The Abandoned Villainess Takes Everything This Time - Chapter 157

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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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157.
Chapter 35. Castle of Winter
Ren pulled Lillian close, his lips sealing hers as though he might stop breathing the next moment.
He kissed her briefly, then bit her lower lip and deepened it again, falling back into the pattern.
He knew he must look insane, doing this in a situation like this, but he couldn’t stop.
The Mental Contamination that man had shown him.
He’d thought Lillian loved him because of it.
But this Lillian had kissed him first.
She had chosen him.
Delirious with joy, he gently bit her earlobe.
“Ah!”
“You kept telling me to behave, so I was restraining myself.”
Lillian panted and looked at him with eyes that seemed to ask when he’d ever been good, but Ren only laughed.
Her expression was too beautiful.
He’d been genuinely well-behaved, yet here he was, wronged.
He fought against his own instincts and prostrated himself before her wishes.
No different from a well-trained dog. Yet he wanted to live like this forever.
“Ren, calm down first—”
“I can’t. You made me this way and it’s cruel.”
Ren deliberately cradled the back of Lillian’s head in his hands.
Hoping she wouldn’t change her mind and leave him.
And also to shield both her ears.
“Besides, your tastes are peculiar.”
The man watching them in silence shouldn’t hear what he had to say.
“If you were watching us, you should have chased after us immediately.”
…….
“Do you have a hobby of watching others kiss?”
As he mocked the rejected foreign object, Lillian flinched in his embrace.
“Your Highness?”
“Lillian.”
Yet Evren offered her a gentle smile.
“I’m relieved you’re safe.”
“Your Highness, you’re here too…? I thought only Ren came—”
Lillian’s face flushed crimson.
Ren held her tighter.
He knew that man wouldn’t harm Lillian, but if he lost his mind, there was no telling what he might do.
But just then, the darkening sky was torn by an ominous swirling cloud.
Evren glanced upward.
“I should be going now. At this rate, this place will collapse entirely.”
His voice was entirely matter-of-fact.
As Ren continued to guard against him, Evren sneered with a darkened expression.
“Do you really think I’d fall for the provocation of someone like you in a situation like this?”
…….
“Lillian, we must hurry. It would be troublesome if the Crown Prince Trial were cancelled while you were here.”
“R-right! Ren, let’s go now. Really.”
Lillian tugged at Ren’s sleeve.
“…Yes. We should leave.”
Yet Ren remained deeply unsettled.
If he were in that position, he wouldn’t retreat so easily.
If situations were reversed.
In the moment that man kissed Lillian before his eyes, he would have obliterated his face first without hesitation……
‘Perhaps the circumstances are what they are.’
Still, gripped by an ominous premonition, Ren lightly brushed Lillian’s back.
‘Better safe than sorry.’
Screech……
In that moment, a Rift opened to return them to the original timeline.
Through the Rift, their Castle came dimly into view.
Ren took hold of Lillian’s hand and stepped forward.
“Lili, watch your step.”
“Okay. Ren, you know… I saw your Compatibility Rating with the younger you earlier.”
“Why are you looking at that annoying number again?”
His blood pressure spiked immediately even hearing it.
“It must have been barely passing when you were small.”
“No, you’ll be shocked when you—”
But in that instant, the hand Ren was holding disappeared.
“…Lili?”
Before him lay only the Castle’s landscape.
* * *
What.
On earth.
Was happening?
“…? Huh?”
Lillian fumbled at empty air.
This was wrong.
Just moments ago, she’d seen the Rift opening to return to the original timeline, right before her eyes.
More than that—where was Ren?
‘Where am I?’
She stood alone in a white space with nothing in it, not in the dim Pavilion Hunting Grounds.
No, wait. She wasn’t alone—so it wasn’t entirely empty……
Lillian slowly turned her head.
“…Your Highness.”
Evren smiled softly.
Her heartbeat thundered so loudly it reached her eardrums. In a moment like this, it was an ominous sound.
Lillian swallowed dryly.
“What did you just do?”
“Why are you so afraid?”
“Th-that…”
“Are you afraid I killed him?”
Another dry swallow, involuntary.
Surely not while I wasn’t looking?
“Did you kill Ren?”
“…No.”
He let out a rueful laugh tinged with a sigh. His expression darkened considerably when Lillian genuinely showed fear.
“I sent him back. So stop looking like that.”
“Then what about us?”
“Ah, us.”
He savored that word as though it were the most delicious food.
“We’re not going anywhere, Lillian.”
…….
“We are where we’re meant to be.”
He took a slow step closer.
Lillian looked up at him silently, overwhelmed by his presence.
At the man with eyes so full of love, smiling sadly.
And the white space around them began to shift.
Starting from where they stood, a landscape spread outward as if drawn in fine lines.
Color flooded in within moments, and even a gentle breeze began to blow.
“…! This is—”
“Familiar, isn’t it?”
Evren glanced around, then smiled softly.
It was the 1 Prince’s Castle he had created.
“It wasn’t difficult to manifest since it was originally my castle.”
…….
“Though it was rather tedious making it identical to the state you kept it in.”
After the Crown Prince Trial ended, he had observed everything.
Especially the castle where Lillian and that vermin lived.
It was filled entirely with traces of Lillian.
Articles about Mariposa.
The room where Lillian stayed, the Garden where the Workshop had been……
Flowering trees anticipating the next spring.
It was far more comfortable than the Barracks from some old battlefield that he had given her—a sanctuary incomparably warmer.
‘That’s why Lillian had no choice but to choose him.’
The Crown Prince Trial was not the problem.
The fact that he was her rightful partner was important too, but there was something far more vital.
A place to return to.
A home.
He should have understood long ago that for Lillian, once abandoned by the Tillard Family, that was the most important thing.
“Come.”
He looked at Lillian with tenderness.
And asked softly, as was proper.
“Do you like it?”
“…Your Highness.”
Lillian turned to look at him slowly.
Her face was pale, but her eyes shone brightly.
Sadly, she did not seem to like this place.
“What did you do to create this?”
…….
“No matter who you are, you can’t simply create something from nothing. You’re not an Ability User with that kind of power.”
Ah, she wasn’t going to let this pass……
He answered her clever question concisely.
“The beginning is always the hardest. The second time is easy, Lillian.”
He had obliterated another world to manifest it.
So that Lillian could not leave him for the other timeline’s self.
He knelt on one knee before Lillian and took her hand.
“Evren—”
“Let’s start over from the beginning.”
“…!”
Before she could respond, he removed the Engagement Ring that man had given her before, and cast it away.
The moment it struck the ground, it annihilated into nothingness.
“Ah…!”
Lillian reached out toward the vanishing ring, but Evren blocked her view.
“Your Highness!”
“Now look only at me.”
Evren smiled bitterly watching the woman whose face had gone white with betrayal.
His heart ached as though it were being torn to shreds.
This was why he needed resolve. He was that desperate.
He had wandered alone for centuries after this woman died.
“I cannot let you go. The time we spent together was too short—how could I ever release you?”
“Evren.”
“So from this moment on, you will come to know me better.”
We have time now.
And he would erase the other timelines one by one.
Until only this place remained in the world.

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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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