Chapter 12: Isha's Wish
***
Looking at Isha's face, Su Ling seemed to understand what she was about to do. The words to stop her had barely reached her throat, not yet carried to Isha's ears, when a pillar of white light shot into the sky and lit up the night.
Cries and screeches rang out one after another across the town. The Contaminators were rioting. The trembling ground signaled that tremendous danger was closing in, yet Su Ling felt no unease at all, because the person bathed in white light standing beside her gave her a sense of security like nothing else in the world.
"Those who carry the Pure Heart may differ in personality, but only the kindest soul alive in this world holds the right to bear it." Lu appeared beside Su Ling, and beneath that helpless, sorrowful sigh was a mockery she did not bother to hide.
"All they had to do was let her grow up normally, let her feel the warmth and beauty of this world. Then when disaster came, even if it was to protect the people she cherished, she would have thrown herself into becoming the next vessel without a second thought."
Su Ling said nothing, but she agreed with every word Lu said. She herself was a stranger Isha had known for barely 2 days, and even so Isha could not bring herself to abandon her. So how could any bond Isha built growing up normally ever make her cling selfishly to her own life?
Su Ling's heart ached a little. She was the kind of person who responded to warmth, not force. Since she was old enough to understand the world, physical pain had never once made her cry. The harder someone tried to threaten or coerce her, the less she would ever give in.
But her threshold for tears was actually not that high at all. Whenever someone treated her with genuine sincerity, she would be quietly moved to tears. If this had been her old body, she probably would have already lost control of them by now, but now...
Su Ling brushed the corner of her eye with her free left hand. Sure enough, there was nothing there. Tears seemed to use pain as their only trigger, and all her emotions could do now was let her know that this was the moment she was supposed to cry.
Boom!!
The sky, which had been completely clear just moments ago, was now blanketed in dark clouds without anyone noticing when. The light that illuminated the night was no longer the cool and gentle moonlight, but lightning rolling through the clouds.
The weather was really something else. Clear skies one moment, a torrential downpour the next.
Su Ling felt the wetness on her cheeks and tilted her head up toward the sky. Was the sky crying because she herself could not?
The thought had barely formed before Su Ling smiled and shook her head. She figured she was being way too full of herself. If the world was really shedding this rain for anyone, it was surely crying for Isha.
Isha let go of Su Ling's hand. She drew the knight's sword at her hip and faced the tide of Contaminators surging toward her alone. The sight of one girl, one sword, standing against them all was just like that Saintess named Isha who had once saved the world.
The only difference was that the Saintess back then had fought for every soul on the continent, while the Isha standing here now fought for Su Ling alone.
"Hatred accelerates the corruption of the Pure Heart. She is the most gifted Isha across all generations. The day she falls completely... there will probably be no one left in this world who can stop her."
Lu's voice lacked its usual flatness. She was mocking, mocking those who had treated Isha as nothing but a tool and tried to seize control of her fate by force. She was waiting for those people to reap what they had sown, and that day would come sooner than they thought.
"Do you think she will end up hating me?" Su Ling's eyes held a complicated look as she asked quietly. "Hating me for holding her back?"
Lu shook her head. Her tone was gentle, but it was not comfort. It was simply a statement of fact. "You are her first friend, and her only friend. If she truly could hate you, then why would she be standing in front of you right now?"
"The only people she will ever hate are those who forced her to accept her fate. And you will never be one of them."
As Lu's words fell, Isha raised her sword and swept it in a wide horizontal slash. A streak of snow-white sword energy lit up the night sky, and every Contaminator it touched melted away like snow in an instant.
The Pure Heart had a natural advantage against Contaminators, and paired with Isha's overwhelmingly powerful combat ability, the Contaminators stood absolutely no chance against her at full strength. Even the stronger ones that appeared could not last 3 seconds before her.
But the more efficiently she killed, the faster the corruption spread. The knight's sword in Isha's hand was visibly being stained black by the filth with every passing moment. By the time the last Contaminator fell dead at the tip of her blade, only a tiny sliver at the very end of the sword still held its original form.
Clang!!
The knight's sword was driven into the ground. Su Ling stared at the sword Isha had thrown down in front of her, her lips parted slightly, but no words came out. She did not know what she was supposed to say.
"Su Ling." Isha turned to look at her. That smile was the same familiar warmth it had always been, but her once snow-white hair was now shot through with dark streaks, and those amethyst-clear eyes had been stained pitch black by the corruption.
"I believe that one day you will become stronger than me. So... will you promise me something?"
Isha's voice was sincere, carrying just a trace of pleading. Looking at her like this, hearing a request like this, the words to refuse simply would not come to Su Ling's lips.
So she did not even wait for Isha to finish saying what she wanted. She answered first. "Okay. No matter what it is, I promise."
Hearing that answer, Isha's smile grew even softer. Her eyes went slightly distant, as though she was drifting back to the memory of those brief, precious days. They had been as fleeting as a flower that blooms for just a single night, yet as brilliant as fireworks, leaving a glow you could not stop yourself from wanting to hold onto.
After a long moment, Isha finally pulled herself back from the memory. She looked at the sword she had thrown down in front of Su Ling and began to step slowly backward as she spoke. "When the day comes that you are stronger than me... will you come and kill me?"
Su Ling's head snapped up. Those golden eyes trembled without end. Their time together had been no more than 2 short days, but when had she ever not thought of Isha as a real friend?
Isha had spent the past 10 years living in loneliness. Su Ling, too, had lived inside a gilded lie wrapped in sweet pretense. She was Isha's first and only friend. And Isha, in the same way, was the first friend Su Ling had ever chosen to treat with her whole heart.
Because every feeling Isha had ever shown her came without any hidden agenda. The strictness during sword training, the tenderness and heartache when she helped treat her wounds, all of it was so pure.
Su Ling had let herself sink a little into that warmth. She did not think of it as romantic love, but did being friends make it easy to raise her hand against her? If Su Ling could truly harden her heart to that degree, then how could she have fallen into such turmoil after learning the truth, and yet never once felt regret about it?
And after she had learned the truth, not once had she ever said a single word to urge Isha to go fight the Contaminators. She respected every choice Isha made, so she left that choice entirely in Isha's hands, without even offering so much as a suggestion.
And now, Isha was asking Su Ling to kill her. How could Su Ling possibly bring herself to do it? How could she ever bring herself to strike that blow?
"Will you promise me?" Seeing Su Ling hesitate, Isha closed her eyes and drew in a slow breath. "Don't let another me ever appear again."
Rain fell in place of tears down her cheeks. Su Ling's eyes flickered through conflict, through struggle, through hesitation, but in the end every last bit of it crystallized into resolve. She reached out and gripped the hilt of the knight's sword, pulling it free from the ground.
【Key item acquired for entering Planet Isha: 【White Iris Heart】.】
【This item may be used to re-enter Planet Isha once the Contractor reaches Rank 5.】
Killing Isha was something Su Ling could not bear to do. But refusing the last wish of someone she cared about was something Su Ling was even less capable of. And deep down she also understood: by the time she grew stronger than Isha, the Isha of that day would no longer be Isha.
The Isha of that day would be the source of contamination, the vessel of corruption, the new origin of its spread.
She would no longer be the Isha she knew. The one whose eyes were full of worry while dressing her wounds. The one whose face lit up with excitement while picking out clothes. The one who tossed and turned at night, anxious over whether she had gone too hard on her in training. The one who, after so much struggle, still could not let go of her.
Seeing Su Ling reach her decision, Isha let out a quiet breath of relief. Dark, ominous markings began to crawl across her cheeks, and new creatures began to emerge around her.
One of those creatures wore a pale yellow dress. Its legs were wrapped in tall knight's boots. At its hip hung a rusty, sheath-less sword. Over its top it wore a white knit cardigan.
Its long dark hair was tied back in a clean, sharp high ponytail, but its face had no features at all. In place of them bloomed a single black rose, fully open.
It stood silently before Isha, guarding her, just as Isha had stood before Su Ling.
"Make sure you come back only after you've gotten stronger than me, okay? Otherwise, if I end up hurting you, you'll just start crying again."
Isha's face carried a smile of relief. When her last attempt at a lighthearted joke finally faded, black light wrapped around her body. A black cocoon rose slowly into the air, and standing guard before it was that creature wearing clothes identical to Su Ling.
The creature tilted forward toward Su Ling in a slight bow, offering a simple knight's salute. At the same moment, the cold, emotionless mechanical voice of the World Tree rang in her mind, and her body began to gradually turn transparent.
【The source of corruption has been absorbed by the Pure Heart.】
【Main Quest complete. Returning to Yggdrasil.】
【Teleporting in: 3, 2, 1.】
"I will come back. I promise."
As the countdown ended, Su Ling vanished completely under the creature's gaze. She took the White Iris Heart with her, and with it the very last trace of longing Isha had left behind.
Su Ling did not know how long it would take before she could return to this place. But as long as she did not die along the way, she would fulfill the promise she had made to Isha.
Because her beginning had been bought with Isha's end.
【Contractor 13085, welcome to Yggdrasil.】