The Evil Empress Adores Me - Chapter 152

Please.

I beseeched the ‘other me.’ 

“Don’t be cruel, Damian’s done nothing wrong.” 

– Done nothing wrong?

The divine beast repeated in an offended voice. 

I nodded repeatedly. 

“That was in the very distant past.”

Warm tears flowed incessantly.

Without any time to wipe away the tears, I continued pleading.

“You can’t even say that they’re the same person. Even if they share the same soul, he was reborn…” 

– You….acting like a fool till the end. 

At those words, I froze on the spot.

Because the divine beast was looking at me with an intense gaze. 

– But it’s already too late.

The divine beast pointed at Damian with her chin. 

I gritted my teeth and turned around.

“…..Damian.” 

Damian didn’t respond. 

Instead, he stood stiffly in place, with a blank expression. 

The scarlet eyes that always looked back kindly at me and were usually accompanied by a soft smile were wide open. 

Confused and almost petrified, his face was colorless, with not a single trace of blood. 

“D-amian.” 

“Damian, Damian…..Damian!” 

I felt like I was going out of my mind, desperately calling him over and over again. 

But it was in vain.

I recognized it the instant I saw his expression—the one where you’d collapse at any moment and it was nigh impossible to wake up again. 

Damian, he’s….

He’s recovering the memories of the past. 

After some time passed. 

Damian slowly lowered his head. 

The stiffness with which he moved was unnatural. 

“Charlize.”

His desperate voice sounded like someone who stumbled and struggled for breath. 

“I didn’t know…”

“Da….mian.” 

“Tell me this isn’t, please….” 

Damian panted. 

“Please, I….to you….” 

A teardrop slowly rolled down Damian’s cheek. 

“I’ve been so cruel…” 

– Even after ages have passed, the human being remains the same. 

A cold voice suddenly intervened. 

Damian’s shoulders flinched as if beaten with a whip. 

He was met with a grudge-filled stare from the divine beast. 

– To keep a promise to that human, I abandoned my divinity. 

“Stop.”

-You and I, who were originally one, were forcibly split in half.

“Stop talking!”

– Handing over our power to humans…

The divine beast looked down at me, scowling and showing disdain in her eyes. 

– It was downright crushing, ‘Aurelia.’

Aurelia.

Hearing that name, I closed my eyes.

It was a name I hadn’t heard in a very long time.

A time when the soul and body were not separated, there was wholeness, perfect divinity. 

…that was my name before. 

– I didn’t know that by keeping my promise to that human, I would be forfeiting my wholeness, causing the separation of the soul from the body.  

An intense rage swelled in the divine beast’s voice. 

– Regardless, the soul of a goddess is reborn by borrowing a lowly human vessel! 

I softly bit my lip at the loud shouting.  

– Yet I thought that on the day we’d finally meet again, you would have been ready to give up on that human being. 

The divine beast didn’t bother hiding her distaste. 

– I was wrong, you couldn’t give him up in the end. 

“…If I had to give up that much, I wouldn’t have come here from the start.”

After answering, I gritted my teeth, which was met with a quiet nod from the divine beast. 

– Well, it’s no matter. This time, I’ll give you no choice but to give up. 

“…What are you talking about?”

The divine beast looked at me as if she were looking at a pitiful child. 

– Are you aware that I, being only a physical body, cannot have ‘volition’? 

“…go on.”

– The only thing that can have ‘volition’ is you, the ‘soul.’ 

The divine beast’s voice soon cackled with twisted glee. 

– But a human gave me volition, his so-called ‘desire.’ 

“….You can’t mean.” 

– The human said he would rather destroy everything, than not have an empire. 

“No way, the Emperor?!”

At my paroxysmal shout, the divine beast made a satisfied face.

– Do humans address their ruler as ‘the Emperor’? Anyway, his desire was quite satisfactory. 

Momentarily, my body’s strength was seemingly sapped, and I stumbled on the spot. 

The divine beast looked at me, her eyes giving off a mixture of compassion and pity. 

But it was only for a while.

– From this day onwards, humans on this earth will longer be called ‘humans.’ 

The divine beast’s eyes glistened with twisted joy. 

– And you and I will be whole again. 

– I can finally regain the integrity I lost because of that human. 

The jubilation displayed seemed like insanity. 

– Truly, being able to get back to you….I’ve waited so long. 

Hearing that, I remembered. 

The Empress and Damian, Her Majesty, the Empress Dowager, and the Duke of Rochester. 

And even the maids of the Empress’s palace.

I can’t help but be happy, crying tears of joy at the time spent with people so precious to me. 

However, this was something I’ve been forgetting…

Something that’s been delayed for a long time and needed to be done. 

Finally. 

‘It’s all right.’

The time had come to do what needed to be done. 

Steadying my beating heart, I took a few deep breaths. 

‘I can do it. Can’t I?’

Only when I accomplish ‘it,’ can I protect the people dearest to me to the end. 

Therefore…

‘I have to do this.’ 

Having made up my mind, I opened my mouth.

“You don’t have to.”

My voice declaring those words sounded awfully similar. 

The divine beast tilted her head.

-You don’t have to?

I nodded slowly.

“Yes. There’s no need to do something so troublesome as to exterminate all humans.” 

The divine beast’s eyes narrowed. 

– ….what are you up to?

“There’s no ulterior motive. Because from the beginning, I intended to return to you.” 

Receiving my answer, the divine beast paused momentarily, thinking in silence. 

The divine beast looked me up and down as if searching for my intent, and soon narrowed her eyes. 

– Is this true?

“It is.”

I gave a big nod. 

But just then. 

“Wait, what are you doing?!”

Damian grasped my wrist in a desperate act. 

A mixture of worry and fear had replaced his normally confident expression.

….it was the first time I had seen Damian so apprehensive. 

“It’ll be all right.” 

I smiled gently at Damian 

The person I’d love forever.

A person who I deemed worthy of my all. 

In the distant past, when I almost lost him, I resented it so much. 

To the point where that resentment sometimes pierced my heart. 

There was a time when I thought that it would have been better if we hadn’t met from the beginning.

But, nevertheless…

I couldn’t stop loving him. 

“It had to be like this from the start.” 

“Charlize, please. Charlize…” 

The way Damian called my name was almost bewitching. 

If he kept repeating my name, it would be impossible for me to leave him. 

Looking back at him, I asked him one thing. 

“Our promise, remember?” 

Damian froze on the spot upon hearing that. 

I myself didn’t have prior knowledge of this. 

It was only when I met my ‘body’ again, I regained all my memories. 

But the divine beast probably remembered the current Damian. 

Our old promise.

It’s…

‘Kill me.’ 

That’s all I wanted. 

It was the only way to protect the ‘humanity’ that ‘he’ loved so passionately in the past. 

Looking into Damian’s widened eyes, I steeled myself. 

“If I’m going to keep our promise, I must return now.” 

‘Aurelia,’ who lost her divinity because she loved a human, could no longer use her divine power. 

She would lose her sanity, descend into corruption, and suffer from a strong desire to destroy everything.  

That was my other half, my ‘body,’ the divine beast was experiencing. 

My ‘body’ had made a promise to Carpel. 

The promise was…

‘Kill me.’

However, no matter how much of her divinity she lost, no mere human could slay ‘Aurelia,’ who was once a goddess. 

So she passed down her divine power to Carpel and his children. 

Arrangements were also made for Carpel to eventually be reborn. 

So that he could finally kill me.

All that remains now is for me to return to Aurelia.

Having lived as a ‘human’ for a long time, I had lost the status a divine beast’s soul should have, meaning I couldn’t become the divine beast’s soul. 

I’m not sure whether my ‘body’ knows yet, but there’s one thing I’m certain of—if I and my ‘body’ were reunited…

‘I’ll lose myself upon becoming whole.’

I kept Damian in my sight. 

I looked at him for the longest time, engraving his image into my memory.

“I kept my promise to you. So you…”

I smiled as brightly as possible as I wiped tears from Damian’s pale, tear-soaked face. 

“Keep the promise you made to me.”

After saying that, I closed my eyes.

“Charlize!!!”

Damian tried to hold me back in any way possible but to no avail. 

The world around me turned blindingly white and began to crumble. 

Memories clouded while emotions faded. 

Everything fell away, and the boundaries present in this world became blurred. 

Till finally. 

The whole world was bathed in pure white light.