I knew he was lying.
I was certain of it.
And yet… a part of me believed there was some truth buried in his words.
That was what terrified me.
I was afraid. Afraid to confirm whether my worst fears would manifest. Whether the mistakes of whatever past I had would come back to haunt me again.
“Where?!”
The question tore from my throat.
I couldn’t think straight. A high-pitched ringing echoed in my ears, drowning out the terrified murmurs of the people behind me.
One by one, I tore through his limbs.
And yet, he didn’t scream.
Before I could continue, however, his body began to fade. Particles of light scattered into the air as he vanished before my eyes.
——You surprise me, truly. I thought I’d covered my tracks well. Tell me, how did you know?
A voice echoed faintly around me. Of course, I was already well aware.
The Lance before me had only been an illusion.
An ability of the Scholar of Wisdom. The ability to release a fine powder, designed to disrupt the sleep-related nervous system and induce hallucinations.
And yet, I wasn’t affected.
Surprisingly, Margaret wasn’t either. Though our perception had been distorted just enough to register the illusion, we had still managed to see through it.
——But even if you run to the Emperor, you know it’s too late, right? You’ve committed a crime far worse than mine. Even with all my vast knowledge, escaping a situation like yours is nearly impossible.
“Where?”
——Your sister? Like I said, she’s—
But I could sense him. Nothing slipped past the spectacles.
Before he could finish, I raised my arm to the side and clenched my fist.
——Ukh…!
A choking sound immediately echoed.
Crackle—!
A cracking rang out around us, and when I turned, I saw him, Lance Ableton, collapsed on the ground while coughing up blood.
I pressed down harder with my foot, reinforcing the wind spell. The pressure warped the air, bending the surroundings beneath its force.
Then I turned to Margaret, releasing the pressure around her. She stumbled slightly before steadied herself and rose to her feet.
“If I ask you to cut down every witness here right now,” I said, “will you do it?”
“….”
Her silence spoke louder than any answer.
“You swore to be my sword, didn’t you? Every single person in this church is an external threat. They could ruin me. So tell me…”
I stepped closer and lowered my voice.
“Will you cut them all down for me?”
Margaret’s eyes swept the room. Around us, horrified bystanders struggled to breathe as their bodies were pinned under the pressure.
The lifeless forms of clergymen lay strewn about, and at the center of it all, the Cardinal’s body lay collapsed with his head grotesquely caved in from a single spell-induced blow.
Her fingers curled tighter around the hilt of her sword. Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes wavered.
But no answer came.
“…I see.”
I turned my back to her.
“Good. If you had said yes, I would’ve been disappointed.”
That meant Margaret still had her rationality. That she hadn’t been consumed by impulse or blind loyalty.
And that alone proved that me bringing her here hadn’t been a mistake.
I turned back to Lance Ableton, who lay on the ground, struggling to breathe under the crushing pressure of my spell.
His limbs trembled, his was face pale, and his entire body was drenched in sweat, unable to even lift his head.
“This is the last time I’ll ask,” I said. “Where?”
His lips moved, barely parting. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth as he coughed, then let out a bitter laugh.
“…Vermire,” he choked out. “T-the underground sanctum… beneath the chapel ruins…”
His eyes met mine for a second, full of defiance despite his broken state.
“Enjoy your gift, Vanitas Astrea.”
“…?”
I didn’t respond and just stared at him. What was he expecting? A reaction? An outburst? I wasn’t going to kill him yet.
So I brought him along.
Margaret, who had remained silent the entire time, said nothing as she followed.
She didn’t glance back at the terrified crowd and simply dragged herself forward, trailing behind me as we left the blood-soaked church behind.
* * *
Vermire.
In the past, it was a thriving village known for its rich culture and abundant agriculture.
But beneath that prosperity, it had become a haven for heretics. Because of that, an order from the church was passed under every official’s eye to eradicate the village.
Of course, this was knowledge hidden from the public.
Only those in the upper echelons of the clergy were ever made aware of it. Not even Aston Nietzsche himself or the Saintess knew the truth.
Small villages like these had been wiped out for reasons as senseless as they were sinister. And that alone spoke volumes about the deep-rooted injustice in this world.
As I walked along the shattered stone pavements, Margaret followed silently beside me with Lance Ableton slung unconscious over her shoulders.
We didn’t exchange a single word the entire way.
Reaching the old chapel, I paused and glanced at the weathered entrance before stepping inside.
Inhaling, the smell of rot and dust entered my nose. Looking around, graffiti littered the crumbling walls with some bearing reversed symbols of the Church, others scrawled in the language of heretics… and a few in demon language.
I could read it, but there was no need to translate it.
“…Vanitas.”
“Yeah.”
From a distance, we both sensed it. The familiar pressure and the unnatural distortion of life.
Signs of chimeras.
“I’ll handle it,” Margaret said, stepping away before I could even respond.
Maybe she wanted to give me space. Or maybe… she couldn’t bear to be near me right now.
The sound of steel tearing through flesh resounded from a distance not long after. I glanced down at Lance Ableton again, still collapsed on the dusty stone.
“Wake up.”
But there was no response.
With a flick of my fingers, lightning crackled through the air and surged into his body. It wasn’t lethal, but it struck straight into his nerves enough to make even the dead twitch.
He jerked violently, gasping in pain.
“Guh…!”
“You’ve left me a gift, haven’t you?” I asked, dragging him across the dust-covered stones. “Then show me.”
Lance coughed again, his hand weakly rubbing his throat before he rasped out, “Fascinating, truly… Not once have I ever met a mage like you. One who can cast spells with just a thought.”
But he started mumbling bullshit.
“Don’t test my patience,” I warned. “I’ll peel the answers out of you if I have to.”
He looked up, blood staining his teeth as he smiled. “You can kill me, Vanitas. You can kill everyone in the church, everyone in this rotten Empire, and you’ll still be too late.”
My eyes narrowed. “Too late for what?”
“You’ve walked straight into hell.”
My fist clenched, but I forced myself to stop.
Instead, I pulled him closer.
“Where is she?”
Lance’s eyes flicked to the far side of the ruined chapel, to a narrow stairwell.
“There,” he said, almost breathlessly.
He couldn’t use magic anymore. I had already severed his limbs to ensure that possibility was eliminated.
Gripping the back of his neck, I dragged him forward like dead weight, his blood smearing across the cracked stone as we approached the path he had pointed to.
There it was.
“….”
A narrow staircase, half-hidden behind crumbling altar stones, descending into the dark.
I stepped down slowly. The more I walked, the more the moonlight above us faded. The only thing accompanying me was the labored breathing of the mutilated man in my grip.
As we descended deeper, I could hear something. Some kind of guttural cry that made my heart pound out of fear.
In every loop I had lived through, one pattern had always remained the same.
Charlotte always died.
Whether it was by blade, magic, illness, or worse, somewhere down the line, she was always taken from the world.
I didn’t know if that constant was what eventually drove Vanitas Astrea to abandon everything, to go rogue in certain timelines… but I couldn’t ignore the possibility.
A brother who, despite knowing that the very existence of his sister might one day be his downfall, still cherished her no matter what.
A brother who would let the whole world burn for her.
Step by step, I continued downward, feeling the air growing colder against my skin.
The scent of blood reached my nostrils, mingling with something like rot or decay, or maybe something fouler.
And then, the faint light of candles began to dance at the bottom of the stairs. Ritual circles had been drawn in red that could only belong to cultists or madmen.
In the center of it all… a cage.
A girl lay unconscious inside. Her long black hair spilled around her, slick with blood.
But it wasn’t just the blood that unsettled me. There was something else. Something grotesquely wrong that I couldn’t ignore, no matter how much I wanted to.
“….”
Horns.
They protruded from her skull, curling slightly. One side of her face had turned deathly pale, almost bone-white, like porcelain.
“Charlotte…”
My heart sank.
I had seen her die, again and again. In every loop, in every cruel variation of fate, her death marked a turning point for me each time and something inside would always crack.
And though I tried to convince myself that those realities weren’t mine, that it was just something I could blatantly ignore…
This was different.
This was real.
“Why…”
This was my reality.
And in it, I had failed again.
Again, and again, and again, and again, and—
No matter the name I took, whether it be Archmage Zen, Chae Eunwoo, Vanitas Astrea, it made no difference.
No matter what identity I bore, no matter what path I took, it just kept happening.
This… curse.
“Why does this keep happening to me?” I asked no one, choking on my breath. “What did I do? Who did I anger…?”
With my footsteps sluggish, I didn’t look back.
“Vani…”
I froze.
It was her voice, but distorted like something inhumane. Still, there was no doubt.
This was Charlotte.
The Charlotte I had protected.
The Charlotte I had loved and cherished.
The Charlotte I had failed.
Slowly, I stepped forward. My knees trembled as I knelt beside the cage. Reaching out, I brushed aside the sticky strands of hair clinging to her cheek.
Her skin was cold against my fingertips.
“Can you hear me?”
“Mm…” Her lips barely moved.
“I’m here,” I said, swallowing down the fear that threatened to tear open my chest. “I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.”
But even as I said those words, I could see the signs of corruption spreading under her skin.
“What did you do to her?!”
The voice that came from me barely felt human.
Behind me, Lance Ableton grinned through bloodied teeth.
“Did you know… your sister had the potential to become a vessel?” he rasped. “So I put it to the test.”
My hand clenched. In a flash, I swung downward and Lance’s left leg exploded before he could even register it.
A scream tore from his throat as he collapsed again, writhing in agony.
“Speak. Clearly,” I said.
He choked on the pain but continued gleefully.
“Her spirits… her entire body was overflowing with them. That’s when I realized. Ah… she might be able to hold it.”
“What?!”
“Araxys.”
The name struck like thunder.
Crackle—
My fist clenched again, and his remaining leg imploded with a terrifying crunch. Now, there were no limbs left of the man once known as the Great Power, the Scholar of Wisdom.
He screamed louder this time like a dying animal.
I didn’t care.
“How can I cure her?!”
Lance only laughed at my hysteria.
“It’s… impossible… Haha… Once the chimera vessel process begins, there’s no turning back…”
I clenched my teeth. His words meant nothing. I refused to accept that.
Without wasting another second, I quickly scrolled through the spectacles.
Searching, and searching, and searching, digging through everything I had archived about chimeras. Pages of forbidden lore, broken theories, experiments, even old forum posts from the game’s past lives.
“Fuck…”
But there was nothing. Not a single mention of reversing the process.
“It… hurts…”
My breath hitched.
My pupils shook and I turned my gaze to Charlotte, and in that moment, our eyes met. The horns, the marks… they were real.
But so was the fear in her eyes.
“Charlotte…” My voice broke. “It’s going to be okay…”
I knelt beside her.
“Your brother… Oppa… will save you.”
Her eyes, clouded by pain, welled up with tears but she managed to muster up a smile.
“It really hurts…”
“I know,” I whispered, brushing her blood-matted hair away from her face. “But it’s going to be okay…”
My voice trembled even as I said it. I forced myself to believe the words, to make her believe them.
But deep down, I already knew.
I kept searching page after page. Runes, notes, hidden lore, every keyword in the deepest parts of the spectacles’ archive.
I kept reading, and reading, and reading.
“Tsk.”
But I found nothing.
The one ability I had relied on more than anything else had finally failed me.
And it failed me in the one moment I couldn’t afford it to.
My hand trembled as I held her, watching her breaths grow more shallow. The taint spread slowly from her chest, like a cruel metamorphosis.
I clenched my teeth, forcing myself to stay calm as I scanned every trace of magic in the room.
There had to be something. Anything left behind by those fucking cultists that I could use.
“You want to save her?”
Lance Ableton, who was nothing more than a mangled bag of flesh on the floor, let out a raspy chuckle.
“End her pain.”
His words were laced with mockery, as if he were reveling in my desperation. That sick grin, even as he lay broken and useless, still managed to crawl under my skin.
“Fuck you!” I snapped, voice cracking with rage.
I clenched my fists, blood pounding in my ears. Wind pressure surged, causing the ground beneath him to tremble, but I didn’t crush him yet.
“You already know what to do, Vanitas Astrea!”
“Shut the fuck—”
Before I could finish, the air split with a whistle.
I turned just in time to see Margaret’s blade slicing clean through Lance Ableton’s neck, completely severing his head off.
“….”
Clang—
Her sword fell from her trembling hand and she staggered back a step, eyes wide in horror.
A gasp escaped her lips as she covered her mouth, witnessing the horrific sight before her.
“My god…” she whispered, as if her lungs refused to accept the air around her. “What… what did they do to her?”
I could see the guilt in her eyes.
“I’m… so sorry… If it weren’t for me…”
Of course she’d feel guilty.
If she hadn’t gone missing, if she hadn’t gone to the rift, I wouldn’t have gone after her. I wouldn’t have left Charlotte behind.
I could’ve protected her.
“That’s right,” I muttered. “This is your fault.”
Her breath hitched. But I didn’t stop.
I had to say it. Not because I believed it entirely, but because I couldn’t admit the truth.
Because deep down, I knew I was the one who rejected Charlotte’s insistence on coming along. I was the one who left her behind, telling myself it was for her safety.
That she’d be fine.
Deep down, I was a coward.
“This is your fucking fault, Margaret.”
My words landed like a slap, and Margaret flinched as if they physically struck her. She didn’t speak, nor did she cry. She just knelt there with her hands trembling over Charlotte’s body, her lips pressed into a quivering line.
“Vani… please…” Charlotte’s distorted voice cracked.
I clenched my fist, my nails digging into my palm.
“No, Charlotte.”
“Oppa…”
My heart twisted at the sound.
“Don’t make me do this!”
Tears stung my eyes. I could barely breathe.
“It hurts too much…”
“Charlotte!”
I approached her. Her body was trembling in pain and barely able to hold itself together. I could feel her spirit fraying, as if torn between holding on and begging to be released.
My lips shook.
“I can save you… I have to. I’ll find something, anything.”
But I wasn’t convincing anyone.
“You promised you’d protect me… always.”
Her words crushed whatever hope I had left.
Even Charlotte had given up.
She understood what was happening. She knew that if she turned into a full chimera, the only person she would end up hurting… was me.
And that was the last thing she ever wanted. To hurt the only family she had left.
That was the Charlotte I knew. My little sister who would rather suffer than let me bear the weight of her pain.
’But Charlotte, this is hurting me too…’
“Please… don’t make me do this,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
My fingers trembled as I held her close, as if clinging to the last sliver of who she was.
“I’m sorry… Oppa…”
“….”
For a brief moment… I didn’t know if it was just my own delusion, but she sounded so much like Eunah.
It was cruel.
So cruel.
I knew what had to be done. I didn’t need anyone to tell me. The longer I waited, the more her body would rot away into something that wasn’t Charlotte.
And the only mercy I could offer her now… was to make sure she left this world as Charlotte Astrea, not as some bloodthirsty, corrupted chimera.
And so…
“Vanitas!” Margaret screamed.
My fist rose into the air as wind magic swirled around it, ready to end it all, when Charlotte’s voice broke through.
“I’m sorry, and…”
“….”
“I love you, my dear brother.”
Those were the last words I ever heard before I took the life my dear little sister with my own hands.
Thud!
The next moment, I was on both knees, collapsed like a lifeless husk, and the only thing I could do was stare blankly at the floor.
I was so tired.
“Aaaaaaaah—!”
My scream tore through the air as I drew my revolver and pressed the barrel against my chin.
Click—
*
*
[AN]
End of Volume 4.