Chapter 418 Ambition Came First
Lucian continued discussing the details of the ceremony with the High Priest, but Zara quickly lost interest.
She spent the rest of the meeting looking around, too restless to sit still.
Once they had finished, the High Priest read the room and promptly excused himself.
Lucian turned to Zara. "What did I ever see in you?"
Without batting an eye, Zara replied, "You fell in love with me at first sight."
Lucian fell silent.
For some reason, the claim felt strangely familiar.
He studied her several times, still unconvinced. "Did I really?"
"What do you think?" Zara said. "You still want to marry me now, don't you? Doesn't that prove I'm telling the truth? You just want to read my thoughts. Not happening. That's where I draw the line."
"I keep feeling like a lot of things in my memories didn't happen the way I remember them."
"They did. Stop overthinking it."
"Do you love me?"
Zara's face remained perfectly blank. "Yes."
She would like him even more once he signed those papers.
"I don't believe you," Lucian said. "Take off your sunglasses, look me in the eye, and say it again."
Zara fell silent.
Why had losing his memories somehow made this man even more shameless?
After convincing herself several hundred times that she could handle it, she finally said, "Fine."
She removed her sunglasses, looked straight into Lucian's eyes, and said earnestly, "I love you."
At the same time, she frantically repeated the same words in her mind.
[I love you. I love you. I love you.]
But perhaps because they were not genuine thoughts, Lucian heard bursts of mental static tangled between the words, making the whole thing sound distinctly wrong.
He frowned. "How much do you love me?"
Zara fell silent.
[You damn...]
She immediately put her sunglasses back on. "Very much."
Lucian gave a cold laugh. "I heard what you really meant."
Zara said nothing.
This was getting awkward.
She hurried to salvage the situation. "I really do love you."
Sunglasses on, feelings off.
"But it doesn't matter," Lucian suddenly said.
"The moment I saw you, I felt something different. You're the only woman I can imagine as my Holy Consort. At the very least, I have no desire to marry anyone else." He added, "You may be lying about loving me, but perhaps I really did love you before."
Zara fell silent.
For the first time in more than twenty years, she felt something in her brain begin to snap.
Had Lucian lost his mind?
His memories had been altered. Was he deliberately trying to deceive her now?
And yet her heart still gave a tiny tremor.
It was the last shred of her conscience struggling to survive.
"...What exactly are you trying to say?"
He had loved her?
Did he have any idea what he had been like before?
He had insulted her practically every day!
Lucian looked at her seriously. "I must have loved you. At the very least, you make me feel something no other woman does. I'm not like you. I don't lie."
Zara fell silent.
What was that supposed to mean?
Was he making this personal now?
She sat there completely stunned.
What did he mean, he had loved her?
Come to think of it, after losing his memories, his personality had become colder, but he was also far more direct.
He had openly admitted that he could hear her thoughts.
And now he had said this.
What was he trying to do?
Shake her resolve after she had already decided to kill him and make her feel guilty?
Absolutely not.
But after hearing Lucian say something like that, wouldn't killing him make Zara seem completely heartless?
She lowered her head and thought for a moment before declaring, "You're just saying all this because you don't want to sign the papers!"
Lucian fell silent.
He gave her a sidelong glance. "Forget I said anything. I'll sign them after the ceremony."
He did not even seem bothered that the documents concerned his estate.
Apparently, Zara could openly anticipate his death without making him angry.
Zara had no response.
How could Lucian possibly have fallen for her?
She still remembered what the old Lucian had been like. He had been absolutely unbearable.
He had sworn he would never marry her.
Yet now they were about to get married.
Granted, it was only in the Divine World. As long as they kept it hidden, no one on Earth would ever know.
But Lucian had lost his memories, and everything he remembered now was fabricated. Zara could not exactly press him for more details.
What bothered her most was his claim that seeing her made him feel as though he had loved her before.
Did that mean he had already loved her before losing his memories?
The thought was honestly terrifying.
The old Lucian had never acted like this.
When she thought about it carefully, their relationship had not even been good. She had constantly infuriated him, and the two of them had even fought before.
"Who says you never lie?" At last, Zara found a flaw in his argument. "You must have lied to me before."
"I don't remember."
Zara fell silent.
Fine. Having amnesia apparently meant he could win every argument.
The whole situation was absurdly melodramatic, but it had already happened, so there was little Zara could say.
Once Lucian signed the papers, she would still need to find a way to resolve everything.
Fortunately, another solution soon occurred to her.
"Do you really have to invade Earth?" she asked. "No matter what, we both grew up there. Don't you feel any attachment to it at all?"
Lucian looked at her with faint amusement.
"If I remember correctly, you're from the Divine World too. The strong rule, and the weak submit. Earth is far behind us in both technology and power. The invasion would be over quickly. If you're worried about civilian casualties, there won't be any."
Zara fell silent.
He did have a point.
Without Zara interfering, taking over Earth would be ridiculously easy.
They might only need to reach an agreement with its leaders. Ordinary people might not even be affected. They would simply wake up one day and learn the earth-shattering truth that another world existed and now ruled over theirs.
But Lucian, you were born and raised on Earth!
How could you sell out your own world so quickly without the slightest pang of guilt?
After holding it in for a long moment, Zara finally decided to use her newfound advantage.
"Didn't you say you loved me? I don't want you to invade Earth."
She sat there in her sunglasses, looking surprisingly well behaved.
"See? As long as you leave Earth alone, we can live together peacefully."
He could keep the power for all she cared, and Lucian would not have to die.
Had Aurelion been there, he would undoubtedly have denounced her as a shameless heartbreaker.
She truly had no limits.
Lucian suddenly gave a quiet laugh. "You adapt quickly."
Then he added, "Unfortunately, I don't love you enough to give up that much."
In other words, his ambition still mattered more than she did.
Zara stared at him.
[Excuse me? Say that again, you heartless bastard.]