CHAPTER 397: THE OLD GODS

"For Lorelle ... it was our first meeting. But for me..." Leofric said quietly, turning his gaze away from Lorelle and the others. "It’s been countless times. I’ve lost track of how many."

The room fell into silence, even Lorelle said nothing.

Based on Leofric’s words, it seemed she had been reincarnated over and over again, and each time she did, they would always meet.

It actually explained why she could never forget the feeling in her heart, and why she felt that spark the very first time they met.

She might not remember her past lives, but her heart did. It remembered him. It loved him so deeply that the feeling stayed, carved into her soul through every lifetime.

"What did you do?" Lorelle finally asked in a trembling voice. "What did you do to end up cursed like this?"

Primrose, standing nearby, thought both of them were cursed. However, since Lorelle couldn’t remember anything each time she died, at least her pain could never compare to the agony Leofric had endured again and again.

He had loved her more times than he could count, only to watch her die, find her again, and lose her all over once more.

If that wasn’t torture, then Primrose didn’t know what could be called suffering.

She herself couldn’t even bear the pain in her heart when she saw Edmund weeping in front of her grave, and she knew her husband could never forget the pain and agony he felt when he watched his wife die.

Leofric didn’t answer right away. His hands clenched slightly at his sides, and for a brief moment, the faint shimmer in his eyes revealed a pain too old to be described.

"I broke a vow," he finally said. His voice was low, almost like a confession whispered to the wind. "A vow made to the gods."

Lorelle’s brows furrowed. "A vow?"

"I once asked something from the gods," Leofric admitted softly. "And in return, I swore never to fall in love, never to have a romantic bond with anyone. If I did ..." he paused, his jaw tightening. "... they would take the person I love away from me."

"Then how ... how could you have a relationship with me in the first place if you already made that vow?" Lorelle looked at him with mixed emotions. "You should’ve turned me down from the start."

[Before this damn curse loophole happened to me, he should’ve never accepted my love in the first place!] Lorelle screamed in her mind, frustrated. [Why did he have to accept my love? Why did he have to love me back? If he’d just walked away, I wouldn’t be trapped like this!]

Lorelle loved Leofric, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have questions about why he had allowed something this terrible to happen to her.

After all, the curse had stolen every ounce of joy from her lifetimes, leaving her stuck in a cycle she never chose. Therefore all her anger, her heartbreak, and her frustration was more than justified.

"Because we were already in love before I made the vow," Leofric said, sounding just as frustrated as she was, maybe even more. "I had marked you once, and I had no idea you would keep reincarnating again and again ... only to meet me every time."

When Leofric made the deal with the gods, Lorelle had already died. He truly believed he would never fall in love again because the woman he loved was gone forever.

But fate, as cruel as it was, had other plans.

Without his knowledge, the gods twisted his wish into something far worse. The woman he thought he had lost forever kept being reborn, only for him to find her again, and lose her each time.

It was a punishment disguised as mercy, a cycle he could never escape, and no matter how many times he tried to stay away, the moment he saw her, his heart always betrayed him.

"So ... who are these gods we’re talking about?" Edmund finally spoke after a long silence. "Can’t you just ask them to undo your vow?"

Both Edmund and Primrose couldn’t understand why Leofric hadn’t tried to negotiate again, and why he didn’t just give up his power so the cursed cycle could finally end.

Leofric let out a bitter, hollow laugh. "I would if I could," he said quietly, his tone filling with irony. "But the gods who created the curse, and the so-called blessing that tied our souls together have been dead for a very long time."

His expression darkened. "They vanished ages ago, leaving behind only their laws, their magic, and their punishments. No one can undo what they created, not even me."

The air in the room seemed to grow colder with every word he spoke.

It was a torment with no end, a love chained by the law of dead gods, a curse that had outlived its makers.

Primrose couldn’t help but wonder what kind of deal Leofric had made with those gods, and what could possibly make someone willing to trade away something as precious as love.

People liked to believe that avoiding love was easy, but in truth, most hearts don’t ask for permission to fall. That was why his vow had been doomed from the beginning.

Still, another question lingered in Primrose’s mind. "How could the gods die?" she asked softly.

Leofric tilted his head slightly, meeting her eyes with a tired look. "Well ... Your Majesty, it’s complicated," he said. "But to put it simply, all their temples were burned to the ground, and their statues were shattered until not a single trace of them remained."

He paused before adding, "When their worshippers began to disappear, so did their power, and once no one believed in them anymore ... they faded away too."

Primrose remembered hearing a story about this from her father when she was little. It was about how fifteen gods vanished from the world in just seven days.

Their temples turned to ash, their statues reduced to dust, until there was nothing left but silence.

But the strangest part of the story was always the same: the ones who destroyed those temples weren’t the gods’ enemies. They were their most loyal followers.