Ch.197Salvation – 6

The radiant smile that had bloomed across Olivia’s face vanished in an instant. The corners of her mouth dropped, the light in her eyes disappeared, and an inexplicable chill hung in the air.

“Master. Isn’t your joke going too far? Even I can’t laugh at such a joke.”

“A joke… Do I look like I’m joking right now?”

“Of course. After all, Master, you—”

“Love me?”

Olivia nodded vigorously. Her attitude showed not a hint of hesitation. I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly at her persistent delusion.

“That’s right. I did love Olivia before. No, perhaps ‘love’ is a bit ambiguous? Still, I was willing to accept your confession, so it was definitely a positive feeling. Maybe that feeling still remains. That might be why I’m still soft on you.”

I bent my knees, preparing to lunge forward. Despite hearing me say I loved her, Olivia stared at me with a hardened face and completely lifeless eyes.

She must have noticed that I had started distinguishing between “you” and “Olivia” in my address, and that the object of my love was “Olivia,” not “you.”

From Olivia’s perspective, this must be something she absolutely couldn’t ignore. After all, she could only feel jealousy toward herself.

“That’s why I have to do this. To bring back the Olivia I… think positively of.”

I had initially meant to say “love,” but changed my words.

While it was certainly true that I had positive feelings for the past Olivia, it was ambiguous to definitively label it as love. Perhaps “attraction” would be more accurate.

Hearing this, Olivia’s expression visibly soured in real time.

This was the first time I’d seen Olivia express such negative emotions toward me. She had always been the one who accepted whatever I did with a bright, happy smile.

Conversely, this meant my words just now had struck such a critical nerve that Olivia couldn’t even smile at me.

Now I realized that I truly had the ability to twist my timeline and bring back the one and only Olivia who had survived the massacre I had caused in the past.

“That’s not true. You’re wrong, Master.”

Her voice had turned cold.

“As I thought, you’re still not fully free from the brainwashing. I’ll fix you by any means necessary. Absolutely. I’ll return you to the Master who loved me, so you don’t need to worry anymore.”

“Return me?”

Despite Olivia’s bold ambition to restore me to “normal,” I was perfectly normal. If anything, Olivia was much closer to being abnormal.

“I’d like to see you try.”

I straightened my bent knees and lunged forward.

The place where my wings brushed past erupted in white flames. It was a signal that the black mana concentration in the atmosphere was rapidly intensifying to the point where even empty space could be designated as heretical.

I drew a magic circle with my left hand and approached Olivia with a wide horizontal swing of my greatsword. A blue slash followed the trajectory of the sword, creating a small rift in front of me.

Olivia didn’t resist. She didn’t try to attack me either. Instead, she only attempted to grab me, even while being hit by the slash.

I could easily guess what she was planning. She intended to burst my heart to break the soul binding, then create a new heart with black mana to fill the void.

Of course, even Olivia didn’t know the exact location of the soul. Yet she targeted my heart because it was the most probable location.

While nothing had been definitively proven about the exact location of the soul, it was close to fact that the heart was heavily involved in soul binding.

My current body wasn’t fixed in time, so her plan was clearly to gamble on the possibility that removing my heart and creating a new one would break the soul binding.

If she could just break my binding with the three, her victory would be all but assured.

—Scattering Leaves.

The shockwave that exploded from the mana concentrated at the tip of my sword multiplied in number. Olivia’s body, struck by the shockwave, didn’t just get dismembered.

One became two, two became four, four became eight. The slashes rapidly multiplied, devouring skin, flesh, muscle, and blood, grinding her entire body as they extended forward.

Like autumn leaves tossed in the wind, her body disintegrated into fine pieces, scattering delicately. Just before the shockwave could pulverize her head, Olivia blinked.

And then her shredded body restored itself as if time were rewinding. It was exactly the same recovery speed and pattern as mine.

Having instantly regenerated her body, Olivia cried out with deep anguish.

“Master, why are you rejecting me? Why are you doing this? I love you, Master. So you should love me too! That’s how it should be! Please come to your senses, Master! You can overcome this with love, so please!”

It was the kind of anguish that could only come from feeling betrayed in a situation where she truly believed I cared for her. Though it was nothing more than Olivia’s delusion.

I didn’t bother to answer. No matter what I said here, Olivia would just twist it to fit her own interpretation.

Instead, I activated the magic circle I had drawn on my left hand. Chains made of mana shot out from the center of the magic circle and tightly wrapped around Olivia’s entire body.

I knew better than anyone in the world how to subdue someone fixed in time. Simply restraining them by binding their limbs so they couldn’t use their recovery ability.

It was a method I had experienced countless times myself.

Olivia desperately tried to break the chains binding her body by drawing up black mana. But each time she tried, I released holy power to purify the black mana, thwarting her attempts.

Unlike before, I wasn’t using large-scale techniques like Star Drop or Moon Breaker, only attempting simple restraint with lighter techniques, and Olivia likewise wasn’t using any large-scale techniques.

This phenomenon occurred because our objectives strangely aligned.

Unlike my life-or-death battles with Serena, Christine, and Charlotte who genuinely tried to kill each other, the purpose of the battle between Olivia and me wasn’t each other’s death.

Olivia’s goal, to use her own words, was to restore me to my “original state.” For that, I obviously needed to be alive.

Since my current body wasn’t fixed in time, there was a risk I could actually die if she used a powerful technique carelessly. Though it seemed like unnecessary consideration given that I was stronger, that was Olivia’s thinking.

I too aimed to correct Olivia’s personality, not to kill her. Besides, finding a way to break through time fixation was still a mystery, making it impossible anyway.

Using powerful techniques on Olivia would be meaningless, so it was much better to simply restrain her without causing bodily harm.

Thus, our objectives awkwardly aligned, and we both refrained from using large-scale techniques. After all, subduing the opponent was the priority.

And in such a situation, I, who had fully embraced the power of the three, had a clear advantage.

“Olivia.”

After engaging in this ambiguous battle for some time, I finally claimed victory.

Olivia was kneeling on the ground. Multiple layers of mana chains were wrapped around her wrists and ankles, with their ends firmly fixed to magic circles and triple-layered with protective magic.

White flames entwined the chains. It was holy power almost identical to the holy power emanating from Christine when she used divine possession. It was impossible to break through with black mana.

“Master, *cough*. Master. It’s not too late. Right? I can still fix you. Please. Please, please…”

Olivia shed tears profusely. At a glance, she looked genuinely sad. Of course, the reality beneath was entirely different.

She was sad because she had failed in her attempt to tear out my heart and manipulate my brain to remove the “brainwashing” she believed was affecting me.

“Olivia.”

“Or, those worms. I’ll kill those worms instead, Master. You can do that, can’t you? Why are you doing this? You said you loved me. You said we would live together forever…”

Finally, with her head bowed low, Olivia burst into tears. The sound of her sobbing, “hic, hic,” grew more frequent.

“Olivia.”

Only after I raised my voice slightly and called her name for the third time did Olivia raise her head. Her face was drenched in tears.

To someone unaware of the circumstances, I might have looked like a villain torturing an innocent woman. As if Olivia were a pitiful woman captured by an evil villain.

“I already gave you chances. Multiple times. You’re the one who threw them all away.”

“…”

“I have nothing more to say to you. You said it yourself, didn’t you? That as long as the continuity of memory is maintained, one can be treated as the same person. So, I should ask not you, but Olivia. What she wanted to say at the end.”

With that, I gently embraced Olivia. I could feel the back of my head tingling as if three pairs of eyes were glaring at me, but it couldn’t be helped.

Even with maximizing contact area like this, I wasn’t confident I could succeed in what I was about to do in one attempt, so I had to use every method available.

Besides, I didn’t want to give her time to counterattack by engaging in conversation. It was clear who would benefit if I wasted time talking after successfully restraining her.

“…Mas…ter. *sniff* I… *hic* love you. So, *sob*, so…”

Olivia continued to stammer through her words, choking on her continuous tears. I ignored her and drew up mana, trying to find Olivia’s timeline.

“Master should love me too.”

My concentration broke. Blood spurted from my mouth with a cough.

Olivia’s voice had somehow returned to her usual cold and calm tone, as if she had never been sobbing. I turned my head to the side. I saw her right arm stabbed into my heart.

The mana chains weren’t broken yet? As I wondered briefly, I saw Olivia’s right arm still bound by the mana chains.

Except it had been severed.

The picture formed in my mind. Olivia had never intended to break the mana chains. She had simply cut off her right arm and created a new one to stab into my body.

It meant she had released her own time fixation.

Olivia kneaded my heart and whispered in my ear with a sweet voice. Her tongue slithered wetly across my ear.

“I love you, Master. Forever.”

I felt black mana flowing into my heart. The area around my heart began to turn black. The blood flowing from my mouth gradually mixed with black.

Olivia also tore off her left arm and created a new one, then embraced my body tightly. Her arms squeezed with full strength.

“You don’t need to worry anymore, Master. I’ll fix you for sure. It will be over soon, so just wait a moment.”

The amount of blood gushing from my throat increased. My heartbeat noticeably slowed. Proportionally, Olivia’s grip around my neck grew stronger.

I faintly smiled.

“…Still, I’m glad.”

I struggled to continue speaking. It was difficult as blood kept seeping between my lips with every attempt to speak.

“That you’ll love me again? Ah, Master. The brainwashing is being removed—”

“That you’re still you.”

With a thrust, I plunged my right hand into Olivia’s heart.