Chapter 543: Chapter 542: One Time to be Pathetic

Knowing and seeing were two different things. None of them knew she was injured to such an extent.

Arachne quietly stared at the serpent for several moments without speaking.

Truthfully, she never cared much for Ophis.

The serpent rarely interacted with the others, nor did she make any attempt to grow closer to them.

And Arachne, in turn, never tried to connect with her either.

Yet even Arachne found herself feeling pity after seeing her like this.

Because the emotions Ophis carried right now were something Arachne deeply understood herself.

To lose the qualifications needed to stand beside Noah... That fear had always existed inside her.

It was the same fear that made her desperately chase strength. The same fear that made her terrified of being replaced one day.

Because if she could no longer support Noah... Then what purpose would remain for her existence afterward?

Arachne’s gaze lingered silently on Ophis afterward.

And truthfully, if Ophis asked her to end her misery right now... Arachne didn’t believe she would hesitate to do it.

Meanwhile, Ophis was slowly moving toward Noah.

Even without her eyes, Noah’s presence was impossible for her to mistake. Yet despite still being able to find him, her movements were painfully slow.

She dragged herself across the ground as though even moving had become exhausting.

It was difficult to tell whether the sluggishness came from her injuries alone... or because Ophis herself was gradually losing the will to move forward at all.

Eventually, she stopped directly before Noah.

"...I’m pathetic, aren’t I?" Her voice sounded hollow as she spoke with the faint lisp one would expect from a serpent missing part of herself.

Noah quietly stared at her for several seconds before speaking.

"Well, when you look like that, then yeah." His blunt admission immediately caused Ophis’ body to tense faintly.

Was he not going to heal her now?

Behind Noah, Ailetta immediately palmed her face before letting out a quiet, exasperated sigh.

"Seriously..."

But Noah himself looked completely unbothered by what he said.

In fact, he looked genuinely confused by their reactions.

"You look like you’ve already given up. That’s more pathetic than how you look right now."

"Where’s the defiance you had before?"

"The same serpent that kept glaring at everything stronger than herself, like she planned to surpass it someday, is now hiding in the dark, feeling sorry for herself because she lost her eyes?"

Ophis’s body stiffened harder.

Noah didn’t stop there.

"You think your future disappeared because of this? Then your resolve was weaker than your eyes were."

Gwen’s eyes widened slightly at the harshness of the words.

’Is this supposed to be considered motivation for monsters?’ she questioned silently to herself.

And for some reason... She genuinely wasn’t sure anymore.

Yet Noah himself still didn’t appear angry. If anything, he sounded disappointed.

He stared at Ophis quietly while watching the serpent slump further against the ground.

The reaction alone made it obvious that whatever pride she still possessed had only been crushed further by his words.

Noah’s expression subtly shifted afterward.

Then slowly, his body relaxed as he let out a deep breath.

For the first time since speaking, he looked away from Ophis briefly.

He needed to reconsider his approach. Because, despite what happened, Noah still didn’t believe his words were wrong.

But at the same time... This also wasn’t what he wanted.

His thoughts instinctively drifted back toward himself. Toward everything he endured before reaching this point. The countless moments where giving up would have been easier.

And truthfully, if someone had spoken to him the same way back then... Noah believed he would have needed to hear it.

He would have wanted someone to drag him back onto his feet instead of pitying him.

But then another thought surfaced afterward. A version of himself he almost no longer remembered.

The version of himself that truly had given up long ago, before all of this began.

And Noah quietly imagined what would have happened if that version of himself had lost an arm during the beginning of the apocalypse.

Or a leg.

Or something else he couldn’t recover from through sheer stubbornness alone.

His already fragile self-worth back then would have likely resembled exactly what he was seeing in Ophis now.

That self-reflection caused the intensity in his eyes to practically disappear.

’If I’m not going to lie to them... then I also shouldn’t lie to myself.’

His confidence now exists because he possesses strength.

His resolve to never give up existed because he now possessed the capability to keep moving forward, no matter what stood in his way.

But Ophis...

The strength she possessed now was only possible because of him.

Before meeting Noah, Ophis was powerful compared to ordinary creatures, but she was never capable of standing amongst monsters like Bolas or the others.

Noah gave her that opportunity.

He was the one who dragged her beyond the limits she once believed she possessed.

And because of that, losing her eyes shattered far more than just her confidence.

It shattered the future she thought she finally had the right to reach toward.

Because unless she continued relying on him... Ophis no longer knew whether she could overcome her fate on her own.

Noah slowly released another deep breath afterward.

"You know..."

Ophis’ head shifted slightly toward him.

"I was pathetic once, too."

The words alone caused a visible reaction from her.

Not only her. Even Arachne and Gwen, behind him, looked toward Noah in surprise.

"For something far less than what you’re going through now."

Noah’s gaze remained fixed on Ophis, ignoring the others’ reactions.

"The only difference is that when I was finally given a chance to discard that pathetic part of myself... I chose to never look back."

"I decided that version of me would never exist again."

Then a familiar scene appeared before them once more.

A dark tendril slowly extended outward from Noah before stopping directly above Ophis.

At its tip rested a single drop of blood overflowing with dense mana.

"If you were given another chance..."

Noah stared at the serpent, who was barely registering what came next.

"To discard this part of yourself. Would you take it?"

"And if you do... Would you be willing to never let this pathetic side of yourself appear again?"

This time, Ophis’s reaction was far stronger than before.

Because Noah’s words resonated with something buried deep inside her. Something even she herself didn’t realize still existed.

She wanted to be strong. She didn’t want to give up.

And standing before her now, Noah no longer resembled the terrifying monster she had feared before.

Right now, he felt like the only light capable of pulling her out of the darkness she had trapped herself within.

The scent of his blood called to her.

The doubts, the despair. All of it gradually drowned beneath the overwhelming instinct drawing her toward it.

Ophis hesitated only once. A single lingering thought surfaced within her mind.

Would this allow her to see again?

But the moment that hesitation surfaced, Ophis immediately realized something else.

Those thoughts belonged to the weak version of herself that Noah just spoke about.

The pathetic version desperately clinging to what she lost instead of reaching toward what still remained ahead of her.

Then, without another moment of hesitation, she consumed the blood.

—

"You don’t think this will recover her eyes, do you?"

Ailetta inquired with scrutiny as they watched Ophis’s transformation.

Noah took a second to observe Ophis with his Nexus Eye. Unlike Dobby, his blood didn’t trigger any drastic physical mutations throughout Ophis’s body.

But Noah never expected it to.

Ophis’s body was already incomparably stronger than the others from the very beginning. Her existence itself was already extremely close to the ideal state her species should naturally become.

His blood forced the body to evolve toward a form that perfected its existence.

In Ophis’s case, there simply wasn’t much left that required drastic correction.

At least physically. That didn’t mean there wasn’t room for improvement.

What Noah truly wanted to know was how his blood would compensate for the physical imperfections her body currently possessed, like her lack of eyes.

And the moment his Nexus Eye fully analyzed the changes occurring within her...

Noah finally received his answer.

—

Ophis could feel her body becoming stronger.

But compared to the strange sensations spreading throughout her body, the increase in strength barely felt important at all.

It started near the sides of her face, then further down her body afterward, all the way toward the end of her tail. New sensations gradually began awakening one after another.

The feeling resembled sight. Yet at the same time, it felt completely different from the eyes she once possessed.

Then, slowly, dark violet slits began to open alongside her body.

Dozens of them.

They glowed faintly beneath the darkness coating her scales while mana naturally gathered around them.

And the moment they fully opened, Ophis saw the world again.

No, not the world.

Mana.

The trees surrounding her glowed with dense life energy. The air itself was filled with endless drifting particles.

Even the earth beneath her radiated currents of mana hidden deep below the surface.

For the first time in her life, Ophis wasn’t merely sensing mana instinctively. She was truly seeing it.

And unlike before...

There were no blind spots anymore. She could perceive everything surrounding her simultaneously from every angle of her body at once.