The villain's way to tame the protagonist

"Ms. Xin, are you okay?"

In the quiet church, Anser sat on the bench with his chin in his hand, looking at Xin who was staring blankly at the solemn Ouroboros statue on the pulpit.

During this period, he has been copying the information provided by Ming Fuluo to other priests in the North. As I said before, it is not important whether it can have an impact on this group of priests. What is important is... Xin cannot face them who have been deceived, nor can he face himself who has nothing.

"Mr. Devil."

This was the first time Xin spoke after being sunk by Ming Fuluo. His empty eyes reflected the Ouroboros' ring, which symbolized eternity and infinity.

“Does God really not exist?”

This overly radical question surprised Ansel a little. He didn't expect Xin to ask such a heavy question to her so directly.

Hydra was silent for a moment. Even though Xin had been forced to prepare herself, she was still not very stable at least now. Before the bishop showed up, she had to keep Xin's mind as stable as possible.

So he replaced the question with another question: "Ms. Xin, do you have enough evidence to prove the existence of God? For example, the revelation you got from God."

Xin's eyes moved slightly. The divine revelation she received was indeed one of the factors that could prove the existence of God, because she had really received enlightenment that seemed to transcend the shackles of time and space and was born directly from her soul.

"Yes..." Xin replied softly, "There are many traces that prove the existence of God."

No matter how unprofessional the church is, it must always do a good job in the aspect of "miracles". It is not difficult to show God's power and grace through extraordinary means. If there is such evidence, it is indeed easy to find.

"That depends on you, Miss Xin."

Anser smiled and said, "It depends on whether you want to use this evidence to prove that God does exist, or... to further think about the authenticity of this evidence."

"..."

Xin turned around slowly. Because of the blizzard, she was not bathed in the colorful and sacred light reflected by the stained windows while standing on the pulpit. Her figure was as lonely as a silhouette in a black and white sketch, thin and desolate.

"That puts the problem back on me, Mr. Devil."

She actually laughed, like a unique crack in already shattered porcelain.

"Even now..." The Saint lowered her eyes and whispered, "You don't like me at all."

There is no comfort, no mercy, only the purest calculation, the most thorough... malice.

Anser stared at that beautiful face that would move anyone, and suddenly sighed.

"So, Miss Xin... can you really understand the emotion of liking and loving?"

Xin was more mature than he had imagined, and now that things had come to this, there was no need to go any further.

He could let Xin indulge in that false self-satisfaction, and as long as Xin continued to think like this, Ansel didn't mind fulfilling her wish. But now it seems that Xin, who was forced to face the truth, quickly realized that many of her thoughts were escaping reality.

So in order to allow Xin to give everything for him with a healthier mentality in the future, Ansel felt it necessary to give the Saint Miss a final psychological correction.

"Whether I understand it or not, I can feel that Mr. Devil doesn't like me. It has been like this from the beginning until now."

"Only in the moments of my depravity and twisted moments will Mr. Devil feel satisfied and happy... Even at that time, Mr. Devil didn't like me, but the fact that I was suffering."

Anser raised his chin slightly, and said innocently, "Who made me a devil? Devils are cruel and evil, Miss Saint."

"...Yes, you are that kind of person."

The saint and the devil quickly reached a consensus on the evil of Ansir Hydra.

Anser stared at Xin's eyes with great interest, trying to find more differences in those holy blue eyes that could make a person's consciousness gradually blur, things that the previous Xin would never have.

"Why do you care so much whether I like you or not, Miss Xin?" he said. "Is this the key to your saving me?"

If she was liked, would she be able to save Ansel better, or... did she just simply want Ansel to like her?

Since I have never understood this kind of feeling, the source of this feeling can only be driven by existing things. The probability is the former...but even if it is the latter, it doesn't matter.

After all, if it is the latter, it is an emotion deliberately promoted by Marina, which is essentially no different from the former.

Anser can recognize this reality, but can Xin?

However, when Anser asked this question, Xin's emotions, which had gradually stabilized, suddenly showed signs of being out of control again. The frenzied power of his soul raged in the small church, causing endless waves in the realm beyond the material.

"I...can't I have such thoughts?"

She lowered her head, as if she might fall at any moment, and walked towards Anser step by step with great difficulty.

"Don't I deserve, or have the right to, even a little bit of concern?"

Xin's voice was not distorted or crazy, it was just pure loss, pure... sadness.

"I also want to find a reason, a reason to continue to save others even if it is not God's mission; a reason to still want to be loved even if it has nothing to do with salvation... But I can't find it, Mr. Devil."

She stumbled to Anser, stumbled and sat down, resting her head weakly on Anser's knees, and murmured in confusion:

"But no one taught me, but everyone thinks that I don't need such emotions. Is this also... my mistake?"

Xin raised his head, stared into those sea-blue eyes that were clearly gentle, but never showed true gentleness to him, and said softly:

"Mr. Devil, do you think so too? You also think that I shouldn't have these emotions, and that I should...become a being that you hate and despise, right?"

Having never had a self, she could only live for the mission given by God, and her thinking was restricted within the church's thinking barriers for her entire life... Is this Xin's fault as a saint?

Was it a mistake made by her, a person who had everything arranged for her since birth, who had already embarked on a predetermined fate and had no ability and no possibility of resisting?

Anser could express malice or deceive Xin without reservation on any topic and in any field, but he couldn't do it on this matter.

"It shouldn't be like that, Miss Xin." Hydra placed his hand on Xin's cheek and gently stroked it. "I... never thought of it this way."

"Yeah……"

Xin gently covered Anser's hand, closed his eyes and murmured:

"Then why doesn't Mr. Devil want to teach me?"

"..."

"You've taught me so many things, why doesn't Mr. Devil want me to understand what love is?"

"If you don't like me like this, why don't you make me the way Mr. Devil likes me? Why do you have to make me sober? Why do you have to be so cruel... destroy everything about me, so that you will be satisfied?"

Xin opened his eyes, and his originally empty and sacred eyes were now filled with sadness and pain.

That was the feeling she had realized from all the teachings Anser had given her, the feeling that the bishops said "should not exist".

But just as Xin said, Ansel was able to turn Xin into the person he liked from the very beginning, but he never got into any emotional aspect of this.

Ansel couldn't answer her. Should he tell Xin that he had suffered enough in this regard and would never give fate a second chance?

He did shape Xin into the person he "liked", but this kind of liking had nothing to do with the feelings between men and women. It was more like a hobby.

"Why is Mr. Devil willing to change Miss Wolf and Miss Doll, but not willing to... change me?"

Xin had no tears. She just looked up at Anser. Her figure and face were so unclear due to her emotional fluctuations that she looked like a withered flower.

A withered flower that could no longer decide its own fate the moment it was planted.

"..."

Looking at such a lovable saint, Ansher felt unprecedented pity in his heart, but it was just pity.

In the final analysis, Xin's question could be answered with just one sentence, but for Xin's psychological condition, Anser did not say that sentence.

——He had no obligation or need to treat Xin, or anyone else, with love from the very beginning.

Xin's question is absurd and funny. Not only Anser, but no one in this world has the obligation to communicate with others based on liking each other. It is better to say that people who communicate based on this standard have problems.

And Xin does have problems, pitiful problems.

Anser stared into Xin's eyes, and at this moment, he suddenly understood the real reason why Xin insisted that he needed to be loved.

Not just to escape reality, not just to gain spiritual support.

Miss Xin, it turns out that the one who needs to be loved is... you.

Chapter 6.5: Damage (K)

Anser did not speak, but his compassionate eyes served as a response. Feeling this compassion, Xin also fell silent, and his eyes seemed to become empty and dazed.

However, Ansel did not let Xin fall into such pain out of a playful mentality. She already had little time left. The bishops could not have imagined that Ming Furo could dismantle the church's conspiracy through her research on divine arts. At this point, they would not let Xin stay with them no matter what.

"Revealing the truth" to other high-ranking priests was not only to make Xin see the difference between her and them, but also to send a message to those priests hiding in the north - the game was over.

Although there are actually many ways to announce the end to them if Ansor wants, in order to make them continue to believe that they are hiding well, this method is obviously the best... If even one of the priests who received the information provided by Hercules verified it with the bishop, those big conspirators who are stirring up trouble in the empire will know that they have no time.

As for whether it was because the truth was discovered by His Royal Highness the Regent, or because he realized that Hydra was not going to continue playing, it made no difference. The reaction was definitely the same. They just had to wait for a bishop to follow the trail left by Hercules and find him.

"Don't be sad, Xin."

The devil gently stroked the saint's hair: "You have to face the truth. Aren't you ready now?"

Compared to being denied the meaning of duty and the value of existence by the bishops who cultivated her faith and shaped her into a god... Miss Saint should be grateful that Anser was leading her into the abyss step by step in this non-radical way.

"Besides, it's not like you've lost everything, you said that, you promised me, right?"

As always, it goes so smoothly that after ravaging and tearing apart the other person's ego, he would utter sweet but deadly gentle words.

New meaning, new anchor point, abandoning the world built of lies, choosing the devil who really needs to be redeemed by her on the surface and is actually the only one who can give her "love", is so logical.

It is somewhat similar to the way Ming Fuluo was transformed into Helen, but it is completely different.

At the very least, Ming Furo's determination came from the heart, but Erion used the wrong method and made her bear too heavy a yoke. Even if the old man's method was radical, he at least regarded Ming Furo as his granddaughter who could place his long-cherished wishes on, and Ming Furo's parents always loved her as a daughter.

But Xin... from the very beginning, she didn't have anything that could be called an "independent personality". If there were no heroes in the original future, and if there was no Anser in the current reality, then in this world, there would only be the saint who fulfilled her duties and worshipped the gods.

She had no father, no mother, no blood relatives, and no emotional ties. Even she herself thought that they were all meaningless.

It’s really... pitiful.

"My agreement with Mr. Devil."

Xin whispered softly, and his dead and empty eyes suddenly flashed with a ray of fresh life.

Anser lowered his head slightly and whispered in Xin's ear: "You wanted to save me, but you haven't done it yet, right?"

"Yes...I want to save...save Mr. Devil."

She began to feel dazed, and then her tone gradually became urgent, and even her breathing began to quicken: "I want to save Mr. Devil. I haven't fulfilled... the promise..."

Ansel gently stroked Xin's cheek, giving her the tenderness and support she needed most at this moment.

On one side was the truth of the church, and on the other side was the devil's malice. Even if Xin was more devastated, it was normal. It was better to say that she was too firm even though she could barely communicate normally with Anser. In fact, in that dream, she had -

Anser paused suddenly, and the pain in his spine almost instantly made him break away from his pity for Xin.

……wrong.

Without any warning, he withdrew his hand that was caressing Xin's cheek, and his gentle and compassionate expression disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"Mr. Devil...?"

Xin looked at Anser so pitifully and helplessly, as if begging for Anser's mercy.

But there was no expression on Anser's face.

Too simple... no, too natural.

The despair and confusion caused by the collapse of faith, the painful struggle caused by being only watered with malice by Ansir and never being treated with true tenderness, coupled with the numbness and emptiness caused by having nothing worth holding on to in the heart... these three are so perfectly blended together that Xin shows his current fragile, helpless and pitiful face.

"You are...remarkable, Miss Xin."

Anser stood up and looked down at Xin, who still looked confused and fragile. An expression of sighing and even admiration gradually emerged on his originally indifferent face.

"You know very well how I will treat you, and you know even more clearly what kind of mentality I have in mind when I treat you this way, so... you play the role of the saint who has fallen into the devil, and everything you do is in line with my predictions and expectations of you."

He bent down slightly, pinched Xin's chin, and said word by word:

"Just like what I did to you in that dream..."

Realizing that Xin thought he needed to be loved, he deliberately created that atmosphere, step by step leading Xin's thinking into the completely wrong trap. The method was actually very simple, which was to obey Xin's thoughts and let her indulge in her own correctness and die in a closed cocoon.

And now Xin is doing the same thing. She is playing the role of someone who should be fragile, painful, desperate, and begging for mercy from the devil, just to grasp the devil's last straw and satisfy Anser's guess and expectation of her.

"You know what your only problem is?"

The devil chuckled happily:

"You didn't hide yourself well."

If Xin had only shown trying to save Ansel with love in that dream, then perhaps she would have really deceived Ansel by now...but Xin didn't.

It’s not that Xin showed any other intentions. Anser did think that his guidance had been successful at the time. What really cared about him was Xin’s attitude.

That attitude, which was not blindly harming oneself, but choosing to obtain information in the most reasonable way with a mentality of believing that one was not wrong, and thus using that method to feel Anser's "pain", left an overly deep impression on Anser.

Even though Xin had not yet faced the truth about the church at that time, even though Xin had clearly been misled by him at that time, Anser still felt that if Xin had fundamentally maintained that state, he would never be like this now... allowing himself to be slaughtered by the devil.