"Hello, my na is Monica."
"Then we were born as half of your subjects."
"From now on, we will all pledge our allegiance to you, after all, you never specified whether it was the first half or the second half."
The girl spun around, her erald-green eyes shining like radiant jade.
She always seed to be smiling. The oppression and suffering that clung to the other sirens were absent from her.
She was like a ray of sunlight piercing through the deep sea.
On the twisted flesh, an eye opened, and murky tears slid down.
Why does it hurt so much?
Pain is rely an illusion of the mind.
Monica told herself.
She twisted and wrung herself like a towel, squeezing out smiles, squeezing out joy, offering them to her suffering clansn.
This was the only thing she could do, those indescribable pains, the hollow and withered heart, were hers to bear alone.
She swallowed them down along with the cold, hard food and the bitter seawater.
The body is a prison for the soul.
She was trapped here, in endless darkness.
Thankfully, she was about to die soon.
She hadn’t been in this world for long, but she had already decided—
Next ti, she wouldn’t co back.
Enslavent, endless toil.
Separation, watching her people leave her one by one.
Her people had been saved.
The curse had been lifted.
Light had returned to her world—
The little girl lifted her head.
The bloated, twisted monster looked around in confusion, then glanced at itself.
So that’s how it is, redemption is nothing but an illusion.
Life is an illusion of pain.
Just an illusion.
Monica closed her eyes again.
Don’t open them anymore. Let it end like this.
She had long known what this world was like.
Everyone bore their own suffering.
Everywhere she looked, there were tornted souls.
She had grown tired of the sight.
It would all be over soon. Very soon.
Suddenly, she felt sothing touch her.
She didn’t want to care anymore, but after a mont of hesitation, she opened her eyes.
The whole world seed blurry.
Figures stood around her, hazy and indistinct, they were so small.
Voices murmured like whispers in a dream, distant and muffled, as if she were peering at the world through thick frosted glass.
She followed the sensation on her body and looked down at the small figure touching her.
In the next mont, she t Hughes’ gaze.
He didn’t say a word, but in the instant she saw his eyes, Monica understood his aning—
"I’ve co to save you."
A sliver of light shone into her tiny prison.
The glass shattered in an instant.
A voice rang out crystal clear from deep within her heart.
Her dim green eyes widened.
"Contract—Symbiosis!"
Monica dumbly followed his will.
By the ti she realized what had happened, the contract had already been signed.
"No!!!"
She cried out in alarm, fear gripping her heart as she watched the corruption surge into Hughes through the contract.
It was over.
He was going to be tainted.
Monica knew how terrifying the corruption was, and her lord was rely a mortal.
But in the next second, the corruption that had rushed toward him suddenly recoiled even faster than it had co.
Monica looked on in confusion.
Why did it feel like the corruption inside her was… afraid?
Then, a torrent of life force surged from Hughes through the contract, flooding into her.
The blazing vitality poured over her corruption like boiling water on snow, annihilating it instantly.
This was bad.
Hughes was just a mortal, where had he gotten such imnse life force?
He was going to—he was going to—
Monica looked up at Hughes.
He was smiling.
There was no sign of exhaustion in him at all.
"Ah!"
Monica let out a sharp cry.
Her bloated flesh was rapidly shrinking.
The corruption drilled out of her skin, forming holes across her body.
She was on the verge of collapse.
But the surging life force seed endless.
Wherever it flowed, wounds healed, and the corruption shrieked as it fled in all directions.
"Ahhhhhhh!!!!"
Monica scread.
She felt like she was being crushed, crushed and restored at the sa ti.
She wanted to faint, but she couldn’t.
The overwhelming life force pulled her back to consciousness the instant she lost it.
Sitting inside her fleshy prison, Monica suddenly noticed soone pushing open the door.
At so point, her lord, Hughes, had appeared at the entrance.
From that mont on, everything changed.
Blood and tears mixed as they fell.
Her bloated body, caught between corruption and life force, gradually returned to normal.
She and Hughes plumted from the air, only to be caught by countless hands.
Monica looked around at her tribe people faces in confusion.
"Sister Ash, Nini… Lord, what happened…?"
The past was an illusion.
Pain was an illusion.
The body was an illusion.
Life itself was an illusion.
Fragnts of mories and images overlapped, Monica couldn’t distinguish them for a mont.
But then she thought for a mont and smiled in relief.
The warmth rising in her heart at this mont wasn’t an illusion.
That was enough.
The corruption scread in agony as it fled from her body.
As it rose into the air, it scattered in all directions, as if sothing terrifying was here, so frightening that the dark corruption was willing to flee at any cost.
The Sirens surrounded Monica and Hughes.
At this mont, they didn’t need a mind link to feel each other’s elation.
They lifted Hughes and Monica high into the air, catching them again, laughing and crying in celebration.
A distant rumble of thunder echoed.
Dark clouds gathered.
Rain began to fall.
Not far away, Connor helped Nora up.
She struggled to sit up, gazing at the celebrating sirens in the distance.
A weak smile appeared on her face.
"Castel… the fire and light in the storm."
For so reason, this desolate, remote island gave her an unfamiliar feeling.
The sirens noticed her and slowly gathered around.
Hughes walked up to her.
His once-elegant clothing was now tattered and stained with blood and mud.
He extended his hand toward Nora.
"I can’t sign any contract with you," Nora said, her expression blank.
"I didn’t save Castel."
"But your blood has been spilled on this land," Hughes replied.
"That makes it your ho as well."
He grasped her hand.
The blood and mud between them didn’t stop them from clasping hands.
"A friendship sealed in blood needs no contract to bear witness."
Nora stared at Hughes in a daze.
"I am Hughes Corsica Simmons Stuart, Frontier Count of Castel Island in the Holy Mier Empire. By sacred covenant and the Empress’s decree."
"I swear this oath—"
"Castel will forever keep its doors open to the Northlanders."
"This land will be your ho."
"You are no longer refugees. You no longer need to wander."
"Welco ho."
The rain poured like a waterfall.
It washed away the gri on her armor.
It soaked her hair.
Rainwater filled Nora’s eyes.
She wiped at them frantically, but no matter how much she wiped, the tears wouldn’t stop.
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