The polar storm within the Main Hall finally subsided completely.
The countless ice crystals turned into specks of fluorescent light, scattering into the air.
Annabell slowly opened her eyes, her vision gradually shifting from blurriness to clarity.
The intense headache made her involuntarily furrow her brows, but what unsettled her more was the soft, warm body pressed tightly against her own.
Charlotte was still clinging to her neck, her small face buried in the crook of her neck, and her warm breath hit Annabell’s collarbone with each exhale, sending waves of strange tingling sensations.
Memories flooded back like a tidal wave.
Mana rampage, frenzied slaughter…
And finally, that confession that had exploded in her ears, embarrassing to the extreme.
“I love you!”
“Even if we’re both girls, even if the whole world despises us, I still want to be your life partner! I only have you for the rest of my life!”
A layer of alluring pink spread across Annabell’s pale neck.
“You… you idiot, do you even have any idea what stupid nonsense you just said?” Annabell’s voice was a bit hoarse, but her tone carried that familiar, condescending tsundere attitude she always had.
“Miss Annabell? You’re awake? You’re really awake?!”
Charlotte lifted her head in delight, her eyes still brimming with tears, her nose red like a puppy that had just been crying.
The distance between them was mere inches.
Their noses were almost touching, and their breaths mingled together.
It was as if the once-cold Main Hall had inexplicably warmed up a few degrees due to the intensely ambiguous, sapphic atmosphere hanging between them.
“D-don’t get so close!”
Annabell’s heart was pounding. To cover up her inner panic and shyness, she pretended to be aloof and pushed Charlotte back a little, then quickly turned around, leaving Charlotte with what seemed like a cold, heartless back.
“I’m fine now. Just now… it was just my ancestor’s mana acting a bit unruly. I can suppress that level of rampage on my own eventually. I-I don’t need you to meddle.”
Annabell stood with her back to Charlotte, arms crossed, forcing calmness into her words, but her slightly trembling shoulders and red earlobes betrayed her extremely unsettled inner state.
That wasn’t a lie either. If it were the original Annabell, she definitely wouldn’t have been able to control the mana rampage. But now, having prepared well in advance, she actually had a one hundred percent chance of regaining consciousness before the rampage even started.
Well, she had already woken up around the time Rosalind cast the purification spell.
She wouldn’t do anything stupid without certainty!
Everything after that was just an act!
That way, Charlotte’s call seemed even more like a miracle! That way, this girl would be completely devoted!
And now, well, it seemed like it had worked a little too well?
Charlotte was stunned for a moment, then the corners of her mouth couldn’t help but curl up.
Ah… that’s Miss Annabell.
That lively, tsundere, easily flustered Miss Annabell!!
Sensing the flustered softness beneath Annabell’s cold shell, Charlotte summoned courage from somewhere. Instead of withdrawing timidly as usual, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Annabell from behind.
“Hey! What are you doing—” Annabell stiffened, struggling symbolically. “Let go.”
“I won’t let go.” Charlotte pressed her face against Annabell’s back, feeling the genuine heartbeat, and said softly but with utmost seriousness, “What I said just now, every word is true. I want to be with Miss Annabell forever.”
Annabell bit her lip, clutching the hem of her mage robe tightly, saying nothing.
“Actually… I’ve been keeping something from you.” Charlotte took a deep breath, feeling it was time to confess everything.
She didn’t want to face the person she loved most with lies anymore.
“Miss Annabell, the truth is… I’m not a boy.” Charlotte stammered, her voice trembling with nervousness. “I-I’m a girl. And, and I…”
After saying that, Charlotte closed her eyes nervously, waiting for Annabell to push her away, get angry, or even curse at her.
But the expected storm never came.
Annabell didn’t push her away. She just let out a very faint sigh. Turning her head slightly, she glanced at Charlotte with a look as if she were looking at an idiot, her voice light but carrying a hint of uncontrollable amusement.
“I’ve known for a long time, you dummy.”
“Huh?!” Charlotte’s eyes flew wide open, her face full of disbelief. “Y-you knew? Since when?!”
“Hmph, you really thought you could fool a high-level mage’s perception? That soft perfume on you, and your terrible lies—they’ve exposed you completely.” Annabell raised her chin arrogantly. “I just couldn’t be bothered to call you out on it.”
“Th-then, about my confession…”
“Barely acceptable. For the sake of how hard you tried just now, I’ll graciously—”
“Watch out!!! Get out of the way!!!”
Just as the moment was sweet and tender enough to burst with pink bubbles, a terrified scream ruthlessly interrupted them.
It was Rosalind.
Annabell and Charlotte were both startled and turned around sharply.
On the ice not far away, the First Prince Charles, who should have been unconscious from blood loss and extreme terror, was undergoing a horrifying transformation.
Without anyone noticing, a dark purple-black flame, exuding a sickening aura of evil, had quietly latched onto Charles’s severed right shoulder.
It had taken advantage of the moment when Charles’s mental state completely collapsed and Annabell’s mana withdrawal caused the seal to loosen, silently planting its spark.
Charles’s body slowly stood up in an extremely twisted, inhuman posture.
His bones cracked with a sharp sound, and his once decent-looking face was now completely deformed.
His eyes rolled back, showing no trace of white, only an abyssal black.
Charles opened his mouth, and fierce dark purple-black flames erupted from all seven orifices.
The flames carried an extremely corrosive nature, causing even the surrounding ice to hiss sharply as they turned into black poisonous gas.
“This is…?!” Annabell instantly shielded Charlotte behind her, her expression changing drastically.
The possessed Charles twisted his neck, letting out a cacophony of eerie laughter, as if coming from the depths of hell.
He ignored Annabell and the others far away, instead turning abruptly and slamming his left hand, wrapped in dark purple-black flames, fiercely onto the row of guardian swords in the center of the hall that had originally been used to seal the divine soulfire.
Under absolute brute force, the guardian swords shattered one after another.
The remaining seven embers of different attributes, which had been trembling under the seal, instantly lost their restraint and scattered in all directions.
But Charles just grinned cruelly, his dark purple-black flames turning into countless giant mouths, and with a violent, storm-like motion, he swallowed those fleeing soulfires one by one, forcibly devouring them into his own body!
With each soulfire he devoured, his aura grew more terrifying, and his body visibly expanded and deformed.
“Has he gone crazy?! Forcibly devouring embers of different attributes will cause his body to explode!” Charlotte exclaimed.
“He’s not devouring them… He’s reclaiming them.” Annabell gripped her staff tightly, a cold sweat forming on her forehead. “The true form of this soulfire is an ancient Great Demon God. Right now, he wants to reunite the soulfire, absorb its energy, and resurrect!”
“He’s using this prince’s body to undergo a metamorphosis… to descend again as the Great Demon God!”
As a player of the original game, how could she not know the story behind this soulfire?
But that was a mid-to-late game boss! They were supposed to fight it now?
Seriously? Can they win?
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