Volume 4, Chapter 41 – The Fall

So, all she had to do was imitate Yisi’s action and pierce her own tongue with her fangs.

Enduring the sharp pain from her tongue that sent shivers through her entire body, Edith gasped for breath, thrusting the long spear forward bit by bit. Hetty could only widen her eyes, her expression contorting as the spear plunged into her. Like Edith, she couldn’t stop the blood from spilling from the corners of her mouth.

“You…”

“…Repent.”

She wasn’t killing Hetty, but torturing her in the most painful way possible. Killing Hetty would cause her to parasitize another pet, which would mean the assassination had failed. Therefore, she had to solve everything without killing her.

For instance, she could temporarily take Hetty away from the Count’s mansion and wait for the mind control’s effects to disappear before returning to her father. To render Hetty incapable of resisting, she had to torture her to the point where she lost the will to fight back.

First the hands, then the feet and calves. Hacking them off directly would cause death from excessive bleeding, so Edith only used the tip of Gungnir to create puncture wounds. Hetty’s screams became the most effective stimulant. The sharp pain from her tongue turned into sweet nectar at this moment. The thick smell of blood mixed with the incense; a scent that would have been nauseating before was now incredibly pleasant.

Her mind was gradually being stained with madness.

Until a series of footsteps sounded.

Accompanied by a rapid and anxious thud-thud, a vampire man in his thirties with neat white short hair walked into the room.

The man’s gaze naturally fell on Edith, who was continuously stabbing the spear into Hetty’s body, her face etched with madness.

“Viel? What are you doing?”

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“Seventy-one, seventy-two…”

“Viel!”

Count Pescia’s shout brought Edith back to her senses. She turned her head slightly. Hetty, beneath her, was already motionless, a mangled lump of flesh that was no longer recognizable.

“Father…?”

“Father, don’t believe that monster!”

As if she had just caught up to the Count, a pet—now Hetty—appeared in Edith’s field of vision. Subconsciously, Edith wanted to throw Gungnir, but as she raised the spear, her body involuntarily swayed. This wasn’t mind control, but a tremor from the depths of her soul, a feeling that something had been stripped away, lost.

And then, her vision gradually turned to black and white, twisting, distorting, and merging, finally becoming a formless void. Following that, her body gradually lost its strength. Like a broken doll, Edith fell stiffly to the ground.

When two souls share one body, the weaker soul will be devoured by the stronger one. Even if the stronger soul does nothing, the weaker one will dissipate on its own. Edith’s soul was already in a precarious state, and the drastic fluctuations in her mental state and the intense physical exertion just now had pushed her beyond her limits.

“Viel, Viel!”

Seeing Edith collapse, Count Pescia rushed to her side and helped her up. Hetty, having possessed another pet’s body, took the opportunity to push past the soldiers and hurried to the Count’s side.

“Father, look at me!”

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“Get away!”

Under normal circumstances, Count Pescia would have definitely noticed the anomaly in Hetty’s speech, but now he just shoved her to the ground, picked up Edith in his arms, and rushed out of the room with the soldiers.

Due to Edith’s excessive torture, even though Hetty had changed into a new body, the mental anguish still lingered. The fallen Hetty struggled for a long time before getting up from the carpet. Staring in the direction the Count had left, she curled her lip.

“…She’ll fall into my hands eventually.”

◇

As if lying in an uninhabited wilderness, a cold sensation spread from her back. Edith subconsciously tried to move her legs, but they were unusually heavy.

It wasn’t just her legs that were immobile; even her eyelids felt as heavy as lead. Edith could only endure the bone-chilling cold from her back and wait for her body to slowly regain its strength.

Compared to the soul space where she couldn’t even feel pain, at least now she could feel the existence of “cold.” The sensation from her body let Edith know that she still had control.

After an unknown amount of deathly quiet time, Edith finally recovered her strength and slowly opened her eyes.

Dim torchlight, cobwebs, hay covering the floor, iron bars forming the walls, and a chain and iron ball shackled to her ankle—these made up the entirety of her vision.

Having just woken up, her mind was not yet clear. It took Edith a short while to understand her environment and situation.

“…To fall at the last hurdle.”

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Her low murmur disappeared into the cold prison cell. Edith tried to take out a weapon from her storage magic.

—It failed.

“I can’t feel any magic. Magic restraints?”

Her gaze fell on the chain on her ankle. Such chains had the effect of continuously draining magic. Due to their high cost, they were only used on high-status prisoners. She had often used them to bind her pets in the past, only to become a user herself.

The current situation must be that her assassination had failed, and she had become a prisoner.

She had already anticipated this outcome when she saw Hetty before passing out. Although she had inferred from Hetty’s words that she would have to reapply the mind magic on her father after changing bodies, it was clear that this magic was not complicated; otherwise, she would not be in the dungeon beneath the Pescia family home.

“Tch.”

Clicking her tongue, Edith endured the weakness brought on by mana exhaustion and slowly stood up from the ground.

“She didn’t kill me directly, so she must have been hindered in some way, or there wasn’t enough time to deal with me yet.”

Neither option was optimistic.

“But as long as I’m alive, I will make you regret it one day.”

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With a cold snort, Edith painstakingly dragged the shackle and walked to the cell door to observe her surroundings. An iron gate meant this was the lowest level of the dungeon. Outside, at least a full squad of well-trained soldiers stood guard. Only those with Count Pescia’s permission were allowed in or out.

It was almost impossible to escape on her own.

“Can I only wait for Father to come and explain properly…?”

To be honest, Edith did not like this solution. Although she was very obedient to Count Pescia, it didn’t mean she enjoyed acting spoiled in front of him.

After she turned nine, Edith had gradually become a prim and proper lady in front of her father. Apart from what was required by etiquette, it was even difficult for him to have any physical contact with her. Sometimes, Count Pescia was even envious of pets like Refina, because they could get close to Edith anytime, anywhere, and not be disliked by her.

“Besides Father, that person might also come… No.”

Edith shook her head.

What am I even hoping for?

It was a disgrace to the name of Loiswell.

From the moment she decided to bear the meaning behind the name “Pescia,” she should not have had any weak thoughts. And in fact, she had succeeded, and had carried it out to a degree that earned the admiration of those around her.

“Five years… no… should I say six years ago…”