The Whisper of the God of Love (Part 10)

This was one of the monster’s largest, thickest limbs, just a single, terrifying step away from its main body.

In other words, not only had he failed to get away from Elka, he was now closer than ever.

“But… why?”

For safety’s sake, shouldn’t the man have thrown him as far away as possible?

Before Ewan could even begin to process this new, horrifying tactical disadvantage, his vision suddenly went dark.

The man was once again standing before him, his gaze as calm and empty as a tranquil sea. The terrifying, oppressive aura he exuded was like a mountain crashing down on him.

Ewan’s breath caught in his throat. He didn’t have time for anything else. He scrambled to his feet, his battle aura flaring to life in a desperate, shimmering corona.

He had to create distance.

Shadow Step!

BOOM!

The moment Ewan assumed the starting stance for the skill, the man suddenly, violently stomped his foot.

In an instant, the entire monstrous limb they were standing on trembled violently, as if caught in a magnitude-eight earthquake. Shadow Step was, after all, a special kind of footwork; it couldn’t be performed without a stable surface. Ewan’s center of gravity was thrown completely off, and the Shadow Step he had been about to use was once again, brutally, interrupted.

And this time, the man hadn’t even used a martial art.

Ewan felt like a helpless, flailing child before him. Any of his seemingly impressive, hard-won moves were, to this man, nothing more than a toddler wildly swinging a tree branch.

Full of openings. Pathetically crude.

To even take him seriously would be an insult.

“Damn it!”

He didn’t know how many times he had cursed today, but being toyed with so casually, so effortlessly, had finally ignited a spark of true, defiant fury within him. He threw caution to the wind, his twin blades a blur as he once again slashed at the man with everything he had.

But if the man still possessed any human emotion, he would have surely sighed at this moment. Sighed at Ewan’s foolish, reckless choice.

Because in the middle of a battle, to be swayed by emotion—

—is a fatal, and amateurish, mistake.

The man once again reached out, meeting the two arcs of silver light. The blades were a blur, a whirlwind of steel so dense that not even water could have passed through. And yet, the man’s hand, with an almost supernatural, impossible grace, slipped through a tiny gap in the attack and gently, almost tenderly, tapped Ewan on the chest.

A terrifying internal force erupted from his palm, and Ewan was once again sent flying through the air like a discarded ragdoll.

“Cough, cough…”

Ewan’s stomach churned, and he vomited a mouthful of acidic, foul-smelling bile. Before he could even curse again, the man had closed the distance and was standing before him.

Another palm strike.

And Ewan was once again sent flying.

As if he had become addicted to the move, the man relentlessly, mercilessly pursued him, never giving him a chance to even get to his feet.

A palm strike. Flying.

Vomiting bile.

A palm strike. Flying.

Vomiting bile.

Over and over and over again.

“Young Master!”

Anne, seeing her master being toyed with like a broken sandbag, grew even more frantic, her metallic creations attacking with a reckless, desperate, and almost suicidal abandon.

“Haha! Master, why are you so agitated? Could it be that Mr. Ewan is the one you love? No, no, that won’t do. You can only accept my love, Master!”

Elka let out a joyous, triumphant laugh. Even as countless of her limbs were being torn to shreds by the storm of steel, her happiness was unshakable.

“I was originally planning on having Mr. Ewan accept my love as well. But now that I think about it, wouldn’t it be better if he were just beaten to death by my dear Rod? Hey, Master, why don’t you surrender? If you surrender, I might just consider letting him go.”

“In your dreams!” Anne retorted, gritting her teeth. She took a deep, steadying breath, forcing herself to calm down. The rigorous training of a perfect maid always allowed her to better control her emotions. And in a crisis like this, a calm mind could always spot things others couldn’t.

And so, as her mind raced, trying to find a way for the Young Master to escape this nightmare, she quickly noticed something strange.

—Why, after being beaten so brutally by that man for so long, besides vomiting up last night’s dinner, did the Young Master seem to be completely, and miraculously, unharmed?

…

“Cough, cough. I see now. I understand.”

Ewan leaned against the monster’s massive, pulsating body, having vomited the very last of his stomach’s contents. He looked at the man before him with a helpless, bitter smile. “Even if you’re trying to fool Elka, couldn’t you have chosen another, less nauseating way? This feeling of almost vomiting up my own stomach… is really, really not pleasant.”

The man remained silent.

He just stared at Ewan.

His vacant eyes were empty, like a doll’s.

But who’s to say that a doll has no heart?

“Save her.”

For the first time, the man spoke to Ewan. His voice was hoarse and cracked, as if he had just returned from the very depths of hell.

“Alright.”

Ewan wasn’t surprised. He nodded, his expression deadly serious.

“I will grant her release.”

He didn’t pay any mind to the subtle, yet crucial, difference between “release” and “salvation.” Or perhaps, the man had long since known that for the current Elka, “release” was “salvation.”

The man reached out again and grabbed Ewan’s shoulder.

This time, Ewan did not resist.

He allowed the iron-like grip to squeeze him painfully, and then, like a baby chick, he was lifted up and thrown with all the man’s might.

He was not very far from Elka now.

But the man had still used all his strength.

And so, he flew fast.

“Ah?”

Elka finally reacted.

And her happiness instantly, violently, vanished.

She had been betrayed.

Betrayed by the one she loved most!

“WHY?! WHY?!” she shrieked, her voice a chorus of a thousand agonized souls. “ROD, WHY ARE YOU BETRAYING ME?! WHY?! YOU HAVE ALREADY ENTERED MY EMBRACE, SHARED IN MY LOVE! WHY DOES THE GOD OF LOVE’S POWER NOT WORK ON YOU?! WHY?!”

In her extreme, betrayed fury, the monster’s entire body began to tremble violently. Hundreds of faces wailed in unison, their countless cries of “I love you” becoming a ghostly, ear-piercing shriek that seemed to tear at the very fabric of reality. The deformed flesh began to writhe with an unprecedented, cancerous activity. Countless grotesque limbs, not even waiting for the skin to split, brutally tore their way out, spraying blood and gore everywhere.

And then, those limbs, dripping with a foul-smelling, blackish blood, completely ignored Anne, who had seized the opportunity to launch an all-out, devastating attack, and surged toward the traitor and Ewan.

The man did not resist. He allowed himself to be caught, entangled, and enveloped by the grotesque limbs, to be gradually, inexorably swallowed by the monster. He was about to become one with Elka again. And this time, there would be no special treatment. He would become just another one of the hundreds of screaming, weeping faces.

His eyes were still vacant, but in their deepest depths, something seemed to flicker.

Just as it had before.

Why did I betray you?

Is the answer not obvious?

Because I love you, Elka.

I’m sorry I was deceived.

I’m sorry I couldn’t stop you.

But in the end, at the very least, let this useless man be of some use.

In the final moment, before he was completely consumed, the man raised his one remaining hand.

His five fingers curled, like the claws of a great, mythical beast.

And in that instant, a sound like thunder roared.

An invisible, concussive shockwave, centered on his palm, rapidly expanded.

But its target was not himself, but the grotesque, fleshy limbs that were pursuing Ewan.

…

This is…

…my final act of love.

…

Elka’s shrieks were cut short.

Because a figure, having broken through all the obstacles, had finally, miraculously, arrived before her.

“Yo, Elka.”

Ewan stood on the writhing, pulsating flesh, looking down at her still-cute, and now very surprised, face.

As if greeting an old friend, he said softly, “Good afternoon. Have you eaten yet?”

“The roasted lamb you treated me to last time was delicious.”

Author’s Note

It’s finally time for the paid chapters.

First, I want to thank all my dear readers for their love, and my editor for their support. I couldn’t have gotten here without you.

There’s not much to say about the paid chapters, so let me talk about the book itself.

First, this book, especially the beginning, does have some major issues. There are some logical flaws, which many readers have pointed out. To be honest, when I first started writing, I didn’t think there were any logical problems, because my logic was very simple:

The protagonist transmigrates.

He knows he’s a disposable blond villain who is doomed to fail, and the original protagonist is an ultimate OP heroine who can slaughter her way through this world of Evil Gods.

The protagonist feels he can’t compete, so he decides to give up (he wants to apologize to the original protagonist and live a peaceful life as a duke’s son).

Then the black book appears and gives him a prophetic dream of being given the death of a thousand cuts.

Therefore, the protagonist thinks he will have this even more miserable ending because he tried to change the plot (the world’s ‘course correction’).

So, compared to a thousand cuts, he chooses to follow the original plot, which is to unsuccessfully drug Celicia and be demoted to a commoner.

But unexpectedly, through a series of twists and turns, he succeeds.

Mm, looking at it this way, does the logic make more sense?

But perhaps because I tried too hard to explain this logic, and because every reader’s understanding is different, many people found this part of the plot to be stupid and “toxic.” In the end, it was my lack of control over the plot that gave many readers a bad experience, and for that, I apologize.

The second problem is with my writing style at the beginning.

In the setting, the protagonist is an ordinary person who has transmigrated into a blond villain. He’s not like a typical, domineering protagonist who will actively try to steal the original protagonist’s luck. He just wants to “live” and be “happy.” So, when conflicts arose, I used a lot of internal monologue to show his struggle. Because compared to a protagonist who defies the heavens, I prefer a protagonist who, despite his fear, can overcome it and make a choice that warms the heart.

But the excessive internal monologue not only made the protagonist’s character seem fragmented, but also made him seem… “weak.” I’m sure no reader liked the male lead during the Celicia plot. Again, I apologize to all my readers, and I thank you for supporting me even after I made such a big mistake.

Of course, now that I’ve identified the problem, I have to fix it. In fact, from the start of the maid plot, and especially the Elka plot, aside from his roasting, I have stopped using so much internal monologue for the protagonist, and have tried to shape his character through “actions” rather than “thoughts.” Doesn’t that seem a little better?

All these problems are due to my lack of plot control and writing skills. If any readers have any other issues, you can raise them in this section, and I will read them one by one.

Now that I’ve talked about the problems, let’s talk about the plot of the book.

First, I want to say that none of the heroines in this book will be easy conquests. Including Anne. Her affection level is the highest, so she’s the first one. But it will still require a plot to correct her “deformed” love. So, every heroine will have a long process of being won over, and that process is the “main storyline” of this book.

As for why there haven’t been more interactions with other heroines… I can only say that I really couldn’t find a place to insert them in the first volume’s plot, and I can’t sacrifice the coherence of the story for those interactions. But from the second volume onwards, as new settings are introduced, the protagonist will have very interesting interactions with almost every heroine, so please look forward to it.

And from the current world building, you should be able to see that the subsequent story will be very exciting.

As for when the second volume will start… for me, it’s already been a few chapters, hehe.

Alright, that’s all for now. Thank you again to all my readers for your great support, and I hope you will continue to support me.

Cough, cough (peeks). If you have any tickets left, it would be even better if you could vote, cough, cough (peeks again).

Although these past few days have been a bit busy for me, I promise you that your tickets and donations will be turned into actual extra chapters in the future. For details, please see the pinned comment in the comment section.

Well then, I wish all my readers a happy every day, and we’ll see you in the next chapter.