The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss
Chapter 184 - 185: Forever

Chapter 184: Chapter 185: Forever

"Merlin...please," she voiced. Or perhaps—begged.

The mighty empress, the woman nations feared, was on her knees in the middle of a burning battlefield, blue fire spiraling around them like the hellfire of forgotten gods. Nothing remained of the command post but smoke and ruin, the air filled with the acidic stench of scorched steel and burnt mana.

There was no Yggdrasil fruit. No mythical beast. No secret relic hidden in her sleeves.

Only her. And the old high mage. And the body of a dying man. No—already dead, if her ears hadn’t lied.

"Merlin..." she whispered again. Louder this time, throat tightening.

She didn’t recognize her own voice. The rawness of it. The desperation.

Merlin stood beside her, motionless, one palm glowing faintly as it held up the flickering protective dome that still shielded them from the firestorm raining down from the sky. He had seen wars. Plagues. The fall of empires. But nothing in his long, wrinkled memory could prepare him for this:

Elizabeth, the girl he once raised, the woman who turned blood into law, now broken and breathless. Kneeling beside the fallen prince like a lover. Or worse. A widow.

The blue fire cracked outside the dome, lashing like living serpents. Yet all Eli could hear was the silence inside Atlas’s chest.

She pressed her palm against it again. Still nothing. Her heart felt like it was being crushed in a vice.

In her head, it wasn’t Atlas lying there. It was the boy with mismatched eyes, dragging her out of a dark continent when she was ready to sacrifice herself for the empire . It was the same voice that once promised: "Even if the world forgets you, I won’t."

It was an enemy. It was a traitor. It was the man who had kissed her under moonlight and called it war.

"...If his heart is strong enough..." Merlin finally said, voice hoarse, dragging her from the brink, "...I can manage something."

A spark. A path. A chance.

Her body moved faster than thought. She grabbed Merlin by the collar, her breath wild with grief and fury and pleading. "Then do it! I’ll pay the price!"

Merlin only stared at her for a moment. The dome above them groaned with pressure, the fire tightening its noose. But the old man didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy looking into her eyes.

Not the eyes of an Empress.

The eyes of a woman who had already broken inside.

"...Eli," he said softly, "I knew you since you were a child. I held you in my arms when your mother died. This... This is the least I could do."

She let go, trembling, her fingers curling uselessly over her knees.

Merlin knelt beside Atlas. His fingers hovered over the prince’s heart, then slid up to rest over his sternum. Normally, a mage’s staff was the conduit. But this spell—it was something else. Older. Wilder.

His palms began to heat, faint sparks crackling along his fingertips.

"Your psycho mage... Dr. Vale, was it?" Merlin muttered as his fingers twitched. "He voiced a theory with me last winter. If this works... the credit goes to—"

"Just DO IT!" Eli screamed.

She couldn’t bear another second. The air itself was too heavy. Her chest too tight. Her soul unraveling like a frayed cloth.

Merlin nodded once. Quiet. Resigned.

"...Here goes nothing."

He placed both palms against Atlas’s chest. His fingers dug into the flesh slightly, and then—

Zzztt.

A soft jolt of electric current.

Atlas didn’t move. His body twitched slightly, but nothing more.

Eli’s breath caught.

"Again," she whispered. Then louder. "Again!"

Zztt.

Still nothing.

Her knuckles dug into her knees as she leaned forward, eyes wide, dry and wet at the same time. Her voice turned small. "Please..."

Merlin’s brow furrowed. He poured more mana into the next jolt. Double. Triple. His veins lit up like lightning rods beneath his skin.

"...Third time’s the charm," he murmured, voice cracking.

ZZZZZTTTTEE!

Atlas jolted. His back arched. His eyes shot open.

A ragged, corpse-like gasp tore from his lungs.

Eli’s heart nearly stopped in relief.

He clutched his chest, dazed, coughing. "Wha... what happened?"

He looked around, confused, blinking slowly. His vision swam. Heat and blue fire. Dome. Burnt air. And Eli. Her hands were on his face, holding him like he might disappear again if she let go.

She didn’t say anything.

She just pulled him to her chest and held him.

Merlin collapsed beside them, breath shallow, mana dangerously low. "That was high-tier lightning... damn it... your heart... your heart is strong, child..."

Atlas blinked again. His memory was fraying at the edges. He remembered the battlefield. The shock. The sudden silence. Then her voice, calling him. And now—

He looked up at her, the tears in her eyes not yet fallen.

"...It’s okay... Eli. I’m okay," he said softly, his voice like cracked porcelain.

He didn’t understand why her arms trembled. Or maybe he did.

Then he heard it.

[WARNING: HOST INFECTED.]

[Familiar Virus Detected. High Amount of Fairy Dust Present.]

His pupils shrank.

"....." Atlas thought, stunned.

His skin burned. His neck. No, not the skin—the vein. Something had pierced it. Something had been injected.

He turned his head—

And saw the glint of a broken vial on the ground, its tip bloodied, its liquid shimmering with mana dust.

"Eli..." he whispered.

His body began to convulse.

She caught him again, holding him down as his muscles spasmed. His eyes wide with fear and recognition.

"Eli..." he said again, and this time it wasn’t confusion in his voice.

It was understanding.

The tears finally spilled from her eyes.

He knew. He knew what she had done.

There was no miracle cure. No god-sent healing potion. Just a formula. Something forbidden. Something experimental.

Something Eli had obtained through vale—through the mad mage himself. A last resort. A gamble no empress should ever make.

The serum that was meant to infest a whole city .... but not without cost.

"Why...?" Atlas’s voice slurred.

"Because I won’t lose you again," she whispered, cradling his head.

"But... you..."

"I know," she said, as her tears fell onto his cheeks, warm and frantic. "I know what you did. I know what you’ve become. But gods help me, I still—"

She stopped.

Merlin looked at them both, blinking through sweat and smoke. He had his suspicions. But even his ancient wisdom dared not speak now.

Atlas looked at her with raw clarity—then everything began to fade. His vision blurred. The weight in his limbs grew unbearable.

The last thing he saw was her face. Not as an empress. Not as a soldier.

As a girl again. With fire in her eyes and ash in her hair.

And regret. Pure, uncut regret.

He wanted to say something. Something final.

But it was too late.

He collapsed fully, unconscious, his head rolling softly against her arm.

The high-pitched alarm from the injection device echoed once more:

[Yggdrasil seeds Active. Immune Override In Progress.]

Merlin’s eyes narrowed. "What... what did you inject him with?"

Eli said nothing.

She simply held Atlas tighter, her chest rising and falling like a storm barely caged. Her tears soaked into his hair. Her crown had slipped off. Her gloves were torn. And for once, her hands weren’t fists.

They were simply hands.

"He will sleep now.....forever " she whispered to no one. "Forever by my side..."

The dome trembled again, then finally collapsed.

The fire had stopped.

But the world smelled of death.

And her heart felt like it would never beat properly again.