's just a self-indulgent fantasy of the weak. You give hope, they repay with betrayal; you give your life, they calculate gains and losses. This Britain, these fairies... their nature has long since rotted away in countless cycles of reincarnation."

At that time, she was unwilling to fully believe it, stubbornly retaining a small, soft spot in her heart belonging to the "Children of Paradise's Mission," believing that there would always be exceptions, always a glimmer of hope. She walked in the name of "Ash," enduring scorn and ridicule, ringing the clan bell time and time again, even though the responses she received were mostly perfunctory and calculating. She met the idealistic Prince Uther, and encountered Mab, who also carried a heavy mission, as if finally grasping two faint spider threads in the endless darkness.

Look, not all fairies are beyond redemption. She had secretly told herself this, almost humbly guarding that spark of hope.

Then, the spiderweb snapped. At the moment she thought she was closest to "success"—on the eve of a fragile alliance about to be forged—the meticulously planned assassination, like the most biting mockery, stole away Yuther and Mab's warmth along with her last vestiges of innocence. She didn't even get a clear look at the assassin's face, only catching a fleeting glimpse of the elf's cunning and cruelty.

“Betrayal…betrayal…betrayal still…” She pressed her forehead against the cold, damp stone wall, her shoulders trembling uncontrollably, not from crying, but from a deeper, more profound spasm of the soul. “We’ve already…we’ve already tasted so many bitterness…why did we still hold onto hope? Why did we leave ourselves vulnerable?!”

The anger wasn't directed outwards; it burned within her first. She hated her own slowness, her own soft heart, and that impulse to "believe," even in this dire situation, still lurking somewhere. It was this damned, unnecessary "concern" that had lowered her guard, leading her to pay an unbearable price once again.

Her Majesty Liliana's icy voice seemed to echo directly in his ears: *"Give up, Ash. Stop playing the savior. That facade only serves to deceive yourself. Want Britain to 'continue'? Then you must do it another way, in the only language they understand."*

Despair, like a black tide, finally overwhelmed the last bastion of reason. Something within me shattered, reformed, and solidified into a hard and dark resolve.

“…Saving is wrong.” She raised her head, raindrops sliding down her pale cheeks like tear tracks, but her eyes were already dry, leaving only a bottomless, icy pool. “Forgiveness…is an even more extravagant joke.”

The mission of the fairies of Paradise? The entrustment of the Starry Sea? Those empty and distant words, before the dripping blood and cold corpses before them, floated as lightly as ashes. They could not save Uther, could not save Maib, and could not save this world that was rotten to the core.

"Domination..."

The word escaped her lips with a rusty, bloody taste and a cruel, liberating pleasure.

Like His Majesty. No, more thoroughly, more absolutely than His Majesty. No more pleading for understanding, no more waiting for repentance. Define the rules with power, maintain order with fear. Narrow all uncontrollable, rebellious buds in their infancy.

“I want to end this… endless daydream.” She slowly straightened up, her wet skirt hanging heavily, as if she were wearing invisible shackles or armor of steel. “To realize a dream, you don’t need to rely on any fragile branches of ‘possibility’.”

Lostbelts? Those are nothing but bubbles floating outside of reality, easily bursting. What she wants is for "her" Britain—a Britain completely reshaped by her will, unquestionable, and never to be betrayed again—to take firm root here, becoming the sole and domineering "reality."

Determination, frozen like ice, obscured the warmth of every emotion. Yet, deep within this ice, in a place perhaps even she herself was unaware of, a faint, almost extinguished spark still lingered, clinging to life.

It was the way she would unconsciously stop when walking through the wilderness, just to catch a glimpse of the wildflowers blooming tenaciously amidst the ruins; it was the habitual way her fingertips would slightly curl when facing innocent, untainted young fairies; it was the vague and painful longing for the concept of "warmth" itself that would rise uncontrollably in a corner of her heart when she was planning that future, cold royal city.

She spoke of domination, but a part of her soul had already imprisoned herself in a deep and hopeless "love" for Britain. She hated fairies because she had so longed to love them; she chose to become a tyrant perhaps simply because she could no longer bear the agony of constantly losing as a "savior."

This lingering attachment, this twisted, almost self-destructive yearning, will accompany her to the throne of Camelot, becoming an unhealed, hidden wound under Queen Morgan's iron fist, and the root of all her tragedies and contradictions.

Inside the throne room of Camelot, the air was thick with tension. The Queen, seated on her throne, stared intently at the silver-haired witch below, her smile blindingly bright. Deep within her chest surged a far greater emotion than mere rage; a cold, viscous vortex of grief and indignation, almost consuming her reason. She wanted to tear her apart, to crush that perpetually mocking face into the dust, to burn her soul with the cruelest magic, to make her experience even a fraction of the pain she herself had endured.

"What's wrong? Has the once invincible queen become so cowardly?" The witch's voice rose lightly, carrying undisguised mockery, each word like a needle piercing Morgan's already riddled defenses. "How is your 'lovely daughter' doing now? I'm quite curious~ Ah, of course, you don't need to worry about this place." She gracefully twirled, her fingertips shimmering. "I've covered this place with the strongest 'birdcage,' and none of your loyal 'little birds' can fly in. In other words, Morgan..." She stopped, her smile turning sharp and cruel, "At this moment, in this place, there is only you and me."

Do it!

A voice screamed from the depths of his heart. Magic surged beneath the throne, threatening to burst through the restraints of his fingertips. With a single thought, the strongest curse, the most devastating barrage, could obliterate the person before him.

But why... does my arm feel so heavy?

Why does the magic power that is about to take shape dissipate on its own?

A strange, repulsive sense of stagnation bound her limbs and even invaded her mind. Was it fear? No, she had long forgotten what fear was. It was… something deeper, stemming from her recent crushing defeat, the humiliation and humiliation of being utterly overwhelmed by the pure power of that unknown stranger in that cold graveyard, utterly powerless to retaliate. Every time she tried to muster the will to attack, that memory would surface like a ghost, reminding her of the consequences of impulsive actions, warning her that she might once again fall into an abyss beyond her control.

She couldn't cross that deep pit.

hateful……!

Just as her mind was in turmoil, and the witch's fingertips unleashed dangerous magical light, sending several rainbow-colored torrents powerful enough to tear through steel hurtling toward the throne—Morgan didn't even raise her hand to build a defense; a fleeting thought of weariness and self-destruction crossed her eyes.