Chapter 376
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 376
Chapter Title: Satisfied?
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Thud, thud.
After Rose left.
Li Chingwei headed underground.
Without a single attendant in tow, without even taking the elevator.
She walked alone until she arrived at a single door in the deepest part of Leviathan's lowest floor.
Click.
The moment she quietly opened the door.
In the center of the revealed dark chamber sat a massive lump of metal.
It was a cauldron large enough to hold an elephant, resembling a witch's pot straight out of a fairy tale.
But what was most striking were the carvings etched into its surface.
Thousands, perhaps.
Or maybe tens of thousands.
Fruits like grapes, apples, and peaches. Sandwiches, roasts, rice, braised dishes, salads, greens, noodles—all sorts of food. Even wines and rough liquors.
A banquet scene of countless people, men and women, young and old, gathered together eating and drinking.
Each figure no bigger than a fingernail.
Yet the carvings were so vivid in expression and gesture that just looking at them sent chills down the spine.
Even more astonishing was the fact that not a single one of those tens of thousands of food items repeated.
It was a miracle transcending human capability, the kind that would make even the greatest artisan drop to their knees in prayer.
But Li Chingwei knew.
That this was human workmanship.
The white-haired man dozing in front of the cauldron right now was the one who had carved it.
"……."
Whether from accumulated fatigue.
Or from pouring his soul into the carvings.
He had fallen asleep the moment he finished.
Li Chingwei gazed silently for a moment at Rimon's back as he dozed sitting before the cauldron, engraving tool still in hand.
Then she stepped forward.
Slowly.
Without a sound.
One step, then another.
She approached Rimon and gently knelt down.
Leaning her shoulder against his broad back at an angle, she closed her eyes.
Like a weary beast seeking solace against the trunk of a great tree, slender and serene.
That was the moment.
A voice came.
"It seems things didn't go well with the countess."
"Yes."
Even though Rimon had woken and spoken suddenly, Li Chingwei showed no surprise.
As if it were the most natural thing.
Without even opening her eyes, she replied.
Still leaning her shoulder against his back, she moved her lips.
"—Just as planned."
Rimon didn't question it.
He simply felt the cool temperature of the girl leaning against him and waited for her to continue.
To him, Li Chingwei said softly.
"Rose didn't fall for my threat. Instead, she seized my weakness."
"……."
"So from now on, she won't be wary of me."
Rose's insight, accurately pinpointing her weakness, was perfectly princess-like—second only to Charlotte's.
The problem was that this was exactly the outcome Li Chingwei had wanted.
An injured prey is hard for anyone to stay vigilant against.
Especially when that prey approaches, licking the hunter's palm as if eager to befriend them—any hunter would let their guard down.
And with the most dangerous rival, Li Chingwei, now at a disadvantage, it was obvious who Rose would turn her wary gaze toward next.
"In return, Rose will use her neutral stance to check Charlotte, and Charlotte won't take long to notice."
"……."
"Hasneti, having lost the duel, will stay silent, so proving Rose's betrayal will be difficult."
"……."
"Once Rose and Charlotte clash, it'll make things that much easier for us."
On the surface, Rose would continue maintaining neutrality, acting as a safety valve to prevent internal strife in the Seven Dragon Society.
But beneath the surface, by competing with Charlotte, she would divert the pressure that had been bearing down on Li Chingwei.
All without realizing she was being used like a piece on a chessboard.
"So, satisfied?"
After listening silently to Li Chingwei for a long while.
Rimon suddenly asked.
"What a strange question."
As if it were too obvious.
Li Chingwei smiled faintly, still leaning her shoulder against him.
"By taking just one step back, I've avoided losses and gained even more benefits. How could I not be satisfied?"
If she had truly meant to crush Rose.
Instead of a direct threat like today, she would have toppled her more subtly and thoroughly.
But Rose would have resisted to the end, and in the finish, both would have only wounded each other.
By making a half-hearted threat to provoke Rose and deliberately exposing a weakness, she had dodged the scrutiny and even gained an ally.
Flesh given to claim bone.
No—considering she had lost nothing tangible, it was flesh and bone both gained.
But…
"Princess, I asked if you are satisfied."
Even so, to Li Chingwei who couldn't bring herself to say she was.
Rimon asked again.
Li Chingwei fell silent.
As if struck in a vital spot.
After a heavy silence, she buried her face against his back and quietly closed her eyes.
"……This is really strange."
Her face no longer smiling, unlike before.
Truly puzzled.
Her lips moved faintly.
"Everything went according to my plan, and I've clearly come out ahead…"
In any other matter, she could have laughed off becoming the one tucking tail.
She was the Black Dragon Princess.
Whether fawning cutely on her belly.
Or rolling over and barking.
To deceive and use her opponent, she would do anything gladly—and that made her the most dangerous princess in the Seven Dragon Society.
But in this moment.
What she felt was no satisfaction.
"Why do I feel so wretched and forlorn?"
Like a knife stabbed into her heart, aching; like swallowing fire, burning hot. Li Chingwei clutched tightly at the hem of his clothes.
The truth was, she hadn't wanted to lose.
She wanted to forget the plan entirely.
Prove that she was the first he had loved.
That she was Rimon's true bride. Snatch away the vulgar superiority and base pleasure on Rose's face.
Twist her features in misery, and take on that lowly bitch's expression herself.
Even if it was foolish, only hurting each other—it wouldn't matter.
The traces of him vividly marking Rose's skin.
Her shameless display, flaunting it without reservation, proving her fall.
It drove even the ever-rational Li Chingwei to abandon all and succumb to the impulse of a foolish female.
In that sense, her restraint—holding back the instincts from the dragon's pure blood to the end and avoiding the fight—was remarkable.
A feat even the Golden Dragon Princess would struggle with.
Yet the reason Li Chingwei couldn't smile was because she knew.
Even if it was a planned defeat.
Even if she profited from it.
Once she had tucked tail, it didn't change that Rose was ahead in the mating contest.
Why did that obvious result hurt so much?
To soothe the stinging pain even a little, as she buried her face against his back, Rimon asked.
"You don't resent me?"
"How could I?"
If he had rejected her.
Rose would have been hurt.
Instead, she could have hidden her smugness, comforted Rose, and become true friends.
Knowing that, Li Chingwei couldn't resent Rimon just for accepting Rose's feelings.
"This is something I brought upon myself."
From the start, it was she who had asked him to give his heart to the other princesses and accept them.
To resent him now for granting that request would be too shameless and brazen.
Li Chingwei said calmly.
Even if she had become his to begin with, she had never made him hers. She had no right to stop him embracing anyone.
Especially not Rose, whom he had already acknowledged.
"But if you're asking if I regret it…"
But why?
Her mind knew, yet the thorn in her heart wouldn't dissolve. Swallowing it.
Li Chingwei smiled quietly.
"A little. It's regrettable."
Since falling into his arms.
The happiness she had always felt.
The illicit satisfaction from monopolizing him away from the other princesses. The girl murmured of the emptiness slipping through her fingers.
"I won't apologize."
But he didn't waver.
Accepting calmly the breath against his back, he continued softly.
"That would be an insult to Rose—and to you, Li Chingwei."
"……Even now, you could take my side just this once. You're too much."
"What you asked of me was exactly this."
"I know."
Li Chingwei smiled wistfully.
From the moment she asked him to accept the other princesses, this was the destined outcome.
One she had to accept, and until recently, believed she could handle.
She just hadn't known it would hurt this much.
So she thought, unbidden.
If she killed Rose now, could she monopolize him again?
She didn't even need to act herself.
Move another princess, or use the Liberation Brigade. There were plenty of ways to kill Rose without dirtying her hands.
She was the Black Dragon Princess, after all.
But she couldn't.
"Even if I wanted to take it back now, you wouldn't stop, would you?"
"No."
"……Because of the Liberation Brigade?"
"That's part of it. They have enough power to take down a Summon Lord."
When he unleashed the Devouring Beasts.
He had immediately sensed Branga's escape.
He could have pierced space and followed.
The Sword Ghost's sword had let him chase and behead even a demon god who fled around the Earth 37 times.
The reasons he hadn't were two.
One: certainty that Branga would die in the most horrific agony as his flesh rotted and soul crumbled over time.
The techniques of history's cruelest Sword Master were that vicious.
The other: suspicion of Liberation Brigade involvement.
Branga's power—unleashing that many Devouring Beasts and summoning even more—had exceeded a lord's limits.
So he had left Branga alone, hoping to trace the Brigade… but the presence had vanished soon after.
Rimon could sense it instinctively.
That Branga was already dead.
And that the Liberation Brigade had done it.
Even defeated by the dragonized Hasneti, Branga was an absolute being who could face a Seven Dragon Society princess.
Yet to mercilessly kill a transcendent like him just to avoid leaving a trail.
That audacity unsettled even Rimon.
The gut feeling that if he didn't unify the Seven Dragon Society soon, there'd be no chance to hunt the Brigade later.
But even without that premonition, he would have chosen the same.
Because…
"Above all, I've already decided to make you and Rose mine."
If he had refused from the start, maybe.
But once resolved to claim them, he had no intention of letting them go.
Seeing Rimon state it so definitively, Li Chingwei murmured unwittingly.
"……Wise."
"Sarcasm?"
"No, I mean it sincerely."
With her face buried against his back.
Li Chingwei gave a bitter smile.
If he betrayed Rose, no princess would trust Rimon again.
But if he won and kept Rose's true heart, the others would waver too.
The Azure Dragon Princess was the Seven Dragon Society's conscience.
The final barrier, and thus the only one among them truly trustworthy.
'Scary. So this is the Sword Master's intuition.'
That was why she was impressed.
Not just at his decision to embrace Rose and the others.
If anything, the opposite.
The chillingly sharp instinct that he needed to subjugate all seven princesses.
'How did he know that fighting them as is would mean victory at best, but no true triumph?'
She knew Rimon's power well.
And the Liberation Brigade's true might better than anyone. So the Black Dragon Princess smiled bitterly.
If she knew nothing, she could have whined for him to love only her.
Lamenting her burden of knowing too much, forcing her to understand his choice.
Li Chingwei asked wistfully.
"Do you… love us?"
Such a simple question.
Thus all the heavier. After a silence, Rimon finally spoke softly.
"You're not the first brides I'll take, nor the last."
"……."
"So I can't promise eternal love."
As an immortal Sword Master who had lived too long already—and would live forever.
But first, as a man.
Rimon said softly.
"What I can say for certain is this: I may have decided to be a bastard, but I've never embraced someone I didn't care for. I'm no trash like that."
"……I see."
Cruel.
Li Chingwei thought.
If he'd said he didn't love her, she wouldn't have held onto hope.
Yet the clear sincerity in that cold answer stirred an instinctive joy in her, even now, as the woman in his arms.
"Rimon."
Mocking her own foolishness.
Lamenting the attachment she couldn't discard.
Embracing the broad back she had leaned on all this time, Li Chingwei whispered softly.
"Hold me."
That would be enough.
Prove it, she pleaded.
Comfort her like that.
To the girl pleading so desperately, he gave no verbal reply.
He simply turned quietly and kissed her.
Swish.
The kiss was too ecstatic.
His scent unbearably sweet.
The mingled aroma of another woman carved into her heart more sharply.
But she didn't stop.
No—she clung to him with both arms, as if to overwrite even that scent with her own, sucking greedily at his lips.
His saliva filling her mouth, slicking her lips sticky, dripping down her chin.
Swish.
The dress peeled away smoothly.
Thin fabric sliding from calf to ankle.
Thus, his hands sweeping over her utterly bare, snow-white nudity. Her body twisting in response.
Accepting his fierce entry.
Flesh melding.
Breaths gasping.
She devoured him as much as he devoured her.
With a single tear—joy or sorrow, unclear—she shed the pain in her chest.
The Seven Dragon Society's cleverest princess forgot everything in that instant, becoming merely a female lost in pleasure.