“I don’t owe you anything now, Lydia.”
Anna glanced at her own charred body, feeling strangely at peace.
She knew death was near, yet she had never felt so light.
It was as if the mountain that had weighed on her chest crumbled to dust in that single explosion.
At last, she could ignore the feelings that had always pressed down on her heart, the words she could never say, and speak out without restraint.
“Big sister, stop talking.”
Lydia fiercely tore a strip of cloth from her dress and pressed it against Anna’s wounds, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood.
But it was futile. The small piece of cloth was soaked through with blood in an instant. It was so helpless—just like Lydia herself.
“Listen to me, Lydia.”
Anna stretched out a trembling hand and gently cupped Lydia’s cheek.
“Don’t waste your strength, it’s useless.” She glanced at her bleeding wound, passing a nearly cold verdict on herself. “With injuries like this, stopping the blood won’t help.”
“But—!”
Lydia paid no heed. She pressed all her weight onto that small, gushing wound, as if she could hold back the flood by force of will.
But as soon as she pressed one place, another would burst open. Frantically, she tried to staunch the blood elsewhere, but the moment she let go, the spot she’d just pressed would begin to ooze blood again.
Lydia bit her lip hard, refusing to let the tears fall.
“Listen to me.”
Anna’s palm caressed Lydia’s cheek.
“What happened back then… the blame was never mine.”
Her voice was cold, as if she were speaking of something unrelated to herself.
As if she were just a bystander, witnessing it all, not someone swept up and victimized by it.
Lydia could hear no trace of self-pity in Anna’s tone.
“Back then, beneath the Demon King’s castle, it was the Gun Hero, Geheros, and Princess Helen who retreated without orders and caused the battle line to collapse.”
She finally said everything she had kept buried inside.
At this final moment, she wanted to vent it all.
Facing death, there was nothing left she needed to hold back.
Those lingering obsessions, the old grievances—she would bury them all with herself.
But before that, she wanted to pour them out to the girl who hated her so much.
“His Majesty gave the order to fight to the death. Everyone staked their lives, fighting the Demon King’s remnants beneath the castle in a final stand. But…”
Anna coughed up a mouthful of blood, then continued.
“His Majesty entrusted Princess Helen with guarding our retreat and overseeing the battle. And then… she let Geheros go.”
What happened next, Lydia could already imagine.
Once a single point was breached along the long and desperate battle line, the whole defense would inevitably collapse.
Then came the rout, one defeat after another.
The Doomed Land, so painstakingly reclaimed, was handed back to the enemy. Comrades’ corpses left behind in foreign soil. All the people who had hoped to return home were abandoned—
Lydia trembled from head to toe in shock.
But Anna didn’t stop talking.
She mercilessly revealed the truth of what had happened.
“After Geheros retreated, he and Princess Helen sealed off everyone’s path of escape. They wanted to use our desperate struggle… to buy time for their own flight.”
It was as if thunder roared in Lydia’s chest.
She understood how it ended.
In the kingdom’s reports, it was said that the wise and courageous Gun Hero turned the tide and saved the lives of the kingdom’s soldiers.
But Lydia remembered—she had waited on the border for their return, and almost all who came back were the Royal Guard flying the king’s banner.
The Gun Hero rode at the head on his tall steed, bathed in the people’s cheers. Everyone called him a true hero.
A beauty for a hero—they all said Her Highness the Princess had found the perfect husband.
No one saw the broken, battered soldiers brought back by the other heroes.
No one saw those disheartened heroes.
And then came a show trial in the capital—Gun pointed out Sword as the culprit.
Thus Sword became a slave, while Gun, stepping over the bones and blood of his old comrades, secured his place among the nobility.
Countless families were shattered. Countless farmlands were left to ruin.
Everyone turned their hatred into a spear, thrust at the back of the true victim.
Yet that scrawny hero, accused by all, had saved Lydia’s life time and again.
Lydia’s tears finally fell without end.
If only she hadn’t been blinded by hatred; if only she hadn’t been manipulated by illusions; if only she…
Lydia wished with all her heart that she were the one lying in the pool of blood now.
Her shattered moonlight reformed for a moment, but just as quickly threatened to scatter again.
Lydia could only lament that moonlight never shone on her for long.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
It was all useless now. Things had gone too far.
Anna looked at Lydia’s tears and finally breathed a sigh of relief.
She didn’t want to die carrying anyone’s hatred.
She could finally close her eyes.
The moment her eyelids fell, Ophelia appeared before her.
Yes, Ophelia.
I’ve broken my promise, Ophelia.
Anna reached out with trembling hands, longing to embrace that distant moonlight.
Just when things had started to change, just when life had begun to look up—
It all turned out to be a fleeting illusion, impossible to grasp.
She felt hatred, regret, refusal to accept fate.
But it was useless.
All her regrets would fade away with her.
In the very end, she only wanted to say:
Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, Ophelia.
But all she managed to say was:
“I love you, Ophelia.”
She wanted to say “goodbye,” but the word caught in her throat.
“Idiot! If you love me, say it to my face!”
The light was blinding.
Anna only felt her body becoming so light.
It didn’t hurt anymore.
She opened her eyes, and in that instant, her pupils dilated.
Then the tears burst forth.
“Ophe… lia.”
She felt as if she were being gently embraced by moonlight.
Countless magical runes poured into her body, mending her wounds, pulling her bit by bit back from the hands of death.
It was the highest-grade healing magic.
Anna watched as Ophelia’s lips gradually lost their color, her once-lustrous golden hair turning brittle and dry.
It was as if the price for casting this magic was Ophelia’s own life force.
“Stop, Ophelia, please stop.”
Anna reached out and cupped Ophelia’s face.
“Shut up.”
Ophelia ignored her, maintaining the spell with all her might.
For a split second, Anna felt as if the sun exploded before her eyes.
When she opened them again, Ophelia was lying on her chest, listening to her heartbeat.
“Fool.”
Ophelia said.
“You’re the fool. That magic… the cost isn’t small, is it?”
Anna wrapped her arms around Ophelia’s head, her chin gently rubbing the crown of her skull.
“You can only use it twice in a lifetime. It consumes half your life.”
Ophelia blinked wearily. She lifted her face and placed a kiss, not too light nor too heavy, at the corner of Anna’s lips.
“Idiot.”
“Anna, you’re the real idiot, sneaking out behind my back to do something this dangerous.”
“There was a reason for it.”
Anna turned her face aside, but Ophelia forced her to face her directly.
“Now, half my life is inside yours, Anna.”
No one knew whose kiss it was, but it carried the taste of blood.
Their blood mingled at the tips of their tongues, never to be separated again.