Chapter 114: Kill x Love, Part 6
At this point, there was no need to continue the conversation.
There was not the slightest possibility of reconciliation.
This was no longer about ordinary love-hate entanglements or revenge killings stemming from conflicting desires.
It was closer to the relationship between natural enemies in the wild, where coexistence was impossible, and only mutual destruction could occur. Simply put, it was a fated conflict.
Unlike communal creatures like humans, the World existed singularly, locked in what was known as a “struggle for the ultimate path.”
However, as for me, I had no desire to compete with Ling for survival and elimination.
“Lovers of a night share a hundred days of affection. Besides, we’ve spent far more than just one night together, haven’t we?”
“Are you starting to play the emotional card? I’ve already told you, I’ve separated that part of myself.”
“Lou Yi is Lou Yi, and Lou Ling is Lou Ling. Even if you’ve separated it, you are still you, and it was you who spent eons of time with me.”
During the period when Lianbing and Ruansui were separated, I treated them as two different individuals. The thought of one replacing the other never crossed my mind.
“Even if I hadn’t separated my emotions, the outcome would be the same. Nothing would change. You, who can see ‘if,’ should be able to reach the same conclusion.”
Being able to see ‘if’ meant the ability to observe other worldlines. Just as humans faced choices, the World also had to make choices.
However, the World could foresee and deduce the outcome of choosing one path over another.
What would have happened if Lou Ling hadn’t separated her emotions? The scenario she showed me was exactly that. The answer was, as she said, no change. In fact, it would be “even worse.”
“The deeper the love, the deeper the fall, the deeper the wound,” the deeper the pain, and thus, the deeper the hatred. “Revenge becomes even more intense.”
The very act of sitting here face-to-face and conversing peacefully would be impossible. The moment I became the World, Lou Ling would have fallen into a vortex of revenge and madness.
“That’s only natural, isn’t it? With your harem-building, scumbag behavior, even being killed by your wife a million times would be too little.”
“Uh, that’s a very valid point. I have no grounds to refute it…”
“If you hadn’t treated them as women, or if you didn’t value them at all, it would be one thing. But precisely because you can’t help but value them, you’ve ignited their possessiveness.”
As she said, male protagonists in harem anime appear indecisive because they often cannot pick the most important one. In their eyes, everyone is important, and they cannot choose, nor dare to face the choice. When the deadline for choosing passes and no decision is made, they fall into the “valley” known as the kitchen knife.
If I hadn’t considered their feelings and had simply treated them as objects, mere “vases” or “**,” then things would indeed be different. No matter how roughly I treated them, they would likely have accepted it willingly in a state of complete conquest. But in that case, it would just be “that kind of relationship.”
“So, emotions are just a hindrance, an unnecessary component.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’ve already become the World, yet you’re still swayed by emotions. Especially you, Juncheng An, who is supposed to be rational. Can’t you let go of your feelings in the end?”
“The moment I chose to possess all of you, I decided to face my emotions head-on.”
“You’ve lived long enough. You must know by now that emotions are the most deceitful things in the world.”
“I understand, but I don’t agree.”
“That’s your business. Whether you accept it or not, or understand it or not, it’s not necessary for me.”
“It’s almost like the original you and Sekai-chan… have you swapped places?”
This indifferent attitude was exactly the same as Sekai-chan’s back then.
“Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat all things as straw dogs. The Way of Heaven is inherently unfeeling.”
“Then why didn’t you kill me? The best revenge would be to kill your enemy with your own hands. But you’ve turned me into a state where I ‘cannot kill you myself.'”
“You know very well that revenge is just a means to an end, a process. The ultimate goal is to ‘return to the original destiny.'”
“It would have been more painful to just kill me directly…”
Some things are understood without being said. I didn’t feel it before, but I know it now. This is the World’s revenge on me. If there were any other way… this phrase, which has almost become my catchphrase, seems to be useless this time. Everything that has happened now was orchestrated by Ling. It is irreversibly moving toward the original world.
“You are about to embrace the destiny that originally belonged to you, and I will return to being the original World. This is the ‘original plot development and ending.'”
“You know full well that this is the one thing I will not agree to…”
The reason is simple: returning to the original destiny means… The “All-Out Annihilation END.”
SE.Novel.b0ok.SFAC
In the original world, if Zihua hadn’t existed, I would have met Sheng later, gone through a series of events, and then systematically collected the nine Fated Witches. And then, I would have personally abandoned them, ended the world, and gone to Jiuyuan’s location.
Now, if I were to return to the original destiny, this process would repeat. But even if I didn’t abandon the Fated Witches, they would still die. Because Zihua, in order to return to the past, killed the other Fated Witches, extracted their Destiny Power, and only then managed to change fate by swapping dreams and reality, using this elaborate deception.
If we were to return to the original destiny now, it would mean that everything Zihua did would be in vain. The grand lie would finally be exposed. History would be corrected, distortions rectified, and after taking countless detours, it would return to the origin. Lianbing, Xueqing, Xuan’er, Li Nai, Xiao An, Lan, Xinran, Lily, Sheng—all nine of them would die. Because “it’s their fate.”
Therefore, in order not to return to that original bad ending worldline, I must kill Ling. Kill my lover.
“Mutual destruction born from love?”
“There is no love, only killing.”
“There isn’t even killing, is there? Neither of us can kill the other.” Yes. Because one World cannot kill another World. Although the World’s instinct is to compensate for deficiency by taking from what is in excess, Ling and I lack the means to slaughter each other. How can Worlds fight each other? Even if we used all the laws we each master and messed up the world, we still wouldn’t be able to kill each other. This is also why I said earlier that Ling had turned me into a state where I “cannot kill myself,” and why I promised Zhao Zili that I wouldn’t fight. We cannot kill each other. At most, we can only sit on opposite sides of a table like this, bicker, and argue. Fighting is meaningless. But the talk of mutual killing is not just a joke. Therefore, the key figure this time is not me, nor is it her. There is another “executor.” Just as special tools are needed to smash the Yata no Kagami, deicide is not something that can be done casually. Like in a game, against a specific boss, you can only defeat them with special weapons or skills; otherwise, you can’t even chip off a drop of blood. Of course, killing a World is no different. So, who would be the person capable of “killing an entire World”? It’s actually quite simple. There is only one person I have not yet found. By rights, she should have been by my side from the beginning, but she wasn’t. This means someone, for some reason, took her away from me. Why? It’s simple, because only she can kill the World.
“Where did you hide Xueqing?”
