Chương 142: Chapter 141: Cosmos V

Butter struck weakly against her chest.

"You killed them…"

"I know."

"You made me…" Her voice collapsed into another sob. Sylvia wrapped both arms around her and held her affectionately.

"I know." Butter buried her face against Sylvia's chest. Sylvia lowered her chin onto Butter's head and simply held her while the ruined mountains stretched behind them, the snow remained stained red, and the fractured sky slowly settled around the remnants of their battle. Katherine was still somewhere inside her, the frightened girl who had once feared loneliness, the girl who had wanted someone to stay, the girl who had found Butter and decided almost immediately that she could not bear to lose her.

Sylvia's tentacles tightened gently around Butter.

"I told you," she whispered.

"I would never let anyone take you from me." Her hand moved slowly through Butter's hair.

"And I meant it." A pause followed. Sylvia's expression became strangely serene.

"And to make certain…" Her navel eye opened again.

"Future." Butter's body stiffened. Sylvia looked directly into her eyes.

"In three seconds, you will love me." Butter's expression changed instantly.

"No…" Sylvia smiled.

"You will forgive me." Butter shook her head violently.

"No, Sylvia. Stop." Her hands pushed against Sylvia's chest. She was exhausted, but she still fought. Her body trembled with the effort, yet something deeper than exhaustion kept her resisting. Her promise. She remembered it. She had promised herself that she would never abandon Sylvia simply because saving her had become difficult. Even now, even here, she refused to surrender.

"We'll never be together." Sylvia's smile faded. For the first time, something almost desperate appeared beneath her serenity.

"You will." Butter shook her head.

"No."

"One second." Butter fought harder.

"No!"

"Two." Her memories surfaced, Katherine, the chamber, the laughter, the warmth, the girl Sylvia had once been. Butter clung to them.

"I won't…"

"Three." The navel eye turned. The future became certain. Butter's resistance did not disappear immediately. Her fingers dug into Sylvia's clothing, her body trembling as her mind fought against the imposed conclusion. She remembered why she hated Sylvia. She remembered the dead. She remembered the blood beneath her feet. She remembered every reason she had promised herself that she would never surrender. Yet the future Sylvia had spoken became reality. Her anger weakened. Her grief softened.

Her resistance fractured. The memories remained, but their meaning began changing beneath the weight of the imposed future. The hatred that had kept her standing became something distant, something she could no longer hold onto. Her trembling slowly ceased. Butter's hands loosened. Her expression softened. Sylvia watched every trace of resistance disappear, and her smile slowly returned.

"There you are." Butter looked up at her. Her eyes were still wet, but the struggle had left her body, and Sylvia drew her closer as though she had finally recovered something that had never truly belonged to anyone else. She stood amid the salt with Butter held gently in her arms, her cobalt tentacles curled protectively around the exhausted girl with a tenderness that seemed almost obscene against the devastation surrounding them.

Blood stained Butter's body, her wounds remained open, and several bones were still displaced beneath torn flesh. Sylvia looked down at her.

"Let me fix you." Her fingertips passed over Butter's ruined abdomen.

"Reparatio." The wounds closed. Broken bones slid back into place, torn muscle reconnected, damaged organs reconstructed themselves, and the countless ruptured nerves throughout Butter's body were restored as though they had never been injured. Sylvia repaired the damage to Butter's brain with the same precision, rebuilding every destroyed fragment and reconnecting every severed pathway.

The blood vanished from her skin, her breathing steadied, and the pain that had ravaged her body disappeared beneath Sylvia's authority. Sylvia brushed Butter's hair from her face.

"There." She smiled.

"Beautiful again." Butter remained exhausted in her arms, too drained to answer. Sylvia lifted her gaze toward the ruined planet. The salt desert stretched in every direction, lifeless and barren beneath the purple sky. Craters scarred the surface, continents had been torn apart, and entire ecosystems had been erased during their battle. Sylvia frowned. She could not stay here. It was not remorse that made her leave. She felt none. The landscape simply displeased her.

It was ugly, ruined, and drenched in the consequences of what she had done. She wanted something beautiful, something worthy of the love she felt for the woman in her arms. Her free hand rose.

"Facsimile." Reality obeyed. The planet changed. Salt receded beneath spreading soil as Sylvia rewrote the composition of the surface. Mountains rose from the plains, their peaks forming in graceful arcs rather than the jagged wounds left by the battle. Rivers carved themselves through valleys, filling almost instantly with clear water, while forests erupted across the newly formed land in vast waves of green. She restored the atmosphere next.

Clouds gathered above the horizon as oceans returned to their ancient basins, their waters spreading across newly shaped coastlines. Rain fell across the continent, washing the remaining blood from the earth and feeding forests that had not existed moments before. Life followed. Grass covered the plains. Flowers opened beneath the rain. Trees unfolded their branches toward the sky, and animals emerged within the forests as though an entire evolutionary history had been written into existence at once.

Sylvia watched the transformation with quiet satisfaction.

"There." The barren world had become beautiful. She raised one final hand.

"Palindrome." The scars of their battle disappeared. The craters closed. The shattered terrain reformed. The atmosphere settled into perfect clarity, and the purple sky became softer beneath the light of distant stars. Sylvia looked down at Butter.

"This is better." She smiled and adjusted the exhausted girl in her arms.

"You deserve somewhere beautiful." Her cobalt tentacles curled more tightly around Butter as Sylvia turned toward the landscape she had created. Then she began walking. A manor materialized before them, rising from the earth as though it had always existed and the planet had merely been waiting for permission to reveal it. Three storeys of pale stone emerged beneath the sky, tall windows catching the fading light while an elegant balcony wrapped around the upper floor.

Delicate columns framed the arched entrance, and gardens unfolded around the house, flowers blooming in impossible colours that could not exist in nature. At the centre of the courtyard, a small fountain shimmered with faint cobalt light. Sylvia smiled. The interior was even more extravagant. The entrance hall stretched far beyond the dimensions of the exterior, its vaulted ceiling disappearing into shadow while marble floors reflected the warm radiance of crystalline chandeliers.

Each chandelier pulsed faintly in time with Sylvia's heartbeat. Tapestries covered the pale walls, depicting places that had never existed, civilizations that had never risen, and futures that would never arrive. A grand staircase curved upward beneath them, its polished banisters gleaming beneath the impossible light, while countless doors lined the surrounding halls, each opening into spaces that could not possibly fit within the manor's physical dimensions.

Libraries, ballrooms, studies, galleries, private chambers, and entire rooms whose interiors seemed to belong to separate dimensions waited beyond them. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Sylvia carried Butter deeper into the manor. The doors closed behind them.

"Anything that is not made of the Nonagon," she murmured, "shall be eradicated upon attempting to enter." The words became law. The house accepted them. Sylvia continued through the impossible halls, the architecture subtly rearranging itself around her as though the manor possessed an instinctive understanding of her desires. At last, she reached the bedroom she had imagined for Butter, a vast chamber dominated by an enormous bed with silken sheets and pillows soft enough to swallow the exhausted girl whole.

Sylvia lowered her onto it with extraordinary care. Butter's eyes remained open, though they were distant and unfocused, her gaze drifting somewhere beyond the room. Her body trembled faintly, her breathing shallow, her Gloom still at zero percent. Sylvia knelt beside the bed.

"I'm going to make everything better," she whispered. Butter's lips parted.

"Really…" Sylvia smiled and gently brushed the tangled white hair away from her face.

"You've been through so much." Her fingers lingered against Butter's cheek.

"I'm sorry for that." She leaned closer, her voice becoming almost impossibly tender.

"Now let me take care of you." Sylvia stood. She had not yet addressed the prosthetic. The black alloy limb remained attached to Butter's leg, its surface dark and unyielding beneath the room's soft light. Sylvia reached down and brushed her fingers across the cold metal. Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. A faint crease appeared between her brows. Her power was absolute.

She could rewrite the laws of reality and impose her will upon existence itself, yet the prosthetic refused to acknowledge her authority. It was a remnant of Butter's father, forged from Gloom so pure and concentrated that even the Nonagon could not completely override it. Sylvia could not remove it. She could not simply erase it. She studied the limb for several seconds before understanding the real danger.

If Butter's Gloom began recovering, the prosthetic could replenish her reserves, allowing her resistance to return. The artificial compliance Sylvia had imposed would weaken, and the affection forced into Butter's mind could begin to unravel. Sylvia would not permit that. She placed her palm against the prosthetic.

"Renounce." The word was quiet, yet reality itself seemed to acknowledge it. The faint glow within the alloy dimmed. Sylvia smiled. She had severed the prosthetic's connection to Butter's Gloom. Even if the reserves returned, the limb would no longer channel that power into her body. The energy would have nowhere to go, leaving Butter exactly as Sylvia wanted her. Compliant. Loving. Hers. Sylvia stepped away from the bed, her expression serene as she looked down at Butter.

The girl remained exhausted beneath the silken sheets, her white hair scattered across the pillow and her breathing barely audible. Sylvia reached toward her again.

"Rest, Sugarbear." Her fingers gently brushed Butter's hair away from her face.

"I have everything under control now." She undressed her with slow, deliberate care, as though she were unwrapping a gift she had been waiting for her entire life. Her fingers moved through Butter's clothing, carefully removing each piece until she was completely bare, her body pale and beautiful beneath the dim light of the chandeliers. Sylvia helped Butter into the bath. The water was warm, almost hot, and it seemed to glow faintly with a soft cobalt light.

The bath itself was vast, large enough for both of them to lie comfortably, its marble surface polished to a mirror shine. Steam rose from the surface, carrying the scent of lavender and something sweeter, something that reminded Sylvia of the chamber where they had first met. She slipped into the water beside Butter. She transformed. Her body shifted, the cobalt markings fading as her hair returned to its original blue, her blindfold disappearing as her eyes opened.

She was Katherine again, the girl who had laughed at cat videos and stolen kisses and believed in a future that would never come. Butter looked at her. Something flickered in her distant gaze.

"You..." Katherine smiled.

"I remember. You liked this one better." Her voice had softened, lost its cold certainty, and become almost gentle. Butter stared at her for a long moment.

"I did." Katherine drew her closer.

"Then I'll stay like this." She had created the perfect world within this house. A world where she did not need to be Sylvia, where she could simply be Katherine, where Butter could love her without the weight of everything she had done. She held Butter against her chest and closed her eyes. She was finally happy. — The years passed differently inside the house. Sylvia had broken the concept of time within its walls, allowing centuries to pass for every hour in the real world.

Days stretched into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, yet neither of them aged. Their bodies remained exactly as they had been when Sylvia first brought Butter inside, untouched by sickness, decay, or the passage of time. At first, Sylvia simply gave Butter whatever she asked for. Eventually, she began giving her everything she had ever wanted.

Entire rooms filled with books and shelves of movies, every film Butter had ever mentioned recreated perfectly, while endless collections of games, music, toys, and childhood treasures appeared whenever she wanted them. Kitchens remained permanently stocked with every candy, pastry, cake, biscuit, fruit, and ridiculous little snack Butter could possibly crave. Whenever she finished something, another appeared before she could ask. Anything she mentioned liking, even once, Sylvia remembered forever.

The gardens grew enormous, filled with flowers Butter loved and winding paths that changed whenever she grew bored of walking the same route. Lakes reflected impossible skies, forests stretched across carefully cultivated hills, and playgrounds, theatres, swimming pools, libraries, cafés, and entire streets of beautiful houses appeared around the manor. Eventually, Sylvia decided the house was not enough. She wanted Butter to have a world.

A town rose around them, followed by suburbs, farms, highways, railways, parks, shopping districts, schools, hospitals, universities, factories, restaurants, hotels, stadiums, cinemas, museums, and skyscrapers that glittered beneath the artificial heavens. Cars filled the roads, buses carried people between districts, trains crossed the countryside, and aircraft moved between cities beneath skies Sylvia had designed to remain perpetually beautiful.

She built rivers and bridges, harbours and ports, mountains and valleys, forests and deserts, beaches and islands. She created entire ecosystems and filled them with animals that behaved exactly as nature intended, except that nothing was allowed to become extinct. The people came next. Thousands became millions, and millions became billions. Sylvia did not create mindless puppets.

She gave them families, memories, ambitions, personalities, talents, preferences, disagreements, hopes, and the freedom to make ordinary choices. They could fall in love, marry, have children, change careers, move to another city, start businesses, become artists, engineers, doctors, teachers, farmers, musicians, athletes, or anything else they desired. They were free to choose kindness. Sylvia had simply made cruelty impossible to desire.

There was no murder, no abuse, no exploitation, no corruption, no hatred, no predatory greed, and no appetite for violence. Crime simply did not exist because nobody wanted to commit it. A person might become angry, jealous, frustrated, or offended, but those emotions never crossed the boundary into cruelty. Disputes still happened. Neighbours argued over property lines. Business partners disagreed over contracts. Couples occasionally quarrelled. Children fought over toys and teenagers slammed doors in frustration.

Politicians debated fiercely, communities disagreed about laws, and people could hold completely different opinions about how their society should be governed. Yet disagreements ended with conversation. Arguments ended with apologies. Conflicts ended with compromise. No disagreement ever became a war because nobody possessed the desire to destroy another person simply for being wrong. Sylvia had not removed individuality. She had removed the impulse to turn individuality into suffering. Families loved one another.

Parents raised their children with patience. Grandparents watched grandchildren grow. Brothers and sisters teased each other, argued, reconciled, and grew old together. Neighbours knew one another by name and left food at each other's doors. People gathered in parks on weekends, filled restaurants in the evenings, attended concerts, watched football matches, celebrated festivals, and returned home safely every night. The economy flourished because there was no exploitation to distort it.

People worked because they wanted to contribute, because they enjoyed their professions, because they wanted to build something meaningful, or simply because having a purpose made life satisfying. Businesses competed without destroying one another. Workers were paid fairly. Food remained affordable. Nobody starved. Nobody slept beneath bridges. Nobody was denied medical care because they could not afford it.

Sylvia could have created infinite wealth with a thought, but she deliberately allowed the economy to function. She wanted the world to feel real. Sometimes she would sit on the balcony and watch the city below, fascinated by the little systems she had allowed to develop without her direct intervention. Cars travelled along illuminated roads. Trains arrived precisely on schedule. Children hurried home from school. Couples walked beneath streetlights. Restaurants filled with laughter. It was creation as a sandbox.

Sylvia could change anything. A mountain could rise from the sea because she thought it would look beautiful. A new species could appear because Butter wondered what it might be like. An entire city could be redesigned overnight because Sylvia disliked its architecture. If Butter mentioned wanting to see snow during summer, Sylvia could cover an entire region in it before breakfast. She played with reality the way a child might play with building blocks.

The difference was that her building blocks were continents, oceans, civilizations, and lives. And Butter was always at the centre of it. Eventually, Sylvia created a town around them populated by people who adored the strange immortal couple living in the magnificent manor. Their neighbours brought freshly baked pastries to the house, invited them to dinner, celebrated their birthdays, and greeted Butter warmly whenever she walked through town. Butter became beloved almost immediately.

People adored her warmth, her humour, her strange fashion, her kindness, and the way she could speak to a complete stranger as though they had been friends for years. Children ran toward her whenever they saw her. Elderly neighbours invited her inside for tea. Shopkeepers saved her favourite sweets behind the counter. Families waved whenever she passed. To the people of Planet Unfathomable, Butter was simply the beautiful wife of their goddess. Sylvia encouraged it. She wanted Butter loved by everyone.

She wanted the entire world to look at her and see something worth protecting. Whenever Butter walked through the capital, people smiled. Cars slowed to let her cross the road. Children waved from windows. Restaurants offered her free meals. Musicians played whenever she passed through a square. Nobody feared her. Nobody feared Sylvia either. They worshipped them. At first, it had happened naturally. People eventually discovered that the two women who lived in the impossible manor could answer almost any prayer.

A farmer whose crops were failing could ask for rain. A mother could ask for her sick child to recover. A family could ask for a new home. An inventor could ask for inspiration. A couple hoping for a child could ask Sylvia for help. Yet Sylvia established a rule. Kindness mattered. Those who genuinely lived good lives and asked without cruelty were granted what they needed. Those who asked for power merely to hurt others received nothing.

Soon, people began leaving offerings outside the manor, not because Sylvia demanded worship, but because they wanted to thank her. The inhabitants began calling them gods. Sylvia never corrected them. Butter found the entire thing embarrassing.

"We're not gods," she would insist whenever someone bowed to her. Sylvia would simply smile.

"Let them call us whatever makes them happy." Eventually, Sylvia decided the town was not enough. She extended her hand. Time obeyed. The temporal distortion that had once existed only within the house spread across the planet. Years began passing across its surface while mere minutes elapsed beyond its boundaries. The outside universe continued to burn. Planet Unfathomable remained untouched. They named it together. Butter had always loved the word.

She used it whenever something was too strange, too beautiful, or too impossible to explain. Sylvia thought it was perfect. Their planet became Planet Unfathomable.... A wedding followed. Sylvia created a cathedral at the centre of the capital, a vast structure of pale stone and stained glass beneath an artificial sky filled with impossible constellations. Thousands of their neighbours gathered to celebrate them, smiling and applauding as Butter walked toward the altar in white. Sylvia wore white as well.

They exchanged vows beneath a sky that could never storm. Their honeymoon lasted decades. Together they travelled across their perfect world, visiting beaches beneath permanent sunsets, wandering through forests where the flowers sang, watching movies until morning, eating ridiculous quantities of candy and pastries, and returning home whenever they wished. Every place Butter visited contained something she loved. Every corner of the world seemed designed around her. Everywhere Sylvia looked, there was Butter.

The years continued passing, yet neither woman aged or grew sick. Everyone else continued living normally. Children were born, grew into adults, married, raised families, became grandparents, and eventually died peacefully of old age. Sylvia allowed death to exist. She simply removed the suffering surrounding it. Funerals were sad, but they were not tragedies. Nobody died violently. Nobody died alone because nobody was abandoned.

Families gathered, remembered the person they loved, cried together, and eventually continued living. New generations replaced the old. Cities expanded. Buildings were demolished and rebuilt. Cars became faster. Technology advanced. Fashion changed. Music evolved. Entire cultures developed identities Sylvia had never consciously designed. She watched it all with fascination. Her world had begun to surprise even her.

Sometimes they sat together on the balcony at night, watching the lights of the capital spread toward the horizon.

"Do you like it?" Sylvia would ask. Butter would gaze across the endless city, the gardens, the glowing streets, the distant mountains, and the millions of tiny lives moving through the world.

"It's unfathomable." Sylvia would smile.

"I knew you'd like it." She had memorised every detail of Butter's preferences: every favourite food, every favourite film, every song, every place she wanted to visit, every insignificant little thing that made her smile. Sylvia had transformed them all into permanent fixtures of their world. Outside, the real world continued to die. The Calamities spread across continents. Katherine's children.

They continued cleansing the planet of everything Sylvia considered sinful while Sylvia remained inside her paradise, watching Butter laugh at some ridiculous movie while eating candy from a bowl that never emptied. Sometimes Sylvia mentioned the Calamities while stroking Butter's hair.

"Your children are still out there," she whispered.

"Ours. They're making the world perfect." Butter would listen, her eyes distant. Sylvia never questioned the silence. There was no reason to. She had removed every threat, every cruelty, every illness, every war, and every possibility of the kind of loss she feared. Nothing could hurt Butter anymore. Nothing could take her away. If Butter ever wondered why she could not remember choosing any of it, Sylvia was always there to hold her. The planet continued turning beneath its artificial heavens.

Years became decades. Decades became centuries. The cities changed while the world remained young. People continued to live, love, work, argue, reconcile, raise families, build businesses, create art, invent new technologies, and eventually grow old. Only Sylvia and Butter remained untouched by time. To the people of Planet Unfathomable, they were eternal gods. To Sylvia, they were simply two women living inside the perfect world she had built with her own hands.

And to everyone else, Butter was the beautiful wife everyone loved. Sylvia had finally created the world she believed humanity deserved. She had given them freedom, provided they freely chose kindness. She had given them prosperity without greed, families without abuse, disagreement without violence, and life without the fear that someone would deliberately destroy it. She had even given herself the satisfaction of watching creation evolve beyond her expectations.

The only thing she had failed to create was the freedom to leave it. Their love would never end. She kissed Butter again.

"Forever," she whispered. Butter's lips moved against hers.

"Forever."