Colonial Suit

Darkness shrouded the castle.

The all-encompassing storm had dissipated, but the lightning and thunder occasionally flashing within the blue mist revealed the master's inner turmoil.

Inside the room, the Guild Master stood silently by the French window, her back view lonely and desolate.

The door opened, and a maid walked in soundlessly, kneeling quietly behind the Guild Master. "He's gone."

The Guild Master didn't speak, only her shoulders trembled slightly before she continued to gaze silently out the window.

But the maid couldn't help herself. As the Guild Master's personal attendant, she knew clearly how many years the Guild Master had waited for this man, and what she had sacrificed. How the so-called Hidden Merchant Guild had grown from a tiny group to its current state. This group, though ancient, had only flourished in the Guild Master's hands…

It was the dowry the Guild Master had prepared for herself, the trump card she had prepared for Ray, for the future he would shoulder.

"You shouldn't have let him go."

The maid said softly, her voice bitter. "You waited nearly a thousand years for this opportunity. Why end it like this?"

"If you miss today, how long will you have to wait? Another millennium? Or the millennium after that?"

"Give up, Miss. You can't possibly catch him. Every man of Krodir has a heart of stone. In the distant past, they never weakened for women. The meaning of their lives is battle, is death. You transformed him into a Void being to save him, but that can't change the will in his heart. The blood of Krodir still flows in his veins, the battle cries of Krodir still echo in his soul."

"Even if you prepared the Transformation Ritual, so what? Even if you're willing to bear him children, so what?"

"He can't turn back. Miss, it's impossible."

The maid's voice grew softer and more bitter, eventually laced with sobs. "You've even had conflicts with your father for him. Can you continue like this? Don't forget, behind you, there are billions of people waiting for your leadership, waiting for your salvation."

"You shouldn't live for him alone. Miss!"

The maid cried out, burying her head deeply into the ground, her body trembling violently, her emotions extremely agitated.

But before her, the Guild Master's back remained calm, lonely.

She gazed silently out the window, and after a long time, she finally spoke. "Vera, I know what you want to say. But… it's too late."

"From the moment I saw him a thousand years ago, I couldn't turn back. Do you know? At that time, he was even more destitute than a beggar, covered in wounds and on the verge of death, yet still possessing an untamed and unyielding wildness, a gaze that wouldn't compromise. I don't know where his persistence came from, but I still can't forget his lonely and cold pride."

Saying this, the Guild Master lowered her head and looked at her hands.

"I used these hands to help him because I felt that only such a man was worthy of me. Apart from him, even if there were more heroes in the universe, how could they compare to a single hair on his head?"

"Vera!"

The Guild Master turned around, looked at the maid kneeling at her feet, and said softly. "A man should be like this. Otherwise, even if you find ten thousand so-called elites, geniuses, who coax you and indulge you every day, what's the point?"

"How can a sparrow that only chirps on branches understand the sky of a goshawk?"

"But Miss…" The maid's face was already covered in tears. "You've already given too much for him… and there's no end in sight."

"There's always a price to pay." The Guild Master's eyes flickered, as if recalling something. "Since I can't confine the goshawk's sky, I have to keep up with his wings. Only then can I see further and fly higher. Those old fogeys who only talk big in the council can't keep up with the pace of this era. Their thinking is still stuck in that distant era of great chaos, still fantasizing about relying on the help and support of the upper worlds."

"But they've forgotten that the prelude to the Great Destruction has already begun. In this world, who else can we rely on?"

"Let those fools who only rely on external forces crow in their chicken coops for a while."

"My Hidden Merchant Guild must continue to collect resources, collect authority. Only in this way can we survive on that day in the future."

"Great Destruction!?" The maid was stunned. "What is that?"

"You can understand it as a great reshuffling of the universe." The Guild Master turned around and continued to gaze at the starry sky outside the window, her eyes filled with coldness and ruthlessness.

"That is the cruelty and fairness belonging to the universe."

"If you compare the universe to a human body, what do you think life is? What do you think civilization is? Are they the elites of the universe? The hope of the future?"

"You're wrong. If I were the universe, then whether it's humans, or us, or even higher-level civilizations, races, all living things!"

"Are parasites!"

The Guild Master suddenly raised her hand, her five fingers clenching tightly, as if strangling the enemy's throat! "They live in my body, absorbing my essence, resources, wealth, vitality. Endless wars, endless destruction. Every minute and every second they are consuming my power! Vera, if you were me, what would you do?"

"Ah!? I… I…" Vera was frightened by the Guild Master's ferocity and couldn't make a sound for a long time.

But the Guild Master ignored her and said to herself.

"Stupid life… no matter what race you are, what civilization you are. From the day you appeared in the universe, you have been stained with sin. Every inch of your skin, every pore flows with sinful blood. You call the resources you acquire a gift from heaven, but have you ever thought about when heaven will bestow it upon you? And what qualifications do you have to ask heaven for favors?"

"Do you understand? Vera. For the universe, only destroying all of this, killing all living things, is truly, belonging to heaven…"

"A gift…"

"Oh, no!!" Vera suddenly covered her mouth, almost unable to believe everything she had heard.

The education she had received had never included these things, but instead understood and described the universe from the perspective of the main body.

They take resources and develop civilizations. They attribute these achievements to themselves. Their technological progress and the growth of civilization are all the efforts of all intellectuals and scholars. What does it have to do with the universe?

Who would have thought that under this cold starry sky, it was not that they were ignorant as they imagined, but that there was a pair of eyes watching them, watching everything in the dark.

As the Guild Master said, if the universe is a human body, then all life is actually a parasite.

Only destruction is the fairest and most reasonable punishment for them.

"This… this is impossible."

Vera had already collapsed, saying blankly.

But the Guild Master only looked at her indifferently, with no emotion in her eyes. "Now… you should understand the meaning of the Great Destruction."

"This is the universe's self-cleaning, the universe's cycle. You, me, anyone. No one can escape from it. Our only destiny is death, which is our deserved end."

"Of course."