Chapter: 193
What comes next after lovers, captivated by a mere touch, become bewitched deep in their hearts and fervently fall in love?
Ding-dong, ding-dong!
Ahh, the sound of a sacred bell resonates.
White petals scatter in all directions, and a breeze of blessings tickles the ear, asking if they are ready to share a kiss.
Are the two souls intertwined, ready to vow to gaze upon each other for eternity?
As beautiful melodies fill the air… tragedy steadily approaches.
===============================================================
A wave of information, mixed with white petals, erupted from the queen’s core. I tested the waters by shooting a piece of data, and instead of rebounding, it pierced through. That radial wave was not something that could be blocked.
I had no idea what kind of crazy ability that was.
I understood it was a sublimation ability inspired by weddings, but what chaos it would unleash was a mystery. Until experienced firsthand, one couldn’t infer the specifics of the ability.
How was I to know if a knife fight would erupt or if an NTR scenario would take place at the queen’s wedding in her mind? It’s like flipping a coin—heads or tails.
But one thing was clear.
Whether this ability or the subsequent one it birthed, there was undoubtedly a nearly lethal ability ready to blow the heads off love-struck targets.
Because love-struck couples inevitably end in tragedy—it’s just delicious that way.
A madman’s way of thinking is well understood by another madman.
Woooom—!
The wave grazed my body. The emotions inflated by that main release began to infect me, quickly morphing into infatuation. It’s like a virus.
You can’t add new items to a full warehouse, so they rot the existing crops inside instead.
I anticipated a breach. Simply put, we were in a fable while they were in sublimation. The difference in capacity between our abilities meant we’d be at a disadvantage unless we countered the activation mechanism perfectly.
The judgement was swift. I’d take the tanking role.
“I’ll cover you, so just hit!”
“Understood!”
With my superior information processing abilities, I’d buy some time while Pinkvalez delivered a knockout blow to the queen’s head.
Using our connected tails, I pulled the affected parts of Pinkvalez over. Acceleration kicked in. All sorts of emotions were tainted by infatuation. I had fallen for the queen.
To make her fall for me! Well, go ahead and try if you can handle my love.
I awakened the malice and churned through the torture circuit. Let’s turn this into a bloody wedding.
“Quick, get that carotid artery!”
“…Oh my? Mima, were you always this intense?”
The queen looked startled. And towards her shocked face, Pinkvalez’s magnificent right straight shot forth.
I’d heard the Queen had no training in close-quarters combat or information warfare. If that’s true, this would be our chance—
Thunk.
A black shadow suddenly emerged in front of the queen, blocking Pinkvalez’s punch. It was a muscular, middle-aged man with wildly unkempt hair. Just a shadow clone.
While it might not be a fully complete Heavenly Demon, it seemed to have stolen some teachings from martial arts doctrines. That would be fine. If this were just a martial arts clone, my support for Yuli would help her handle it.
However… the queen was supplementing the incomplete Heavenly Demon’s deficient prediction abilities with psychological tactics.
“Ugh, staring at my face is scary, Yuli… Are you perhaps jealous? Do you feel you can’t be loved unless you look young?”
“No! I just need to smash your face into pieces—!”
The queen hiding behind the Heavenly Demon smiled gracefully. Each gesture and movement stirred Yuli’s emotions and manipulated her actions.
She was maneuvering others into traps.
Ding.
With the sound of the bell, Yuli lost her balance to the Heavenly Demon’s low kick.
The queen immediately countered Yuli’s opening. A shadow blade stretched forth from the lily-white ground, aiming to rip through her abdomen— but I intervened.
Kaang—!
I snapped my fingers and sent a wave of information to shatter the blade. Then, the queen locked her gaze on me.
“Creating something so terrifying to supplement your position—it’s truly impressive. Mind if I borrow it? Indefinitely.”
“…Give it back, darling!”
“If you kneel and lick my toes, I might consider it!”
“Shut that filthy mouth and die!”
Whoosh—!
With a sound like the wind tearing, Pinkvalez’s fist flew forth.
The shadow Heavenly Demon engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Pinkvalez, while the queen manipulated the Heavenly Demon, sprinkling pheromones between actions, thwarting my counter. Even though it was a 2-on-1, the situation remained tense.
I was even caught off guard once. The queen’s bluff of aiming to finish Yuli unsettled me, shaking my concentration. But.
Yuli Lanster’s fierce fighting spirit was turning the tide of the battle.
Even as attacks flowed and she took counterattacks from the Heavenly Demon, she absorbed the punches with her forehead, bleeding and melting but viciously continuing her assault.
The intensity made even the queen falter a bit.
With everything she had, Yuli Lanster was gradually pushing back the shadowy Heavenly Demon.
It’s not desperation or mutual destruction. It’s trust that she’s linked to me through our tails…
“If you don’t want to see me die, you better take care of me!”
“…”
She was banking on the high-performance information recovery module. I created information as sharp as a knife and threw it at the queen, processing the swelling infatuation into a deranged obsession, while simultaneously healing Yuli’s broken form battered by the Heavenly Demon’s punches.
If I had a body, I would definitely be steaming from the heat in my head.
We pushed through. The momentum was on our side. But… why wasn’t the fourth wave arriving? There was no reason to play weak in this position.
Ding-ding.
The bell continued to ring faintly. Could it be…
The “Wedding March,” the sublimation attack… was it still ongoing? It wasn’t just about turning the target’s emotions into infatuation?
A chill shot through me, like having ice water dumped on my head.
In this moment, the queen accelerated her offensive. Focus on this. Could Yuli really die like this? Her movements spoke as if to say so.
That action grounded my determination.
The ringing bell echoed like a time bomb. No matter what happens, the trigger is infatuation. This growing infatuation must be discarded anywhere. That instinct arose within me.
“Hologram!”
I temporarily created a version of myself with a gender swap to inject infatuation. I accepted slight data loss risk. And my judgment proved right.
Bulge.
Bulge-bulge-bulge.
The chest of the clone swelled. It was as if thousands of balloons were simultaneously inflating inside. A prelude to explosion. A fraction of a moment late.
Ka-boom—!!
The love erupted. An explosion fueled by the burgeoning affection—talk about a wicked ability. I managed to activate it after discarding around 80% of my emotions, minimizing the damage, but…
20% remained, resulting in direct explosions from close range. My right arm and more were blown away. I coughed up information like vomit as I tumbled across the floor.
It bloody hurt.
“Wizard?!”
Gak, cough… survived, just focus on your side!
Once the casting was over, wouldn’t the fourth wave arrive!?
My ominous instincts were always right. The queen, her face slightly weary from excessive sublimation operations, prepared her next ability.
“Shall we slowly end this…? ‘Heroine: One More Time in the Afterlife.’”
Red threads twitched.
My skin tingled, and a sense of crisis rang alarms.
The queen’s abilities were increasing lethality in the order of casting. Last time, she had the power to explode and obliterate a person, so it wouldn’t be shocking if a conditional instant-death ability shot forth this time.
With a slight air of confidence, the queen began to spoil how her victory would unfold.
“If you survive this time too… heh. Then, I might just go out of my way to capture you both. Pitting you against someone else. What do you think?”
“That bastard…”
It was time to go for broke.
Now that the queen was preparing a formidable ability, there was no room for her to defend.
Right now, the casting left her too preoccupied to pull any other retarded tricks.
Now that I was severely wounded and the aggro was somewhat off me.
And.
Yuli and I had steeled our resolve.
I began to prepare for what I would have to lose.
===============================================================
While the queen had been more cautious of me throughout the battle, Yuli was still the main attacker.
Yuli Lanster’s ability, darkened by her soul’s emotions, was a blow that burned away tightly woven hearts.
Instead of sinking to the bottom of that lake, she gained strength by erasing it.
Additionally.
The queen still had infatuation for me. It was Yuli’s affection stolen and grafted onto her. So it perfectly aligned.
By burning away Yuli’s infatuation, I could simultaneously ignite the queen’s affections, just as I had triggered an explosion through her sublimation.
It was the best strike but also the worst.
Even if this love had grown tangled by the queen’s trickery, its foundation was… memories with me. If I thought pessimistically, it might mean we could become strangers.
If she spoke to me the same way as ever, but her eyes held the awkwardness of meeting a stranger… how sad that would be. It would hurt.
But, I would reclaim it.
From our first encounter, we became friends. The second time would be easier.
Now, the love of the succubus I’d momentarily let go of would, someday, undoubtedly return to me. It wasn’t truly lost. A brief release.
So… let’s do it.
With my form broken and tattered, I consolidated all my information into one spot. I would shake the queen’s emotions and information to the core, ensuring she could not evade Yuli’s strike.
“Shadow cast upon your feet.”
Let’s go. I’ll clear the path for Yuli Lanster. Consider it an equal exchange for her desire for vengeance; it isn’t a bad trade.
“Darkness peering through the wardrobe—…”
No, wait. That feels too precious. It’s too painful to part with, after all that effort and building emotions! I bottle up the bubbling darkness as I store it in the arrows.
A black arrow that seems to suck in all colors drifts softly upward.
I don’t want to use it. But I grit my teeth and draw a line. I calm my cravings. I trust myself. We’ll get out of here and have playful laughs like always.
“Loneliness of the pitch-black night!”
Even until the very last moment of letting go, I hesitated.
But since I believed in Yuli Lanster’s promise to return to me…
Let go,
“‘Heart-piercing arrow’—!!”
===============================================================
Did she think she could evade or respond? The queen swung the red thread, attempting to exert power, but the wizard’s heart was swifter.
As the black arrow was loosed, it struck true. It pierced through her heart and traced a streak of black lines.
“Ah… extreme…”
The queen’s expression twisted. Yuli Lanster pushed the wobbling Heavenly Demon aside with her shoulder and took a step toward that blinding nightmare.
It was close.
Then, a wave of cold, black emotions surged from her tail.
The mad wizard’s feelings cloaked her soul once more. The pure white light felt so peaceful it was almost drowsy for a moment.
Yet, this dark, malignant emotion incited all her malice and made her go wild. Her vision spun, her heart ignited with hatred, the world appeared laughable, and love felt utterly trivial.
Dark spots formed in her eyes.
Sha-ra-ra-ra-ra—.
The sound of violent chains resonated.
So this is malice. It seems I’ve managed not to go insane after all. Yuli Lanster understood the wizard’s pain a little more now.
Right now, she could very easily toss aside her love, like throwing trash into a bin.
But, she shouldn’t.
This was a precious feeling; she had to mourn, be sad, and cling stubbornly while letting it go. She had to face it.
The wizard, despite all the tremendous weight on his shoulders, kept his heart in check. So, she couldn’t allow herself to be swayed by mere emotions.
Cha-ra-ra-ra—!
A dark chain appeared from the air and wrapped around Yuli Lanster’s right arm like a snake. And one strand of the chain branched off from her wrist, connecting to the white queen’s heart.
She could feel both her own love and the affection that the queen had stolen.
She held that precious pulsing feeling dearly.
Yuli Lanster pulled her arm back and took a deep breath, smirking.
“I understand. He’s a silly yet amusing person. It’s not strange for a woman who has been alone for centuries to have hearts in her eyes.”
“…Y-Yuli…!”
“So… how does it feel to actually experience such silly emotions?”
There was no answer. She probably didn’t have the room to respond. She was reeling from the heart-piercing arrows and swaying with every emotional tide.
She released all the strength from her body. Just before the strike, it was as still as the surface of an unblemished lake.
It felt like a journey through a vast expanse of time.
Having lost her hometown and rampaged like a wild dog, she finally settled next to the wizard. How many feelings had risen and fallen?
Now, the end was almost here.
She might be able to express the thrill of vengeance. She could shout every curse at the queen, heap degrading insults, and cap it all off.
But no. She didn’t want to wrap things up that way.
Cha-ra-ra-ra-ra—!!
Tick, tidik.
Sparks flew. A spark lit within the infatuation, igniting a flame. The combustion rising from the heart became a grand fire of immense magical energy, spreading to the chains.
The fist wrapped in chains burned brightly pink, revealing that the fuel was indeed infatuation. The moment the queen gazed upon that sight, a flicker of jealousy crossed her expression.
So that’s it…
Every fiber of her muscles brimming with strength. She tightened and pulled back to complete her charge.
Regrettable. It’s pitiful. Even if it was a fake feeling that grew from the queen’s machinations, it was still genuine feeling that blossomed once.
How could one bear to burn the very feelings that were so laboriously obtained?
Yet, it was okay.
She understood that the wizard was someone who wasn’t as messy as she had thought he was. He would certainly endeavor to win Yuli Lanster’s heart anew.
She believed.
Still, a little… unease lingered.
Yuli Lanster, loving the mad wizard, added her last words to her future lover.
“When you return, make sure you win me over properly! —”
“YULI—I—!!”
At the same instant, the queen’s scream, sensing her impending doom, echoed.
The strike that ignited her heart into powder was propelled with enough power to fracture the very mindful space they inhabited, pounding with destructive sounds of squell, squell.
With an explosion erupting, the queen’s love detonated right in front of her own chest.
“Black: Heart’s Ambition Burnt Away.”
Squeak. Crackle, crackle.
Ka-boom—!!
The blast ripped the queen’s upper half away, creating an explosion that turned the surrounding area upside down.
With the death of the caster holding up the mindful world, the lengthy nightmare shattered in an instant.
Returning the once fully functional Yuli Lanster’s mental world began to systematically eliminate all impurities.
The mad wizard was expelled from her heart.
===============================================================
Afterwards, the situation was somehow settled.
“Nest” was destroyed, the Succubus faction vanished, fled, or perished. Although the queen likely met her end, it wasn’t completely certain. The divine image of pleasure was secured by the mad wizard.
About 90% of the members trapped by the queen’s clutches were rescued.
The strongest magical wizard of modern times, Grand Mage Yuna, was thoroughly sulking.
The defense bureau field agent Yuli Lanster was in a coma from her recovery. However, she was expected to awake and regain consciousness within the week.
And today marked exactly a week since that incident.
The mad wizard entered Yuli’s hospital room, a bountiful bouquet in hand, just as she was waking from a long sleep.
It was rather refreshing to see Yuli Lanster with her hair down and sans glasses. The wizard gazed at her for a while.
It was Yuli who first broke the silence, yawning widely before greeting him as usual.
“Did you come?”
“Yeah. How are you feeling? Any gaps in your memory?”
“You know, until now, I didn’t know what love was… but I think I might finally understand it.”
“Go back to sleep. A week more should do you good.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll use this chance to pull a month-long sick leave.”
“Smart idea. And… no, never mind. I’ve got to go now, darling. I need to comfort Yuna.”
“Yes, take care of yourself, dear.”
The mad wizard, hoping to uncover some hints of any pink feelings during that brief exchange, observed Yuli Lanster’s eyes meticulously. However, he found nothing.
“…”
The wizard left, feeling somewhat disappointed and downcast.
Once he exited…
Yuli Lanster, hiding under the covers to avoid being caught, finally let out the breath she had been holding for a long time. Her ears were bright red.
There were still remnants left.
And with that, the succubus had learned what love truly was.
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