Volume 2

Chapter 77 : The Redemption You Can Achieve

Under Anselm’s uncharacteristic assertiveness, Ivora should have left empty-handed.

But in the end, she got what she wanted, so… effortlessly.

And it wasn’t Anselm, Mingfuluo, or any schemer who gave it to her.

It was the greatest beneficiary of this transformation…

The person Mingfuluo had hoped would find a better life.

Miss Doll looked up at Anselm, seeing no trace of emotion in his expression.

Recalling everything that happened on this journey, his complete grasp of every detail, she finally understood what the end of the game, the end of the journey, truly meant.

“Fa… Father.”

Mingfuluo, her eyes gray and lifeless, murmured dazedly: “You already knew this would happen, didn’t you?”

The faint hope she had grasped was utterly destroyed.

“Was it hard to predict?” Anselm countered.

“Why do you think Lauriel was so eager to push the Pelican Guild into prominence?”

“Because that was his goal from the start—to use those potions to trade for a chance at transcendence.”

“He didn’t initially plan to approach Ivora; he might have had other big shots in mind who’d be interested. But due to my restrictions, no one sought him out, and with the potions nearly depleted, he had to take a gamble… doing everything to accelerate the Pelican Guild’s downfall.”

“And clearly…”

The young Hydra looked at Lauriel, tears streaming as he kissed the vial, and sighed:

“He won his bet.”

“From my personal perspective,” Anselm said, leaning on his cane, his eyes showing a hint of approval, “I admire someone with such resolve. He’s not bad.”

Anselm didn’t elaborate on Lauriel’s abilities, only praising his boldness, nor did he show any displeasure at his final actions.

“And do you think… in this game, he’s the only one chasing transcendence?”

Anselm lowered his gaze to the dazed Mingfuluo: “The farmers’ rapid uprising was the spark that accelerated the Pelican Guild’s rise. Lauriel didn’t have that capability or intent back then—so who pushed it?”

“The answer is our Count Watson. He, too, hoped to draw the attention of great figures, especially Ivora, to hitch a ride on her chariot. How much he did behind the scenes, no one knows.”

“Did he break the rules? Of course not. He had no designs on the fields or the potions. In fact, his actions even boosted grain production… ironic, isn’t it?”

“Transcendence… transcendence. Those who have it crave more, and those who don’t will risk everything for a chance.”

Anselm placed a hand on Mingfuluo’s head, speaking softly: “Do you think Ivora is right, dear Mingfuluo?”

“That everyone in this world would make the same choice as Lauriel.”

“…”

As Mingfuluo’s body trembled, Ivora, cauterizing her wound with blood-flame, smirked: “Still playing house with your little doll, Anselm? Fine…”

The bullet’s tear had finally healed, leaving a stark scar still slowly mending, but Ivora seemed unbothered, declaring with victorious arrogance:

“No matter what game you’re still playing, these trinkets were offered to me.”

Her eyes glinted with savage ferocity: “If you keep provoking me, let’s see if I and that old hag can wipe out both your venomous snakes!”

With that murderous threat, one that could set the entire Empire—perhaps the whole continent—ablaze, she vanished in a burst of flames.

Thud—

Mingfuluo’s frail body collapsed to her knees, staring at the spot where the blood-flame vanished, her arms hanging limply like a broken puppet.

It was over.

The game… was truly over.

The one she thought would let it spiral into the worst outcome had nearly turned it toward perfection with such resolve, but the beneficiary had destroyed it all with his own hands.

What Ivora would do with the potions wasn’t hard to guess.

Her powerful sorcerers could easily reverse-engineer the potion’s composition and mass-produce it… Since Ivora was interested, she’d undoubtedly put it to use.

When a capricious, self-centered, tyrannical heir who cared nothing for commoners or even other transcendents held the Empire’s food supply in her grasp…

No… the worst wasn’t that.

The worst was when Ivora grew bored, when she “tired of playing” and handed it off to someone else… what would become of the Empire?

This game should never have started.

If it hadn’t, none of this would have happened, and it wouldn’t have ended like this.

If only—

“You’re thinking now that if you hadn’t played this game with me, none of this would’ve happened, right?”

Anselm’s wistful voice reached Mingfuluo’s ears.

“Mingfuluo… Mingfuluo, don’t you think that makes you even more pathetic?”

He reached out, pinching her chin, lifting her numb face, and said with pity:

“You can’t even hold on to your belief in pursuing your ideals anymore?”

Her dim, nearly lightless purple eyes trembled faintly.

Right… I shouldn’t think this way.

Trying to achieve it wasn’t wrong, it’s just… just that I…

“Or is it that you’re ignoring, hiding, trying to escape the fact that your ‘ideals’ are just hollow words, empty slogans, meaningless… illusions?”

The devil yanked up the pitiful puppet slumped on the ground.

His once gentle, pitying expression turned icy, his once soft, affectionate words now brutally cruel.

His grip on Mingfuluo’s shoulders seemed ready to crush her bones, like a snake injecting venom into its prey, pouring all his malice and cruelty into her through pain.

“You’re fleeing from the fact that you never understood how to achieve change. You’re fleeing from why you don’t know the reason for pursuing your ideals. You’re fleeing from… the truth beneath this false emptiness. You’re fleeing—”

“I’m not… I’m not!”

Mingfuluo screamed hoarsely.

Once forever calm, resolute, unbreakable, she now writhed pathetically under Anselm’s grasp, struggling desperately to break free, but only earning more intense pain.

Idealists are hard to destroy.

Even when obstructed, beaten down, or broken, no matter how battered, they rise again with unyielding resolve.

So, don’t destroy them—destroy their ideals.

“Your persistence has no origin.”

“You know nothing of change.”

“Your hoped-for salvation brought greater disaster.”

“Even the people you wanted to save rejected your grace, pushing everything into the abyss themselves.”

The young Hydra wielded his cold blade, dissecting Mingfuluo Zege’s existence bit by bit, shattering her very being.

“Tell me, dear Mingfuluo, dear… Helen.”

The devil’s words turned gentle, pitying, the extreme shift making his face blur and overlap in Mingfuluo’s eyes.

Which was the devil out to destroy her, and which was the father who guided and taught her?

“Are you willing to admit your emptiness? Are you willing to accept that you know nothing of how to change everything, to accept your weakness?”

“If you are—”

The boy who had patiently, gently guided her during this time seemed to return, softly caressing her cheek, murmuring with utmost care:

“I’ll give you the chance to change this terrible outcome.”

“…!”

Mingfuluo’s trembling lips parted, staring in disbelief at the boy smiling gently at her.

Her lifeless eyes, battered by cycles of hope and despair, sparked with a final, fragile glimmer.

“Change… a chance?”

“Yes,” Anselm said softly.

“I’ll find a way to take those potions back from Ivora, but the cost… you may have to pay it yourself.”

“I’m willing, I’m willing… I’m willing!”

Finding a lighthouse in a devouring storm, glimpsing a ray of light in boundless darkness… The powerless, empty puppet saw a chance for redemption.

Even in her collapse, she hadn’t shed tears, but now, sobbing, she clutched Anselm’s sleeve: “If it can stop Ivora, if it can change this outcome, at any cost… any cost is fine.”

“Cost? No, no, I’m not asking about the cost. The cost is what Ivora will demand. What I’m asking for isn’t a cost, Helen.”

Anselm gently wiped her scalding, crystalline tears, his tender, caring voice delivering the cruelest, most venomous words:

“I only want the answer to that question.”

“…”

—If I had realized the ripple effects of the grain surge, I could’ve intervened at the game’s start. If I had, the situation wouldn’t have spiraled so wildly, Ivora wouldn’t have noticed an ordinary territory, and that horrific future wouldn’t loom.

If I had understood what this change would bring, none of this would’ve happened.

That's all… It's my fault.

As Anselm said, I chased an ideal for fifteen years but never knew how to achieve it; as he said, I still haven’t found why I persisted.

I am, as he said… empty.

“I…”

Gazing into those warm, sincere sea-blue eyes, Mingfuluo found that accepting this truth… wasn’t so despairing.

She knew it was Anselm’s ploy, exploiting her vulnerability, but she had no way, no reason, to refuse.

This was for… salvation, to prevent an irredeemable outcome.

This was the last, the only, unmissable chance.

Anselm’s gaze and this conclusion slowly melted the fear in Mingfuluo’s heart.

When she reached out to touch the emptiness and void she feared, she found… it wasn’t so unbearable.

This long, painful journey had paved the way for today.

Everything she’d experienced had pushed her to accept this truth.

“Yes…”

No longer crying, Mingfuluo whispered softly: “I… understood nothing. I didn’t understand what change was, nor why I was chasing it.”

When she spoke those words, all Mingfuluo felt… was relief.

The heavy chains binding her shattered with this near-self-destructive collapse.

She tugged at her lips, almost wanting to laugh:

“I am… just that empty. Heh… hehehe… just that empty.”

Anselm gazed at her for a long, long time, then raised his brow:

“But even so, you haven’t abandoned your final resolve… Heh, no matter. I’ve heard what I wanted.”

He leaned down, gently kissing Mingfuluo’s lips:

“Rest assured, dear Helen, you’ll get what you want too.”

“This time…”

The devil said meaningfully: “It’s the last.”

***

Bang!

Anselm, who had once fired at the disdainful Grand Princess in Little Pelican City, was now pinned to a bed by her.

“You bastard…”

The woman, her face dark, pointed to the still-healing scar on her cheek: “Care to explain?”

“Is it so hard to understand the need for dramatic impact and plausibility?”

Lying on the soft bed, Anselm’s nose nearly brushed the unbound, pendulous abundance before his eyes.

“Damn it, firing was already mad enough to be convincing!”

Ivora’s anger didn’t subside at Anselm’s explanation; it flared hotter: “If that bullet had hit… do you know what would’ve happened?”

“How could it hit the Empire’s greatest spatial sorcerer?” Anselm raised an eyebrow.

“It only grazed your cheek because you let it, didn’t it?”

“Because I didn’t know that damn bullet had enchantments enhanced to that degree! Gods… what kind of monster is Flamel?”

Ivora growled, her eyes blazing: “Your excuse doesn’t hold. I want compensation now!”

“…Here you go again, Ivora.”

Anselm saw through the fire in her eyes at a glance, sighing as he placed a hand on her shoulder: “It seems what I revealed today has only intensified your desire for me.”

“…”

Ivora froze for a moment, then touched her cheek and lips, confirming she wasn’t wearing some lustful grin, before saying suspiciously: “Is it that obvious?”

“You’ve wanted to drag me to bed since I was eleven. I know exactly what you’re thinking in that regard.”

Anselm pushed Ivora away with a slight effort, sitting up on the bed and straightening his collar, speaking unhurriedly: “That scar will heal within three days—a trivial matter. Besides, I haven’t even asked you for compensation yet.”

He glanced at the displeased Grand Princess and chuckled lightly:

“Mingfuluo will soon come to you, trying to get those potions back.”

“…Hmph.”

Ivora smirked: “Poor little doll, she must think it’s all her fault… Hahaha, so foolish it’s laughable! Though, to be fair, it does seem like it’s entirely her mistake.”

“Make sure to act vile, make it seem like I fought hard to get your agreement.”

“You’re questioning my acting skills?” Ivora snorted coldly. “I don’t need your reminders for something like this.”

“Then let me remind you of something practical.”

Anselm stood, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling window at the bright scene, his voice cold:

“I know you’ll want to drive a harder bargain, but don’t go too far, Ivora.”

He turned, looking at the Grand Princess lounging with her legs crossed, a flicker of black passing through his sea-blue eyes:

“Don’t forget, I’m always watching.”

“…What’s so special about that little doll that you care about her?”

Anselm’s unmasked, icy threat made Ivora frown: “What exactly… Never mind, you wouldn’t tell me anyway.”

Perhaps because she was about to ruin Sulun’s plans and gain something valuable, Ivora, flush with success, licked her lips:

“Then let me give you a warning, Anselm—that scar, I’ll remember it.”

She touched her canine teeth, laughing brazenly: “One day, I’ll leave a mark on that thing of yours that you’ll both love and hate.”

Ivora’s fiery laughter echoed in the bedroom, but she was already gone.

Anselm, turning back to the bright scene outside the window, didn’t bother commenting on her words.

He had no interest in this woman, driven purely by excessive desires that filled her mind.

To him, she was little more than garbage, useful only as a stress-reliever if utterly broken.

But Anselm was still pondering the question Ivora had raised.

—What exactly am I holding onto with Mingfuluo?

He wasn’t reflecting for self-examination but merely considering from which angle fate might strike.

Yet… perhaps Anselm himself didn’t realize he was contemplating this with such intent.

Thinking of this, Anselm only felt that, in that moment, when Mingfuluo, despite admitting her emptiness, still clung to the last shred of her broken “ideal”…

He felt a deep disgust, even… hatred.

And whether this disgust and hatred were directed at her or something else, he wasn’t sure.

“After this redemption is complete, only one step remains from the finale I’ve prepared for you over three years.”

Finally, Anselm set aside his tangled thoughts, smiling softly:

“Helen, Mingfuluo…”

“Who will be the final victor?”