Chapter 83 : Chapter 83

Chapter 83. An Ill-Fated Bond

Irene’s eyes flew open. The lingering daze and attachment in those star-filled eyes receded like a tide.

In their place came an overwhelming wave of humiliation and fury.

She could clearly feel the weight and warmth of another body, and...

That unbearable touch, along with the tangled memories.

“Get off!”

The icy word burst from between her clenched teeth.

Eli, who was pressed over her, jolted violently. In an instant, he was fully awake, shaken out of the lingering haze and bodily exhaustion left behind by the chaos.

He practically rolled and scrambled off Irene.

Inside the cramped space, only the two of them remained, breathing in rough, suppressed gasps, along with...

A suffocating cold and unbearable awkwardness.

Eli’s heart pounded wildly. He did not dare look at Irene.

That madness born of desperation and illusion a moment ago...

That century-long life as husband and wife, carved into the bone, clashing violently against who they were in reality...

It left his mind in utter disarray, shame swallowing him whole.

“Your Highness...” He drew a deep breath and gathered what little courage he had left. “This matter... was entirely my fault. I... lost my senses... I will—”

“Shut up!”

Irene’s frigid voice cut him off at once.

She sat up and, with stiff movements, began straightening her disheveled robes. She kept her back to him.

“If you dare say one more word about it... I will kill you.”

Eli’s whole body froze. Every word in his throat was forced back down.

He clamped his mouth shut and even made his breathing as light as possible.

That suffocating silence enveloped the coffin once more.

After what felt like an entire century, Irene finally seemed to have finished composing herself.

Still with her back to Eli, she sat cross-legged, hands resting on her knees, her fingertips trembling ever so slightly.

She closed her eyes, as if trying to sense something.

A few seconds later—

Hum...

Irene’s eyes snapped open, and a gleam flashed through those star-filled pupils.

Her mana... had returned!

Because time had passed, and that strange gas had finally dissipated?

She did not hesitate. At once, she calmed her mind, and the green glow at her fingertips brightened rapidly.

Powerful mana once again flowed through her body without obstruction.

Eli also sharply sensed the immense presence radiating from Irene once more.

The boulder in his heart finally crashed to the ground.

But now that her mana had returned, Irene could crush him more easily than she could crush an ant.

Irene paid him no attention.

She lifted a finger and sliced it through the empty air inside the coffin.

Crash—!

The heavy gold bricks at the bottom of the coffin, along with the jade bed, instantly turned into streams of light.

They vanished into an almost imperceptible spatial ripple at her fingertip.

In the blink of an eye, the inside of the coffin was completely empty.

Only the cold obsidian walls remained, along with two people sunk in deathly silence... and one unconscious little furball.

Only after doing all this did Irene slowly rise to her feet.

She still kept her back to Eli, her voice so cold it held not a trace of feeling. “Move.”

Before the word had even finished falling—

The heavy obsidian coffin lid suddenly sprang upward and slid aside.

The palace was in ruins, but that deadly pinkish-white gas had already vanished without a trace.

Eli felt as though he had been granted a pardon. He bent down and searched around in the corner of the coffin.

He carefully picked up the still-unconscious little furball and tucked it back into his arms.

Then he practically crawled out of the coffin on hands and knees.

The cold air rushed into his lungs, clearing his muddled mind a little.

He instinctively looked at the now-empty giant coffin, then at Irene’s cold back, and for a moment, his heart was a tangled mess of emotions.

Irene had already walked to the center of the palace.

Only then did Eli understand why Bardel, the so-called “Iron Hand,” had met such an end, stabbed to death by so many of his partners working together.

It had been exploitation.

He had used those women of different races as tools and test subjects in his pursuit of immortal power.

Perhaps he really had poured some kind of feeling into those women.

But the foundation of that feeling had been those carefully woven century-long illusions, one after another.

Every woman who joined with him had, within the illusion, shared with him a century as husband and wife, a love carved into the soul, unique and irreplaceable.

And when they discovered the truth, when they learned they had merely been one among countless experimental subjects—

The towering fury of being deceived, of being violated...

“Cough...” The thought shocked Eli so badly that he sucked in a cold breath and could not help coughing.

He cautiously looked at Irene’s icy back ahead of him and summoned every ounce of courage he had.

“Your Highness, now that... now that your mana has returned, then... then we should leave this place, shouldn’t we?”

Irene did not slow her steps in the slightest. She did not even turn her head.

“Shut up.”

“Do not let me hear your voice.”

He immediately sealed his lips, lowered his head, and followed behind her with Gulu in his arms.

Together they passed through the deathly silent formation of clay figures and headed toward the spiral stone stairs they had used to come down.

When they reached the entrance to the vast underground space, Irene stopped.

With her back to Eli and to the abyss-like tomb behind them, she slowly raised both hands.

Vast mana gathered around her in a frenzy. Then Irene slammed her hands together with savage force.

RUMBLE—!!!!!!!!

The earth shook and the mountains trembled!

Deep beneath the Forgotten Rift, it was as though countless tons of explosives had detonated all at once.

A deafening, terrifying roar thundered up from below their feet.

The entire underground complex of Bardel’s tomb, along with the thousands upon thousands of clay soldiers outside it,

was being utterly... destroyed by a power so terrible it defied comprehension.

Eli’s face turned pale.

As he felt the annihilating shock surging up from the ground beneath his feet, he understood more clearly than ever before

just what kind of terrifying existence he had been toying with.

The roar of collapse continued for several full minutes before it gradually subsided, leaving only dull echoes rolling through the abyss.

Irene slowly lowered her hands, and the terrifying mana surging around her settled down.

“Move.” It was still that same cold word.

Eli did not dare delay for even an instant and hurried after her.

...

When Irene brought Eli through spatial transport once more, and they appeared by that emerald-like lake deep within Nightsong Forest, the warm afternoon sunlight spilled across them.

Looking at the peaceful, familiar lake before him, Eli felt as though an age had passed.

They had only gone through a few short days.

Yet it had felt like a nightmare.

In his arms, Gulu seemed to twitch uneasily under the sunlight, but still did not wake.

Irene stood by the lake, silently gazing at the shimmering water.

The breeze stirred her silver-white hair. Her back remained straight, cold, and distant.

Eli held Gulu and hesitated for a long while.

Looking at Irene’s back, which seemed to keep the whole world at a distance, he drew a deep breath and spoke with solemn sincerity.

“Your Highness... I...”

The words had only just left his mouth when the still surface of the lake suddenly bulged upward.

Valerian’s enormous head, covered in dark-blue rhomboid scales, burst out of the water. His cold golden vertical pupils instantly locked onto the tiny human on the shore.

A terrifying dragon’s might pressed down on Eli like something solid.

“I... will take responsibility.”

Irene’s body seemed to pause, if only by the slightest fraction.

But she did not turn around. Her movement was fast as lightning as she snatched the still-unconscious Gulu from Eli’s arms.

She used so much force that it nearly made him stumble.

Then, holding Gulu, she did not spare Eli another glance. Under Valerian’s icy gaze, she strode quickly toward the lake.

The clear water parted as though guided by an invisible power, forming that familiar stairway of water.

Irene’s figure swiftly disappeared into the entrance to the glimmering passage.

Splash...

The lake closed again, and the water returned to its original calm, as though nothing had happened.

Only Eli remained, standing alone by the shore.

His face was full of emotions too complicated for words—awkwardness, disappointment, guilt, and a faint trace of relief.

He stared at the lake, flat and still as a mirror, for a long while before finally letting out a helpless sigh.

Then he reached into his pack and took out the mysterious box that seemed neither metal nor jade.

“This strange journey...”

He weighed the box in his hand and let out a bitter, self-mocking laugh. “And this box is the only thing I got out of it...”

He paused, and his gaze drifted once more, of its own accord, toward the dark, unfathomable lake.

“Oh... no...”

...

At the bottom of the lake, within the elven sanctuary.

Soft light filtered through the flowing water and spilled into this quiet space.

Irene gently laid the still-sleeping Gulu in a small nest lined with soft moss.

Then she stood alone before the white jade bed that had been put back in place.

The warm white jade gave off a faint, luminous glow beneath the gentle light.

But when Irene’s gaze fell upon it, she recoiled as though she had been burned.

Her hand rose unconsciously and lightly brushed over her still-flat lower abdomen, her fingertips trembling ever so slightly.

Eli’s figure during their journey surfaced in her mind without her willing it.

And crashing in even more vividly was that century-long illusion that had felt utterly real.

Along with... those two tiny, living lives...

That story seemed to have been branded into the depths of her soul.

An indescribable ache and warmth instantly flooded the heart that had been cold for centuries.

But in the very next moment, that trace of softness vanished like a candle snuffed out by an icy wind.

What replaced it was a colder, deeper chill and... revulsion.

She abruptly withdrew her hand, as though the white jade bed had scalded her, and turned away at once.

The elven princess lifted her noble head high. In those star-filled eyes, the frozen distance and pride of old gathered once more.

And to that heart-lake within her, where ripples had begun to spread, she declared with absolute finality:

“After all... he is only a human.”