Lu Mo’s figure vanished before Cecilia’s eyes.
This time, her death was fundamentally different from before. She wasn’t completely destroyed—she was burned away by divine substance.
Her soul should have been annihilated in the burning divine kingdom, erased from this world entirely. But just as the last corner of the illusory divine kingdom was about to dissipate, the entire world suddenly paused.
The world turned gray.
A figure slowly walked forward. In that gray expanse, he was the only one with color. No one knew when he had appeared. Or perhaps he had been standing there all along, never leaving.
He walked step by step toward that last corner of the illusory divine kingdom, then reached his hand into the burning realm. The divine kingdom did not reject him. The flames did not scorch his palm. From within the fire, he retrieved a fragment of a soul.
And in the end, that fragment was pitch-black, utterly out of place in this gray world.
He stood quietly, staring at the black soul fragment, gently rubbing it. For a long, long time, until the whole world began to tremble. Then he slowly released his grip and watched the fragment dissipate bit by bit before him.
In human terms, that fragment would re-enter the cycle of this world.
As the fragment disappeared, at the very end, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh.
“Was it worth it?” he asked softly.
His purple hair swayed gently as he moved. His figure quickly vanished. No one ever noticed his arrival or departure.
“Mm…”
Lu Mo felt herself rapidly returning to reality. At the same time, she sensed an extreme pain, as if both her soul and body were forcibly torn apart. Every cell, every strand of soul felt like it was being scorched by flames, an unbearable agony.
Lu Mo thought that after all she had been through, no matter how much it hurt, she would be used to it. But she hadn’t expected this pain to be a hundred times more intense than the end of her first simulated reincarnation.
Not only her, but the system seemed to have problems too.
[Task 1…]
[In progress… scoring and evaluation…]
Uu…uu…
The system’s voice became blurred, mixed with extremely strong static. The light screen flickered wildly, and the text on it turned into a stream of gibberish.
With a loud crash.
The system… crashed.
A long time passed before the extreme pain and chaos gradually faded. Lu Mo regained consciousness. Her unfocused pupils refocused.
“Ugh…”
She let out a pained groan. Her head and even her whole body still felt numb. She could barely control her own body, lying limply on the bed. Clearly, she had been thrashing violently. She was drenched in sweat, her clothes disheveled, her long hair completely loose. She could even feel… that there might be a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth.
‘How do I feel like I’ve been wrecked…’ Lu Mo thought, her cheeks flushing slightly.
Fortunately, it was late at night, and the little maid had already gone to rest. Otherwise, being seen in such a sorry state would be utterly embarrassing.
As her mind gradually stabilized, the system reappeared.
But…
[System encountered an issue, attempting repair…]
Lu Mo stared at the familiar blue screen, stunned for a moment.
‘No way, can even the system crash?’ Could it be that the commotion she caused in her second simulated reincarnation had caused the system’s video memory to blow out? ‘This system’s performance is pretty bad…’ And there were plenty of bugs too. Lu Mo couldn’t help but complain inwardly.
Fortunately, the system was slowly repairing itself. She simply closed the light screen. Once her hand regained some feeling, she lifted it to wipe the drool from the corner of her mouth.
‘The system should auto-save records, right?’ she murmured softly. She didn’t want to go through that pain again. ‘As for Task 3… I should have completed it, right?’
In the end, she had indeed severed the threads behind Cecilia and accompanied her over that final wall. Even though her second simulated reincarnation had ended, she still hoped Cecilia would be fine—become smarter, braver, more independent, live her own life, and turn that world into what she wanted.
“I hope that dummy will like that gift,” Lu Mo said softly. She had left a big present for Cecilia. Once Cecilia woke up, she would be able to see it.
“Alright, let’s stop thinking. Get some rest—I have an 8 AM class tomorrow.”
After her body fully recovered, Lu Mo quickly washed up. It was already very late. She pulled the covers over herself and soon fell into a deep sleep.
“Miss Lu Mo! Miss… Lu Mo—”
At the same time, Cecilia woke with a start from her dream again. She sat up abruptly and reached forward, but all she grasped was air. Cold moonlight streamed through the gap in the curtains, yet her hand couldn’t even touch that beam of light.
Cecilia stared blankly at the moonlight, feeling the cold air in the bedroom. A rare expression of weakness and sorrow appeared on her face. Tear stains still lingered at the corners of her eyes.
She had that dream again.
In the dream, Lu Mo gently pushed her, sending her over the wall and into the future. But the girl herself remained forever in the flames and thorns of the past. In the many years since, she often had this dream.
“Actually… the position of Holy Seat, the power close to that of a god… I never wanted any of it,” she murmured softly. “I only want you to come back. I only want… to be with you.”
Time passed. Morning soon arrived.
Lu Mo went to her 8 AM class. Although she had already learned much of the knowledge in her simulated reincarnation, in reality she still had to maintain her current identity. She would only reveal her power once she truly had the capital to confront her family and the Night Dynasty’s imperial court.
She arrived early. There weren’t many students in the classroom yet. Lu Mo skillfully walked to the seat by the window in the second-to-last row, sat down, then summoned the system and looked at the light screen. The repair progress was still slow—it looked like it would take a while.
Seeing that, Lu Mo closed the light screen again and stared out the window, spacing out.
“But come to think of it, how will the world judge me in the second simulated reincarnation? A villain? A madman? A hypocrite, a crazy person who can’t even admit his own name…”
“No, no—that’s Otto’s line.”
Just as Lu Mo finished her inner complaint, a voice suddenly came from beside her.
“Otto?”
“Huh?”
Lu Mo turned her head and froze.
Because she saw Cecilia, somehow already standing right in front of her, a look of surprise on her face. The little antenna on her head bounced lightly.
In those eyes… there was light.