A World Where You All Are The Villains - Chapter 176

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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176.

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A tremendous rumble echoed across the mountain ridge—boom, crash—as one Gate closed and another tore open.
With the entity that had sealed the dimensional rift dead, the world’s equilibrium crumbled at a dizzying pace.
Gates burst open like a collapsing dam, colliding and vanishing in chaotic succession.
Unable to withstand the endless tide of monsters pouring from the Gorge, humanity had sealed the entire region by sacrificing several Awakeners—but it was only a temporary measure.
Over centuries, the Gate Wave’s reach had expanded relentlessly.
The barrier barely held now, yet even the smallest spark would ignite catastrophe.
A cataclysm that would devour all spacetime across this world and every dimension beyond.
Only then would my wish finally come true.
“…!”
Gazing down at the chaos sprawling across the Gorge, Sephiroth—lost in memories of that distant past—suddenly lifted his head at the sound of approaching footsteps.
The climb to the Dragon’s sleeping cave had clearly been grueling; the face identical to mine was marred by irritation and exhaustion.
“Huff, gasp…!”
Ruellin, who had clawed her way up the cliff face, collapsed at the cave entrance and gasped for breath.
Sephiroth spoke without turning his gaze toward her.
“Impressive that you managed to crawl all the way here.”
“…Why must you hole up in a place like this?! You could hide in Volner like before, or send a teleporting Awakener!”
Ruellin’s exasperation boiled over into a shout.
Sephiroth responded with a cold smile instead.
Awakeners with teleportation abilities were rare. Even rarer were those of high enough rank to traverse the entire continent.
The A-rank Awakener I had recruited while Ruellin’s ability remained intact had proven useful enough, but somehow, he’d lost his power overnight.
Edith Blake’s doing.
‘So the Purifier can even purify abilities….’
Well, if she could purify a Dragon’s curse, a mere human was nothing.
An Awakener’s ability derived from the Magic Barrier, so broadly speaking, it fell within the Purifier’s domain.
Which made her all the more desirable.
Once the dimensions merged, the world would descend into chaos for some time.
Humans aside, it would take ages for the Magic Barrier and monsters covering the land to stabilize.
As an entity to swiftly pacify this new Paradise, Edith Blake—or rather, Yu Sol—was quite suitable.
She possessed a certain sense of responsibility and altruism, and our interests aligned reasonably well.
I had believed we could compromise and cooperate sufficiently….
That’s why I thought we could compromise and cooperate sufficiently…

― So that’s why I disliked you from the start. You and Ruellin are identically selfish and repugnant in a way that makes my skin crawl.
― You’re vile.

The face twisted in disgust, as though filth had touched it, felt strangely unfamiliar.
I couldn’t bring myself to ask why they viewed my vision of a better world with such contempt.
As though I were some unheard-of evil, uniquely harmful refuse.
That role belonged to the Second and Third Princes, or the Emperor and Nobility who exploited me for their own gain.
Those fortunate enough to wield power and authority—wasn’t that their burden to bear?
I had merely….
Merely dreamed of meeting them again in a peaceful Paradise untouched by violence or oppression.

― Don’t you have even the slightest conscience? Any moral responsibility?

I couldn’t counter that I was taking responsibility.
For the children who had become Erosion Beings, pitiful like Count Frederick, because of the Gate I had opened.
Upon reflection, I had not committed sins grave enough to warrant such judgment.
I was not refuse that harmed the world, nor evil, nor garbage.
Rather….
“You….”
Just then, Ruellin, who had recovered enough strength to stagger upright, asked in sudden alarm.
“You, why does your face look like that? Did you suffer burns?”
“….”
“Can you die too?”
Ruellin’s eyes, scanning my injured face meticulously, flickered with an odd light.
She, whom I had shaped from my very soul, had always audaciously yearned to escape my shadow.
How desperate must she have been to secretly master the Dragon’s secret arts and plan her escape beyond dimensions.
Though she was my other half in every sense, something felt strange whenever I beheld her, so utterly opposite to myself.
Had I not been persecuted as an abandoned princess, would I too have grown into someone so free and willful?
“Why won’t you answer? I’m asking if you too can be injured and die!”
“….”
I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know myself.
What manner of being was I, who had survived countless ages by parasitizing a Dragon’s heart in place of my stolen own?
Sephiroth silently raised my hand and touched the left side of my face.
The skin, swollen and rigid like burn scars, met my fingertips.
The flesh swept by the green inferno bore grotesque, massive burn marks.
Even healing Awakeners had tried, and I had drunk and licked the Dragon’s blood drawn from split skin, yet nothing healed.
Had I not undergone a complete transfusion of blood from a single C-rank teleportation Awakener, I would have burned to death without escape in that building.
Then what manner of being was I?
Not a mage, and certainly not a Dragon.
Erosion Beings and Awakeners wouldn’t sustain such fatal wounds from purification, so I couldn’t be called a normal human either.
‘A demon beast?’
I arrived at the conclusion that perhaps it could be so.
Of course, demon beasts lack the intellect and cognitive capacity to think and act like humans, but I have been transfusing the blood of Awakeners for centuries.
The Magic Barrier they possessed accumulated entirely within this body, within the Dragon’s heart, and perhaps I have been reborn into something resembling a demon beast.
Sephiroth, who had been smiling bitterly at his own self-deprecation, cast his gaze toward his other half.
“The promise you made with me—what of it?”
“…Ugh.”
Ruellin, who had been bristling with defiance, flinched as though struck at a vital point.
Biting her lip and hesitating, she reluctantly confessed her predicament.
“…I was cast out from the Imperial Palace.”
“….”
“That mad woman Edith Blake exposed that I have no special ability…!”
“Didn’t you say a week would be sufficient?”
“I couldn’t help it! What am I supposed to do now that I don’t have the ability to manipulate minds!”
Ruellin cried out like a petulant child.
“I couldn’t even seduce Serge Belnak—no one even looks at me! Not Vincent, not Dylan!”
“….”
“If it hadn’t been for Ethan, I wouldn’t have made it this far….”
She trailed off, gauging his reaction.
I had given her another chance precisely because she was so desperate—she who had betrayed me and fled to another dimension, only to return of her own accord, unable to resist her jealousy and pettiness toward Edith Blake.
To shatter the barrier encompassing the Gorge and detonate the Gate Wave, I needed to bring forth a powerful Awakener.
Originally, I had planned to mobilize numerous Awakeners while entrusting her with the Book of Prophecy, but Ruellin’s foolish blunders had ruined everything.
What remained was the Previous Emperor’s fourth child—one born with a rare, formidable, and destructive ability.
Before Ruellin fled, Serge Belnak was the only one I had not yet extended my grasp toward.
Since he possessed the power to forcibly seal the Gate shut, I had thought to place my hopes in his telekinetic ability….
But it seemed Ruellin had not exchanged a single word with him.
‘Then again, that boy’s heart has already turned elsewhere—perhaps it was impossible from the start.’
In times past, I might have been able to coax him with the promise of an opportunity to annihilate the Imperial Palace.
But this too was karmic retribution born from Ruellin’s stupidity, a blunder stemming from the obstacle that is Edith Blake.
Yes, everything went awry the moment Edith Blake was revived and Yu Sol appeared.
At the thought of it, I deeply regretted and resented how my negotiation with her not long ago had ended, leaving only animosity in its wake.
Sephiroth regarded his fractured self with a glacial stare.
“…Ruellin. The reason I gave you the Book of Prophecy, or rather….”
“….”
“The reason I created you—must I remind you again?”
“….”
“I wonder how much longer I must tolerate something as useless as you.”
“…I know! That’s why I said it—I didn’t flee; I went to find your husband’s soul….”
Ruellin hastily retorted, her voice trembling before Sephiroth’s icy wrath.
It was a pathetic excuse.
She simply dragged her feet and fled because she was unwilling to do what I commanded.
Yet the reason Sephiroth did not kill her was due to an unexpected harvest.
In the dimension where Yu Sol originally dwelled—the place where Ruellin had fled—there existed someone truly born with my husband’s soul.
Sephiroth was overjoyed.
A love long forgotten, an ancient passion suddenly rekindled, reminding her of the very purpose that demanded the merging of dimensions.
There was only one reason she had created Ruellin as her alter ego.
When a wish was granted through the Book of Prophecy, the price demanded was the remaining half of one’s lifespan.
Therefore, the moment she resurrected her husband by finding his soul, she would die.
But how could she accept such a fate?
So she delved into the Dragon’s Ruins and performed a forbidden dark art—splitting soul and blood in equal halves.
In simpler terms, a cloned human to replace herself after death.
She sacrificed countless lives as offerings for this purpose, yet it mattered not. So long as she could live eternally happy with her husband.
After all, since the clone was composed of her own soul and blood, it was essentially the same person.
She believed that understanding the reason for seeking her husband, the alter ego would love him just as she did.
Born thus, Ruellin resembled her like a twin.
Not merely in appearance—even her abilities mirrored hers, awakening as a mind-control ability user just like her own magic.
Yet aside from that, everything differed from the first to the last.
Her willful temperament, her thoughts, preferences, actions—even her emotions.
Though the same soul meant memories transferred intact, she did not love her husband as I did.
She obeyed my commands only because it allowed her to leave the Chasm and live freely among the world’s people.
Her sole wish through the Book of Prophecy was something as trivial as becoming a beloved heroine adored by all.
“I never wanted any of that.”
It was true.
Before meeting my husband, before suffering vengeance from the princes, before being exploited by the Emperor.
Such an absurd wish—the kind a naive, ignorant abandoned princess from a distant past she could barely remember might dream of.
“What I desire is, and only is.”
To resurrect my husband.
Steeling her weakening heart once more with iron resolve, she commanded her alter ego—so unlike herself.
“Bring me the Ancient Dragon’s heart.”
“The Ancient Dragon’s heart? That’s….”
“Yes. The artifact kept in the Security Bureau.”
“How am I supposed to get that! I’ve been cast out from the Imperial Palace, and I don’t even have an ability….”
“You’ll manage. Are you planning to sit idle again and let Edith Blake steal everything from you?”
At her cold words, Ruellin clenched her teeth.
Soon after, she quietly shook her head.
It seemed her inferiority complex and pride toward Edith Blake still lingered.
“The Ancient Dragon’s heart can temporarily strip Awakeners of their abilities.”
Humans had conducted all manner of experiments on the stolen sorcerer’s heart.
Through this, they discovered it could temporarily contain an Awakener’s ability—that intangible power.
The principle was likely similar to storing magical energy, though the exact mechanism remained unknown.
In later generations, it was given the rather ridiculous name “Heart of the Ancient Dragon,” and I understood it was used to verify the rank of Awakeners or to temporarily strip away the abilities of criminals.
“If you carve it into your chest, you might be able to use something too.”
Or perhaps I could use mind-control magic again.
Whether I could actually manifest the ability contained within the heart remained unknown even to me.
It had been far too long since I possessed my own heart.
Had I known sorcerers possessed such a function, things might have proceeded more smoothly up until now….
But it hardly mattered.
From the moment I could steal diverse abilities through the blood of Awakeners, the temporary manifestation of a single ability held little practical value.
Yet I still commanded Ruellin to bring me the heart—as bait.
“You have one week.”
….
“I truly hope you succeed this time, Ruellin.”
To lure in the Purifier or perhaps a telekinetic.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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