After hearing this tragic history buried in dust, Astreia too fell into a long silence, overcome with emotion.
Meanwhile, Wendy’s back was already soaked with cold sweat.
A wave of fear surged in his heart.
Thank goodness! Thank goodness he’d been cautious back then and didn’t let Astreia pull out that so-called “Holy Sword”.
Otherwise… the consequences would have been unimaginable!
But at that moment, all the sadness and sentimentality that the Cardinal had shown earlier vanished, replaced by a gaze of utmost seriousness.
“So, Crown Princess.”
“Have you determined your Fallen Attribute?”
“Fallen Attribute?”
Wendy and Astreia both froze, asking in unison.
“That’s right.”
Allison nodded, her eyes behind the lenses growing sharper.
“For hundreds of years, many powerful women have, for various reasons, Fallen into Witches. But the attributes they displayed were only Gluttony, Envy, Wrath, and Sloth. These four… all seem to originate from the four Witches who have already died.”
“And Lust and Greed were sealed by the Holy Sword.”
As she spoke, the Cardinal took a step forward, her overwhelming presence crashing down.
She stared intently at Astreia, then glanced at Wendy, who wore an innocent expression.
“Crown Princess, Church research indicates that once a Witch’s Desire is ignited, it becomes endless, dragging them into the Madness Abyss.”
“Even if they satisfy that Desire, it only brings a fleeting moment of sanity—never anything like you…”
Allison’s gaze swept brazenly between Astreia’s moist red lips and Wendy’s neck, covered in Marks.
“…like you—radiant and clear-headed.”
“So, I’m very curious.”
The Cardinal’s face slowly drew closer, her words dropping one by one like an interrogation.
“What is the true root of your Fall?”
“And during these three days and nights, what exactly did you and Prince Wendy do… to ‘alleviate’ your Fall?”
Faced with the Cardinal’s questioning, the air instantly froze.
Wendy could even feel Astreia beside him tense up in an instant.
However, the next second, Astreia suddenly let out a scornful laugh.
“Ms. Allison Visseran, I respect you, but perhaps you’ve misunderstood something?”
Astreia also stepped forward, the pressure from her tall frame now engulfing the Cardinal instead.
She extended a slender index finger and lightly tapped her chest.
“My power, my Desire, my Fall…”
“No matter what its root is, or how it’s ‘alleviated’…”
“Those are all my own concerns.”
The curve of her lips became even more dangerous, pride and provocation shining unhidden in her emerald eyes.
“What does it have to do with you? Or the Church?”
“And by the way, those hundreds of thousands of Orcs were slaughtered by me after I first turned into a Witch. It was easy and delightful.”
“But does the Church now have the power to face that many Orcs?”
“Keep in mind, that wasn’t even my limit~”
Allison Visseran’s expression darkened instantly, her eyes behind the glasses sharp as blades.
Just as the atmosphere in the hall was about to explode, Wendy suddenly stepped forward, perfectly placing himself between the two, his face still adorned with that harmless, gentle smile.
“Prime Minister, please calm your anger.”
“Crown Princess has only just recovered. It’s inevitable her emotions are a bit… unstable.”
He bowed slightly to Allison in a soothing manner, then shifted his tone and looked at her sincerely.
“However, your earlier deduction was indeed spot on.”
“Hmm?”
Allison’s brows furrowed slightly.
“You’re right.”
Wendy’s tone was completely honest.
“Simply satisfying Desire does indeed only cause a Witch to sink deeper into the Abyss of Fall—a futile cure. So during these three days, Crown Princess and I weren’t ‘alleviating’ Desire at all.”
At these words, not only Allison, but even Astreia herself showed a trace of bewilderment.
No alleviation?
Then what exactly was the wild excess of those three days and nights?
Wendy ignored the Witch’s puzzled gaze and, unhurriedly, presented a brand new concept to the utterly disbelieving Cardinal.
“We weren’t ‘alleviating’, but rather…”
“Controlling.”
“Controlling?”
Allison mulled over the word, the doubt in her eyes deepening.
“That’s right.”
Wendy nodded, and in that moment, a researcher’s focus and fervor appeared on his face.
“It’s like a skilled rider taming the most wild-tempered steed. You don’t just lock it in a stable or beat it down. Instead, you mount its back and let it run, leap, and struggle across the widest plains, and just as it’s about to exhaust itself, you subdue it with even stronger willpower.”
He paused, giving the Prime Minister a knowing look.
“The Desire of Fall is the same.”
“What we did was have a tug-of-war of ‘willpower’ atop the peak of Desire.”
“Push that destructive instinct to the brink of the abyss, then haul it back with an even more powerful mind.”
“Every push and pull, every step along the edge of losing control, every moment of extreme restraint… all of it is an incomparable tempering and elevation of will.”
The Prince’s voice echoed through the hall.
Every word was logical and profound—yet when put together, it painted a picture so absurd it defied reason.
Allison Visseran stood frozen in place.
Her mind raced, trying to grasp this unheard-of “Taming Desire Theory”.
A tug-of-war on the peak of Desire?
Wandering on the edge of losing control?
A tempering of willpower?
This, this, this sounds…
So much like some shameless… bedroom game?!
Yet maddeningly, the theory itself seemed… almost logical!
The root of a Witch’s Fall is reason being devoured by Desire.
Then, if there were a way to make reason suppress—or even ‘tame’—Desire, wouldn’t that solve the problem at its source?
The expression on Allison’s face went from ‘shocked’ to ‘absurd’, then from ‘absurd’ to ‘contemplative’—finally settling into a twisted state of ‘I think I understand, but wish I didn’t’.
She looked at the dignified Prince, spouting nonsense with a straight face, then at the Crown Princess beside him—her cheeks red, gaze evasive—an unprecedented sense of powerlessness washed over her.
So… these three days, you two were… ‘training’?
But Wendy, oblivious to the Prime Minister’s crumbling worldview, continued:
“As for the Crown Princess’s Fallen Attribute—I don’t think it’s any of the existing four.”
He turned, locking eyes with Astreia’s emerald gaze, which was flickering with unease.
“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, aside from the six already mentioned, there’s one more.”
“It is the origin of all evil, the root and starting point of every sin.”
“The original sin of angels falling into demons, and that is—”
“Pride!”