Peerless Battle Spirit - Chapter 2259: Unrest and Conspiracy, Part Three

“You shouldn’t have crossed this line, Elisha, if you didn’t want it to be like this.”

A sturdy arm wrapped around her swaying body. Her head became hazy and an intentional hot sweet sigh was pulled out of her.

‘How the hell did I get myself in this situation—’

Elisha recalled. This never happened before.

‘Yeah, I remember.’

Her future in which she would become the fake concubine to a demonic man from the same family, and would be eaten to death—even down to her bone marrow. A future in which the Cartier ducal family is embroiled in a power struggle and fragmented.

To avoid that future, Elisha threw herself at Lucerne, the archrival of her former life.

Yeah. There was no problem. She knew this man, before and after her regression. She already knew he was the most notorious maniac in the Empire.

20-year-old Elisha owes 30,000 gold coins (about 15 billion won in Korean currency or around 15 million in USD).

After going back in time, in order to avoid a hellish life because of debt, she becomes the most capable illegitimate child in the world and visits Lucerne, the archenemy of her master.

“What do you want from me?”

“Please lend me some money. And… make me your subordinate. I’ll give you all the information I have.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“I’ll give myself up as collateral.”

Lucerne listened to Elisha and watched her quietly.

“Okay. But I decide how to deal with the collateral.”

“…….”

“First of all, marry me.”

“…… huh?”

Elisha didn’t expect it either. That her information transaction would become a marriage contract.

The jeers followed her like a persistent shadow. “Murderer!” the crowd screamed, their faces contorted in a grotesque parody of the adoration she once commanded.Just months ago, they had screamed her name, their voices a deafening roar as she shimmied across the stage, a beacon of light and pop perfection. Now, their cheers had morphed into venomous hisses, their eyes burning with a hatred that chilled her to the bone.Noelle clutched her lawyer's arm, his face a mask of grim determination. The cameras flashed, capturing her every move, every tremor of fear. The headlines screamed: “Pop Princess Plummets: Noelle Accused of Murder.” The irony wasn't lost on her. Her life, once a carefully constructed fairytale of fame and fortune, had become a grotesque tragedy.The trial was a circus. The whispers, the sneers, the relentless scrutiny – it was a constant assault on her senses. Her once loyal fans, the ones who'd plastered her face on their bedroom walls, now reveled in her downfall. They devoured every salacious detail, every whispered accusation, every tear she dared to shed.The verdict was a foregone conclusion. Guilty.Noelle watched the judge pronounce the sentence, her mind a whirlwind of disbelief and despair. Death by lethal injection.‘At least they did not give me the electric chair’ she thought to herself in a poor attempt at humor.Months later, a solitary figure knelt at her grave, the wind whipping at his hair. Rain lashed down, mirroring the tears that streamed down his face.“I'm sorry, Areum,” he sobbed, his voice hoarse with grief. “I'm so sorry I was too late.” He clutched a single, wilted rose, its petals stained crimson, a poignant reminder of the life that had been brutally extinguished.Noelle is a bright star who has the world at her feet, she feels no guilt about being the other woman coming between a husband and his wife. After all, Evan had been in love with her since they were teenagers. The only reason he married Ma-Ri was because his family demanded it, if he had a choice he would surely have picked her…When she gets wrongfully accused of murdering Ma-Ri, she loses everything and is sentenced to death, everyone including Evan turn against her and she is left to die a miserable death.She is reborn and this time she faces the humiliation of being the woman who is being cheated on. She is determined to end the cycle and not let the future she had seen come to pass, she decides to step out of the picture and focus on her career.In doing so, everything changes, Evan clings to her and refuses to let her go, a mysterious stranger who has been studying her also steps in and decides to fight for a chance to be with her.

I thought I had seen bad endings before—but nothing prepared me for the garbage conclusion of The Hero’s Path.Years of investment, countless struggles, and for what? The protagonist failed. The villain won. Everyone else? Dead. Furious, I sent a message to the author, only to get a chilling response:[Do you think you could do better?]Before I could even blink, my phone exploded in a blinding light, and the next thing I knew—I was waking up in a completely different body.Now, I’m Merlin Everhart, a fourteen-year-old with a 12-star talent, the kind of gift only the strongest should have.But here’s the problem: I have no idea who I am supposed to be.With nothing but a system and a first-day-of-school alarm ringing in my ears, I’m thrown into the world of The Hero’s Path.Am I just another side character in a world that already ended once?…Either way, I refuse to let this story beat me too.

Fate, a gatekeeper who had been working for the castle, is beset by a few burdens.