Epic of Caterpillar

Smooth silky white skin, sharp crimson-red eyes, long purple hair, beautiful and glistening butterfly wings with purple and red colors, a slender and tall figure, with a domineering presence, yet there was some gentleness within her oppressive presence, something that moved Faylen to trust her.

Faylen's last bit of sanity was carried into the skies, into the bright light above the darkness she was being caged in.

"W-Why…?" she asked.

Kireina glanced at her eyes, as she smiled.

"Why what?" she replied with another answer.

"Why are you helping me…? Aren't we enemies? You had killed… many gods already…" said Faylen.

"So what? Are you related to these Gods?" asked Kireina.

"…No," said Faylen.

"Then why do you care? I only felt it was necessary to save you because I held no reasons to kill you other than the sin, but I was also able to get the sin without killing you. I have your Kingdom well taken care of, they're waiting for their Queen," said Kireina.

"The elves…" muttered Faylen, as her vision was filled with light.

Flash!

Suddenly, the eyes of her body opened wide, her body felt strange as if it were very sickly. Her soul now had a very large wound, as if something enormous that was inside of it was suddenly taken away, leaving a hole behind.

"Ungh…!"

Faylen slowly stood up from her bed, as she found Artemis in front of her.

No matter how much she tried to call into her powers, the power of the Sin of Envy was nowhere to be seen… she had been really freed from it.

But she also had the pay the price of feeling very weakened and sickly.

"What? Where's…? Ungh…"

"Oh? You mean Kireina?" asked Artemis, as she suddenly shapeshifted her body, showing the figure of Kireina.

"Ah! You're… it can't be…!" said Faylen with shock in her voice.

"Not really, I am but a mere clone of her… Though the original one came to pick up the Envy Sin from you, only her soul came, and it has now gone back to her Divine Realm. She had cordially invited you to stay away from the war and join her Pantheon inside of her Divine Realm. It is a good chance to not die in the upcoming battle," said Artemis, as she shapeshifted back to her "normal" form, which was of the Goddess of the Hunt Artemis.

Faylen glanced at Artemis with a tired and dizzy expression, she was overwhelmed by the information given to her…

It seemed that the enemy she was going to fight had actually saved her life, and had offered her the chance to join her instead of… dying in the war to come.

Kireina was confident about winning and simply wanted Faylen to get away from this conflict.

However, she left it to her decision in the end.

Faylen also realized that Artemis was probably dead if this entity that seemed to be some kind of flesh slime was replacing her…

"Is Artemis dead?" asked Faylen.

"Yes, Kireina and her clones killed her. Don't worry, she only sucked all the tasty divinity out of her soul and then regurgitated her inside of her Divine Realm as a pure mortal soul, so she's now something like a ghost, and is living in harmony," said Artemis.

"Eh? T-That's… Well, I see… I guess she's… fine?" asked Faylen.

"Are you worried about her?" asked Artemis.

"Well… Not really, I don't know. I think that I had grown some kind of attachment to her, but it might as well be a little thing… Ungh…" muttered Faylen.

"Your soul is weakened, Envy was existing within it and was taking a large chunk out of it," said Artemis.

"I see… So that's why I feel so bad…" said Faylen.

"I believe Kireina could tell you more about what Envy did. But it seems that the Sin itself had gained sentience a few hundred years ago, and prepared an entire scheme to take over you, as it saw great talent in you," said Artemis.

"I see… I know about it now… I remember hearing it say all of that… My mind still feels dizzy…" said Faylen.

"So? What will you do?" asked Artemis.

Faylen began to remember how hopeless she felt while being consumed by Envy… It was a feeling of utter despair, of an abyssal nightmare...

But when Kireina came heroically to her rescue, her heart blossomed with warm feelings, and her embrace was also warm and comfortable, even her scent, that of flowers, was soothing to her.

Faylen had never felt like this for anyone ever before… She didn't know what was this yet, but she knew it was something important, something that… she needed to keep looking for.

Now that Envy was gone, her mind was slowly setting down, her horrible thoughts were going away and her mind, the mind she once had before all the tragedies that happened in her life was returning and fusing with her current memories. It was painful to cope with everything, but perhaps with a little help of someone that was an expert in emotions, she might be able to recover…

Faylen glanced at the mirror in front of her bed, her clothes were mostly black and purple, her lipstick was dark purple as well, and she had long eyelashes, but her eyes were emerald and her hair long and silky, with glistening yellow-gold color.

She looked at her eyes, they seemed to have gained some light.

Perhaps it might be time to finally… live once more.

She felt like she wasn't living before, that she was trapped inside a nightmare as only a part of her consciousness, the one controlled by desires of Envy was controlling her body… But now, she was finally back to her body and felt a feeling of strangeness as she saw her body which had maturated without her realizing.

When her mind was broken years ago and she was tortured and raped for years, her little innocence and sanity had caged itself up within the depths of her inner consciousness, and she seemed devoid of any light.

When Envy merged, she was caged even deeper as the broken side of her took hold of this insanity and the power it granted and did as it pleased.

But now that she was finally back into her body, what could she do now? What might her purpose be?

Certainly, she wanted to find out many things, and couldn't possibly go die pointlessly just for some Gods who she had never cared for.

And she also held within her mind that whatever Kireina was… she couldn't possibly fight against her. She had seen how Kireina easily suppressed the powerful Sin of Envy which she wasn't able to overpower even after becoming a Goddess… she merely used her hands to suppress it and then ate it without any effort.

And even more, she had enough strength to kill Artemis and possibly many other Gods, and then use her powers to replace them with clones made of her flesh.

Indeed, it was quite impossible for her to even fathom the true strength of Kireina. And it wasn't as if she held any hate against her now, as Kireina had saved her from being consumed, and had said that her people were safe and waiting for her inside her Divine Realm…

Perhaps Kireina only rescued these elves from the greedy and malicious hands of the Gods? Perhaps she was the good person here, who was trying to rescue the innocent mortals from the evil Gods?

The only impression she had from Gods was that they were all greedy and bastards that saw mortals as absolute garbage despite these weak beings giving them so much power through prayers.

They were utterly mental, and perhaps they were all insane and psychopaths.

Meanwhile, Kireina… was simply trying to survive.

Yes, she was using pretty shameless tactics, but it was a way for her to win against these threats and these gods trying to kill her all the time.

She was simply trying to be several steps ahead of them and not even let their plans come to fruition. It was a dishonorable way of fighting, but it was a fight for her own survival and… that of the immense family she was protecting.

"Why would I even fight with her?" wondered Faylen, as she glanced back at Artemis.

"O-Okay… I accept…" said Faylen, feeling even sickly with every minute that passed, the wound inside her divine soul was not regenerating as Envy had left a lot of miasma in there, and the miasma was slowly eating her up from the inside out.

Artemis smiled with a pleasant smile, as she nodded.

"Very well dear, come here now," said Artemis, waving her hand as she opened her arms.

"Eh?" asked Faylen as she slowly walked towards her and hugged Artemis.

It was a warm hug.

"Hmm… What a nice hug~ Feel better now, dearie?" asked Artemis, kissing Faylen's forehead.

"A-Ah… Y-Yeah…" said Faylen, as she suddenly realized that Artemis's left hand began to bulge, turning into an enormous and slimy red-colored fleshy tumor, it grew until almost two meters, and then it fell over the floor with a splash.

Splash!

"E-Eh?!"

Faylen almost fell over her butt if it wasn't because Artemis caught her, as she told her what it was.

"Don't worry, by hugging and kissing you, I was able to extract some of your genetic material, with this and through the use of Self-Replication and Mimicry, I can more or less make a perfect replication of you as a flesh clone," said Artemis, as the tumor of flesh quickly shapeshifted into a perfect replication of Faylen, with clothes and all!

"W-Woah…" said Faylen, feeling surprised.

Artemis proceeded to give it a split of her soul as the Faylen Clone quickly gained life, blinking, and then glancing back at Faylen with a smile.

"Oh, so this is the real me? She's so cute…" she said, with her exact same voice!

Faylen felt weirded out by seeing her clone directly, it really felt very strange!

"Um… Hi…" said Faylen.

"Hello, I will replace you, for now, girl," said Faylen's clone.

"Okayyy… This is weird…" said Faylen.

"Oh, and it gets even weirder… Now, enter this portal," said Artemis, as a portal was created which led to Kireina's Divine Realm, which was created by the clone's natural Divine Connection with the main body.

"Kireina should be there to welcome you," said Artemis, as Faylen's clone nodded energetically, saving her hand.

"Bye, have fun girl," she said.

"T-Thanks… T-Then, I will get going…" said Faylen, as she crossed through the portal in the middle of space.

Flash!

Faylen crossed through the portal as she was greeted by a vast blue sky and… down below there was land as long as she could see.

Unlike the Divine Realm of Artemis which had the size of an island, and she was able to measure it by flying in the sky, the world she had suddenly entered seemed completely boundless.

"W-What…"

Faylen was about to fall down, forgetting to activate a simple spell such as Levitate because her soul, which contained most of her energy, felt pained and weakened, and the energies didn't answer her call as easily.

However, she was quickly caught by some slender arms, as Faylen immediately realized a beautiful fairy woman with crimson-red eyes and enormous black horn greeted her with a smile, carrying her like a princess across the skies.

"Welcome to my Divine Realm, Faylen. How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Ah…! K-Kireina!" said Faylen.

"The very same. Let's go heal your soul for now," said Kireina, as she quickly teleported into the depths of the Hell Layer of her Divine Realm, where she carried Faylen into a large spring that constantly exuded bright yellow water of strange phantasmal properties.

"W-What is this?" she asked.

"This is the spring of souls. It is a special Divine Material of the Soul Attribute, if you bathe on it, your soul can regenerate quickly," said Kireina, as she began to take Faylen's clothes away.

"W-Wait…!" cried Faylen, getting all embarrassed.

"What's the problem? We are all between women in here," said Kireina while giving her a wink, as she quickly took away her clothes and carried the nude Faylen into the refreshing spring.

"B-But…!" cried Faylen, as she began to admire Kireina's flawless nude body, with the silky and smooth pale-white skin, her beautiful and wide hips, her thick thighs, slender arms, and legs, and a beautiful big pair of breasts, with pointy pink nipples.

Faylen's entire face grew redder as Kireina gently put her over the spring, her entire body began to float over the yellow-gold waters as primordial essences began to be refilled slowly across her body.

The pain in her soul began to go away immediately after, it was almost mystical.

"I had… never heard of such a Divine Material…" said Faylen.

"I think I got this one from the Divine Areas I stole, I don't know if Zeus or the other Gods put it in here, but it is mine now, fufu," said Kireina, as she began to wash Faylen's back with the refreshing water, slowly touching her nude body with a mischievous smile.

"Ah~ W-Wait…!"