Everything we had ca from her. If she forced the issue, would we be obligated to agree? Which warriors with outstanding talent would she choose? How much would losing our innate magical elents affect us?
All of Midsumr grew restless.
The crisis she spoke of felt too distant. The future she described had no clear shape. We were winning again and again, were we not?
Yet that terrifying proposal stirred too many thoughts.
That period was chaotic, even more so than the early days after the ga descended. We began guarding against one another. Eventually, every Celestialkin avoided that leader, unwilling to see her.
When she left, her heart must have been broken. She showed no anger at our so called betrayal, only guilt and self bla.
"Do not be afraid of ."
"I am sorry. I am an unqualified leader."
She split half of her own innate elents and divided them into three parts, gifting them to the three legion commanders who had most strongly opposed sacrifice and offering, the very commanders we trusted most in our fear.
She left behind ninety nine percent of her wealth, equipnt, and resources, then departed alone. Rain fell above her head, leaving us only a damp retreating figure.
The resources she left were so abundant that the three legion commanders soon beca the new leaders. The process was not smooth, but life quickly returned to normal. The new leaders also began bringing back rewards from ti to ti. The total was never as much as before, but we were not greedy.
Later, ti gave its answer to the question of whether she had been a qualified leader.
She truly was not.
If only she had been a little more ruthless, a little more forceful. If only she had treated us the way she treated herself. But I know she was only ever cruel to herself.
Whenever it rains above my head, I think of her.
I wonder where she is now, and whether she is still the sa. Still what? Weak, or gentle? I do not know.
Midsumr
...
Kessa.
Midsumr Kessa.
She was the player with the strongest presence Rita had ever encountered within the World Sighs.
Nearly one tenth of the sighs involved her.
Rita could not tell whether Midsumr felt regret, sorrow, or confusion.
A world can sotis interfere with its own course, yet Midsumr did nothing.
But what could it have done? The Midsumr players were not wrong, and neither was Kessa.
Midsumr Kessa had taken responsibility to the point of being harsh on herself. With only a B grade talent, she forced her way into the Divine Ga and carved out a path for the Celestialkin.
She did everything she could. She gave everything she had.
The Celestialkin start was brutally difficult. This race could beco top tier mages once they survived the early stage, but surviving that initial period was the hardest part. In the Card Swap world, the fact that Kessa could use magic by her third year ant she must have brought sothing exceptional with her.
If Rita were an ordinary celestial phenona player, she would probably have strongly rejected Kessa’s proposal as well.
She did not even need to imagine it in detail. When she had just reincarnated, had she not been on guard against Eclipse Vanguard every single day?
Eclipse Vanguard was good for ordinary players, but for outstanding individual players, it was complicated. It might sacrifice so personal interests for the greater good.
In short, anyone who might be sacrificed would feel fear.
Compared to that, Nuclear Flash really did feel like a fairy tale world, where even life and death carried a dreamlike quality.
Rita picked up her pen and added several more perspectives, trying to write down every emotion she had felt in the World Sighs.
After setting it aside for the mont, she pulled a scrap piece of paper from the side and wrote down dozens of commonly used sounds in the Celestialkin language.
She asked, "Is there anything you want to pass on to Midsumr Kessa? If she asks herself, I will deliver it. If she does not, I will not do anything extra."
Her pen tip pointed to the sounds one by one in sequence. Whenever a sigh sounded, Rita recorded that sound, then returned the pen tip to the starting point and began another round.
Through sigh after sigh, she pieced together what the world wanted to say to its player.
Midsumr did have sothing to say.
Amid countless sighs, Rita assembled the ssage Midsumr wanted to convey to Midsumr Kessa.
"I, and all Celestialkin, accept Midsumr’s current ending."
There was no apology, because no one was wrong.
There was no regret, because even if it happened again, the sa ending would be reached.
Rita could already imagine what Midsumr Kessa might ask, if she truly had the courage to co looking for her. Rita asked it on Kessa’s behalf.
"Do you not bla her for leaving?"
It was a cruel reality. If Midsumr Kessa had stayed back then, she would have been rejected, but Midsumr’s ending would certainly have been different.
Midsumr answered.
"If she had stayed, the stronger she beca, the more the Celestialkin would fear her. She would have been hurt sooner or later. I was the one who asked her to betray Midsumr and leave Midsumr."
It did not spell everything out clearly, but Rita understood.
Midsumr had made a choice after all. It chose the majority.
It chose to ask Kessa to leave before the conflict grew larger. The only softness it showed her was refusing to initiate a vote to expel her.
No wonder Kessa kept switching worlds to work, yet carried the title One Salted Fish. She probably never wanted to exhaust herself again for the developnt of a world and a race.
At that mont, a hypothetical suddenly surfaced in Rita’s mind.
If the Celestialkin start had been faced by Mistblade, Maple Syrup, Cicada, or Pine Bloom, what would they have done?
Mistblade would likely have laid groundwork first, using public opinion and facts to create fear, guiding things from the shadows. In the end, the average Celestialkin would propose the idea themselves. She would then be forced to step forward at the last mont, agreeing with visible pain, offering minimal promises and rewards while harvesting massive prestige. Most importantly, it would be everyone’s own choice. As the one moving the pieces, she would only be pointing out the path to survival.
Maple Syrup and Cicada would probably take a similar route. They would quietly build strength, endure while weak, and once they could suppress most players, push their will through with iron blooded thods.
As for Pine Bloom, she would not be as calculating as Mistblade, nor as domineering as Maple Syrup or Cicada, but she would not be much kinder. She would likely start by publicizing her own sacrifices, letting everyone know their current stability existed because she fought on the front lines. After building enough prestige, she would mix kindness and pressure, bind people with morality, and complete the process step by step.
In short, any of them would have done better than Kessa, at least not being shut down the mont they spoke.
But this comparison was deeply unfair to Kessa.
When Kessa left Midsumr, she was not even twenty two years old. The leaders Rita compared her to were all mature figures shaped by countless hardships.
The present Kessa would certainly do better than she did back then, or perhaps she would find a completely different solution.
Rita called out to BS and asked out of curiosity, "After Kessa left Midsumr back then, how did she go on to lead other worlds?"
BS replied, "I have heard about this. After she left Midsumr, she continued participating in the Divine Ga. She found worlds willing to accept her through the Divine Ga. She did not want to wander alone, so she found herself a new ho."
Could a completely unfamiliar environnt, a world with no friends or kin, truly be called ho?
Perhaps for the Celestialkin, it could.
As long as it was lively. As long as opening the door ant seeing other living beings.
The Celestialkin feared loneliness and silence more than anything.
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