"Alright, alright!"
Eleya nodded repeatedly at first, then immediately shook her head.
"No! I can't sense her anymore! Ever since the fight with the city guards, I haven't been able to feel the other me!"
"Use reverse psychology!" Luo Wei came up with a plan. Once he deployed this tactic, he was certain she would show herself.
"What should I do?" Eleya asked urgently.
Luo Wei looked at Eleya and suddenly found it hard to speak.
"What's wrong?" She frowned deeply.
"Nothing... I just want to apologize in advance..."
"Huh? Apologize?" Eleya grew even more confused.
"Actually!" Luo Wei, feeling a sharp pain in his ribs, suddenly roared, "The one who destroyed Weston Holy City wasn’t Carlton—it was me! It was all my doing! My goal was to strip you of most of your faith power and weaken you!"
"What?!" Eleya’s eyes widened in disbelief as she stared at Luo Wei.
"It was me! All of it! While you were unable to return, I ordered the mages to slaughter everyone in the Holy City!" Luo Wei forced himself to describe the horrific scene with desperate courage.
Under the terrifying torrent of magic, the white walls were left riddled with holes, corpses piled like mountains, and rivers of crimson blood flowed...
"Everyone died! The bishops, the priests, the nuns, their families—none of your followers were spared!"
"They kept praying your name until their last breath, but you could do nothing! All you could hear were their agonized cries!"
"Luo Wei... Luo Wei?" Eleya stood frozen, staring at him blankly. "Is this true...? Would you do such a thing? My followers... they’re really... all dead?"
"Every word is true! May I burn in hell if I’m lying!" Luo Wei snarled.
"No way... no way..." Eleya staggered back, suddenly unwilling to hear more.
"You weren’t like this before... What happened...?"
"Was the Holy City really destroyed once already? Why...?"
Luo Wei watched her reaction closely. Her expression twisted between anguish and fury, as if she was drowning in self-doubt.
So, he poured fuel on the fire.
Coldly, he said, "If it was destroyed once, it can happen again. As long as you keep obsessing over that damned 'light,' this isn’t over between us. The tragedy of the Holy City will repeat—and it’ll be your fault."
"No! Never!" Eleya’s voice turned shrill. She lunged at Luo Wei in fury. "I’ll kill you first!"
"Then do it!" Luo Wei met her gaze fearlessly.
Eleya raised her hands, gripping the air as if to strangle him.
But that was all...
Watching her trembling fingers inches from his throat, Luo Wei kept his face calm—though his heart was pounding wildly.
This was playing with fire. He felt like he was tap-dancing on the King of Hell’s head.
Of course, if Eleya’s affection for him hadn’t always been at 100, he wouldn’t have dared such a reckless gamble.
At this moment, he suddenly felt that maxing out his charm stats in the first playthrough had been the right call...
"AAAAAH—!"
Torn between choices, Eleya’s emotions teetered on the edge of collapse.
Luo Wei kept his eyes locked on her. Eleya clutched her head, her mood swinging between frenzied rage and eerie blankness—like a case of split personality.
Until finally...
Her gaze turned cold and detached. The divine aspect of her had descended.
"Uh, hey..." Luo Wei forced a nervous smile. "Seraphim lady, don’t forget—we’re allies now."
"Whatever grudges we have, let’s settle them later. Let’s deal with Carlton first, okay...?"
"Be silent." Eleya’s icy eyes swept the surroundings.
She summoned a radiant divine spell, casting holy light into the endless darkness of the study.
Luo Wei exhaled inwardly in relief.
---
Half an hour earlier, at St. Karen’s Cathedral.
Under the heavy guard of several shadow sentinels, Ophelia hurried toward the cathedral square.
The air reeked of blood and gunpowder. The square was littered with dismembered limbs—all from the city guard soldiers.
"Finally regrouped..." Tilis greeted Ophelia wearily. "My side’s wrapped up. How about yours?"
"The police chief and Sir Fred have taken control of the precinct. The jail cells are overflowing with arrests. My end went smoothly too." Ophelia rubbed her temples, exhausted from the constant tension.
"Are you hurt?" Ophelia noticed Tilis was covered in blood.
"Don’t worry, none of it’s mine." Tilis waved dismissively.
"All this... was your doing?" Ophelia marveled at the sea of corpses around them.
Even with part of the city guards diverted to hunt Luo Wei and Eleya, Tilis had faced overwhelming numbers—and in an anti-magic field, no less. Yet the mages had pulled off this feat.
"Told you, our Arcane Society has schools specializing in close combat." Tilis smirked. "The city guards? Just flesh and blood hiding behind firepower."
"Impressive," Ophelia praised.
Tilis signaled to Elder Roens, and soon, the mages dragged forward a battered figure.
"Hawkins, head of the Royal Mage Corps—Carlton’s right hand." Tilis whispered to Ophelia, "Carlton couldn’t have developed the anti-magic field without him. Since Carlton himself can’t use magic, breaking Hawkins might help you."
Ophelia nodded. Besides coordinating from the manor, she’d been trying to crack the anti-magic field.
Since this power came from the Dreamlands, in theory, if Carlton could do it, so could she.
But its complexity had so far eluded her.
"Elder Gory of the Astral School—your father?" Roens studied Hawkins. "Huh... No illusion magic either. You look nothing like him..."
Hawkins slowly lifted his head, venom in his eyes as he glared at his captors.
"A shame I won’t live to see His Majesty wipe you all out..."
His voice was a serpent’s hiss. "But it’s inevitable. Disgusting dark sorcerers—the root of all chaos—will vanish from history."
"Are you insulting yourself?" Elder Margery sneered. "Didn't you come from us? Do you think licking the emperor's boots and becoming some so-called Royal Mage makes you different? Aren’t you just a watchdog?"
"Dislocate his jaw. He’s annoying me," Tilis waved her hand dismissively. "Black magic can extract information without him speaking anyway."
"As you wish." Elder Margery stepped forward immediately.
"Wait a moment!" Ophelia asked suspiciously, "How can you be so certain Carlton will win in the end? As a powerful supernatural, you shouldn’t be blindly trusting him, should you?"
"Have you forgotten what I specialize in?" Hawkins laughed wildly. "The Astrology School isn’t just about summoning a few worthless rocks. We gaze at the stars—we divine fate and the future! I’ve seen it! I’ve seen hope! That’s why I came to this city!"
"What did you see?" Ophelia pressed curiously.
"The one who will change the world!" His eyes burned with fervor as he stared toward the direction of Haigelitz Palace. "He’s there! He will bring us hope! He will save the world!!"
Ophelia and Tilis exchanged glances. While Ophelia seemed startled, Tilis remained utterly unfazed.
"What’s so special about that? There are plenty of so-called 'world-changers'..."
She muttered under her breath, her gaze also drifting toward Haigelitz Palace.
"In that shabby palace alone, there are three of them right now..."

d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!

tions: attribute allocation, analysis, proficiency, and simulation. Specializing in mechanical alchemy, from crafting sorcerous battle armor to handcrafting mechanical maidens, his mechanical legion conquers endless realms... Relying on his wits, he begins with a student-teacher romance, wins over a female director, enslaves a female assassin and a underworld queen, becoming the husband of a Grand Duchess... He enslaves the Goddess of Magic from the divine realm, developing his power simultaneously in both the Wizard World and the Realm of Gods...

grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)

ose... to cooperate with the protagonist! Shen Yuan: I have a system! Protagonist: What? System: Holy crap, you're just spilling it out like that? Shen Yuan: Let's team up, we'll split the system rewards! Protagonist: Fifty-fifty split? Shen Yuan: No way! Protagonist: What!? I'm the one getting beaten up, and I don't get half? Shen Yuan: Forty-sixty split, I get forty, you get sixty! Protagonist: Deal! Big brother, come on, hit me! As long as it doesn't kill me, beat me like you mean it! Shen Yuan: Don't worry... I will definitely protect all of you! No one but me can lay a finger on you! Guard our Heaven's Chosen Ones! I'm the only one allowed to bully them!