I didn’t want to attach much significance to the act of revenge.
I didn’t want to take it out on what had happened to me; I just wanted to put an end to this connection.
So, I let her live. Even though I was betrayed several times, I didn’t want Teresa to die.
She was someone I had once genuinely loved, after all, from the moment she first approached me.
I accepted that as salvation.
I had intended to end it simply by excluding her from my life.
But now, looking back, doesn’t that seem like a pathetic excuse?
Adrian’s room, right next door.
It was pitiful to see myself blankly gazing at the desk without doing anything.
I met Teresa. To be precise, I unilaterally discovered her, but it was true that I had confirmed Teresa was in this south.
…I had already prepared myself to meet her.
What I’m thinking about now, though, is the memories of Teresa.
When we first met and when we met for the second time.
The fact that there was only a little time left until the ending with that woman who had always been my fiancée in my life stirred up strange emotions in me.
“Salvation.”
If I recall the first meeting, I could say that, couldn’t I?
It was similar when we met again. She was the first woman to approach me warmly when I was hated by everyone.
I guess I thought that because I didn’t know it was a mask.
If I had known, I wouldn’t have suffered wounds like this.
The sighs pouring out mix with the wind and scatter.
Teresa was different from Miragen or Adele.
The first impression was good, but as time passed, those feelings twisted.
Now, I think of her as just a woman who holds no meaning for me.
She merely reminds me of my foolish past.
That past when I tried to walk a path that had no sign of any hope, embracing everyone.
– Why are you crying here? What’s your name?
The lingering feelings I thought I had discarded rise up again.
As I often say, this reincarnation makes it impossible for a person to only look at reality.
No matter what you see, the past is connected, and whatever you do, memories resurface.
No matter what actions I took, it was no different from repeating something I had already done.
I live in memories. I live in the resonance created by memories.
I don’t know if there are others like me who are repeating reincarnation, but that life is nothing short of horrific.
To not be able to see only reality—where could there be something more cruel than that?
When I was with Adrian, I could briefly forget such things, but not anymore.
From the moment I came to this south, I had no choice but to confront the past.
Now that I’ve seen Teresa, there’s nothing I can do but end this connection.
– They call me Teresa. I’ve heard a lot of rumors, but can I call you Robert?
I shook my head at the memories rushing in.
The memory of when I first met Teresa had already been considerably romanticized.
Back then, I didn’t even know about the Moon Stone, so I lived thinking it was a temporary salvation that had come to me.
I got up from the desk and approached the window.
Together with the Moon Tower, this is the closest place to see the moon.
It’s not a tall tower, but it’s a place where the oddly tilted moon almost touches the ground.
The branches stretched towards the sky were intertwined like a net, and the moon barely rested on that green tapestry.
It’s cold.
The moon, teetering on the brink of shattering, was carefully letting out its light.
Is it too exaggerated to think that I resemble that moon?
In this repetitive cycle of death, perhaps it could easily be me that shatters soon.
If I can’t endure just a little longer, I might unknowingly end this life.
Holding my trembling hand with the other, I gazed at the pale moon.
I saw the cold moon. I saw enough chilling moonlight that it could shatter and paint the sky in darkness.
#
Revenge is a slimy emotion.
No matter how many times it’s repeated, the name revenge can never be justified as good.
God is evil. It was never good; didn’t it originally come into the world named as a villain?
“…Ha ha.”
The corner of Teresa’s mouth twisted. The Violet family had long since crumbled.
Even that had barely survived; everything shattered from the moment her older brother died.
Wiping her cheek, Teresa whispered softly.
“Robert.”
He was the man who initially approached to use the Taylor family.
Without any real feelings for him, he solely aimed to revive Violet by exploiting the family’s wealth and name.
He never expected to genuinely fall in love with her during that process, but now that thought seemed like it might be a lie.
If he truly loved her, would he have even proposed a divorce?
He knew everything from the start.
He had been solely trying to destroy the Violet family while ignoring all the reasons he approached her.
Isn’t it the Taylor family? A place filled with lunatics ready to do anything for their family.
You should never let your guard down with someone who speaks of innocence there.
It was my mistake. If I hadn’t approached, if I hadn’t thought of using the name Taylor from the beginning…
Not everyone would have died like this.
I killed the butler who had served me since childhood.
I killed my parents who doubted me, and by the time I barely escaped that madness, everything had already crumbled.
In a world turned upside down, the moment I could see the cracks of collapse, what I finally realized was… that it was the name Robert Taylor.
Why did he think it was his fault? After all, it was all his actions.
He wasn’t the one who killed the butler. What was the butler’s name again? He couldn’t even remember now. It might have been one of Robert’s minions.
Ahaha.
…He was right. It wasn’t his fault.
If someone was at fault, it would be Robert Taylor. Why was he still thinking it was his fault?
Because everyone was watching him, he ended up making the decision himself.
Thwack! Teresa smacked her head, thinking for a moment that she had been driven mad.
Her disheveled hair was stained with blood, but it wasn’t her own.
It was the blood of those offered as sacrifices, as she was trying to gain power through those offerings.
It seemed she needed more people.
She cried a lot when her mother or father were offered as sacrifices.
How could they, who had loved her so much, be deceived by Robert into trying to kill their own daughter?
The voice that denied that was clear.
Teresa hated liars.
Robert, who whispered that he hadn’t done anything, was the very liar she despised and feared the most.
Splash. Splash.
Stepping lightly into the puddle made of blood, she climbed up the mountain of corpses.
Her foot slipped, plunging into the depths, and stomping on someone’s entrails no longer bothered her.
All of this was for revenge.
“Lady Teresa, have you come to perform the ritual again today?”
At the sudden voice, she turned her head to see a masked man bowing before her.
Was his name Cain? He was the first one to approach her, introducing himself as a magician.
He had asked if she wouldn’t attempt revenge, claiming to understand her situation.
Of course, she was suspicious, but that suspicion could easily be dispelled.
He was even giving her information about the princess being in the Northwest. Would someone like him truly harm her?
Princess Miragen was indeed in the Northwest.
Thanks to Robert personally stepping in to rescue her, she could quickly announce that she was still alive.
She announced her name to the immigrant tribe and scattered symbols around.
Anyone who saw that and still didn’t come to the South would probably be a fool or an idiot.
But she thought Robert would come.
He had prepared everything to bring about her downfall, so he would surely come to the South to finally take down Teresa Violet.
“Robert has arrived in the South. You will probably meet soon.”
“He came faster than I thought. I expected him to arrive a little later.”
“I heard he was with the Order, but targeting the Saint is probably dangerous.”
Targeting the Saint was nearly impossible. How would one capture Paladin Berod?
The leader of the immigrant tribe, Temujin, was strong, but Berod was on a different level.
He was someone who could unleash the full force of dozens of knights by himself.
So she decided to give up on the Saint and focus solely on dragging Robert in.
“First, let’s perform the ritual. How much time do we have left?”
“Three days should be enough. With our army at our disposal, it shouldn’t be too hard to subdue just Robert Taylor.”
“…I’m always curious, but I don’t understand why you’re helping me so much.”
“Everything is for the sake of the Sun. The Moon is too frail a being.”
The masked man had the sun’s symbol engraved on him.
Teresa smirked at the thought of the sun in a country that worshiped the moon as she sat atop the mountain of corpses.
Such things were of no concern now.
If it was for her revenge, to take revenge on Robert Taylor, who had shattered everything she had.
Even if it meant teaming up with the Dead Dragon.
As human blood flowed and drenched her body, the power seeping through that blood bent Teresa’s waist.
“Ugh…!”
Blood gushed from her mouth, and her eyes rolled back in pure torment.
Her mind remained intact. This ritual was the process of shedding the human body to gain new power.
The fragments of power that the Moon God once feared,
Cain smiled softly as he watched Teresa embrace it.
“It’s going very well. Everything should proceed smoothly.”
At his voice, Teresa let out a small laugh.
Even her pained face twisted into a smile that sent chills down the spines of those who witnessed it.
From her bloodied face, a violet darkness seeped out.
Her pale and emaciated body twisted even more, and disheveled hair fell downward in a cascade.
By the time this ritual ended, surely the ‘woman’ known as Teresa would no longer exist in this world.
She herself wished for that—to simply take revenge on Robert.
A small flower bloomed atop the mountain of corpses.
A flower so small that no one noticed it; those watching the ritual were oblivious to its existence.
Carried by the wind, the flower dropped one petal at a time.
The violet petals, sometimes white, sometimes yellow, fluttered through the air, falling into the crimson puddle below.
It gets soaked. It disappears.
The existence of a flower that could no longer remember its own light fades away so futilely.
Even the woman who had once been pure in her purpose was disappearing like that.
Violet, a name symbolizing a violet flower.
Now, no one would remember the violet flower, and thus it vanished.
Even the last petal fell away miserably.
And thus, it wilted.
When Teresa lifted her head, she saw the full moon shining through a gaping ceiling.
The unusually chilly light of the full moon was shining down on her.
As if blessing her rebirth, that light felt refreshingly invigorating.
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