The Obsessive Male Leads Want to Eat Me Alive - Chapter 132

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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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Chapter 132
“…Hate me?”
Anette asked.
Heinrich, telling her to hate him while his own eyes glistened with wounded pain—what was that look?
That gaze, as though he were wounding himself with his own words.
“Yes.”
Heinrich’s lips moved with resolute certainty.
Like the hue of some desolate winter dawn, silent tears streamed from his vacant violet eyes.
“Hate me instead.”
Let things return to how they were meant to be.
In the world before she existed, everyone despised and loathed me.
My own father abandoned me, my mother cast me aside, and every mentor in the Forest gave up on me. A world devoid of warmth.
If only I had grown accustomed to that world…
I would never have endured this agony of being torn asunder.
“Hate me.”
Heinrich’s lips curved upward.
Find me abhorrent, sister—someone who would commit any atrocity to possess you right now.
I would steal you this instant, lock you away in a space that belongs only to me, where no one else could ever see you…
I would mock you for wanting to see Sisrain, craft a doll identical to you, and kiss it before your eyes.
Just as my world contains nothing but you,
I would burn everything in your world and leave only myself.
From morning through night and into dawn, I would kiss you ceaselessly, toying with you.
Until you surrender to my love and weep, finally confessing that you love me.
This is what I am, Anette.
No—garbage.
My mind is filled with nothing but horrific thoughts.
I pretend to be virtuous, but I have never truly been so, not once.
So please, hate me…
Rather, hate me.
“…”
Then, a warm hand touched Heinrich’s cheek.
Anette whispered softly.
“You don’t mean it.”
If I showed even the slightest disdain, you’d look as though you were dying on the spot.
“…!”
Transparent tears spilled from Heinrich’s widened eyes.
Those scalding tears dampened Anette’s hand.
Anette gazed upon the man weeping like a child and reflected.
How did it come to this?
I only ever wished for your happiness.
She gazed at Heinrich as he crumbled, her eyes filled with pain.
But.
“Heinrich, I cannot forgive you.”
Slowly, that warm hand slipped away.
Heinrich’s hand, which had reached out belatedly as if to grasp her, could only drift aimlessly through empty air.
“….”
If I forgave you so easily, it would be a betrayal to the people of Bayonere. Those who lost their lives were precious to someone as well.
“Farewell, Heinrich.”
All warmth vanished completely.
Anette turned away for the first time of her own volition, leaving Heinrich behind her.
The trees trembled violently in the cold wind that swept across the land.
* * *
“….”
The man in the mirror was a stranger.
A white mask covered the left side of his face, and gloves adorned his hands, yet he remained acutely aware of the grotesquely twisted flesh beneath them.
Gerard had been half-destroyed by the curse’s backlash, his mind fractured into madness.
“Just one step. A single span forward.”
His voice, ground low and harsh, spread with sinister intent.
“If I could only advance.”
His crimson eyes gazed into some abyss beyond the mirror.
“…I could seize everything in my grasp.”
How had it come to this?
Surely, until the moment I resolved to adopt Anette as my daughter, everything had been proceeding flawlessly.
From the day she left my embrace, everything seemed to crumble.
I had always struggled to possess what I desired, always narrowly losing what I coveted right before my eyes.
Then was she the root of all this?
“No.”
A hollow voice escaped.
“It is not merely her fault. Back then… I should have killed that bastard!”
Crash.
Unable to contain the sudden surge of rage, my fist came down with a sharp clang! striking the mirror with vicious force.
The masked face shattered into eerie fragments.
“I should never have let Sisrain live when he was born in the Imperial Palace….”
In truth, my plan had been doomed from the day Sisrain entered this world.
That wretched creature, who should have been stillborn, was spirited away by someone and taken far from my reach—that was the true source of my ruin.
That creature was the root of all my suffering.
Had Sisrain not returned to become Crown Prince and protected Anette, I would have used her power to mend my broken body and ascended to the throne myself.
Or perhaps I would have already become Emperor.
‘If only I could correct that mistake from that day!’
Then, like a lightning bolt, a brilliant idea struck me. My crimson eyes gleamed with terrible clarity.
Venenum.
His powers were ‘mind control’ and ‘time’.
What if I could turn back time and return to that day?
If only I could destroy Sisrain with my own hands while he was nothing but a bloodied mass, unable to resist?
What would happen if I eliminated the ‘root cause’?
Wasn’t it a stroke of genius?
The mere thought of it sent Gerard into a fit of delirious laughter.
He immediately made his way to the Separate Palace and summoned Venenum, pouring out his scheme.
In that desolate space, the Black Snake appeared slowly and coiled itself.
Venenum listened to Gerard’s plan and spoke.
[ Kekeke, how clever and amusing your thoughts are! Foolish human contractor. ]
“Take me there! To the day Sisrain was born!”
Gerard cried out with exultation, spreading both arms wide.
“I can feel the power of sorcery overflowing through my entire body now!”
Indeed, after unlocking Venenum’s power, he felt the sorcerous strength growing more potent with each passing day.
He felt himself becoming one with Venenum, capable of wielding increasingly malevolent sorcery.
Of course, his lifespan was withering away in equal measure.
Venenum spoke, opening its black eyes to narrow slits.
[ Regression is advanced sorcery. With your current power, it will be precarious. ]
Grrrrk―
The gloved fist, concealing hideous scars, slowly clenched.
Gerard laughed.
“I can feel it’s sufficiently possible.”
[ Possible isn’t the end of it. ]
“…”
[ The sorcery of time that regresses to the past hinges on ‘sustaining power’. ]
Gerard’s brow twisted.
“Sustaining power?”
[ Yes. ]
Sssslither―
The Black Snake slowly climbed up Gerard’s pant leg.
Then, in an instant, it coiled around his body and rose to his neck.
Gerard felt his skin crawl. The serpent, now settled at the nape of his neck, laughed wickedly.
The snake spoke, subtly constricting the contractor’s breath.
[ Even if you succeed in regressing, without sufficient power you’ll be pulled back to reality. ]
“…”
[ From what I can see, you don’t yet have the power to sustain it. ]
“…Then, what should I do?”
[ You need Exordium’s buff. ]
“…!!!”
Damn it, back to square one.
Must I truly possess that woman for this game to end?
The target had been changed from Sisrain to Anette.
[ I can feel Exordium’s power growing stronger. That child will soon undergo ‘awakening’. ]
“Awakening?”
[ Yes. The moment when Exordium’s ‘power reaches completion’. When that time comes, the opponent will become impossibly strong. So… ]
“….”
[ Before then, make that child like Derkis. ]
“…!”
The serpent whispered with malice.
[ Extracting power from a body devoid of consciousness is remarkably simple. You already know this instinctively, don’t you? ]
The eyes behind the white mask burned crimson as blood.
[ After that, turn back time and eliminate Sisrain. ]
“….”
[ This world… ]
Ah, how sweetly it whispered.
[ Can become yours. ]
The serpent’s tongue…
* * *
Tonight, the moon hung crimson in the sky.
Anette fingered her mother’s handkerchiefs, drawn from the drawer, and sighed as she gazed upon the moonlight.
The events of the day refused to fade from her mind.
“If you cannot love me most, then hate me instead….”
Words bristling with thorns. Words that lacerated the speaker with each utterance.
‘Why did Heinrich say such things?’
Did he know what had happened between her and Sisrain?
Though she had always soothed Heinrich’s wounded pride, she could not bring herself to speak before him.
‘No, the one I love most is you, Heinrich.’ she could not say.
Regardless of the wrongs Heinrich had committed.
Her heart told her it would be a lie.
Anette recalled Heinrich’s words.
“I received contact from my biological father.”
And when she visited the Grand Duke’s Residence, she heard that Heinrich had gone to the Mage Tower.
The fact that he had not returned to the Grand Duke’s Residence for days made it clear he had experienced something during that meeting with his biological father.
“…He must be suffering greatly.”
Anette’s lips trembled as she stared into the void.
Surely Heinrich was not still standing by that cold Lakeside, bathed in that crimson moonlight.
“Hate me instead.”
As she recalled that wounded face, that pitiable weeping countenance, tears began to well in Anette’s own eyes.
Tears she had held back in Heinrich’s presence.
Just then, knock, knock―
Victoria’s voice reached us from beyond the door.
“The Crown Prince requests an audience with you.”
“…!”
I quickly composed myself and spoke.
“Tell him I cannot see him now.”
I was in no state to receive anyone.
“Yes.” With that, Victoria’s footsteps faded into the distance.
And moments later.
The window before me, where I sat in the chair by the sill and which had been casting crimson moonlight, suddenly swung wide open.
“…!”
A scarlet robe billowed in the wind. Sisrain, having entered through the window without ceremony, casually reached out and cupped my chin in his hand.
“Sisrain…?!”
Upon seeing that tear-stained face, Sisrain’s lips twisted into a smile.
“I see.”
So you were crying alone with that beautiful face and rejected my visit. Anette.
I had finally given in—after thinking of you all day, I couldn’t bear it any longer and came to find you.
“….”
Looking down at that small, pale face glistening with tears in the moonlight, my sharp eyes narrowed.
“You’re not crying because of me.”
I tightened my grip on her chin, pressing her delicate lower lip with my thumb.
Lowering my head, I whispered as I brushed away her tears with my lips.
“You’re jealous.”

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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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