Allen felt a chill in his heart and simply let down a tiny bit of his tightly guarded mental defenses.
In an instant, that dark desire surged forward like a flood breaking through a dam.
He looked again at the heroine before him, who was on the verge of collapse.
Her every smile, her exquisite face, her graceful curves, the strange blood-flower blooming on her shoulder, and her current fragile, dazed expression…
Everything about her made his heart race, igniting an impulse to possess her completely, to crush her, and to defile her.
“Haha… Hahahaha!”
Allen suddenly burst into a fit of laughter, doubling over so much that even Livia, standing across from him, felt startled.
She had spoken so sincerely, thinking that Allen would either be shaken or become even more determined to kill her.
But she couldn’t understand the playful, mocking expression he wore now.
The laughter stopped abruptly. Allen scanned her from top to bottom, his gaze appearing as if he had stripped her bare and seen through her entirely. He spoke slowly.
“I was wondering what was up with that ‘pure yet sensual’ charm you have. Livia, I suspect you’re suffering from a bit of sexual repression.”
“…What?”
Livia didn’t understand the modern term at first, but she was brilliant. She grasped its meaning almost instantly, and a flush of shame and indignation rose to her face.
Allen had no intention of letting her off the hook.
He knew the Evil God’s tricks for bewitching people; they were nothing more than amplifying the darkness in one’s heart.
As a self-proclaimed master of psychoanalysis, he was going to give this heroine a proper lesson today. He would show her that her dark, brooding speech from earlier was no reason at all to give up on herself.
“That’s right, sexual repression,” Allen commented with great interest.
“You think you’ve realized your ‘inhuman’ nature? That you’ve seen through the hypocrisy of so-called ‘justice’? No. You’ve simply taken the instinctive impulses you can’t understand and are afraid to accept—especially those primal urges for life and desire—and twisted them into a craving for ‘slaughter’ and ‘destruction.'”
Livia frowned, her lips pressed thin, but she didn’t argue. She seemed to be listening seriously to Allen’s “nonsense.”
Allen took a step forward, ignoring the increasingly distorted cheers around them, and fully entered the role of a psychiatrist.
“You say you feel no guilt when you kill, and use that as proof that you’re a monster. That’s exactly where the problem lies!” Allen’s voice clearly overrode all the background noise.
“It’s not that you don’t feel pleasure. It’s that you’ve taken this intense pleasure—one closely linked to power, control, and vitality—and incorrectly, yet ‘safely,’ labeled it as ‘killing’!”
He pressed closer, as if stripping away her layers of disguise to stare directly at the most unsightly secrets in the depths of her soul.
“Why? Because admitting to another more fundamental, more private pleasure—one originating from your body, emotions, and the satisfaction of your desires—is more terrifying to you than being a mass murderer!”
The corners of Allen’s mouth curled into a wicked arc.
He enjoyed this process. He enjoyed pulling this high-and-mighty heroine off her pedestal and forcing her to face her mundane self.
“Livia, you’ve never felt the joy of being a woman. In fact, you’ve been deliberately suppressing your lust all this time, haven’t you?”
This question was too private, too sharp. It stabbed precisely into her softest underbelly.
Livia’s face remained cold as ice, but in those beautiful cornflower blue eyes, it looked as if something had shattered.
It was the violent shock of someone having their secrets exposed, their final veil of decency ruthlessly torn away.
‘It’s working!’
Allen was ecstatic inside.
Against an iron-clad defense like Livia’s, conventional talk was useless.
In that case, don’t blame him for being harsh and disregarding her pitiful pride.
What he wanted was to tear off her arrogant disguise. He wanted to see her break!
“You’re just a stubborn tsundere!” Allen’s tone carried a strange excitement.
“You clearly have the power to heal your wound, yet you insist on letting it bleed. Why? You’re acting! You’re performing your pain, trying to use self-harm to gain sympathy!”
“Because admitting directly that ‘I want to be loved,’ ‘I crave touch,’ or ‘I need warmth’… saying those things is ten thousand times harder for you than admitting ‘I like to kill’!”
“No… That’s not right!”
For the first time, Livia’s voice wavered violently. It was a tremble mixed with shame and anger after having her inner thoughts completely exposed.
‘Ho ho ho! I see it! I finally see it!’
Allen almost laughed out loud.
This cold Knight Princess’s rare expression of bashful rage was more delightful than any trophy!
The smile on his face grew even deeper, making him look more and more like an ultimate villain who bewitched and toyed with people’s hearts.
“Your mother treated you like a tool to change fate. What she did to you was twist and suppress your normal emotions. She didn’t know how to love you healthily, and she never taught you how to healthily love yourself or others.”
“What you learned from her was that emotions are dangerous, desire brings pain, and your value must be proven by being ‘correct’ or ‘useful.'”
“So, when you awakened your power and killed for the first time, you found a ‘shortcut.’ By playing the ‘Justiciar,’ you could legally release your suppressed aggression and vitality while also gaining approval. It perfectly relieved the massive anxiety you’ve felt since childhood because you weren’t loved or accepted, didn’t it?”
His gaze drifted toward the stands, landing on the anxious Marianne.
“And Marianne… she represents your heart’s desire for pure emotion. You love her, but in your distorted perception, there is no place for that love. You aren’t afraid she will choose me. You’re afraid of the part of yourself that craves dependence and softness.”
“You’ve decided you’re a ‘monster,’ so you fear you’ll defile her, and even more, you fear being abandoned by her in the end!”
“So you preemptively denied yourself. ‘I am no longer me,’ ‘I have nothing’—it’s the perfect defense. By choosing total self-destruction, you escape the risk of being hurt again.”
“Don’t take all the blame, and don’t think too highly of yourself either. The evil gods just amplified all of this. They built this damn stage for you so you could continue to indulge in this painful self-performance without ever having to face a relationship that requires real courage.”
Allen paused, giving her a moment to breathe before throwing his final killing blow.
“You said ‘Livia von Stern’ isn’t you. You’re half right. That name is just a symbol, a label imposed on you by society and language. Of course it’s not the complete you. But because of that, you go looking for some ethereal, pure, and flawless ‘true self’? Don’t be stupid. That thing doesn’t exist!”
“The ‘justice’ you pursued and the ‘evil’ you’re indulging in now are essentially the same thing! Both are using a perfect, ideal self to judge the real, flesh-and-blood, desiring person you are! When your behavior doesn’t meet the standard, you fire yourself from being ‘you.’ That is nothing but a cowardly escape!”
“If this isn’t the real you, then who took your place when Marianne was in danger and stood up as a hero? Who fought the Sea Raiders for the people of the Kingdom? Who has been secretly eliminating cultists? And who plans to sacrifice themselves to eliminate the corruption of the Evil God?”
“So, Livia, admit it. Admit your desires, admit your love, and express it.”
“You are just such a divided, contradictory being driven by unconscious desires. The angry you, the cowardly you, the despicable you, along with the kind you, the brave you, and the noble you—they are all you.”
“You are Livia von Stern. You are a hero and my yuri heroine. You must find happiness with Marianne.”
Every word Allen spoke hit Livia directly in the heart.
She remained silent for a long time.
Then, she smiled.
There was no hint of shame or anger at being exposed in that smile; instead, it carried a strange sense of relief.
She raised her head and looked at Allen with an incredibly gentle posture, as if looking at a brilliant yet laughably naive fool.
“As expected, Allen de Laval… perhaps… I really will fall for you.”
“?”
A question mark slowly formed in Allen’s mind.
Although he was one hundred percent certain that Livia’s words had nothing to do with a romantic confession between a man and a woman, a very bad premonition made the hair on his body stand on end.
Something was wrong!
Livia seemed to have agreed with his analysis from the very beginning, and she had even… enjoyed the process of having her heart dissected layer by layer.
But she had no intention of stopping the battle!
She was merely admiring—admiring the only person in the world who could understand her.
“I was so foolish, truly,” Livia murmured softly, her words carrying a hint of intoxicating self-mockery. “If only I could have met you sooner. But… having inherited the reincarnation memories… I… really am not myself anymore. Haven’t you noticed yet?”
“!”
Allen whipped his head around to look at the spectator stands, his heart skipping a beat.
Time… had stopped.
The mountain-shattering roars of the crowd had vanished at some point, and the world had fallen into a deathly silence.
The tens of thousands of spectators in the stands were still cheering, shouting, and acting frantic.
Their movements, expressions, and even the dust they had kicked up were all frozen in mid-air, forming a massive, absurd tableau.
They hadn’t even realized that the two people in the center of the arena had been talking for so long.
At the same time, the sense of charm emanating from Livia was exploding at a terrifying speed.
That strange, faint fragrance became incredibly dense, nearly melting one’s reason entirely!
What made Allen’s skin crawl even more was that just by looking at her, insane thoughts surged uncontrollably in his mind—
‘I love her!’
‘I hate her!’
‘I love her! I hate her! I love her! I hate her!’
‘So… kill her! Kill her! Kill her!’
His heart was screaming wildly, and his sanity wavered violently on the edge of collapse.
The calm, calculating expression on his face was instantly replaced by shock and horror!
“Do you feel it?”
Livia’s smile was strange and exquisite, carrying a desolation that made one want to surrender to it.
“From the very beginning… I’ve been controlled by these emotions. Allen… hurry, kill me… I really… can’t control myself anymore.”
“Livia…”
No wonder.
No wonder she had looked at him like he was a fool.
Allen finally realized what a massive mistake he had made.
Under the influence of the Evil God, Livia was truly in a literal state of “repression.”
She had barely maintained her internal balance by relying on her remaining sanity and an extreme, paranoid denial of self.
And his self-righteous, soul-touching psychoanalysis, while Maxing out her favorability, had also completely destroyed the gate she used to suppress the corruption!
He had forced her to face her heart and emotions… wasn’t that the same as making her actively embrace the corruption?
‘I’m finished. I’ve hoisted myself by my own petard!’
In Allen’s ears, he could almost hear the unrestrained laughter of the evil gods.
Ah, he really was a big fool.
She had come here with a death wish. The only thing he should have done was fulfill her wish, kill her, and set her free.
Allen raised the Black Sword in his hand.
Livia looked at him and gave a lonely yet relieved smile, as if feeling a fleeting sense of happiness at being understood in the final moments of her life.
He had to… end this!