Chapter 230: Siblings, Dreams, and Lustful Torment?

“Cecilia, do you understand...”

Elvira sobbed, her voice breaking intermittently.

“Right now, only my sister and I remain in the Royal Family's direct bloodline, and I'm destined to inherit the throne.”

Although Elvira's elder sister was older than her, the purity of the Red Dragon bloodline she inherited was far inferior to Elvira's, who possessed the aptitude of the Crimson Crown Dragon.

That also meant that from the moment Elvira was born, the Council of Elders had already designated her as the future Queen of the Iris Kingdom.

However, the bloodline of Dragonkin possessed a form of biological exclusivity.

It was a flaw that originated from the very way Dragonkin obtained their bloodlines.

If two individuals who both possessed highly concentrated Red Dragon bloodlines united, their blood would not only fail to accept one another during the process of union, it would even regard the other as the greatest threat invading its territory.

There was only one possible outcome from such a union.

They would absolutely be unable to produce any offspring.

“...And a throne requires an heir.”

At this moment, Elvira's heart was filled with despair.

As the Crown Princess, even if she had the right to pursue love, she absolutely could not selfishly allow the Pendragon family's rule to end with her generation.

A queen incapable of bearing descendants could never stabilize the kingdom's foundation.

In the end, it would only trigger even more brutal civil wars and division.

But the sorrowful Princess knew nothing of the truth.

Namely, that the Red Dragon bloodline within Lance was a miracle created entirely by his system.

It was not hereditary in any sense.

As for him and Elvira, the two of them were so unrelated that they did not share even the slightest trace of blood relation.

Sometimes, when a cheat was too powerful, it really did create unexpected troubles for uninformed bystanders.

Elvira only felt that her first love—

that tiny green sprout that had just emerged from the soil—

had not even had the chance to enjoy sunlight

before Fate's invisible hands mercilessly uprooted it and sentenced it to death.

However, just as Elvira was drowning in grief,

Cecilia's next sentence completely stunned the tearful Princess.

Extending a slender hand, Cecilia gently patted Elvira's trembling back.

“Elvira, if the problem lies with the bloodline and having children...”

“Then doesn't that mean that if we can find some kind of high-level potion, or an alchemical method capable of altering bloodlines—”

“As long as we solve the issue of bloodline rejection, wouldn't everything be fine between the two of you?”

Elvira suddenly raised her head.

Tears still hung from her face, and her emerald eyes widened into perfect circles.

She stared blankly at her calm-faced best friend and even wondered if the Astral Realm had damaged her hearing.

“But... but Cecilia...”

Elvira stammered.

“We both have pure Red Dragon bloodlines! That means we're siblings!”

After all, pureblood Red Dragon descendants existed only among Pendragon's descendants, and specifically within the Royal Family itself.

In Elvira's eyes, Lance was undoubtedly her father's illegitimate son.

Faced with the Princess's shock,

Cecilia merely tilted her head slightly.

Her beautiful crimson eyes were filled with confusion.

“What does that matter?”

The perfectly natural way she asked that question instantly left Elvira speechless.

Looking at her friend's open and straightforward expression,

Elvira finally came to a realization.

How could she have forgotten?!

The girl sitting before her possessed half-elven blood!

Elves had never used bloodlines, status, or even worldly morality as standards for choosing a partner.

The Elven race valued only the resonance of souls.

As long as two souls could perfectly harmonize, understand one another, and lean on each other, then all the rules and obstacles of the world became lighter than dust before pure love.

Bards loved to describe Elven love as “passionate romance.”

Because that romance itself carried a kind of obsession capable of ignoring everything else.

Seeing that Elvira did not argue,

Cecilia continued her patient persuasion in her gentle voice.

“Perhaps nobody even knows he exists?”

“After all, it's already been more than ten years.”

“As long as nobody knows, and the bloodline conflict can be resolved, wouldn't everything else solve itself?”

Elvira sat frozen on the bed.

On one hand, the royal education she had received since childhood was sounding every alarm in her head, telling her that Cecilia's words were completely trampling over noble dignity and law.

On the other hand, following her friend's logic step by step, she discovered that the proposal... actually seemed to have no obvious flaws.

“As long as those two problems are solved, everything can be resolved...”

she murmured.

“You... actually... make a lot of sense...”

Elvira muttered softly as the emptiness in her eyes was gradually replaced by a dangerous gleam.

The innate possessiveness carried within her Red Dragon bloodline began awakening once more.

All she had to do was find a way to deceive her stubborn father and mother, secretly bring Lance back, and hide him somewhere secure.

Then, after another decade or so passed and she officially inherited the throne with absolute authority, nobody in the kingdom would be able to stop her anymore.

Yes! That's exactly what she'd do!

However...

Elvira bit her lip.

Images of the terrifying destructive power Lance had displayed during battle surfaced in her mind.

Lance was simply too strong.

An ordinary dungeon definitely could not hold him.

It seemed the place she hid him would have to be constructed using the highest-grade alchemical materials available.

And several hundred magical formations should make it safe enough.

But just as she was happily planning for the future, an important problem suddenly drenched her excitement like a bucket of cold water.

At the final moments within the Astral Realm canyon, Lance had beaten her so badly that, coupled with the tremendous emotional shock of learning he was a Red Dragon as well, she had never gotten the chance to ask before being forcibly expelled from the Astral Realm.

Where exactly did Lance live?!

That was a major problem!

The Iris Kingdom covered a vast territory with numerous provinces.

Not to mention all the wilderness and mountain ranges scattered across its frontier regions.

Without knowing his identity or place of residence, where was she supposed to search?

Or perhaps...

Elvira raised her head and gazed at the starry sky beyond the window.

Would Lance one day appear upon the continent like a brilliant star, revealing himself in an unimaginably dazzling fashion?

......

While the two girls in the Royal Capital wrestled with their thoughts, far away in White River City,

Lance had already begun his journey home.

He sat comfortably aboard a massive river ferry.

Naturally, the ticket had been arranged in advance by the exceptionally considerate administrative officer Ilya.

Not only had all expenses been waived, but Lance had even been assigned the most luxurious cabin on the entire vessel.

The cabin was furnished with thick waterproof carpeting and a shock-absorbing bed firmly secured to the hull.

Lying on it, one could barely feel the rocking of the river.

Only a few hours earlier, immediately after the Heroic Spirit Baptism ended, Lance had followed Ilya to the underground vault of the Veterans Institute.

There, he redeemed the enchanted equipment promised as compensation.

Faced with an entire warehouse filled with dazzling enchanted equipment, Lance quietly activated his newly acquired Royal Armory Blessing.

Among the pieces suitable for him, he selected the one with the highest Resistance Threshold, since the threshold reflected the quality of the equipment.

However, he did not bind it immediately.

Instead, he planned to bring it back to Graystone Town and let Uncle Reyn, whose experience was extensive, examine it first.

Only after confirming the equipment was safe would he decide whether to keep it.

And right now, Lance, who should have been enjoying a pleasant dream on his comfortable bed, was sitting upright.

His face was full of bewilderment.

He was questioning reality itself.

The reason was simple.

Just moments ago, he had drifted off to sleep.

And then something absurd happened.

He dreamed again.

Even more absurdly, the dream was the exact same one he had experienced yesterday in the luxury suite in White River City!

The setting remained that same room overflowing with suggestive atmosphere.

Even the characters had not changed.

It was still Yvette, the bespectacled literary girl from Violet Academy, dressed in black stockings.

But today's Yvette behaved completely differently from yesterday's.

Yesterday, she had carried herself like the interrogator controlling the dream.

Today, from the very moment the dream began, her level of cooperation was terrifyingly high.

One could practically say she granted every request.

No matter how outrageous his demands were, she accepted them all without resistance.

She even proactively demonstrated positions Lance had only seen in adult videos from his previous life.

But before long, she completely fell apart.

A textbook case of being enthusiastic but utterly inexperienced.

However!

How could anyone possibly have consecutive dreams on two different nights, in completely different locations, with perfectly continuous content and character settings?

It simply defied common sense!

Therefore, while she was trembling intermittently from some intense stimulation, Lance chose to wake himself up early.

The moment he opened his eyes, the second scalp-numbing absurdity appeared.

Out of habit, he summoned the system panel to check his status.

At the very bottom of his character status screen,

inside the previously empty buff section,

there was now an additional status icon glowing with a faint pink light.

【Nightmare Corruption (Lustful Torment): 0.4%】

Lance stared at the words.

The corner of his eye twitched violently.

First of all, why was this considered a beneficial status effect?

Secondly, why the hell was it called Lustful Torment?