Chapter 590: A Hundred Lifetimes

Rose knew that the Cardinal must have a hidden agenda because there was no way he would come to the Holy Temple without preparing something beforehand.

Still, she didn’t care.

She knew the Cardinal was her father, but that didn’t matter to her anymore.

Rose simply watched as the people grabbed the Cardinal and held him down, just as he had once ordered the holy soldiers to capture her.

Back then, she had been the one surrounded by people with nowhere to escape.

Now, it was his turn.

But even then, for some reason, the Cardinal barely tried to fight back. He hardly struggled at all, almost as if he had already accepted what was going to happen to him.

The people around him tore him apart without mercy. They pulled his limbs from his body one by one and tore away his skin while he was still alive. In the end, they grabbed his head and pulled until it separated from his neck.

Soon, the Cardinal was dead.

His body continued to be torn apart until almost nothing but bones remained.

Rose watched everything from beginning to end, yet she didn’t feel even the smallest bit of happiness.

She didn’t know if it was because she had already become too numb to feel anything, or because the Cardinal had never meant enough to her for his death to matter.

Either way, she felt nothing.

There was no joy. There was no relief. There was not even satisfaction after finally getting her revenge.

Her heart was simply empty.

Rose slowly looked at the people surrounding her. Thousands of them had become nothing more than puppets under her control. They had destroyed the temples for her, hunted down the nobles for her, and killed the Cardinal with their own hands.

There was nothing else she needed from them.

"Kill yourselves," Rose gave them the last order.

The command spread through them at once.

None of them hesitated. They simply obeyed, just as they had obeyed every other order she had given them. Rose did not stay to watch what happened next. The moment she gave the command, she turned around and walked back toward the Holy Temple.

Her footsteps echoed through the ruined hall as she entered.

Everything that had once made the temple beautiful had already been destroyed. The statues were broken, the paintings had been torn apart, and the holy books were scattered across the floor.

The altar where she had once knelt and prayed countless times was now nothing more than a pile of broken stone.

Rose walked past all of it until she reached the wooden box she had left behind.

She knelt and opened it.

Edmond’s face appeared before her.

For the first time since the Cardinal arrived, something finally appeared in Rose’s empty eyes.

She carefully lifted Edmond’s preserved head from the box and held it against her chest.

"I’m done," Rose whispered.

She had destroyed the people who had hurt them. She had torn down the temples of the Gods who had abandoned her. She had erased their names from the mouths of their believers, and she had made the kingdom that once celebrated her suffering suffer in return.

There was nothing left for her here.

Rose carried Edmond with one arm as she picked up a burning piece of wood from the remains of a nearby brazier. She looked around the temple one last time before dropping it onto the piles of torn books and cloth scattered across the floor.

The fire caught quickly.

Flames spread across the old curtains and climbed the wooden pillars. Smoke slowly filled the hall as the fire grew larger, swallowing everything that had once belonged to the Gods.

Rose did not leave. Instead, she returned to the ruined altar and sat down in front of it, still holding Edmond’s head tightly against her chest.

The heat grew stronger around her, but Rose only lowered her head and gently rested her cheek against Edmond’s hair.

"I’m tired, Edmond," she whispered.

The flames moved closer and Rose closed her eyes as the Holy Temple burned around them.

This time, she did not pray for the Gods to save her. She simply held Edmond tighter and allowed the fire to take them both.

As Rose’s body slowly burned to ashes, it was finally time for her soul to face Heaven’s judgment.

For everything she had done, Rose was supposed to reincarnate a hundred times. In each of those lives, she would never be allowed to find true happiness. Even worse, whenever she met Edmond’s reincarnation, one of them would always be destined to die.

That was the punishment waiting for her.

However, Rose wasn’t the only one who had made a choice.

While Rose had received the Moon Goddess’s blessing, Edmond had made a deal of his own.

Before his soul could reach the afterlife, an immortal suddenly appeared before him and asked what he would choose if he could make one wish.

Edmond only wanted one thing: he wanted to exchange Rose and his fates.

He wanted to take Rose’s punishment and suffer through those hundred lives in her place, so she would no longer have to pay the price for everything she had done.

The immortal looked at his soul with curiosity. "What is so good about her that you’re willing to sacrifice this much?"

Edmond did not need time to think about his answer. "Everything."

There wasn’t just one thing he loved about Rose. Every part of her was precious to him, and if taking her place meant she would no longer have to suffer, then he was willing to do it.

After all, Edmond still believed that he was the one who had failed her.

He had promised to protect Rose and their daughter, yet in the end, he had failed to protect either of them.

If only he had been stronger, perhaps his family would still be alive.

If only he had protected them better, Rose would never have been forced to walk down that painful path filled with thorns all by herself.

Edmond had already failed to protect her once, so he refused to fail her again.

"What do I have to give you in return?" Edmond asked the immortal.