Marcel's voice transitioned from a roar to a tearful, desperate plea.
He was like a mangy dog with its spine removed, slumped in the interrogation chair.
If not for the chains binding him, he would have probably collapsed to his knees, kowtowing incessantly.
Tears, snot, and saliva mixed together, streaming down his distorted face and dripping onto his coarse prison uniform.
At this moment, he was neither the cold-hearted lunatic who had plotted a shocking crime for seventeen years, nor the fanatic who ranted about "Great Love."
He was merely a pitiful, pathetic, utterly hateful prisoner who had lost everything.
King finally shifted his gaze from the bottle and let it fall back onto Marcel.
He watched Marcel's humble, dust-crawling begging, and looked into his eyes filled with fear and despair.
Then, King slowly began to speak.
His voice was steady, like a searing hot iron branding Marcel's soul:
"Give it back to you?"
King tilted his head slightly, seemingly giving the suggestion genuine thought.
This subtle movement made Marcel's heart leap, and a glimmer of hope flashed in his eyes.
However, King's next words completely crushed that pitiful spark of hope he had just ignited:
"Marcel."
"Over these seventeen years, you kidnapped and dissolved twenty-nine Damselettes."
"Their ages ranged from the youngest at fourteen to the oldest at only twenty-two."
"They were also daughters to their parents, sisters to their brothers, confidantes to their friends, and the 'Vigneire' that some young man longed for day and night."
King took a step forward with every sentence he spoke.
His steps were light now, but each one felt like it was treading on Marcel's heart.
"Lisa. Her father was a dock worker, her mother was bedridden, and she was the sole pillar of her family."
"After she vanished, her father drank himself into a stupor and fell into the sea. Her mother died of illness three days after hearing the terrible news."
"Mia, the girl you called 'too noisy.' She did have a sick younger brother, and she worked four jobs daily to buy him medicine."
"After she vanished, her brother died three months later because they couldn't afford treatment."
"Sophia, the girl who was 'most like Vigneire.' She was the youngest daughter in her family, with three older brothers."
"After she went missing, her three brothers searched for five full years, spent all their wealth, and are still wandering throughout Fontaine, looking for their sister's whereabouts."
King walked up to Marcel and looked down at him condescendingly.
Reflected in those deep eyes now was no longer Marcel's ugly state alone, but the blood and tears of twenty-nine broken families, and the torment and despair of countless days and nights.
"Now,"
King raised the small bottle containing Vigneire's consciousness right up to Marcel's eyes, so close it nearly touched his nose.
The liquid in the bottle seemed to ripple slightly, unwilling to approach Marcel.
"Look at it."
"And then, answer me—"
King bent down slightly, leveling his gaze with the slumped Marcel.
"When you dripped Primordial Seawater onto Lisa's feet, listening to her screams of intense pain and terror..."
"When you began dissolving Mia starting from her head, watching her youthful face twist and disappear amidst tears and Primordial Seawater..."
"When you tied up Sophia and excitedly recorded the reactions of the 'most Vigneire-like' experimental subject..."
"Did you ever think, even for a single second—"
"That they, too, were someone else's 'Vigneire'?"
A profound silence fell over the interrogation room.
"I... I..."
Marcel's lips trembled violently.
For the first time, he experienced the perspective of a "victim."
A thought he had never dared to dwell on bit into him like a venomous snake:
What if, back then, someone had done to Vigneire what he did to those girls—
—in order to save their own loved one?
Treating Vigneire as experimental material and dissolving her... what would he do?
"..."
He would go mad.
He would stop at nothing to tear that person to shreds, making them suffer torment ten million times worse than dissolution!
So... what about the families of those girls?
Were they also... "Hoo... hoo..."
Marcel's body began to spasm violently and uncontrollably. Cold sweat soaked his prison uniform, and his stomach churned.
He retched, but nothing came up, only acrid bile burning his throat.
It turned out that once the magnificent shroud named "Love" was stripped away, what was revealed beneath was a skeleton so repulsive it made even him feel sick.
"I... I confess."
He raised his head, his face streaming with tears and snot, mixed with cold sweat and dried grime—utterly filthy.
"All these years... everything I did... it was all my fault..."
"Kill me."
"I experimented on two Inazuman Damselettes. Even if they aren't Fontainians, enough Primordial Seawater can still dissolve them."
"Cut me into a thousand pieces, and then throw me into the primordial seawater."
"Finally, sink me into the deepest trench in Fontaine, letting me suffer the agony of dissolution for eternity."
"Take my life to commemorate those girls, to repay their families."
"I know I was wrong."
"Spare Vigneire."
He struggled to turn his neck, his gaze locked onto the small bottle in King's hand, the source that held the obsession and sin of half his life.
At this moment, the liquid in the bottle was no longer just a symbol of love in his eyes, but a mirror reflecting all his ugliness.
"She is innocent, she knew nothing, she was merely asleep."
"Let her rest in peace."
"I beg you, don't use her to punish me."
"I am unworthy..."
He finally spoke those words.
Not as a defender of "Great Love."
But as a Sinner who had finally recognized his crime, yet was still foolishly dreaming and begging for mercy.
King watched him silently.
Watching him break down, watching him plead, watching that twisted flame named "Vigneire" flicker precariously in the cold wind of his sin, yet stubbornly refusing to be extinguished.
After a long silence.
King slowly shook his head:
"Your life is worthless, and very dirty."
"It is unworthy to commemorate anyone."
As soon as he finished speaking, in Marcel's suddenly constricted pupils, King, holding the small bottle containing Vigneire's consciousness, turned and walked toward one side of the interrogation room—
The gray-white washbasin!
"?"
"What are you going to do?"
"Lord King? Lord King!"
"King!!!"
Marcel's heart skipped a beat, and a fear colder than death flooded his mind!
He foresaw something far more terrifying than being cut into a thousand pieces was about to happen!
King did not reply.
He reached out and turned on the faucet.
"Whoosh—whoosh whoosh—"
Ordinary water, flowing from the Fontaine water supply system, poured out without distinction.
"No! Don't!!"
Marcel erupted in a death-like shriek!
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