Chapter 722: Consoling Alice, Isaac’s Wrath

Isaac POV

Isaac slowly opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for several seconds before rubbing his head and letting out a long yawn. His entire body felt exhausted, and even moving his arms seemed to require more effort than usual. Last night had been... well, he had greatly enjoyed it, but at the same time, he felt as though his soul had been sucked out of his body.

If they continued doing this inside the Spatial Domain every night, Isaac would seriously need to start thinking about his health. He had always considered himself fairly durable, especially after everything he had experienced, but there was a limit to how much exhaustion even he could tolerate. Still, despite his complaints, a small smile appeared on his face when he remembered what had happened.

At that moment, a knock came from the door, followed by a familiar voice from the other side.

"Isaac, are you awake?"

The trembling tone immediately caught his attention, and he turned his head toward the door with a slightly confused expression.

Isaac glanced at the time and realized that it was three in the morning. He quietly got out of bed, making sure not to wake Emily and Celia, who were still sleeping, before walking toward the door while massaging his shoulders. As he moved, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.

’So that’s why I woke up. Alice must have knocked before this too,’ he thought as he reached the door.

He opened it while still rubbing his shoulder, intending to greet her with a teasing remark, but the words died in his throat the moment he saw her expression.

Alice’s eyes were red, and tears immediately began falling from them when she saw him. It was obvious that she had already been crying for some time before coming here, which shocked Isaac because Alice was not someone who easily allowed her emotions to show, at least unless she was alone with him. He was surprised, but he forcefully kept his expression calm and stepped aside to let her enter.

"Come inside," he said quietly.

Alice nodded and entered the room, but when Isaac gently took her hand and tried to lead her toward the couch, she shook her head. Her lips trembled slightly before she finally spoke in a quiet voice,

"Open the Spatial Domain."

immediately understood that she did not want to have this conversation while the World Tree could hear them. He summoned a spatial cloud and held Alice’s hand before bringing her inside, where the two of them could speak without worrying about anyone listening. Once they arrived, he summoned a chair from his Spatial Ring and carefully made Alice sit down before crouching in front of her.

He gently wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked at her with concern.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, keeping his voice calm because he could already tell that whatever had happened had affected her deeply.

"I..."

Alice struggled to speak at first, but eventually, she told him everything. She explained how the Seventh Queen had suddenly summoned her and how Jasmine had shown her a vision that contained memories of the life ’she’ had lived in another possibility.

Isaac listened without interrupting her as she described everything she had seen. The more he heard, the greater the turmoil inside his heart became, because there were too many things about the vision that did not make sense to him.

Why did Alice’s vision seem to match the world from Catherine’s trial and Celia’s vision? Why did the Isaac from that world not have the Bonded Blessing System? More importantly, how had the Seventh Queen been able to give Alice memories that the System had erased?

Isaac suppressed those questions for the moment because Alice needed him more than he needed answers. He could investigate everything later, but right now, he needed to make sure that she did not drown in the guilt that was clearly consuming her.

He stood up and pulled her into his embrace, allowing her to rest against him without saying anything. Alice hugged him tighter, and her trembling voice reached his ears as she struggled to get the words out.

"Is—Isaac, I’m sorry."

"Alice."

"If only I had listened to you. If only I wasn’t so prideful, I could have done something, but I couldn’t do anything for you even though you gave me everything you had."

She continued crying into his embrace while Isaac remained standing and gently rubbed her back. It was rare for Alice to cry, and it was even rarer for her to cry this much, so Isaac understood that the memories had affected her deeply.

He wanted to tell her that everything was okay and that even if he had died in those memories, it was likely that the Isaac from that world had already accepted his fate. His natural lifespan had been coming to an end anyway, and perhaps he had simply decided that dying while helping Alice was better than dying without accomplishing anything.

However, Alice already knew that, and saying those words would not calm her down. If anything, telling her that would probably make her feel even more guilty, so Isaac decided that there was no reason to bring it up.

He gently pulled back from the hug and cupped Alice’s face with both hands. Her tears continued falling as she looked at him, and after taking a shaky breath, she repeated the same words she had been saying since she arrived.

"I’m sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Isaac asked.

"For letting you die."

Isaac looked at her for a moment before giving her a small smile. He gently wiped another tear from the corner of her eye before answering in a calm voice.

"But I’m here right now, aren’t I?"

"Isaac..."

"I’m holding you in my arms, and I can feel your warmth and emotions, so why are you saying sorry? I’m alive."

Alice pressed her lips together as she stared at him. She seemed to understand what he was trying to say, but instead of replying, she leaned forward and hugged him again, burying her face into his embrace.

Isaac did not say anything more after that. He simply held her while gently rubbing her back, allowing her to cry until she finally calmed down, and the two of them remained like that for several minutes without speaking.

Eventually, Alice pulled back from the embrace and wiped her eyes. Her eyes were still red and puffy, but she looked considerably calmer than before, so Isaac got down on his knees in front of her and held both of her hands.

"Are you feeling better now?"

"Mhm."

Alice nodded, but Isaac could still see the fear lingering in her eyes. She might have understood that the person standing in front of her was alive, yet the memories she had witnessed had clearly left behind a fear that would not disappear simply because he was sitting in front of her.

Isaac thought for a moment before deciding that the best way to help her was to make her smile. He gave her a relaxed expression before speaking in a deliberately casual tone.

"You don’t have to worry about me dying. I’m not leaving until I see the faces of my great-great-grandchildren, so if anything, you should be worried about getting sick of me being stuck to you for the years to come."

Those words seemed to break through the heaviness surrounding Alice. Even though her eyes were still puffy and she looked as though she might start crying again, the corners of her lips slowly lifted into a small smile.

"Great-great-grandchildren? If you want to see their faces in this life, we need to get started now."

Isaac’s smile stiffened as he stared at her. He remained silent for several seconds before slowly looking around the Spatial Domain, as if he could somehow find a way to divert the topic.

Alice burst into laughter at his reaction, and for the first time since entering the Spatial Domain, it seemed as though some of the heaviness in her mind had finally disappeared. She squeezed his hands lightly while looking at his embarrassed expression, clearly amused by how quickly he had become uncomfortable after mentioning they needed to start.

"It’s fine since it’s with me, but don’t react like that in front of Emily or Professor. They might get hurt if they think you don’t want to have a child with them."

"...I’m sorry. I just... I’m not ready for kids yet."

Isaac spoke honestly, although he still felt slightly complicated about admitting it. Alice did not tease him any further and instead looked at him with a kind but somewhat worried expression, as though there was something else on her mind that was far more important than their previous conversation.

"Isaac, I’ve been thinking about something. It’s about the memories I gained, the trial Professor went through, and the visions Celia had."

Isaac’s expression became serious as he listened to her. He could already tell that Alice had connected several things together, and considering what she had experienced tonight, he was not surprised that she had begun thinking about the similarities between their experiences.

"What is it?"

"What... what if it isn’t a parallel world?" Alice asked after a brief hesitation. "What if it’s our world? What if the time of our world was turned back, or what if the apocalypse destroyed everything and the world started again from the beginning? What if those memories and visions are from a previous cycle of our world?"

Isaac remained silent for several seconds after hearing her question. His gut twisted, and an inexplicable sense of loathing and anger began rising inside him, even though he could not understand why the idea bothered him so much. For some reason, the thought of their world repeating made him feel as though something was deeply wrong.

"Why do you think that?" Isaac asked, forcing himself to suppress those strange emotions.

"The answer is the reason why I believed the Seventh Queen showed me actual memories instead of a fabricated path," Alice explained.

"Didn’t you say that you believed her because these memories made you recall what happened in your Conqueror Trial?" Isaac asked.

"Yes, but that was only part of the truth. I didn’t tell her everything." Alice bit her lip before continuing, "Actually, if you remember, Celia said she felt as if she had ’gained’ the emotions of ’herself’ after Professor told her about ’her’ life the Conqueror Trial."

Isaac remained silent as Alice continued explaining her thoughts. "We already know that even if our memories are erased, our souls can still remember the emotions connected to them, so after hearing about Professor’s Conqueror Trial, Celia’s soul was jolted and it recalled those emotions from that time. I think I’ve also been influenced by something similar."

"You feel different emotions now that you have these memories?" Isaac asked, his expression becoming slightly worried.

Alice shook her head. "No, I had these emotions from the beginning, unlike Celia, who gained them recently."

She looked at him for a moment before continuing, "That’s actually one of the reasons why I started thinking that those memories might belong to a previous cycle."

Alice then explained how, in those memories, she had deeply regretted allowing her pride to prevent her from going to Isaac. She had promised herself that if she received another chance, she would listen to everything Isaac wanted and would not allow her pride to stop her from staying by his side.

As Alice explained this, Isaac suddenly remembered something from their own past. Alice had once requested that he become her God, and someone as prideful as her had actually gotten down on her knees and bowed her head while making that request. It had not been limited to that one occasion either, because Alice had repeatedly lowered her pride whenever she interacted with him and had listened to his advice far more often than he had expected.

"Maybe the emotions from that previous cycle have been influencing me from the beginning. I would probably have listened to you even without them, but perhaps those emotions made everything happen faster," Alice said.

Isaac wanted to ask why Alice would possess those emotions from the beginning when Celia had needed to hear about her previous experiences before those feelings awakened. The question remained in his mind for only a moment before he recalled something he had just heard.

Alice was the Hero.

Isaac still did not understand the full extent of what that meant, but she was clearly someone special enough to contend against the Red Rain. If the Hero truly possessed some connection to the fundamental forces of this world, then perhaps Alice’s soul had retained something that ordinary people could not.

He suddenly remembered the first day Alice had transformed into a dragon and taken him to the Wilderness. She had told him to wear protective gear because of the dangerous environment, yet unlike him, she had not worn anything to protect herself and had simply flown into the Wilderness as though the environment could not harm her.

Back then, Isaac had thought she was simply too excited about her new powers to care about the danger. He had never considered anything else because there had been no reason to believe that her behavior was connected to something from the past.

But what if Alice had already possessed those emotions from a previous cycle?

What if some part of her instinctively knew that she was the antithesis of the Red Rain, meaning that even without consciously remembering anything, she already understood that the Wilderness’ environment could not truly harm her? Several pieces began clicking together in Isaac’s mind, but instead of making him feel relieved, the realization caused a strange terror to grip his heart.

He did not understand where that terror came from, but the more he considered the possibility that there had been a previous timeline, the more nauseous he became. An inexplicable anger also began rising inside him, as though some part of him desperately wanted to reject the idea before he could even understand what it truly meant.

Alice continued speaking while Isaac struggled to keep his expression calm. "There is another proof, and it’s you. Just like me, you have emotions from the previous cycle from the beginning."

"What?" Isaac asked, his attention immediately returning to her.

Alice looked at him carefully before asking the question that made Isaac’s stomach drop. "Why are you so against having children?"

Isaac suddenly felt as though someone had punched him directly in the gut. His head began spinning, and for a moment, he felt as though he might vomit, because he already had a feeling about what Alice was trying to say and that possibility terrified him more than he wanted to admit.

He forced himself to remain calm and answered after taking a slow breath. "Because of what happened in the Three Color Orphanage."

"Yes, but what if there is another reason? If you had children in a previous cycle and—"

"Alice," he cut her off, his voice colder than he intended. Even Isaac did not understand why he had reacted so strongly to her words, but something about the possibility of having children in another cycle had caused an instinctive sense of anger and rejection to rise inside him.

"...I’m sorry," Alice said quietly. She lowered her gaze, seemingly worried that she had brought up something she should not have mentioned.

"It’s fine... you know what?" Isaac shook his head and deliberately pushed those ominous thoughts aside. He did not care whether there had been another cycle, another timeline, or some completely different explanation for the memories they had encountered, because this was the world he lived in and it was the world he cared about.

Isaac looked at Alice before reaching out and gently pinching her nose. "I don’t like how my mad princess is saying sorry so much."

He deliberately made his voice lighter, hoping that she would stop dwelling on the things that had been troubling her.

"Don’t call me mad princess," Alice replied as she tried to pull her face away from his fingers. Isaac refused to let go, and after struggling against him for a few moments, Alice finally gave up and they both laughed together.

They continued joking with each other for a little while longer, and the tension that had been weighing on both of them gradually disappeared. Neither of them brought up the previous cycle again, and Isaac was content to leave the matter alone because he knew that continuing to think about it would only make Alice feel worse.

Eventually, Alice’s laughter became quieter as the exhaustion she had been hiding finally caught up with her. Her movements slowed, and after a short while, she fell asleep while sitting in front of Isaac, looking completely worn out after everything that had happened that day.

Isaac looked at her for several seconds before quietly sighing. She must have been exhausted after being forced to relive those memories, especially after spending so much time crying and blaming herself for something that had happened in a life she could barely remember.

He carefully picked her up in a princess carry and brought her out of the Spatial Domain. After returning to the room, he gently placed her on the bed and adjusted the blanket around her before sitting beside her for a moment, making sure that she was comfortable.

Isaac looked at her sleeping face and gently caressed her hair. His mind returned to everything she had told him, particularly her theory about the previous cycle, but after thinking about it for a while, he simply exhaled and decided that he did not care whether another timeline had existed.

This was the world where he lived, and this was the world he cared about. If there really had been a previous cycle, then he would deal with that problem if the truth ever became relevant, but until then, he had enough problems in the world he was currently living in.

As Isaac continued caressing Alice’s hair, his expression gradually became colder when he thought about the Seventh Queen. He did not like that woman, and although he could understand why she hated him, there was a difference between directing that hatred toward him and deliberately hurting his wife.

Jasmine had purposefully shown Alice those memories knowing how deeply they would affect her, and Isaac had no doubt that she had also done it because she wanted Alice to become indebted to her. Isaac hated that idea, especially because Alice now owed the Seventh Queen a great deal after everything she had done.

’I’m sorry, Alice,’ he thought while gently caressing her head. If Alice knew what Isaac was planning, she would probably take Jasmine’s side and try to stop him, especially because she would not want someone who had helped her to be hurt.

Unfortunately for Jasmine, Isaac was a selfish person when it came to the people he considered his own. He hated seeing someone hurt what belonged to him, and he hated it even more when someone deliberately manipulated one of his wives for their own purposes.

’I have already imprisoned the Third Priest and made an enemy of his faction. The World Tree is suspicious of me as well, and it isn’t wrong to say that I’ve already made an enemy of Florathi.’

’So what’s wrong with adding the Seventh Queen to that list?’

Isaac opened the Mirror Dimension and pulled his wives into it along with his real body, making sure they would not be caught up in what he was about to do. He kept his real body with them, since Alice needed him right now.

Once they disappeared from the room, a clone of Isaac appeared high above the real dimension, and the moment it manifested, its mana began rumbling through the surrounding space. The pressure continued increasing as the clone looked down toward the palace of the Seventh Queen, and the next moment, his mana crashed down upon the entire structure with overwhelming force.