“Miss Annabell! Quick! Let’s go in together!” Charlotte grabbed Annabell’s ice-cold hand like it was a lifeline, trying to pull her toward the light gate.
But she couldn’t move her.
Annabell stood rooted to the spot, completely still.
“Miss Annabell?” Charlotte turned back, her face full of anxiety and confusion. “What are you doing? That monster is coming!”
Ahead, the enraged Demon God had suppressed the backlash inside its body and was dragging its massive form closer like death itself. The temperature in the main hall was terrifyingly high, the air wailing under the scorching heat of the black flames.
“We can’t escape.” Annabell’s voice was unusually calm—so calm it made Charlotte feel a wave of unexplainable panic.
“This gate can only pass one person at a time.” Annabell tilted her head slightly, her heterochromatic red-and-blue eyes quietly fixed on Charlotte. Gone was the usual arrogance, gone was the cold, deliberate mask. What showed in her gaze was an unprecedented tenderness, even a trace of longing.
“Besides, even if we could go together, if no one stays behind to hold him off, that monster will tear us and the space apart the moment we step through the gate.”
“No! Absolutely not!” Tears instantly streamed down Charlotte’s face. She shook her head desperately, clutching Annabell’s arm so hard her nails dug into the flesh. “I refuse to go alone! If we go, we go together. If we die… we die here together!”
“Idiot.”
Annabell softly scolded, but a weak smile tugged at her lips.
She raised her free hand—the one not holding the staff—and gently wiped away the tears at the corner of Charlotte’s eyes. The chill of her fingertips against the scorching heat of the tears made Charlotte’s heart tremble violently.
“Actually… I’ve wanted to be by your side for a long time now.”
Amid the deafening roar of the Demon God, in this final moment of life and death, Annabell spoke as if she were in a peaceful garden, her voice soft enough for only the two of them to hear.
Charlotte froze. Even her crying stopped as she stared blankly at Annabell.
“You think you hid it well? Every time you saw me, your eyes would dart away, yet you always sneaked glances when you thought I wasn’t looking. You’re so clumsy it makes me want to bully you.”
A glimmer of memory flashed in Annabell’s eyes, and her tone became gentler than ever before.
“Actually… for a long time now, I’ve been watching you. You crybaby, you coward… yet you’re braver than anyone.”
This sudden, almost confession-like declaration exploded like a thunderbolt in Charlotte’s mind.
She was so shocked her mouth fell open, her mind completely blank.
‘Miss Annabell… has been watching me all along?’ ‘She never hated me? She… could she also…’
An overwhelming sense of happiness and a crushing despair surged into her heart at the same time.
Charlotte was about to say something, but she saw Annabell’s smile abruptly vanish.
The next second, Annabell’s hand, which had been caressing her cheek, suddenly pushed with all its force!
“Take this feeling and live on for me!”
An irresistible burst of mana exploded from Annabell’s palm, shoving Charlotte hard into the emerald-green light gate behind her.
“No!!!”
Charlotte let out a heart-wrenching scream.
She reached out her hand toward the gate, trying to grab Annabell’s clothes, but her fingers only met cold air.
The emerald light gate, after accepting Charlotte, instantly began to warp and flicker.
With a soft sound, that door—the last hope of survival—along with Charlotte’s desperate cries, completely dissipated into the air, as if it had never existed.
Inside the great hall, only the purple-black sea of fire remained.
“A touching farewell… it makes me sick.”
The Demon God looked down scornfully at the remaining Annabell and sneered. “You think sending her away will save her? Once I crush you, I’ll break through that Elven King’s turtle shell and drag her out to eat!”
Annabell ignored the Demon God’s taunts.
She slowly turned around, all tenderness gone from her face, and looked at Rosalind, who was still frozen in shock.
“Catch.”
A sparkling mystic realm gem was tossed over.
Rosalind caught it instinctively—it was Annabell’s teleportation gem.
“Annabell…” Rosalind’s lips trembled as she looked at the gem, the only hope of escape.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Saintess.” Annabell shot her a cold glance, her tone filled with contempt and arrogance. “I just don’t want to die together with a weakling who can’t even maintain a shield. It would tarnish my honor as the Heir of the Duke’s House.”
“You…” Rosalind’s eyes reddened. Though it was a vicious insult, she could hear the determination behind it—the decision to leave the path of life to her.
“You all deserve to die! Turn to ashes, every last one of you!”
The Demon God lost patience. It roared, and the black flames hanging from the ceiling transformed into countless massive fire dragons, diving straight at the two of them!
“Forbidden spell — 【Nine Dragons Pulling Coffin】!”
At that critical moment, a mad light blazed in Annabell’s eyes as she unhesitatingly unleashed this supreme forbidden spell, said to suppress even gods.
Her mana was completely drained in an instant.
From the void came nine dragon roars that shook the soul.
Nine colossal star dragons, formed from void chains, appeared out of thin air, pulling a bronze ancient coffin that exuded a primeval aura. They crashed down onto the Demon God’s head!
The moment this super-tier forbidden spell descended, time and space within the entire great hall came to a brief standstill.
Even the sea of black flames was frozen in midair.
“Now! Get out!”
Annabell shouted sharply. A flick of her finger sent a strand of mana precisely shattering the mystic realm gem in Rosalind’s hand before she could react.
A white teleportation light shot up.
Rosalind only had time for half a cry before she was forcibly teleported out of the ruins space.
The temporal stasis lasted barely a second.
The Demon God furiously broke free from the Nine Dragons Pulling Coffin, the bronze ancient coffin incinerated into nothing by the black flames.
“You think something like that can kill me? Even if this is only my remnant consciousness, how could a mere mortal touch me? Die!”
The Demon God’s gigantic claw descended with world-destroying force, aimed squarely at Annabell, who stood alone.
Yet, facing an attack that could pulverize a mountain, Annabell did not despair. Instead, she slowly closed her eyes.
Her consciousness sank into the blue-glowing system panel deep within her sea of consciousness.
[Ding! Detected host facing lethal threat.]
[Activate Chapter 1 Newbie Gift Pack skill — ‘Absolute Defense’? (Duration: 10 minutes. Immune to all physical and magical damage during this time, with special effects.)]
“Activate.”
Annabell whispered in her heart.
A colorless barrier, thin as a cicada’s wing yet containing ineffable laws, instantly enveloped Annabell.
The Demon God’s claw struck the barrier with a deafening boom, but the seemingly insignificant girl didn’t even have her clothes ruffled.
The barrier was unbreakable, even shattering the Demon God’s hand bones into pieces from the rebound!
“W-What is this?!” The Demon God let out a horrified shriek.
Annabell slowly opened her eyes. She crossed her arms, standing alone amid the sea of purple-black flames.
She lifted her chin slightly, looking at the furious Demon God outside, feeling smug inside.
‘Hmph, Great Demon God? That’s all you’ve got.’
On the surface she was cold as ice, but in her mind she was frantically doing the math: ‘I’ve used up even my last resort trump card, and threw in that emotional life-and-death farewell scene…’
‘By now, that little idiot Charlotte’s affection for me should have exploded to max level, right? This wave was totally worth it.’ ‘As for why I sent away that Saintess… I just didn’t want her to see my hidden cards. A convenient side move.’
***
Meanwhile, beyond the Trial Gate.
Inside the grand and ancient Elf King Imperial Palace, an empty hall echoed with a girl’s heart-wrenching sobs.
Charlotte knelt on the cold floor, her hands covering her face as tears burst through the gaps in her fingers.
Annabell’s last gentle gaze, those words “live on”—they cut like knives into her heart.
“Why… why did you push me away… Miss Annabell… I don’t want you to die…”
Learning that Annabell had known all along and had been watching her too—this belated mutual feeling ended with them separated by life and death.
Charlotte felt the world spin, everything turning gray, her heart like dead ashes.
“Enough, girl! Stop crying! This isn’t the time to despair!”
The old grandmother’s authoritative voice suddenly exploded in her sea of consciousness, like a wake-up call.
“What do you mean… Miss Annabell, she…” Charlotte looked up blankly, her eyes hollow.
“I mean, even if she’s likely dead now, as long as you can accept the ultimate Elven King legacy and combine it with the soulfire inside you…” The old grandmother took a deep breath and dropped a bombshell.
“I’ll teach you an ‘Ancient Resurrection Art’! If you become strong enough, you can forcibly drag her soul back from the Underworld!”
“Resurrection… art?”
A faint but fiercely burning spark seemed to ignite in Charlotte’s dead eyes.
She slowly stood up from the floor and wiped away her tears.
The mana of a high-rank mage, now mixed with an unyielding determination, surged wildly within her.
“I want to learn it. No matter what it costs, I will bring her back.”