[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-i-m-in-love-with-the-villainess":3,"chapter-i-m-in-love-with-the-villainess-i-m-in-love-with-the-villainess-chapter-221":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","I'm in Love with the Villainess!",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},895381,1171,"Chapter 221: An Awakening...?","i-m-in-love-with-the-villainess-chapter-221",221,"\u003Cp>\"Like hell I’m dying here!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Dark Step]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Space twisted and I blinked mid-air, reappearing over the shattered road just as another massive head lunged. Jaws snapped shut where I’d been a heartbeat ago. I hit the broken asphalt hard, boots skidding, barely dodging getting both eaten and smeared into paste.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>White-hot pain flared from my missing hand. I clamped my remaining hand over the ragged stump, fingers digging in to slow the bleeding.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Dark Recovery]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Come on, you bastard...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Black light crawled over torn flesh, but it wasn’t enough. Again, the spell fizzled against the limits of what darkness could patch up.[Dark Recovery]was a bad joke compared to light magic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>BANG!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I threw myself into a roll. A shadow slammed down where I’d just been—a gigantic, unseen mass hitting like a falling building. The street exploded into dust and debris, a long gouge torn into it like some colossal sausage had just tried to crush me flat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The False Hydra writhed and convulsed, its invisible bulk distorting the rain. The more damage it took, the harder its camouflage trembled and flickered under the strain of pure agony.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just a little more... just a little...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My knees buckled.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t even feel them give out. One second I was standing, the next I was on the ground, legs dead weight beneath me. The exhaustion I’d been ignoring crashed over me all at once.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Y-You’ve gotta be kidding me! Move, damn it!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I tried to get up. Tried to limp. Anything. Just reach that half-collapsed building while my spells kept chewing through the monster and the countdown kept ticking.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But nothing...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My legs might as well have belonged to a corpse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Crawling wasn’t an option either. If I stopped focusing on healing—even this pathetic excuse for healing—I’d bleed out before the Hydra finished me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>FWOOSH!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The air above me screamed open. Rain veered away as if terrified, warping around a massive, invisible shape. A colossal, writhing bulk emerged from the sky and began to descend, blotting out everything.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Another attack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And I had nothing left.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What about Beelzebub!?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or Nyx!?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I ground my teeth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Making a deal when I still had cards to play was one thing. Begging while I was already half-dead?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That was suicide with extra steps. I’d have no leverage. The only contract they’d offer would chain me up as a slave in exchange for dragging my broken body off the chopping block.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not happening.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If I was going to be anyone’s slave, it’d be Evelina’s. Hers, and no one else’s.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dying here to save her territory might’ve been poetic... but making her cry over my corpse? Also not an option.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I had to live. No matter what.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if it meant bullshitting my way through magic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>ZIP!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Time stretched thin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I forced every last scrap of mental strength into overdrive. The descending head above me slowed to a lazy drift, like it was falling through syrup instead of air.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Too slow to be real.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But not slow enough to save me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I needed something. Anything. Now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Dark Step]was out. That thing was too big—trying to precisely calculate a safe teleport around that gargantuan mass in my current state was suicide. The spell formula I’d get would be a tangled mess I couldn’t solve in time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I needed another way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Something.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Think!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>THINK—!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ah, screw it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Magic here was math, right? Then I’d just start throwing equations together until something broke.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Umbral Cataclysm. Requiem. Black Sun. Every high-level spell I’d ever touched, I dragged their formulas into my mind, jumbling them together. Instead of casting them one by one, instead of releasing each cleanly, I held them back, stacking them, forcing their energies to coil tighter and tighter around my body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It felt like I’d plunged to the bottom of the ocean. Pressure crushed in from all sides, my organs threatening to burst under the sheer magical overload.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Didn’t matter. If I didn’t do this, I was dead anyway.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Die!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I roared, completing the twisted knot of magic I’d cobbled together. I opened my mouth wide and aimed it like a cannon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Significant Breakthrough Achieved!]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Adept: Lvl 2] -> [Adept: Lvl 5]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Malignant Heavenly Eclipse]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The world went silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not quiet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like someone had reached over and shut reality off.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I screamed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It wasn’t a beam. Well, it moved like a beam—but its form was definitely something else.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Darkness pulled inward first, dragging light, sound, and air into a tight point in front of me. Space pinched, like everything there was being pressed together.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then it snapped.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The point burst, sending a rough wave of black and violet outward. It didn’t burn or explode in fire; it just wiped through, stripping away whatever it touched.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for the descending mass above me?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It vanished.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not pushed back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But completely devoured across a line and spat out like it was nothing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For a heartbeat, rain fell straight through where it had been, drops slipping through empty air with nothing to hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then the backlash hit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"—!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sound rushed back all at once, along with the delayed recoil.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>BOOM!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The shockwave drove the street down, carving a rough circle around me. Stone and asphalt cracked and slid inward before grinding into dust. Anything standing nearby buckled and tore loose as the force dragged it toward the center.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Buildings leaned, then folded, then were simply... gone in chunks, eaten away and scattered like someone took a bite out of them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The air roared, thin and hollow, like something enormous had just been torn out of it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And at the center of it all—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or what was left of me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My body didn’t feel like mine. Pain had burned out into a dull, buzzing numbness, like my limbs were being worked from somewhere else.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My vision stuttered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Black.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Clear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then black again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then clear again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Somewhere inside that flicker—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Capturing Spirit... 91%]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Still not enough...?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You’ve gotta be kidding me...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A low, warping shriek rolled through what was left of the street.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The False Hydra wasn’t dead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course it wasn’t.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Its presence flickered now, easier to see, huge, twisted shapes phasing in and out, like something half-finished.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chunks of it were missing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not bleeding.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Missing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whole pieces of its body simply weren’t there anymore, cut out cleanly as if they’d never existed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the rest—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Was still coming.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>FWOOSH!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A half-formed head snapped into being a few meters away, its outline unstable, jaw crooked, like it had been put back together wrong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And it was angry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not angry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But panicking...?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Heh...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A wet laugh scraped out of my throat, bringing blood with it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"C’mon... just a little more...\"\u003C\u002Fp>",1111,"2026-06-03T05:52:53.768Z",1,"novelbin.me","e089e17143bc992b43bb8cea1009aeb979cdc6e91ad4f76ff9041825e79035a6","i-m-in-love-with-the-villainess-chapter-222","i-m-in-love-with-the-villainess-chapter-220",324,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fi-m-in-love-with-the-villainess-cover.jpg"]