The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 478: So what?

It echoed off the damp walls, sounding brittle and unhinged.

Eris didn’t laugh. She didn’t move. She just stared with a blank, unmoved expression, waiting for the performance to end.

"What’s funny?" she asked, her tone flat and direct. She recognized the tactic: the villain trying to maintain the illusion of control through laughter.

Vetra finally stopped, wiping a mock tear from her eye. "Oh... pardon me. I really can’t help but wonder." She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with a new, cruel light. "How can you stand there and threaten me... when you’re practically half dead already?" 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

The silence that followed was absolute. The room felt frozen. Eris’s expression didn’t change, but deep in her amber eyes, a flicker of something dark and ancient stirred. Vetra watched her, expectant, waiting for the collapse.

Internally, Eris felt a momentary tremor. The secret she had guarded so fiercely... the fact that her core was a ticking time bomb... had been laid bare. She knows, Eris realized. She really knows. Not a guess. Not a theory.

"The dragon," Vetra continued, her voice dropping into a reverent, knowing hum. "Pyronox. The Flameborn. The god who birthed fire magic itself and gave humanity the gift of flame In the dawn of the world. The divine dragon of legend."

She locked her eyes on Eris’s. "That god is hiding inside you, eating you away. Is it not? Every time you breathe, it consumes a little more of your soul. Every time you spark a flame, it widens the crack in your seal."

Eris didn’t deny it. The barest shift in her posture... a tightening of her grip on the grimoire... was all the confirmation Vetra needed.

"Living on borrowed time," Vetra taunted, her voice dripping with condensation.

"Unable to use your power the way you want, the way you were meant to. Because of fear. Fear of it consuming you completely and doing irreversible damage to the world."

She let out a small, cruel laugh. "So tell me... with what power do you think you can stop me? When you’re in such a precarious state, you can barely hold yourself together?"

Eris remained silent, processing, calculating.

"You and Soren," Vetra continued, "both seem to share this delusion that he can find some way to cheat a power like that. That he can stop a god from doing what it wants. It’s pathetic, really. He’s trying to hold back the tide with a wall of ice."

"Don’t you think Soren is capable of that?" Eris asked, her first words in minutes. She tilted her head slightly. "From what I know about the Emperor of Nevareth and my dear husband... if he says the sun will not rise... then the sun... will not rise."

It was a declaration of absolute faith in Soren’s power. She was telling Vetra that his will was a fundamental law of the universe. If Soren decided Eris would live, then death itself would have to wait.

Vetra’s smile faded, slowly disappearing until her mouth was a hard line. She understood the implication. Soren’s power was beyond the comprehension of most mages; it rivaled the very gods they spoke of. If he was truly determined, he might... just might... succeed.

That’s problematic, Vetra thought, her mind already adapting.

"No matter how powerful Soren is," Vetra countered, her voice sharp, "do you truly think he can cheat death? Death is something that not even the most powerful mages in our history have been able to outrun. Even you, who house a god, cannot escape it. Do you really think he can achieve such a feat?"

Eris offered no answer. Her expression remained unreadable, a blank slate.

Vetra sensed victory. The silence, to her, felt like acceptance. She leaned back, satisfied.

"You think you can defeat me, but you and I both know it takes energy to move a mountain. Energy which you simply don’t have to spare. Every spell you cast tomorrow brings your end one hour closer."

Eris took a deep, slow breath. She stepped even closer to the barrier, her eyes locking onto Vetra’s with a terrifying, unhinged intensity. Her smile returned, but it was sharper now, intensifying into something psychotic.

"You think," Eris said, her voice quiet and deadly, "that because I’m carrying an entity within me, because my state is dwindling, that I must be afraid to use my powers? That I’m cowering in the dark, trying to save my last embers?"

Her smile widened Into a look of pure, unchecked madness. A chill ran down Vetra’s spine.

"That’s where you’d be wrong," Eris whispered. "I’m not afraid to run mad again. I’m not afraid to lose my shit if it means destroying you. So fucking what? Even if I’m practically half dead like you said... so fucking what?"

The words were raw, unfiltered defiance. Eris leaned her forehead almost against the bars. "I’m going to use my powers the way I want to. And no one... not even Soren... will stop me." She said.

But Eris wasn’t done...

"I’ve died once... and I’m not afraid to do it again."

The atmosphere In the corridor was electric, charged with the collision of two matched psychotics.

Vetra stared at her, her mind racing to recalculate.

What?

Died once? Must be a bluff, she thought, yet the look in Eris’s eyes suggested a truth that transcended logic.

This woman wasn’t fighting for her life; she was fighting for the destruction of her enemy, cost be damned.

Eris stepped back from the barrier, her composure returning as quickly as it had vanished. "Enjoy your last night as Empress," she said, her voice calm once more. "Tomorrow, you face justice. And I’ll be there to watch the light leave your eyes."

She turned on her heel, her grip still tight on the grimoire, and walked away into the darkness of the corridor.

She knows too much, Eris thought as she ascended the stairs. But it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow, she falls, and if she takes me with her, I’ll ensure she’s the one who stays in the dark.