Free Web NovelChapter 18: On the beach
Silence... only absolute, heavy silence, broken only by the roaring of the calm waves.
Cain never dared to turn toward her, remaining frozen in his seat like a marble statue.
Deep in his mind, he desperately wished for the servants and Amelia to stay away for as long as possible, even if it ended with his own death at her hands. He thought that if he died first, her rage might calm down and her burning fires against him would cool, so she wouldn’t destroy everything afterward.
He had intentionally sent Amelia and everyone else in the manor—after rebuilding and restoring it with miraculous speed—to the furthest point possible, ordering them to never return anytime soon. He didn’t want anyone else to get hurt; after all, he was the one at fault, the one who triggered this storm with his foolish words.
Cain thought bitterly; if he still kept his full power of the "Truth Realm," he would have been able to restrain and completely suppress Lucy if no one else was around to get hurt. But he was weaker now, having sacrificed a massive part of his energy to modify her memories... and the rest was bound and restricted as a hidden cover to protect this world from collapsing during any spiritual collision.
In the end, he never intended to hurt her... but his thoughts and his regret that the world might end because of him started driving him toward stupid ideas.
As he stared at the horizon, a final, desperate solution crossed his mind.
Cain believed that Lucy was silent because she was waiting for him to look into her eyes to kill him instantly. Therefore, he intentionally stalled and stretched the time to the absolute limit, giving the rest a chance to move further and further away.
The solution his mind came up with was activating the "Transcendent Mode" with all its power and tyranny. He knew this violent activation would immediately summon the Guardian Deities of the world, forcing them to gather around them and try to seal them both by any means to prevent a cosmic disaster. This was a suicidal move, but at least it would buy their daughter and humanity precious time to escape.
This provoking silence continued to weigh heavily on their breaths, while the sky gradually darkened, dressing in the cold shades of dusk... Hours passed... and they remained in the exact same state.
Suddenly, Cain broke the thread of silence, asking in a calm, layered voice, "Is Lady Maxi that close to Miss Lucy?"
Lucy was simply sitting on the sand... waiting and waiting patiently for him to finally turn and look at her, but he didn’t. Instead, he blindsided her with this question.
She didn’t want to answer, because she herself—as Lucy—didn’t know the truth about herself well, nor did she fully realize what she wanted from this world. But at least she saw her face every time she looked in the mirror, heard people sometimes call her "Lucy" instead of the "Bloody Empress," and owned an ID card carrying her picture and name; so she could say she knew Lucy implicitly, at least.
She answered in a cold, dry tone, "Yes... that is a stupid question."
’Yes, it was a stupid question... and that is exactly the point,’ Cain thought to himself before continuing exhaustedly, "Do you know what the months of her pregnancy were like? How she took care of Amelia alone all those years?"
Cain assumed that Lucy held a massive grudge against him because he left her for years without being with her, and because he fled—in her eyes—without taking responsibility. He thought that if he could understand what she went through and felt during those dark days, he might find a way to make it up to them... or at least, die fully aware of the scale of his sin and the weight of his guilt. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
For eight long years Cain spent in this world, he fought brutal monsters, waged endless wars, and conquered hardships.
But at this exact moment, sitting next to this silent woman, he felt he was fighting something far bigger and stronger than any monster...
something gentle as clouds, destructive as a hurricane, and completely unpredictable by any entity in the universe.
"Why do you ask this question?"
Lucy questioned deep within her soul, her heart pounding violently. ’Has he truly started to feel something for her?’
As for Cain, her question hit him as if she were trying to say: "You want to know because you are the father, right?"
Therefore, he chose to answer by beating around the bush—just so his head wouldn’t get chopped off. Laughing in a low voice filled with nostalgia, he said, "Actually, Lucy and I were friends back at the Holy Academy... Heh, those were truly beautiful days. But... for a girl to carry a child all by herself when she was barely twenty-one at the time, while the entire world was hostile toward her, with no one to lean on... that is something beyond endurance."
"Friends?!"
The word echoed in Lucy’s mind like a thunderbolt. Did he consider all that overwhelming love she had for him as mere "friendship" in the end? But he also said those were beautiful days...
Her feelings crashed between confusion and bitterness, but she finally replied to his words in a tone she tried to keep cold and neutral: "Lady Lucy? Heh... do you think the pregnancy was hard for her? She is a strong woman who can do whatever she wants, and she endured things compared to which pregnancy was the least of her worries. It is ridiculous to think that this kind of woman could be hurt by anything."
Cain nodded his head in silence, accepting her words.
But Lucy still felt a suffocating bitterness; he still hadn’t turned toward her, nor had he looked into her eyes. Driven by that lump in her throat, she said what lay at the deepest point of her soul:
"But... what was harshest on Lady Lucy wasn’t these material things. Sometimes, what hurts you most is a suspicious feeling that something hidden is always stopping you from achieving what you desperately want... You always find a forced reason to delay the matter, and this waiting is always annoying and heartbreaking."
Lucy looked down, burying her face in her palms while letting out a long sigh heavy with pain.
At that exact moment, the thoughts in Cain’s mind froze, and absolute bewilderment took over him. ’Wait... what does she mean? Does she mean that every time she plans to kill me or take revenge on me, something intervenes and stops her from fighting this battle? Does she harbor some sort of deep feelings for me that restrain her and prevent her from getting rid of me instantly?’
Cain couldn’t resist any longer. He turned his gaze to his side at that exact moment, and for the very first time, he looked directly at her.
He actually saw her without "Maxi’s" mask. She wasn’t trying to hide herself anymore. Even though he was capable of piercing through her camouflage magic anyway, she was now sitting in her full, enchanting reality, with her snow-white hair cascading down her shoulders.
She was sitting quietly on the sand... carrying no weapon, and hiding no killing intent or deadly energy behind her back.
But the strange irony of this confrontation was that Lucy—the one who had been waiting for his gaze the entire time—was the one who turned her face away and directed her eyes away from him at that exact moment, completely unable to clear the fog wrapping around her heart.
_
_
_ freёweɓnovel.com
i know this Chapter is short... but don’t worry, there are still more Chapters coming today. Also I expect that not many will like this Chapter, but I have a plan for what I’m doing. If you like the novel, please leave a comment, and if you have any criticism, feel free to share it to help improve the novel.
