Dong!

He forced his opponent back into a corner, pressing the fragile neck with his large palm, his expression terrifying, his tone filled with killing intent:

"Don't use those fancy words, speak plain."

"Just, just dead!"

Crack, crack, crack.

The hand pressing on the neck began to exert force. Just before he lost his life, the opponent accelerated his tone:

"Three years ago, she got pregnant, but died in childbirth due to complications. Both the child and the mother died..."

Crack!

The opponent's neck was instantly twisted and, under the gaze of the Red Bishop, the body slid down to the corner, losing its life in a seated position.

"Dead? Hahaha, dead! Hahaha..."

Laughing to the point of potentially killing someone.

Like a revenge-themed stage play;

Just as the "protagonist" completed the transformation of his identity and prepared to settle scores anew, his greatest enemy had ceased to exist.

It was like:

A man who went from rags to riches, after amassing a fortune, suddenly lost the place to spend it.

A tremendous sense of emptiness enveloped him, causing the once merciless gaze of the Red Bishop to be shrouded in a visible shadow;

Simultaneously, his mood sank to its lowest.

"Kill! Not only the people around the lord's castle but also every living soul in the entire area, kill them all!"

After issuing the deadly command, a bolder lackey gathered the courage to ask:

"My Lord Bishop, is this right? Isn't this your birthplace?"

Hearing this, the Red Bishop turned his head, glaring fiercely at the lackey, causing the latter to shudder violently.

"I am the noble Archbishop, one of the rare dignitaries in this world; how could I possibly know those peasants?"

Since that was the case, there was no other choice—orders from above were hard to disobey.

As per the Red Bishop's instructions, the lackeys carried out a "big cleansing" of the area and set fire to the town afterward, turning the entire place into scorched earth.

Watching the magnificent sea of flames, the Red Bishop felt:

Something was still missing!

Revenge was over, all those involved were dead, he should theoretically be satisfied.

But what was this lingering sense of loss in his heart?

It felt like a huge piece was being torn out of his heart. Even though no blood flowed, he couldn’t find peace.

"Something must have gone wrong..."

The Red Bishop didn’t believe he had done anything wrong, only that there was something unfinished.

Unrelated to revenge, it was just something he had to do to fill his soul;

The Red Bishop arrived at an explanation:

He needed to enjoy his current status and position!

"Yes, that's it! This lingering feeling of regret must be because I haven't enjoyed the happiness of an upper-class individual."

After some self-talk, the Red Bishop concluded and, from that day forward, indulged himself without restraint.

He didn't need a woman who loved him, just a group of obedient women around him;

He no longer saved or made money, yet lived every day in a lavish and godlike manner.

With prestige, status, and material possessions aplenty, he should have been very happy.

Yes, that's exactly what he thought, letting himself live a life of debauchery, and in the blink of an eye, years had passed.

When the body becomes slack due to laziness, the cunning mind becomes dull with comfort, and an endless sense of satisfaction fills the heart of the person involved.

Happiness should have continued.

Until one day!

The Cardinal in red climbed out of the comfortable bed and walked to the mirror to change his clothes, only to suddenly see a strange face.

That face reflected in the mirror, silently staring at him;

At first, the Cardinal did not notice, until he lifted his gaze and met the eyes of the person in the mirror.

"Ah!"

The Cardinal let out a horrified scream, sat back in retreat, looking more wretched than the opponent who fell years ago.

Fear is inevitable.

Because the Cardinal in red realized:

The person looking back at him in the mirror was not a ghost or a monster, but himself with a different face.

"Get out of here, you scoundrel, stay away from me!"

He feared himself, intimidated himself, and naturally received no response.

The terrifying face still there, so he grabbed the expensive chair behind him, lifted it and smashed it forward, shattering the mirror into pieces.

Glass shards scattered, most fell to the ground, a few flew and cut his body, causing blood to spread.

The price of a little fresh blood was worth it because the mirror was broken, and that face disappeared from his sight in a flash.

Since then, the Cardinal in red refused to have any mirrors in his home.

As if the nightmare's illusion never appeared again, but the previous emptiness crept back, tearing at the Cardinal's heart even more.

What exactly am I lacking?

This question remained unanswered until recently.

Following the command of His Holiness, the Cardinal arrived in Dibiles to handle affairs, and on the way, he made an unexpected discovery.

Dibiles is an empire dominated by beauty;

And within the country, Isabella, widely regarded as the most beautiful and powerful, is the object of admiration for the citizens and the subject of much discussion.

Discussion means heat, heat generates markets and business opportunities;

So, without Isabella's personal authorization, her surrounding merchandise began to sell well domestically.

One day, as the Cardinal entered the territory of Dibiles to pay respects, the lackeys presented him with a painting.

"Your Eminence, take a look, this is how the Queen of this country looks like."

"Although it's a blurry portrait, you can still see her heart-stopping beauty."

The Cardinal in red was not impressed, not because he had given up his lustful desires, but simply due to aesthetic fatigue.

He had countless concubines at home, women from different countries with different styles of beauty.

Although he did not deny it, he considered himself a connoisseur of women;

So, naturally, he did not expect much from the beauty of the Queen until he took a look at the portrait...

Similar, very similar!

After looking at the portrait for a few seconds, the Cardinal in red couldn't help but instinctively connect the deceased woman he had known for years with the portrait of Isabella.

It's not about how much they resemble each other;

To understand it, it might be in terms of temperament;

And this similarity, except for the Cardinal himself, no one else could notice.

Staring at the portrait stupidly for a while, there was a boiling of blood flowing through the Cardinal in red's body.

The exhilarating feeling that made his heart race, he hadn't experienced in many years;

The last time his body reacted similarly was on the eve of formal revenge.

"Determined, I will get her, get the Queen of this country!"

Thus, an obsession was planted, becoming the beginning of everything.

This was the opportunity for the Red Bishop to decide to join the fight club, or more precisely, he wanted:

To fill the increasingly apparent void in his heart by obtaining Isabella.

Substitution, you say?

It may not necessarily be understood that way.

After all, the Red Bishop had long ceased to like that first love, so what talk of substitution now?

But even if there was no need for substitution, the "unattainable desire" left deep in the heart at that serious age often becomes a lifetime regret;

The higher the person's status, the more persistent they are in making up for this regret, as the saying goes:

What one can never have is the most beautiful and precious!

The process is not important, the means are not important;

The Red Bishop only wants to get Isabella, that is his strongest desire now, everything else is unimportant.

The journey was not smooth, as if the whole world was against him.

Even if he gambled everything, trying to use the power of drugs to attempt to approach the obsession in his heart, at the last moment, he encountered that person unexpectedly.

Wang Xiaole came with a sword, not satisfied with just cutting off one of his arms, but he was prepared to do something more extreme.

"I let you run last time, don't even think about it this time... Go to hell!"

The jet-black long sword, as Wang Xiaole spoke, descended with an unprecedented fierceness.

The reality of losing an arm did not make the Red Bishop think much at this moment;

He only thought of one thing, how to avoid that lethal blow?

The Red Bishop's speed was not slow.

Even in his current state of urgency, if he chose to escape through the window, he might have struggled a bit more time to escape the pursuit of the sword.

But in the end, he did not do so.

Because fleeing meant failure, meant he could not fulfill his wish, and the emptiness in his heart would continue to grow.

Hesitation led to indecision.

It was this brief second of hesitation that led to the irreparable scene that followed.

Crack!

Like a fine crack cutting across the surface of porcelain, the faint sound dissipated in an instant.

The Red Bishop still stood in place, his eyes still fixed on Isabella, trying to reach out to her.

However hard he tried, his remaining hand could not come anywhere close to the girl, even within an inch, under the premise of his whole body falling backwards.

Thud!

As he fell to the ground, the Red Bishop looked at the person in front of him with resentment;

In the next moment, that face disappeared again, this time maintaining its integrity as it appeared before him.

It was a shabby figure, but with eyes containing the goodness that the Red Bishop had lost, possessing the stubbornness he had long since lost.

At this point, it was time to understand!

The Red Bishop finally realized:

"So, in the end, the one who killed me is... you, who resembled me greatly when I was young!"

As if killing oneself.

To die under "one's" sword made the dying person feel a myriad of resentment;

At the same time, there was also more helplessness mixed in their heart.

This is the last time. Archbishop in red lifted his blood-soaked head from the ground and gazed upwards at the figure lying on the bed, muttering through his lips, "I may not want to admit it, but you are indeed much luckier than I was back then..." When the taste of having nothing spread throughout his body, his heavy figure collapsed onto the ground, frozen in a permanent position with his face down. In this moment, the departed could no longer feel emptiness and regret.