"What kind of bullshit 'Fontaine's Strongest'? You're just like those mediocrities!"
"You all only know how to judge me using worldly morals!"
"Vigneire is the entire meaning of my existence!"
"For her, I am willing to become a devil, I am willing to let the whole world experience Burning!"
Marcel's logic had completely departed from the realm of normal people, operating self-consistently within a twisted world constructed of paranoia and madness.
"Do you know?"
A creepy smile appeared on Marcel's face.
"Every experiment, when the Primordial Seawater slowly washed over their ankles, calves, waists, and abdomens, watching them go from struggling to despair, from crying to numbness..."
"I could feel that I was one step closer to Vigneire."
"Every failure made me understand the essence of life better, bringing me closer to that reversal formula."
"Seventeen years... twenty-seven of them?"
"No, you missed two, it should be twenty-nine."
"I remember the name of every single one of them."
He tilted his head, as if recalling some wonderful past events:
"Lisa, she was very strong; she held out the longest, cursing me for three whole hours..."
"When she finally dissolved, her eyes were still glaring fixedly at me."
"Mia, she kept crying, begging me to let her go, saying she still had a sick younger brother at home..."
"She was very noisy, so I started dissolving her from her head."
"Sophia, she was the one most like Vigneire, even her hairstyle was the same..."
"Unfortunately, she was too fragile; she disappeared completely the moment she touched the Primordial Seawater. I didn't even get to see the process clearly!"
"Oh, what a pity, what a pity!"
Marcel recited the lives he had destroyed with his own hands as if listing his own treasures, his tone cheerful and gentle.
King finished listening to Marcel's "monologue."
He had no thoughts on it; he was simply contemplating one question:
How to make such a madman, completely immersed in his own twisted logic, truly understand the meaning of "Sinner"?
Kill him directly?
That would be letting him off too easily.
Marcel panted, a sickly flush on his face, as he looked at King triumphantly:
"What? Are you shocked by my 'love'?"
"Or is it that even you cannot refute it?"
"Love is inherently selfish! It is fearless!"
"It is something that can trample over everything for the sake of the one you love!"
There was no expression on King's face; he simply raised his right hand slowly.
"What? Want to make a move?"
Marcel sneered, even proactively lifting his neck:
"Come on! Kill me!"
"But I want to tell you, even death cannot stop my love for Vigneire!"
"I will continue to search for her in another world, and continue looking for a way to resurrect her!"
"You don't understand at all what is called an eternity of love..."
He didn't finish his sentence.
Because in King's hand, a thing had appeared at some unknown moment—
It was a transparent glass bottle, only the size of a palm, looking unremarkable.
The bottle body had been specially treated, refracting a blue halo under the interrogation room's lights.
Inside the bottle was about half a bottle of liquid that was clear to the extreme.
It was so pure that it seemed as if a small piece of the most tranquil sky had been captured, or it was the first tear left behind from the beginning when the gods created the world.
However, looking closely, one could discover that inside this clear liquid, it was not dead silent.
The liquid in the bottle rippled slightly, presenting a color between azure and cerulean.
Occasionally, it would ripple with an extremely faint tremor, as if a sleeping soul were letting out a sigh unheard by anyone in a dream.
When the light passed through the bottle, a Damselette's face vaguely appeared inside—
It was a Damselette with her eyes closed and a gentle expression.
The excitement on Marcel's face instantly froze.
A chill originating from the soul.
It wound its way up his spine, making him shiver violently.
"...Ewah!"
A strange syllable escaped from Marcel's throat.
His eyes suddenly widened to the limit, his eyeballs protruding from their sockets, bloodshot veins spreading wildly like a spiderweb, covering the entire whites of his eyes.
His pupils contracted and dilated violently, then contracted again...
As if unable to bear what he was seeing, undergoing an adjustment on the verge of collapse.
"That... that is..."
His lips trembled, his voice as thin as a mosquito's buzz.
He recognized it.
That palpitation originating from instinct, that small bottle which had already merged into his bone marrow and become the root of his madness over these seventeen years...
How could he not recognize it?!
That was what he had spent seventeen years of his life, sacrificed twenty-nine innocent lives, and used every dirty means to try to retrieve, try to resurrect, and try to hold in his arms—
"My Vigneire!!"
"No... this is impossible!!!"
Marcel's body began to tremble violently, more fiercely than any previous struggle.
The alloy locks creaked as he struggled against them.
The color drained from his face, turning it pale as paper; blue veins bulged on his forehead and neck like twisted earthworms.
"I clearly hid it in... where did you find it?!"
"Give it to me!"
"That is my Vigneire!!"
"Give it back to me!!!"
Marcel's voice suddenly rose, turning into a shrill, cracking scream, filled with unbelievable terror and a beast-like madness of having his most precious treasure stolen away.
He lunged forward desperately, completely ignoring the tearing of the chains on his body, his neck and wrists torn with bloody welts, but he remained completely unaware, his eyes only seeing that small glass bottle.
"Give it back! I beg you! Give it back!!"
"Do not cause DMG to her! Don't touch her!!!"
Marcel was covered in tears and snot; all the madness, all the "righteousness," and all the twisted logic from before completely collapsed at this moment.
What remained was only the most humble, most desperate wailing and begging.
King turned a blind eye to Marcel's heart-wrenching wailing and struggling.
He stood there calmly, his hand holding the bottle as steady as a rock.
He even raised the bottle to his eyes, facing the light, and carefully examined the clear liquid inside the bottle.
As if admiring a work of art.
This action completely crushed Marcel's final psychological defense line.
"No—!!!"
"Don't look! Don't look at her like that!!!"
"I beg you! Lord King! Guardian of Fontaine! The strongest man in Teyvat!"
"I was wrong! I really know I was wrong!!"
"I plead guilty! I'll admit to everything!!"
"It was me who kidnapped those girls!"
"It was me who dissolved them! It was me who did the experiments! Everything was done by me!!"
"I am a beast! I am a devil! I am lower than a pig or dog! I deserve to die ten thousand times!!"
"You can punish me however you want! Cut me into a thousand pieces! Throw me into the Primordial Seawater to dissolve! Let me never be reincarnated!"
"I only beg you... I only beg you not to cause DMG to Vigneire..."
"Give her back to me... I beg you... give her back to me..."
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