Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

"Hehe~ Don't touch there Maria, it's sensitive~"

"Goddamit Rhydian! You stupid fucking wolf! I outta just kill you now!"

"*Slurp Slurp*"

"...Maybe I should get rid of Celaine so Maria can only spend time with me…"

"..."

"I've decided! Instead of killing that god, my new goal will be to neuter every male in existence! Actually, I should just get rid of that gender altogether! Who needs men anyway? Alchemic pills can do much more than any man can~"

"*Sob Sob*"

"GASP! Finally, I can remember-!"

Mira's thoughts couldn't be much more chaotic. However, now instead of erasing Mira's memories and replacing them with new ones, a sign that Mira is heading in the right direction to complete the trial, now her emotions are all out of order.

These aren't any ordinary emotions either, but things that she's truly felt or thought about at some point or another. Some of them may be fleeting thoughts that she didn't pay any attention to while others are things she genuinely felt, but instead of properly dealing with them, she suppressed them.

Now, she's almost forced to experience or remember every single thought and emotion that has ever passed through her brain.

Unfortunately, whenever Mira essentially relives those thoughts, she's not fully aware of what's actually going through her mind. Of course, the moment she experiences those memories, she can feel and understand them, but a second later, those emotions and thoughts disappear and are replaced by new ones.

Regardless of all this, Mira kept using those brief seconds of clarity to keep replaying her life from the beginning until now.

She didn't know if it was actually helping her complete the trial, but her intuition in those rare moments of clarity told her that as long as she keeps going down this route, she'll eventually find the end.

In the outside world, time quickly passed as the weeks went by, but for Mira, she felt like she's experienced thousands of years.

Then, all of a sudden, a month after she entered the trial in the outside world, something happened.

Slowly, a thread started to form in front of Mira. Its composition looked almost identical to spider silk, but it was slightly thicker and much more enigmatic. The whole thread radiated an aura of chaos and disorder. After only glancing at it for a second, Mira could see all sorts of colors flash within the thread.

Mira felt like she was looking at the beginning, the end, and everything in between when she started at the thread, however, this feeling was fleeting.

Strangely enough, Mira could also tell that this thread was connected to something, but when she traced her eyes along the thread to its ends, she saw nothing but an empty void.

Suddenly, a thought entered her mind after looking at the thread in front of her.

'Chaotic Silk?'

Yes, this was Chaotic Silk in its purest form!

After that thought entered her mind, more Chaotic Silk was created quickly until there was so much that Mira didn't even know how long this spool of Chaotic Silk must be.

However, it seemed like the trial felt like it gave her enough time to sort out a few of her thoughts before sending her back into that chaotic state, but something was a bit different this time around.

She started remembering her first life, starting from the moment she could properly form thoughts.

Everything she ever thought of or experienced was being played out by her right now. She nearly felt like she was thrown back in time, back when things weren't so complicated. Back when she was happy…

Luckily, the trial decided to leave her a semblance of her original consciousness so she could rewatch these scenes, but she still didn't understand the purpose of doing so.

She witnessed the moments of her happy childhood. When she used to help out with the restaurant. When she used to train to become stronger.

Then she also witnessed the moments of her family's tragic death…

How she watched her sister and her unborn baby die right in front of her…

She was forced to remember how depressed she was after that. She wanted to shout at whatever higher being was out there and curse their entire family line for causing her to feel such intense pain.

She didn't understand why her family and sister were taken away from her… They were good people. People who never did anything wrong. People who didn't deserve such a cruel way to die…

No, that's not right.

Mira felt like it was too cruel and merciless for them to die in such a manner right in front of her.

How come she didn't die?

Why was she forced to live with this burden?

She just couldn't understand!!

Worst of all, her life was relatively easy after that! Nobody tried to do anything to her. Nobody tried to kill her, r*ape her, or torture her because of her beauty, talent, and natural bearing.

In fact, all of the criminals left that town not long after her sister killed herself…

When Mira found that out, she felt like she was going insane. She started coming up with all sorts of conspiracy theories about how she's cursed or that there is a higher power messing with her.

It made her incredibly stressed, depressed, and easily agitated. She overthought and overanalyzed everything because could never know if her neighbors down the street dying of old age was really because they were old or if it was because of a higher power or her 'curse'.

As the decades went by, she tried her hardest to live the best life she could all for the sake of her dead family, but she just couldn't.

She was unable to cope with their deaths and with how nothing made sense surrounding their deaths, she couldn't stop her mind from wandering.

Eventually, Mira just couldn't take it and killed herself. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of her problems…

Experiencing her first life again like this, Mira's repressed emotions began spilling out as tears ran down her face.

Then all of a sudden, the Chaotic Silk unraveled a part of itself and extended a little bit.

Mira, however, wasn't able to see this as the memories shifted from her first life to the first time she encountered the 'god', that ruined her life.

In the back of Mira's mind, she was pleading, almost begging the trial to stop showing her these memories, but unfortunately, her words fell on deaf ears.

"So you were finally driven insane with those nasty thoughts of yours, huh, Mira? Well, I guess you weren't wrong though. I'm just a little disappointed that you ended up committing suicide instead of letting your life play out normally."

A deep yet playful voice resounded in Mira's… ears… wrong, she didn't have any ears. In fact, the Mira in this scene didn't have a body. She was just in an incorporeal soul form!

"What… What's going on?! I… I-I thought I just killed myself. Why am I not dead?! Who are you?!?!"

"Fufu~ Who? Me? I'm who you've been searching for after your family died! Weren't you always thinking that something or someone caused their deaths, you just didn't know who or what it was? Well… Ta-da! Here I am! Though I must say that it was incredibly amusing watching you blame yourself for your family's death when in reality, that was never their fate."

"WHAT?!?! SO IT WAS YOU?!?! YOU FUCKING BASTARD?! WHY DID YOU DO SUCH A THING TO MY FAMILY?!?! THEY DID NOTHING WRONG!! THEY DIDN'T DESERVE THAT KIND OF DEATH!! I DIDN'T DESERVE IT!!"

"Wow~ You really believed me just like that? You really shouldn't be so trusting, Mira. That being said, it really was me so I guess I can't fault you for that. As for why I did it? I just find you amusing. I've been watching you ever since you started growing up, but I got bored after seeing how boring your life was! I mean, where's the family drama? The betrayals? The fights? Death? I want to see how you react to every situation!! So, in a way, I guess it really was you who caused the death of your family because if you weren't in the picture, then I would've left them alone and they would've lived a long happy life! HAHAHA~"

Mira became frighteningly silent after hearing that. In truth, she didn't even know how to process all of this information. She was made, sad, resentful, vigilant, disgusted, grief, apprehension, and a little bit of acceptance that everything was her fault.

"HAHAHA~ That's it! That's it right there! That expression! Those thoughts and emotions! That's why you're so amusing! No other mortal would ever act this way upon meeting me. Alright, I've decided! I'm going to take you as my concubine! Unfortunately, I'm unwilling to drag you from the Mortal World and force you to be with me. Where's the fun in that, right? No, I want you to willingly become my concubine! Though, I might have to give you a bit of a push hehe~"

"What… What are you going to do to me…?"

"That's. A. Secret. HAHAHA~ I guess you'll figure out in your next life, my future concubine!"

Mira's soul was then trapped in some sort of object where she was stuck in her thoughts until she reincarnated.

From then on, Mira began experiencing the rest of her lives, right up until the moment she entered this trial.

During all of this, Mira has experienced the most emotions she's probably ever felt in her entire life.

Love, joy, awe, optimism, embarrassment, hate, jealousy, rage, terror, fear, trust, betrayal, death, etc.

Every emotion one can possibly feel, Mira felt not only in real time but in these scenes as well.

After everything was over, through her tear-covered eyes, Mira was able to see the Chaotic Silk was almost extended to its full length. All that was left to unravel was just a little sliver of the thread and now that she's been given some clarity after going through that emotional rollercoaster, Mira knew exactly what it wanted.

It wanted her to fully accept this part of herself. To fully accept that she is a living being that has emotions and desires just like everyone else.

It wanted her to know that although her past is bad, it shouldn't hinder her from being happy with herself and always striving to be a better person.

Mira found this rather difficult to accept because it's much easier to go through life suppressing everything, at least until she completes her goal. She's been the way she is, cold and indifferent, for so long now that it's basically a part of her.

However, now that she had just went through that emotional rollercoaster, she knew this thinking was flawed. The trial wasn't asking her to not be indifferent to others. It couldn't care less about that. In fact, doing so is probably for the best now that she's in a world where strength reigns supreme.

No, the trial was telling her that she can't be cold and indifferent to herself. As for why, she didn't know, but for some reason her instincts were telling her that she'll only benefit from this.

Once Mira reached this conclusion, although she still had a bit of difficulty accepting such a thing, it wasn't as hard now that she basically had her entire life laid out in front of her.

From here on out, Mira would work on dealing with her pent-up emotions and becoming someone her loved ones could be proud of.

Suddenly, the thread fully unraveled and Mira was sent out of the trial!