Stop Hypnotizing Me, Villainous Princess!

Chapter 111: Chasing Him Back to the Funeral Pyre?

What?

Lynn froze, utterly bewildered by the Witch’s words.

The future had changed, and because of that, he now had to return to Yveste’s side? What kind of logic was this?

A sinking feeling crept over him.

Even if he hadn’t followed the future the Witch had planned for him, this Sealed Artifact Riot had been the perfect opportunity to slip away.

After this event, he could change his name, sever ties with that woman, and regain the freedom to roam wherever he pleased.

Lynn believed he’d already fulfilled all the obligations of a subordinate. He owed Yveste nothing. All he wanted was to steer his life back onto a track of freedom and autonomy.

Perhaps, someday in the distant future when he had amassed enough power, he might return to help her out. But not now.

Just thinking about their last encounter—the bite mark she left on his shoulder and the fevered madness in her gaze—sent shivers down his spine.

Thankfully, the Witch had healed him. Without her intervention, he would’ve carried that mark as an indelible reminder of their twisted relationship.

Come to think of it... wasn’t this bite mark technically the Witch’s doing as well? Why would she heal it?

Lynn scratched his head in confusion.

But then an image floated into his mind, unbidden—a vision of the cool, detached Witch leaning down and softly biting his shoulder. The thought sent an inexplicable heat rushing through him.

Wait, no.

He shook his head vigorously. His thoughts were veering off course again.

The issue at hand was whether or not to return to Yveste’s side!

Lynn discreetly smacked Yun Chang—his unruly thoughts—into submission.

No matter how he looked at it, if he returned to that woman unscathed, things were bound to spiral into situations he’d rather avoid.

Noticing the doubt and hesitation in his eyes, the Witch maintained her frosty composure.

“You should have realized by now,” she said, her voice cool and steady, “that this time, I transported your body and soul together to the Pantheon.”

Lynn nodded.

This was precisely what had puzzled him earlier.

According to the original lore, the past and future weren’t supposed to interfere with the present. If it were that easy to leap between timelines, wouldn’t it disrupt the entire order of the world?

Even the original protagonist hadn’t been able to do such a thing.

“I have two hypotheses about this phenomenon,” the Witch continued.

“First, it might be because you’re my follower and have received my blessing.”

Hearing this, Lynn suddenly recalled the ability the Witch had granted him—the Chosen of the End.

He’d initially thought it useless, but now it seemed more like an anchor for transportation.

No wonder he could connect with the Witch so easily, bypassing the need for elaborate prayer rituals. She could summon him directly to the Pantheon whenever she wanted.

“Second,” the Witch said, her tone contemplative, “it’s your uniqueness. I don’t know what secrets lie within you, but you feel like an ‘impurity’—something incompatible with this world.”

“You have no past or future; you exist only in the present.”

“It’s as if your presence here in the Pantheon has erased the existence of ‘Lynn Bartleon’ in the Soren Mountains. Once you disappeared from the world, no trace of your existence remained.”

“And that led to everything else that followed.”

At this point, the Witch’s brow furrowed slightly, as if recalling something unpleasant.

“So,” she said quietly, “after my ‘death,’ what exactly happened?”

Lynn’s expression grew serious.

The Witch hesitated for a moment, as though debating whether to speak, then shook her head lightly.

“You should see for yourself.”

Raising her hand, she transferred a memory directly into Lynn’s mind.

Images began to unfold before his eyes:

A crumbling empire.

Countless dead civilians.

Raging fires of war.

A weeping saint and an enraged hero.

Scene after scene played out, each more harrowing than the last, until the final one appeared.

An ominous underground prison.

A white-haired woman in a red dress was chained deep within, a luminous, holy sword piercing her chest and nailing her to the wall.

Blood flowed incessantly from the wound on her chest, yet her face bore an expression of utter despair, her spirit seemingly shattered.

It was... Her Highness?

Lynn immediately recognized the identity of the prisoner.

And he had a good idea where she was being held.

In the original story, the Third Princess Yveste was supposed to fall into a year-long slumber after merging with the Wishing Jar. She was set to awaken dramatically during the climax of the Succession Ceremony, her curse spiraling out of control, nearly plunging the capital into catastrophe.

Eventually, she would be stopped by the First Princess Shirina and the original protagonist, Xiya, and imprisoned in the Stillwater Dungeon.

What Lynn was seeing now was the 18th subterranean level of that very dungeon.

According to this memory, after his disappearance from the world, Yveste had fallen into a state of despair and madness, her hatred for Saint Roland VI and the empire reaching new, terrifying heights.

Freed from the burden of the Level 0 Sealed Artifact core and the Demon of Creation, she awakened to immense power in a short span of time.

Then, she launched a bloody campaign of vengeance against the empire.

She had come terrifyingly close to succeeding, nearly sacrificing half the nation in an attempt to ascend as a deity.

But in the end, she couldn’t escape her fate. She was defeated by the hero Xiya, pinned to the walls of Stillwater Dungeon by the holy sword, where she would remain sealed for centuries before finally breaking free.

The ending hadn’t changed.

Although the process had gone wildly off course, Yveste still wound up sealed in the Stillwater Dungeon.

And everyone around her had met the same fates they were destined for in the original storyline.

Was this the corrective power of the world’s will?

Lynn felt a sudden chill run through him.

Despite pushing Yveste’s plot deviation to over ten percent, everything had reverted to its original trajectory within a few short years.

He finally understood why the Witch’s plot deviation had only increased by one percent following this event.

One hundred thousand years.

On such a vast timescale, his actions were nothing more than drops in an ocean.

Perhaps the plot deviations he needed to create weren’t just tied to Yveste. There were likely many other key characters intertwined with this world’s destiny.

After all, Yveste couldn’t possibly be the only S-tier storyline character here.

Noticing Lynn’s troubled expression, the Witch was silent for a moment before speaking gently.

“Don’t lose heart.”

“What you’ve done hasn’t been meaningless. At the very least, you saved the past version of... her.”

She had almost said “me.”

For some reason, she changed it at the last moment, though even she wasn’t entirely sure why.

Lynn took a deep breath. “So, to stop the past version of you from repeating the future’s mistakes, I have to return to her side?”

The only way to prevent the catastrophic destruction of the empire was for him to guide Yveste’s story back to a stable path—one where she didn’t spiral into despair.

Dammit. I didn’t realize I had an anti-breakdown stabilizer built into me.

His mood soured.

It wasn’t that he particularly hated Yveste. If he had, he wouldn’t have risked life and limb just to make a dramatic return and endure all that suffering.

If anything, Lynn suspected he might even have some lingering feelings for her.

At the very least... that night, when he saw Yveste crying silently, something inside him stirred.

It was as if a tiny part of him didn’t want to see her in pain again.

But that was only a sliver of emotion, overshadowed by her obsessive and unhealthy possessiveness that suffocated him.

Lynn prided himself on being a traditional man with a knightly ideal. Rather than being someone else’s mount, he much preferred playing the role of the rider.

Sensing his internal conflict, the Witch’s gaze softened slightly, though she wasn’t entirely sure why.

After a pause, she spoke softly. “I know what you’re thinking, but this time, things might be a little different.”

Lynn looked up, surprised.

“What do you mean?”

The Witch adjusted her skirt slightly.

“When you leave here, I will do something to you,” she said calmly.

Lynn tilted his head, intrigued. “Something like what?”

“I’ll temporarily seal a portion of your emotions and memories,” she replied, her tone as steady as ever. “Only a small portion, though.”

“Specifically, the memories of your private interactions with her... and your feelings toward her.”

“You’ll only remember yourself as someone she recently took under her wing. You won’t notice any inconsistencies.”

Lynn’s jaw dropped.

“So... I’ll treat the past version of you as a stranger?”

“Exactly.”

The gravity of her words was undeniable, yet she delivered them with an air of nonchalance.

Lynn took a deep breath. “Witch, with all due respect, this isn’t a very funny joke.”

“You know as well as I do,” he continued, “that if I do this, given her personality, she’s likely to break my legs and lock me in a dungeon!”

The Witch’s eyebrow twitched ever so slightly.

“She is her, and I am me,” she said abruptly, turning her back to him. “It’s best to make that distinction clear. After all, there are 100,000 years between us... don’t you agree?”

“You’re right, of course.”

Feeling the sudden chill in the air, Lynn broke into a cold sweat.

What the hell?

The Witch really was something else. The ability to sever her identity like this was... impressive, to say the least.

Come to think of it, she had a point.

Yveste was 23, while the Witch was over 100,000 years old. To her, those 23 years were nothing more than a fleeting moment, filled with painful memories at that.

Still, Lynn had never seen her express such sentiments before. That she brought it up now was perplexing.

But the issue of Yveste loomed larger in his mind.

The Witch remained silent for a moment before speaking again, her voice soft.

“Don’t worry. Once your memories are sealed, she won’t do anything cruel to you.”

“And why is that?”

“...I don’t want to explain, but trust me on this.”

I get it.

It’s the classic “chasing him back to the funeral pyre” setup.

Lynn’s forehead was drenched in sweat.

Though when he thought about it, the idea of being a “husband” here was absurd. He didn’t believe Yveste could so easily fall in love with him.

If anything, her obsession likely stemmed from her warped sense of possession.

But would this really not backfire?

Lynn couldn’t shake his doubts.

Silence hung between them, heavy and uneasy.

Not just for him—somehow, even the Witch seemed lost in her own thoughts.

Why... am I so insistent on having him see me as two separate individuals?

And why did I come up with the idea of sealing his memories?

Even she couldn’t find the answers.

Yet, when the name “Third Princess Yveste” surfaced in her mind, an inexplicable feeling flickered in her chest.

The sensation left her agitated, an irritation she couldn’t quite place.

It wasn’t until much later, when she finally understood that this emotion was called “jealousy,” that she realized the truth.

“Additionally, there is one more thing I need you to do. Consider it part of your trial for advancing to the next rank.”

After a long silence, the Witch finally broke the tension.

Lynn instinctively looked up.

This was the first time the Witch had taken the initiative to assign him a trial.

What would it entail?

Looking into her blood-red eyes, Lynn couldn’t help but feel an ominous sense of foreboding creeping into his heart.

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