Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
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The light from the mechanical desk lamp was adjusted to just cover the desktop, so that the people sitting on either side were just outside the light source.
Anos stared at the lamp in the darkness, remaining calm and silent.
Queen Caroline II, still half-asleep, smoothed her hair and chuckled, “Florian was a very charming man. If it weren’t for his inability to make up his mind to leave the Papacy, I even intended to give him the position of the royal consort.”
Anos tried his best to answer in a cold voice: “I don’t care about your business with him.”
Queen Caroline II chuckled: “You don’t care, yet you come to ask me in the middle of the night? I’m rather curious, do you share memories with the Holy Son Anos?”
Anos had considered this issue beforehand, and after guessing the Blackwing Lord’s possible attitude, he said with some arrogance and disdain: “I naturally know more than he does.”
Queen Caroline II nodded, unsurprised: “Just as I thought, after all, you are the real Anos.”
Anos raised his eyes to look at the woman opposite him, who was arguably the most noble woman in the world. After a slight pause, he spoke in a tone similar to the Blackwing Lord, without any politeness: “Did you say the same thing to him?”
Queen Caroline II was clearly used to this kind of conversation and didn’t take it to heart. She just smiled and said, “He reminds me of the original Florian— devout, upright, kind… Unfortunately, these are all illusions forcibly fixed by faith. I don’t dislike people like that, but I don’t like fake saints.”
“Are you so sure he’s faking it?”
“No, your situation is a bit more complicated.” The smile on Caroline II’s lips slowly faded, and she sighed softly. “Alchemy dissected your soul, leaving behind the completely good side and stripping away the evil— no, I prefer to call it the human side— to create the current Holy Son.”
She leaned back in her chair, her face completely hidden in the darkness, only her voice narrating softly, “I still remember the first time I saw him again, he was thirteen years old, performing a perfect bow, and as he passed the city gate, he stopped in front of a beggar, took off his robe, and draped it over the beggar’s shoulders.”
Anos’s eyes flickered slightly as he recalled something, vaguely remembering that something like this had happened, but not clearly.
“Donating the robes of the saint to a beggar, it naturally appears more sacred and compassionate… But when I was facing him, I saw his eyes, which were as distant as if they were in another sky, with only standardized pity and piety.”
At this point, Queen Caroline II’s voice lowered, “I was wondering what was reflected in those blue eyes that he inherited from me? Was it the beggar beside him? Was it the cheering and praying believers? Was it the high and mighty Papacy? Or was it just an empty shell that reflected nothing at all?”
“I’ve seen many arrogant nobles who think the lower classes are just cheap utilities, indulging in their ancestral glory and ignoring the ever-changing empire and the world… Ha, I don’t hate such nobles, it makes dealing with them very easy for me— but I didn’t want my children to become like that. As for Anos, he’s even more terrifying than that. He’s like a true god, powerful yet indifferent.”
Anos’s eyes flickered, and he felt some emotion boiling inside him, but it quickly disappeared into the invisible darkness.
He remembered the persona he maintained and slowly said, “It sounds like you’re more inclined to be like us demons.”
Queen Caroline II laughed again: “I don’t believe in God, I only believe in myself— in a sense, that is indeed the same as the demon’s mind.”
Anos twitched the corners of his mouth, revealing a cold smile.
Queen Caroline II stirred her coffee, asking with some curiosity, “So, you came to see me tonight just to ask about Florian?”
Anos was silent for a moment, then asked the question that concerned him most at that moment: “If that was the case, then why did you use alchemy to divide my soul? Now I have to find a way to kill him.”
Queen Caroline II paused in her movements: “Who told you I did it?”
Anos was slightly taken aback.
Queen Caroline II sat up straighter, her eyes narrowing slightly as she scrutinized Anos’s bloodshot eyes and shadow. Then, her brow twitched, and she put down her coffee cup with a wry smile: “I never thought I’d be fooled one day.”
Anos realized he had been found out, so he pursed his lips, and was unsure whether to deny or admit it.
Queen Caroline II sighed softly: “Since we’ve come this far, I’m not afraid for you to continue listening. You may not believe it, but the one who used alchemy to divide your soul and transform you into an ‘angel’ was none other than His Holiness the Holy and Merciful Pope.”
“Impossible!” Anos blurted out.
He had spent so many years with His Holiness the Pope, and even though His Holiness the Pope had always been more polite than kind to him, he had seen St. Gregory III’s benevolence toward the world and his suppression of the alchemy school!
And even if the Pope really had ties to the alchemy school, why did he choose the child of Caroline II and Bishop Florian?
“I know you don’t believe me.” Queen Caroline II chuckled, but her smile was not genuine. “I’d also like to know why His Holiness the Holy Pope chose my child— even if that old man couldn’t have children of his own, with so many orphans ‘disappearing’ every year at the Papacy’s orphanage, why my child of all people?”
Anos sat there, his blood-red disguise shattering to reveal his azure eyes shrouded in bewilderment.
If what Caroline II said was true, then it meant he was not the so-called angel on earth, not the next pope personally appointed by God, and not the pure and innocent His Highness. On the contrary, he was the illegitimate son of a bishop who violated church rules and committed sins, a sinner who should not exist and should not even be brought to the forefront.
Anos had many things he wanted to say in rebuttal, but in that instant, all the past events flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern.
The estrangement hidden beneath the polite formalities of St. Gregory III, the cardinals’ perfunctory nods of agreement, the concealment by Bishop Thomas and others…
Those distant, sacred vows and prayers of the past seemed to have turned into one farce after another, and he was the only actor. The audience, filled with people enjoying his self-righteous performance, now seemed to be laughing inwardly.
He was not even as good as that Blackwing Lord— at least that demon had truly loyal subordinates and a mother who was willing to communicate openly!
In that instant, a strange, never-before-seen emotion welled up within Anos, making him want to overturn the table in front of him, smash all the glass in the palace, and rush up to the Holy City to question the Pope about what was going on!
This unfamiliar feeling compelled him to stand up abruptly.
But he eventually regained his composure, bowing slightly to Caroline II and speaking in his usual calm tone: “Thank you for informing me. Please forgive my concealment.”
After saying that, he turned and left Caroline II’s bedroom without looking back.
Queen Caroline II remained silent, watching Anos leave with slightly unsteady steps. She then took a sip of her now-cool coffee and gave a self-deprecating laugh.
….
Anos’s steps went from calm at first to gradually becoming disordered, until finally he himself didn’t know where he was going.
What saddened him more than the blow from the message conveyed in Caroline II’s words was the wavering within him— it meant that his faith was not as devout as he had thought.
Otherwise, he should have loudly denounced Caroline II’s blasphemy and left immediately to present everything to the Pope as it was.
The night breeze blew across Anos’s cheeks, ruffling his light golden hair and revealing his somewhat dim and bewildered blue eyes.
—Have I fallen? Have I wavered?
—No, perhaps I was entangled in darkness and sin from the very beginning, but I just didn’t know it…
Anos’s mind was in complete chaos; and he had no idea what he was thinking.
After he calmed down a bit, he realized that he was almost back at his residence in the Sig Palace.
He lived there with Luo Mi and Reinhardt.
Anos felt a strong urge to see Luo Mi, to tell him everything he had heard, and to hear his best friend’s opinion.
—He was now even unsure to whom Reinhardt was truly loyal.
—But Lian can definitely do it. Lian is his friend, a partner with whom he trusts wholeheartedly!
Anos’s dim eyes lit up again, and his mood inexplicably improved.
He quickened his pace, entered the palace with a clear goal in mind, headed towards Luo Mi’s room, and habitually began to think about whether Luo Mi was asleep, and if so, whether he should disturb him.
But his steps gradually came to a stop.
Luo Mi’s door was not closed properly.
And gasps and pleas for mercy could be clearly heard from inside.
T/N: So sorry for Anos baby… he didn’t deserve it!!!!
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