Envy clouds your mind.

Solaris couldn't help but have these words flash across her mind like a bolt of lightning as she watched Elizabeth's expression shift from calm and casual to utterly cold.

She knew it was the most idiotic thing she could have done, openly showing her emotions, her envy, her jealousy over the fact that Elizabeth was Noah's wife and not her.

She didn't quite know why she chose to target Elizabeth with her envy. Oh, maybe she did, actually. But admitting the truth would have been far uglier than the situation she was already in.

But at this point, she might as well go all out. She might as well pour every drop of feeling onto Elizabeth — empty herself completely — so that she could finally live in peace… or die.

She didn't care anymore. She was at her last straw. So even as Elizabeth's empty smile and blank white eyes, eyes that could make gods forget why they were gods to begin with, stared back at her, Solaris continued.

"Why you and not me?" she asked, her voice heavy with the weight of injustice.

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. Then she understood why Solaris was acting like this. But she didn't speak. No, she simply stayed silent and listened.

And Solaris didn't hesitate. "Why did he choose you and not me? If he needed someone to backstab the goddess, if he needed someone to kill the chosen one, I would have been perfect. I was the Saintess."

Her voice began slow, but it rose, inch by inch, with growing heat.

"I was the most adequate for that role. He could have come to me, gained my trust, my heart, done whatever he wanted, and I would have obeyed him. So why you?"

Here, her voice grew louder again.

It seemed she wasn't satisfied standing so far away, so she rose from her seat and walked slowly, steadily toward Elizabeth. Her footsteps echoed in the silent room, each one sounding like the ticking of the end of time itself.

"Why Emily and not me? Her daughter was the first to be with Noah, yet that didn't stop him from accepting her."

"Why Christelle and not me? She was a fucking whore! Someone who sold her body because she was useless, too cowardly to take risk or responsibility."

Now she stood directly before Elizabeth, her golden eyes spitting envy so thick it was disgusting to look at. Her entire soul was blackened by the feeling, gnawed from within, hollowed by the leech of jealousy devouring what was once good inside her.

Without even realizing it, her golden eyes began to shimmer faintly.

Elizabeth remained silent. Her expression unreadable. Unchanged.

"Why… why?" Solaris whispered, voice breaking. She looked drained of all strength. She collapsed to her knees in front of Elizabeth.

She had poured out everything that had been choking her from within for so long. Strangely, she felt a fleeting sense of liberation for it, even though she had done it before her master.

It was almost ironic.

She vividly remembered the day she took Elizabeth in as her disciple and successor to the Saintess position. And now here she was…Elizabeth standing tall and divine, her luxurious silver hair gleaming like a cluster of starlight, her blank eyes holding the fate of everyone in Laeh — while she, the former Saintess, knelt before her after giving her a perfect display of how disgustingly human she truly was.

Fear crept into Solaris's heart. She didn't dare look up. Fortunately, her vision was blurred by tears.

So she stayed there, silent, waiting for a harsh rebuke, a swift death, or a slow, wrenching one.

She wondered which of the three it would be.

And then her answer came, but it was not one she had expected.

"Why us and not you?" Elizabeth echoed her question.

Solaris trembled. She didn't answer. Elizabeth didn't expect her to.

She continued.

"There isn't a single answer to that question. There are many. But if I were you, I wouldn't ask 'Why me?'"

Solaris's ears perked up at those words. She blinked slowly, letting the tears fall, finally seeing Elizabeth clearly again.

Her expression was still unreadable.

"I would have asked myself, 'What did I do to get what I wanted?'"

"It's easy to come here and complain, to curse all of us for being Noah's wives — for being loved by him, for having power and status. But from the beginning, what did you do to deserve him?"

Here, Elizabeth's expression hardened, sculpted from frost itself.

"Noah is The Absolute. The ruler of Laeh. The Progenitor. The Creator. He is many things, and each of them carries a weight you cannot even begin to comprehend. Tell me…why would a man like that come to you, of all people, out of love?"

Her question struck like a world-shattering slap across Solaris's face.

Elizabeth went on, merciless, voice sharp and unflinching.

"You saw Emily, how she waited for years just to be accepted. The same with Red. These women loved Noah. They wanted him. And so they did whatever they had to do to be part of his harem. Did you?"

She paused.

"No, you didn't."

"So let me tell you something, Solaris."

Elizabeth leaned forward, her face just an inch away from Solaris's shattered one.

"If you have nothing that could make Noah come to you on his own, willingly, then you better move your ass and go to him if you love him that much."

"And if you can't even do that…"

Her tone dropped drastically — soft, almost a whisper. Yet to Solaris, it was the loudest voice she had ever heard in her life.

"…if you can't even do that, then don't you ever come to me again with this pathetic spectacle."

"Do you understand me?" Elizabeth hissed.

Solaris didn't answer right away. She stayed silent for several seconds before finally parting her trembling lips to ask the question that had been squirming in her mind.

"W-Would… would you not mind a new woman?" she asked meekly, too meekly for someone of her station.

If any of the church's other branch leaders had seen her now, they would have been shocked to the core. Solaris had always been unreachable to them — the untouchable leader of the Church of the Absolute, the Saintess of Noah himself. Even if Noah barely cared about any of that.

What a dickhead.

At her question, Elizabeth couldn't help but stifle a laugh. She tried to suppress it, but failed.

"Us? Please. We moved past that long ago. Even Selene doesn't limit Noah anymore, as long as the woman he brings is loyal and gets along with us."

"So if you're worried we won't accept you, you're mistaken. We've accepted whores. We've accepted cheaters. We've even accepted our greatest enemies."

"So as long as we get along…"

Elizabeth finally smiled.

"…we can be sisters with whoever our dear husband brings."

"Even if it's a red-skinned woman from an unknown universe," she added as her eyes suddenly flared with a cornucopia of silver threads of fate, then dimmed just as quickly.

She sat there blankly for a moment, as if realizing something, before a smile spread across her lips.

"Aye… I think you'd better be fast if you want to be among us."

Her grin widened.

"My love is already collecting again."

Amid all of this, Solaris remained on the floor, hope flickering in her golden eyes like the fragile wings of a bird rising to meet a new dawn.

Now she knew what she had to do.

She needed to stop waiting and start acting. If Noah didn't come to her, then she would go to him.

And she would show him…

…that she was his Saintess.

And that she didn't deserve to be ignored.

She deserved to be…

—End of Chapter 351—

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