Chapter 419: You're the Part That Was Split Off

“How pathetic. Two old men,” the masked Moon Elf sneered as she strode past the two Old Elves, who were bound together and barely had half a life left between them. “I made so many preparations and took so many precautions, but they all failed. Every single one.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Although she was speaking to the two Old Elves, in her eyes, they were the same person. It made no difference, even though there was clear discord between them.

“I thought you would act,” the masked Moon Elf said, looking reproachfully at the Spider Elf, only to receive an awkward chuckle in return. “Did you really have to drag things out to the next stage, waiting for your other self to confront you?”

“As for this part of you…” she continued, turning to the other Old Elf, “you acted decisively enough, but why couldn’t you kill me? Didn’t I already tell you the entire procedure?”

If it were anyone else, they might not have truly understood themselves. But she was Jilannis Galanord! How could her own calculations possibly be flawed!

“And after that, you had another chance! That was also part of my calculations! But you went soft? You’re supposed to be the part that doesn’t understand me. You should be full of resentment toward me for throwing my lot in with the Laine family, shouldn’t you?”

“Why didn’t you deliver the killing blow? What the hell is wrong with you?”

The Moon Elf asked the same question again, but even she knew it was just a futile emotional outburst. She would get no answer, and no answer would have satisfied her.

The reason was obvious: she had been operating from the shadows while the other her was out in the open. She had schemed for a long time and was perfectly prepared, yet in the end, she still had to step in personally to resolve the issue.

Her teacher—the one her memories told her she trusted most—was an indecisive wretch. How pathetic.

“Jian, you and she are both my students. My loyalty to you means I’m also loyal to her. How could I bring myself to do it?” the Spider Elf sighed helplessly. “Although I’m not that part of him, still—”

“That’s why I said he’s redundant,” the Old Elf sneered, though there wasn’t a trace of mockery in his expression. He asked himself: if their roles had been reversed, could he really have struck the final blow when it came down to it?

He didn’t know. Maybe he could have, because he believed the masked one was his true student. Certain signs also indicated that she was the real Jilannis. But the other one…

Honestly, she felt more like his student. The one manipulating him acted more like the Chief Grand Mage of the Hailan Empire.

The odds of him doing it… maybe twenty percent. Or perhaps only ten.

“The more complex the design, the easier it is for things to go wrong.” Jilannis, standing by Ron’s side, said nothing. It was the lion’s head on her pauldron that spoke, its voice ringing with a metallic tone. “Your plan was so convoluted, failure was inevitable.”

“If you were truly me, you should have understood that.”

“‘It should be ‘you are me’,'” the thin lips under the mask curled into a disdainful smile. “What have you been studying lately? Ventrilo? Such a niche subject.”

“It has broader applications than scheming for power.” Jilannis and Jilannis locked eyes, neither willing to back down. “Lord Ron, I think I remember now.”

“I’m sorry. My carelessness dragged you all into this mess. But I assure you, this is not what I wanted to happen.”

Ron didn’t answer her. Although he had a Jilannis on his side as well, he could only maintain his highest state of alert without knowing the full story behind her counterpart, lest he end up in the Death Realm visiting Ernest again.

Jilannis hadn’t expected Ron to be distracted at a time like this anyway. “I’ve been saying that I paid a hefty price to escape the final battle of the Hailan Empire. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Sera suddenly spoke up. An image flashed through her mind of the time they faced the Death Knight, when Jilannis had summoned a Meteor Burst that seemed like a world-ending cataclysm. “But you can clearly make the heavens fall. What exactly did you give up?”

Previously, almost everyone had assumed she had suffered some kind of serious injury that had damaged her power. But as time went on, Jilannis didn’t seem lacking in that department at all—unless they were just so far beneath the Elf Grand Mage’s level that they couldn’t even begin to fathom how strong she used to be.

But if that were really the case, how could the Hailan Empire have fallen? She could probably take on an entire continent with one hand! With two, she could crush the whole world into a ball!

“Yes, what I gave up was…” Jilannis’s lips moved, but it was the Sword-Singing Lion Armor that spoke again. “My dark side.”

“Pfft—” The other Jilannis burst out laughing as if she’d just heard the most ridiculous joke in the world. “‘Dark side’? Did you get your brain fried in the Fire Elemental Plane or something?”

“Jilannis—and I call you that because you are a part of me—are you a thirty-year-old child? Has your mind not yet fully developed?”

“‘Dark side’! Is that really the best name you could come up with? Should I call you ‘light side’ then? Don’t be an idiot!”

“Jilannis, are you sure?” Even Ron couldn’t hold back. ‘If the masked one is really the dark side,’ he thought, ‘then for her “light side” to be an Elf who became a major slaver in Carolina… what on earth was the original Jilannis like? A Demon Lord? Or a high-ranking devil?’

“I’m not sure…” The Lion Armor’s plates rattled. “Honestly, even now I can only remember that I must have split myself into two parts to escape to different planes, leaving behind an empty shell to be killed by the resistance. That was to avoid being hunted down. But as for how I split myself… I really don’t remember.”

“You’re quite the forgetful one, aren’t you?” even Anastina couldn’t help but quip. Ever since it was confirmed that the other one was also Jilannis, she was probably the only person there who truly believed the masked woman was the dark side, and her attitude toward the Moon Elf on their side had improved considerably. “You can forget something that huge?”

“Forget? You make it sound so nice,” the other Jilannis snorted. “You just don’t dare to admit it. Or are you deliberately choosing to ignore the details, pretending you don’t want to dig deeper? The specifics of that process aren’t in your memory at all—because I have them!”

“I had this idea as far back as two hundred and seventy years ago, as a way to discard useless, time-wasting subjects and concepts. I just never made up my mind to do it. Back then, I believed that every subject I dabbled in was meaningful in its own way.”

“However, the collapse of the Hailan Empire showed me the flaws in that impractical way of thinking, and I took the opportunity to finally make my decision.”

“Just look at that armguard of yours, like a puppet on a string—you’re the part I split off!”