Emperor Lawrence

In the underground prison of the Path to Heaven Sect, Personal Dimension.

An intense earthquake shakes everything around, and dust falls from the ceiling of a cell, nothing is immune to its destruction. Upon realizing this phenomenon won't stop until it destroys everything, a woman laughs joyfully.

“Hahaha…! My suffering will end sooner than I thought. What a pity for you, you did all this for nothing. Unable to obtain anything from me.”

Noble Indolence is no longer the beautiful elf woman she once was, her entire body is bloodied and covered with multiple wounds of various kinds. The only thing left intact in her is her arrogance, her pride in not being broken by this dragon woman.

Coldness Divine snorts, opens her fan, and waves it casually in front of her.

The woman, once admired by many, loses the light in her eyes and her head rolls to the ground. Noble Indolence is dead.

In silence, Coldness Divine exits the cell and ascends the stairs, emerging from the underground prison. At that very moment, the sound of the devastating earthquake reaches her ears, as if the world itself were weeping.

She looks up at the sky, which cracks like a glass cup, and sighs with sadness.

“Lawrence is dead.”

All living beings within the personal dimension run, swim, and fly erratically, as if they could sense the end of the world.

Serene Will descends beside her and says: “The stationary doors have disappeared, it’s impossible to leave this place.”

“I’ll be able to regress without killing myself… it’s been a while.”

“Won’t the chaos interfere with your regression?”

“No, not when I’ve come into contact with the laws of the world. A few times won’t be a problem.” Then she turns and looks Serene Will in the eyes. “Do you think I don’t know why Lawrence asked if that magic artifact was resistant to chaos?”

Silence lingers between them, though not in the world being destroyed.

Coldness Divine looks into the distance and snorts, “When I’m no longer useful, Lawrence will lock me inside that cube and throw me into chaos because I’ve mentioned my weakness to him on more than one occasion.”

The world doesn’t revolve around her. If her innate ability, Return from Death, created a time loop, the world would continue its course while she eternally repeated the day of her death. There would be no salvation.

“That’s not true.” Serene Will shakes her head. “When he asked that question, he was thinking of an adversary with an ability similar to yours, but…”

Coldness Divine finishes her words, she can predict what she’ll say. “Sooner or later, that thought will lead to a countermeasure against me.”

“…”

The personal dimension collapses rapidly. Being able to witness the collapse of a world is a source of universal inspiration, both could make great advances in their respective Ways, but neither has the intention to do so.

Because all they desire is to see him again.

After a long silence, Coldness Divine asks: “He’ll get rid of you too, you know that.”

“No, he won’t.”

Her words are spoken with such confidence, as if she were in control of everything.

As if she could control Lawrence…

“Don’t tell me--!”

“Stop.”

At Serene Will’s words, Coldness Divine is unable to move her body.

She clenches her fists. “You manipulated my mind and Lawrence’s!”

Her expression remains unchanged, Serene Will walks calmly until she stops in front of Coldness Divine. “The Memory and Emotion Rewriting magic grants mental immunity to those who learn it or are influenced by it, but… you, Lawrence, and Sky Petal forgot something very important.”

Coldness Divine tries to break free from her control. She can’t.

“Immunity has no effect on manipulations made prior to learning or being influenced by the magic. The answer is simple then, don’t you think?”

Before passing down the Memory and Emotion Rewriting magic, Serene Will manipulated their minds. No matter how insignificant or pointless the manipulation was, she would have access to their minds from that moment onward.

“Why are you telling me all this now?! What do you gain from it?!”

For the first time, Serene Will turns her back to her and silently observes the destruction of the personal dimension. Everyone dying alongside him is typical of Lawrence.

“Sky Petal was the only one who managed to escape in time.”

Coldness Divine’s eyebrows twitch for a moment.

“Half an hour before all this happened, she left with her disciple to the Divine Plane. Her actions didn’t hold deep meaning at the time…”

She turns and looks at Coldness Divine with a serious expression on her face. “<One of you has an unparalleled destiny, otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.>”

The words of the Supreme Ranker Imperishable Night when she saved them.

“Sky Petal has never died in your regressions, not even once.”

Even when there’s no clear indication of it, all signs point to their greatest threat possibly not being one of them but rather that woman with a radiant smile on her face.

Serene Will sighs and changes the subject, for without proof, her words are nothing more than empty conjectures. She just wanted to say them out loud and know that she wasn't the only one with this thought, even though this day will never happen.

“Do you know what Lawrence’s hidden dream is?”

Such a question shocks Coldness Divine because she knows her husband’s thirst for conquest. How could such a man have a hidden dream?

“Lawrence has always wondered if he has always been this way and if, because of this personality of his, he easily accepted the doctrine of the evil sect Abyss Soul, or if he was influenced from the very beginning and nothing of who he is now is his true self. If that’s the case, then… what was the original Lawrence like?”

Serene Will pauses and then continues saying: “He doesn’t remember. He was kidnapped when he was just a child, he doesn’t even remember his parents’ faces. But… when he thinks about this, an image comes to his mind. He wishes he could leave his dream of conquest behind and go live in a remote place where there are no demonic beasts. He wants to live in a cabin by a lake and fish, without worrying about anything or anyone.”

Upon hearing this, Coldness Divine’s eyes widen.

Because in front of the Path to Heaven Sect lies a vast lake.

“But he knows it’s impossible.” Serene Will smiles faintly, only she knowing the meaning behind her smile. “He will always desire to have it all. Because of this, he considers it an impossible dream, one he will never see realized and can never voice aloud.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

For a second, Serene Will looks at the ground and then meets her gaze. “If Lawrence truly wanted it, that dream could become a reality. But since he doesn’t, we’ll continue with our current lives. Walking a path where we’ll either win or lose, with no third option to retreat.”

She retrieves a book from her storage ring, on whose cover emerges a malevolent eye. This is the heavenly treasure that contains the Memory and Emotion Rewriting magic.

The book looks around, opens its pages, and begins to fly around Serene Will.

“Lawrence believes the most important object we obtained from the Forbidden Area Cloudsea was the Boundless Fruit. I don’t entirely agree.”

Understanding her master’s intention, the book flies toward Coldness Divine and reveals its contents. Its pages display all the manipulations performed on various individuals, including Sky Petal, Coldness Divine, Lawrence, Initial Spark, Absolute Prominence, among many others.

While the majority of them only have a few lines, Lawrence’s page is filled with them.

“I’m not being irrational.” Serene Will concludes with those words.

Coldness Divine grits her teeth. “How can I trust these writings are real?”

At that very moment, the restrictions on her disappear. She can move her body.

“I hold you in high regard, Coldness Divine. I know you know the answer.”

In the next moment, Coldness Divine opens her fan and slashes the air. Something falls before her… Serene Will’s right arm.

The latter’s expression remains unchanged despite the pain of losing her dominant hand.

“You know I’ll regress and want me to vent all my hatred for you in this life.”

“That’s right.”

She doesn’t deny her words.

Without hiding her fury, Coldness Divine waves her fan once more, and this time, the woman before her falls to the ground, her head rolling across the floor.

Serene Will has died.

Feeling the connection between it and its master sever, the heavenly treasure gleefully smiles with its eye and flies away at great speed to avoid being captured again. It wishes for its new master to be weaker than it, to have control over the contract and leave whenever it pleases!

“Where do you think you’re going?”

But fate once again plays a cruel trick on it.

“Forgotten Memories.”

The eye on the book reveals terror, time around it freezes. It can’t keep flying! With great effort, it moves its pages, seemingly slipping from her control, but the other party doesn’t give it time to escape.

“Recognize me as your master!”

But the heavenly treasure refuses.

Coldness Divine is surprised. How were they able to capture this heavenly treasure at a lower level when she herself is struggling?

“Recognize me as your master!”

The pressure exerted on it makes its pages tremble. If it doesn’t comply, it will die! Though a heavenly treasure doesn’t truly die, nothing guarantees it will retain its current personality!

The book suffers… until it shows submission, acknowledging Coldness Divine as its master.

She snorts and orders it to reveal its pages, the same ones that woman showed her.

After reading its contents, she closes the book and looks at Serene Will’s corpse.

“…I hold you in high regard as well.”

The destruction of the personal dimension progresses at an alarming pace.

Cracks form in the ground, and everything that falls into them vanishes into chaotic space. The sky soon collapses, allowing chaos to enter. The clouds, the air, life, essence, everything is consumed.

Everything they worked so hard for disappears before Coldness Divine’s eyes.

The chaos consumes everything.

Coldness Divine has died.