Volume 2

Chapter 92 : The Conclusion of Three Years, Part Four

The sky’s gloom spread from the distance to this place and on the terrace, one stood by the railing, the other leaned against the entrance door, both gazing at that shade of gray.

“Arlo, the sky’s color right now is a bit like your hair.”

Anselm, leaning on the railing, turned his head, smiling brightly at the slightly dazed Mingfuluo: “A beautiful blue-gray.”

“…” Mingfuluo instinctively touched her high ponytail, saying softly: “You seem to really like long hair.”

“Do I?” Anselm tilted his head.

“When we sleep.”

The petite sorceress said nonchalantly: “You sometimes bury your face in my hair.”

The young Hydra laughed, caught off guard: “Don’t make me sound like a child.”

Mingfuluo furrowed her brow, emphasizing: “You are a child. And that behavior… isn’t exactly childlike.”

She opened her mouth as if to say something but hesitated, then continued looking up at the increasingly overcast sky.

Mingfuluo had wanted to ask if Anselm had… those kinds of feelings for her, but first, she felt it was a bit presumptuous and second, she thought there was no need to consider such things between them.

The ties that bound people together were never limited to just a few types of emotions.

Mingfuluo believed that she and Anselm called each other friends, but as they moved toward a shared goal, they were connected by a bond far tighter, more resolute, and unbreakable.

Friends, comrades, even… lovers—these were just external labels, not what truly mattered.

Thinking of this, Mingfuluo couldn’t help but feel a twinge of shame for the anxiety, frustration, and unease she’d felt these past few days over Anselm’s “joke.”

She had no reason to doubt Anselm, to doubt someone who, in both thought and action, showed an unwavering hope for a new world.

A person who could create all sorts of alchemical tools and devices for the people, who conceived the Data System to break through knowledge barriers, who even helped her create the Universal Ether Furnace—how could the light in his eyes when they talked be anything but genuine?

Anselm, more than anyone, must want to change this stagnant world.

With this thought, Mingfuluo felt increasingly at ease.

Looking at the boy leaning on the railing, gazing at the sky, her eyes softened in a way she had never shown to anyone else.

How could there be anything in this world that could make Anselm abandon something he cherished so deeply?

If Anselm truly… truly did that, it would mean he must need—

“Arlo.”

The young Hydra turned his head, leaning on his cane, gazing at Mingfuluo with a gentle expression.

A raindrop shattered on the terrace’s tiles.

Mingfuluo reached out, feeling the cool touch of the droplet, and spoke first:

“It’s going to rain. Whatever it is, let’s talk inside.”

“No, Arlo. This question will determine where you and I are headed.”

“…” Seeing the warmth fade from Anselm’s face, Mingfuluo’s brow furrowed slightly.

“Are you… teasing me again?” she asked, her expression growing helplessly resigned: “Wasn’t it enough to make me lose control earlier? If you really want to say something strange, come over here—the rain’s getting heavier.”

The sky darkened rapidly, the rolling thunder in the pitch-black clouds signaling an approaching storm.

“Arlo, it’s the same question.”

But Anselm remained unmoved. Standing at the edge of the terrace, his seemingly youthful frame stood tall, like a dominator summoning and commanding the storm clouds above, the darkness swallowing the blue sky hovering over him yet seeming to bow at his feet.

In the increasingly dense rain, the young Hydra asked:

“Between me and our shared ideal, which would you choose?”

Boom—!

A flash of lightning illuminated their faces for an instant, but the thunder’s roar couldn’t drown out Anselm’s voice.

Mingfuluo heard the absurd question clearly.

“A joke you’ve already used once doesn’t need a second telling.”

Mingfuluo tilted her head slightly: “How could you think it would work again?”

But Anselm only looked at her quietly, his face devoid of the playful mischief he showed when teasing, or the warm, familial smile he usually wore.

The rain grew heavier, forming a curtain, enveloping the boy beneath the dark clouds, making his figure blur in Mingfuluo’s eyes, almost illusory.

Yet those sea-blue eyes—she saw them with absolute clarity.

He was serious—Mingfuluo thought.

With just a glance, she could read Anselm’s intentions; she understood him that well.

As long as the conditions were right, seeing through his lies wasn’t difficult.

Her friend, standing in the cold rain, awaited her answer.

“Why should I have to choose?”

After a long pause, Mingfuluo met his gaze and answered: “Why should I make such a meaningless choice? Is there any conflict between you and it?”

“Conflict…”

Anselm murmured the word, then chuckled, bursting into laughter.

His boyish laugh pierced through the rain, and the deep, undeniable resentment and anger, louder than the thunder, reached Mingfuluo’s ears clearly.

What did fate want?

From the vast decades of memories from his transmigrator friend, Anselm learned everything about this world but had hardly pondered this question.

That very day, he suffered the greatest tragedy of his life.

Anger, fear, despair… countless negative emotions entangled him for so long that merely breaking free took far too much effort.

All he thought about afterward was simply changing his tragic fate—how could he have the energy to consider what fate itself wanted?

Yet Mingfuluo’s careless remark inadvertently gave Anselm the answer.

A… painfully simple answer.

Fate chose exceptional heroes, casting its favored gaze upon them, making the world revolve around them.

It made the defiant suffer to know themselves, the empty wander the mortal world to grasp truth… It pulled invisible strings, shaping heroes into what it desired.

—No, what the world desires.

What a new world… needed.

Fate wanted to destroy this malformed empire, to purge this twisted society, to build a new nation, a new world through four heroes.

The Overlord, the Sage, the Enlightened, the Benevolent… It would use those four heroes to tear everything down and rebuild anew.

Undoubtedly, this was what fate desired.

It was a simple answer, clear from the great deeds those four heroes would achieve—because their accomplishments were the reality of fate’s script, their endings the destination of its gaze.

And in his time with Mingfuluo, as Anselm gained the strength to think beyond survival, it was her grateful exclamation that awakened him.

“Our meeting is practically fated.”

Fated… indeed.

Yes, if fate wanted to create a new nation, a new world, then… compared to those four heroes, wasn’t he the better choice?

With knowledge and perspectives from another world, despising the empire’s decay, its systems, ideologies, and backwardness, unable to tolerate its flaws, and before gaining those memories, burning with ambition to change the empire—wasn’t he the most suitable?

If he could change this world, what did it matter if he surpassed the four heroes?

If he could do better than them, why would fate not turn its favor toward him?

Fate might accept it, even welcome it, but Anselm would never accept it, never.

In the pouring rain, Anselm said to his friend:

“There’s no conflict between me and Arlo.”

“It’s a… deadlock.”

His voice was colder than the rain splashing on Mingfuluo, more violent than the roaring thunder.

The young creature, who had struggled in despair for years, bared the rage and hatred etched into his bones and soul to his friend:

“Between me and that so-called new world, only one can exist!”

He was Anselm Hydra, the Anselm Hydra whose life was manipulated; who saw his tragic fate; who watched his father plummet into madness; and who… held his dying mother in his arms.

He would never tolerate any of his actions aligning with fate’s will; he would never allow himself to grovel like a fawning dog, achieving its goals under its favor and grace.

He would never… never let fate’s desired vision come to pass, no matter how much he loathed this malformed empire, scorned the nobles’ laughable codes, or once… dreamed of that radiant future, working tirelessly for it.

At that moment, Anselm awoke. From that day, he no longer thought only of surviving or changing his fate but of truly… challenging the damnable fate that ruined his life and dared to use him!

—Whatever fate wants, I will destroy.

If fate wanted this malformed, fallen, twisted, chaotic, evil empire to fall, to create a progressive, just, bright, orderly, virtuous new world, to free this world from a thousand years of stagnation—

Then I… will ensure this empire stands in its prime for another thousand, ten thousand years, even if it means plunging the world into an eternal, silent hell!

Mingfuluo, also in the cascade of rain, her fingertips trembling slightly.

Looking at her friend’s face, blurred by the rain, no matter how indistinct, Mingfuluo saw the extreme distortion, the… crazed ferocity.

Anselm… why is it like this?

The overwhelming mental shock left Mingfuluo unable to feel panic or fear in that moment, only… bewilderment.

An incomprehensible bewilderment.

—Who could understand? Your closest friend, your most trusted companion, who countless times spoke and dreamed of the future with you, now expressed such deranged hatred for your shared ideal.

“So—”

Anselm smiled again, as if his earlier rage and madness had never existed: “Answer me, Arlo, as my friend, which… Do you choose?”

He watched Mingfuluo, watched his friend fall silent in the rain, her face growing paler, her breathing quicker, like someone drowning in the downpour.

“…Reason.”

After an unknown time, Mingfuluo, head lowered, slowly raised her eyes.

No hysterical arguments shouting “Why!”; no laughable self-deception saying “You’re still lying to me, aren’t you?”

She only, with a hoarse voice, so calm, so cold, so numbly… sought a reason.

“Reason… ah.”

Reason…

Anselm gazed at Mingfuluo’s trembling purple eyes in the rain, his lips quivering slightly.

He had ten thousand ways to make Mingfuluo believe his words, believe in fate’s existence. He felt… if he wanted her to choose, he should at least give her a reason.

Only by making Mingfuluo truly understand his plight would she see it as more than mere betrayal.

But as Anselm prepared to reveal the world’s greatest secret to her, all his words caught in his throat.

A sudden realization struck the thirteen-year-old Hydra’s mind like lightning.

Arlo… would she choose to understand my plight?

Or… follow fate’s path?

To gain her trust this way, it would require someone who, under fate’s design, endured endless suffering, someone who wouldn’t have faced such despair but was plunged into it for fate’s needs.

But if Mingfuluo Zege, this genius with such extraordinary intellect and obsessive idealism, learned of fate’s existence, would she… rise up against it?

No… she wouldn’t. Because what fate sought to achieve was what she pursued.

Not only would she not resist, but she would be ecstatic that her envisioned future was “destined.”

The cost of realizing this ideal was sacrificing Babel Tower?

No, knowing the details, Mingfuluo could deduce fate’s purpose, make finer arrangements, even avoid Babel Tower’s collapse—just as… he was doing.

In the storm, the dazed thirteen-year-old boy, struck by that thunderous realization, understood one thing.

That was it—revealing the truth to Mingfuluo wouldn’t earn her help.

It would only make her his absolute enemy.

An idealist, upon learning their ideal was destined to become reality, would inevitably stand with the side that could make it real.

Just like when he said he’d abandon their ideal, her anxiety and loss stemmed not from losing a friend but… from losing an ally.

Just like now, she didn’t ask with concern if he had some hidden pain but instead, so coldly… demanded a reason.

So… that’s how it was.

From the very beginning, Arlo was never truly his friend.

“There’s no… reason.”

Anselm slowly tightened his grip on his cane, yet spoke with a light, casual tone, laughing:

His laughter grew louder, as if to cover something, erupting into delighted guffaws: “No reason, Arlo, no reason at all!”

“What are you hiding, Anselm?”

In the storm, the petite woman stepped forward, instantly seeing through him, her voice rising: “Don’t try to deceive me! If you want my answer, give me a reason first!”

Thud!

The heavy sound of his cane striking the ground halted Mingfuluo’s advance.

Reason… reason.

Not a hidden pain, but a reason.

Anselm tugged at the corner of his mouth, still smiling: “I told you, there’s no reason.”

“You clearly—”

“Can’t give an answer without a reason?”

He spread his hands: “Then let me ask another way, dear Arlo—the most direct, straightforward way.”

“You’ve always wanted to be my Contract Head, haven’t you? The condition is simple: just place your ideal beneath my existence.”

“If I order you to do something, even if it threatens your ideal, you must carry it out without hesitation—can you do that?”

“…”

Mingfuluo fell silent, her pale, bloodless face showing no expression.

That silence was already her answer.

“Then let me be even more straightforward.”

“I never intended to realize that so-called ideal. On the contrary, I want to stop it, I want to… destroy it.”

In that instant, Anselm felt Mingfuluo’s gaze—shocked, furious, disbelieving.

“What… did you say!” Mingfuluo forced out through gritted teeth, her voice hoarse.

“Look, look, Arlo, at this moment, you don’t need a reason anymore.”

Anselm burst into laughter: “You don’t need logic or justification to feel such clear hostility toward me, to see me as…”

“An enemy.”

Slowly, expressionlessly, Anselm uttered those two words, no longer needing a clear answer from Mingfuluo, for he already knew it.

An answer that made him glad he hadn’t rashly revealed the “truth” to her.

As expected… she was exactly the kind of person he thought.

“Do you know why there’s no reason? Because everything we’ve been through during this time was all…”

Having received his answer from Mingfuluo’s silence, Anselm laughed freely, as if relieved:

“My lie.”

He spun his cane leisurely: “I admire your talent, I need your talent. You were supposed to be my first Contract Head, you were supposed to be.”

Under Mingfuluo’s stunned gaze, the young Hydra sighed softly: “But your obsession with that ideal… far exceeded my expectations.”

“You cannot place anything above me.”

His voice was cold, his eyes indifferent, like a lord looking down on a disloyal subject.

“I originally wanted to tame you gently. I became your friend, helped you, became the only companion in your lonely world… I thought you’d cherish me, need me, that I could become the most important presence in your life.”

“But I was wrong.”

Anselm shook his head: “I was too naive, thinking a little time and so-called ‘companionship’ would make you care for me, value me, until it surpassed that ideal.”

“But the truth is… I could never do that. Because you live for that ideal, Arlo.”

In the young devil’s eyes, all warmth was erased, replaced by a cruel, icy glint.

“It must… be destroyed and reshaped.”

He murmured softly, audible only to himself: “To get the you I want.”

In the torrential rain, the once inseparable friends, the like-minded partners, stared at each other.

Neither could see even a trace of pleading or yielding in the other’s eyes.

“So, all of this was a lie?”

Mingfuluo’s voice was faint, so faint it seemed the raindrops could shatter it.

“Yes, it was all a lie, Arlo.”

Anselm nodded slightly: “From now on, we are no longer friends.”

If, during this time, you had shown even the slightest inclination toward me, I wouldn’t have withheld all trust like this, but you didn’t, Arlo.

I should have realized sooner, I should have known—you never needed a friend or companion, only… an aid to realize your ideal.

Look at your eyes now… disappointed, angry, staring at a betrayer.

I know you too well, Arlo. I’ve never hated knowing you this well as much as I do today.

But you never truly knew me… Ha, it’s not your fault. After all, everything we’ve been through was a lie, wasn’t it?

Just a lie.

***

“You’re… truly great to the point of being nauseating.”

Facing Mingfuluo’s resolute declaration, Helen responded only with an expressionless retort.

Possessing a soul identical to Mingfuluo’s, naturally sharing the same resolve, she nonetheless spoke words completely contrary to herself.

“In your grand blueprint, is there not even the slightest space for Father?”

“Why should I leave a place for someone who betrayed me, who is destined to stand in my way?”

Mingfuluo replied coldly: “You’re… utterly mad.”

“Soil Enhancement Potion, portable healing device, Mechanized Armor, Data System…”

Helen stared into Mingfuluo’s eyes, listing one alchemical device or tool after another.

“…Energy Accumulator, Universal Ether Furnace, even the Nidhogg you’re controlling now—which of these didn’t come from Father’s concepts and designs? Mingfuluo Zege, who do you think made your achievements possible? Even the knowledge and power you have now came from Father’s grace.”

“How dare you, how do you have the face… to so brazenly cast aside Father’s efforts and blood, to arrogantly deny everything about him?”

“Those were his lies!”

Mingfuluo shouted angrily: “You fool! Haven’t you recalled everything yet? Those were lies he told to tame me, to tame you!”

“They were never lies!”

Helen’s voice, no less forceful, hoarse with rage, retorted:

“That statement itself is a lie!”

“…”

In the study, Anselm, propping his cheek with one hand, watching this scene through the screen, his fingers trembled slightly.

That statement itself… is a lie.

He murmured Helen’s words softly, then heard the reborn petite woman shout angrily at her “self”:

“All the emotions Father poured into you, all the efforts he made for you, everything you went through together… were never fake! He just didn’t want to tell you the reason, didn’t want you to know his pain… but you’d rather believe Father’s ‘lie’ than believe he had his reasons!”

She grabbed Mingfuluo’s collar, her knuckles whitening from the force:

The newborn soul, having reclaimed the full scope of past memories, no longer stood on that collapsed belief but from Anselm’s perspective, declaring with such loathing:

“You’re the betrayer, Mingfuluo Zege. You… don’t deserve to stand by Father’s side.”

Watching this, Anselm’s expression grew dazed.

“Helen… Arlo…”

Back then, Arlo hadn’t demanded a reason so coldly, like a judge sentencing a criminal, but instead… asked if he had some hidden pain, like Helen did.

Would everything have been different?

“I don’t need to stand by his side; mere mutual use is enough.”

Helen wasn’t shaken by Mingfuluo’s words, nor was Mingfuluo swayed by Helen.

She only looked at her other self coldly, answering expressionlessly: “Even if you defend him like this, he won’t care about you, because a failed you is just a worthless piece of trash in his eyes.”

“And you… have no chance of defeating me.”

“If it’s just a fight to the death, I indeed have no chance.”

Facing this vastly unequal contest, Helen showed no fear or even tension. She stepped back, placing her hand on the workbench nearby.

“But as for me, you wouldn’t use martial strength to decide who is… the true master.”

“…Hmph.”

Mingfuluo snorted coldly but didn’t deny it: “Even if it’s not about strength, you have no chance of winning.”

She, too, turned to face the workbench, beginning to gather tools.

Two people with absolutely identical souls needed no words to understand each other’s thoughts.

From the start, neither Helen nor Mingfuluo intended to settle this bet with force.

Otherwise, Mingfuluo could have killed Helen ten thousand times in an instant.

What they fought for wasn’t survival or victory, but who was… the true Mingfuluo Zege, the true master of this soul favored even by fate.

Thus, only a victory in the domain they most yearned for would be a true victory.

And in that domain, their ultimate goal, pursued since fifteen years ago, could only be one thing: creating a device to let mortals wield the extraordinary—

The Universal Ether Furnace, capable of upending the world.