It was merely a thought away.
If the game had the ability to save, then "killing Kikyo" was something Mörs wouldn't hesitate to do.
After all, it was just a matter of moving a mouse, and after experiencing one ending, she could return to the time before the choice, playing the role of a quiet, harmless daughter like a puppet in a world where no one knew of the player's wicked deeds.
A person's life actually contains many, many choices. Due to the potential risks of each option, people, hesitant to bear the unbearable consequences, are forced to abandon many choices, avoid risks, and steer clear of life's diverging paths.
In other words, if you are prepared to face the worst possible outcome, then by all means, make your choice.
At the dining table, Kikyo and Mörs sat close together. Mörs could feel the warmth radiating from Kikyo. She opened her game inventory, [equipped] a scalpel, and reinforced it with "Zhou," then thrust it towards Kikyo's snow-white neck.
As the mistress of the Zoldyck family, Kikyo was, of course, a Nen user with considerable strength. To succeed in a surprise attack, her movements had to be swift and decisive, without any reliance on luck.
Mörs's lifelong learning within the Zoldyck household was concentrated in this single strike.
With absolute calm, she concealed a deadly killing intent.
Accurate, decisive.
This was an almost perfect sneak attack. The target seemed completely oblivious, still wearing a smile from before her death, sitting on her chair. Her head fell onto the dining table, her carotid artery and cervical spine severed together. Blood gushed from the cleanly cut neck, like a miniature fountain.
The butlers attending in the dining room were struck by extreme astonishment, frozen in place as if petrified, even their breathing.
A deathly silence ensued.
Mörs herself had not expected the sneak attack to be so smooth, as it happened in an instant. The action was one of muscle memory, requiring no conscious direction from her brain.
Decapitation or heart destruction – these two methods target the most vital parts of a human being, ensuring the target's certain death.
Not necessarily. Don't novels often feature "immortality" abilities?
She retracted the scalpel into her game inventory. Mörs formed her hand into a claw and plunged it into the chest of the headless corpse sitting in the chair, crushing the heart that no longer beat within.
The miniature fountain from the corpse's neck also stopped. Mörs picked up the head from the table and examined it carefully.
Hmm, I can't feel any life energy at all. It seems truly dead.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Mörs carefully placed the head back onto the corpse's neck, straightening it. Then, she [took out] a lace-decorated choker from her game inventory. It was the same color as Kikyo's dress, a perfect match, concealing the gap between the head and the neck.
She then tidied Kikyo's slightly disheveled hair. Mörs looked around. The others were like wax figures in a horror film, motionless, pale-faced, their eyes fixed on Mörs, their faces filled with terror.
"..." Mörs turned around. The desserts on the table were completely drenched in blood, looking as if a large bucket of tomato sauce had been overturned.
She finally found a small cake with only a single drop of blood on it, just the right size for one bite. Mörs wiped the blood from her face and hands with a napkin, then picked up the cake, wiped away the bloodstains with her finger, and put it into her mouth, chewing.
The heavy scent of blood beside her did not affect her appetite. In fact, it strangely liberated her appetite.
Yes, there was no need to hold back. This was likely her last supper.
With no one to disturb her, Mörs continued to eat other desserts, cutting away the blood-stained parts with a knife before eating them – she had a sweet tooth, but not a taste for blood.
She hadn't eaten much before, being watched by Kikyo, so she was a bit hungry and ate quite a few desserts.
By the time she was surrounded by the butlers, she was in the middle of biting into a scone.
She looked at the butlers holding restraint tools, raising her hands as she swallowed the scone.
She offered no resistance and was taken into custody without a struggle.
Shaiap, who was away from home, suddenly received the most devastating news of his life: his wife, Kikyo Zoldyck, had been killed at home by her own daughter, Mörs Zoldyck.
He remained silent for a long time. After the butler on the other end of the phone finished explaining the situation, he dared not make a sound, gripping the receiver with immense tension, awaiting the patriarch's orders.
There was nothing special to order. The victim had died on the spot, and the perpetrator had been detained. All that remained was for the patriarch to return to the territory and personally deal with the perpetrator.
Twice, Mörs had killed Kikyo.
First decapitation, then evisceration.
It was as if there was an ingrained hatred.
No, after the surgery, Mörs should have had no emotions left. Therefore, when the decision for surgery was made in the meeting, the existence of "insurance measures" was mentioned.
Thinking calmly, at least the worst outcome was avoided. With Mörs's abilities, in a surprise attack, she could have killed not only Kikyo but also all her sons.
Only one family member was lost, and it wasn't the most important heir.
Shaiap recalled that Mörs had almost been killed by Kikyo at birth. A single thought had ultimately brought a full circle to the narrative today.
Truly... an incomparably ironic cycle of fate.
Arriving at Mount Purgatory exhausted, Shaiap had not rested along the way, nor did he need to. The hardship of travel was nothing compared to the family's rigorous training. The only discomfort he felt was the beating of his heart in his chest, a pain as if being tightly clenched by an invisible hand.
This pain, upon seeing Mörs in restraints in the prison cell, suddenly vanished, transforming into boundless fatigue.
Mörs's legs were not bound. She stood up and walked towards Shaiap, reaching the limit of the chains' length.
It seemed she was eagerly awaiting Shaiap's arrival. Shaiap knew she wasn't expecting her father to show leniency to his own daughter.
Because she had completely lost her mind this time.
"Daddy, I killed Mommy," she mouthed. "I deserve punishment."
"...Why?" As he asked this question, Shaiap mocked himself for trying to find traces of Mörs being manipulated.
What a foolish hope. Unless confirmed personally again, and shattered by reality, it could not be severed.
After all, the pain of losing two family members consecutively was not so easily accepted.
"Look at me," she said. "At this moment, you only have eyes for me."
The chains held her body, preventing her from moving even an inch further. She sighed, knelt down, and gazed up at Shaiap.
"Do you hate me?"
"Do you regret it?"
"How do you want to kill me?"
Her eyes, devoid of emotion after the surgery, seemed to gain a sparkle. It was as if, after never smiling since birth, she was stroking the feathers of a hawk and smiling happily for the first time.
Where did it all go wrong?
Was it when that hawk was killed?
She was furious, yet deeply sorrowful. As a Zoldyck, as a professional assassin, those emotions were too intense and not to be encouraged.
The excess emotions drove her mad. Shaiap thought that after losing her emotions, her madness should have stopped.
Where exactly did it go wrong?
The silent "Mörs," born from death, was a name Shaiap had given her.
The name was so accurate. From beginning to end, Mörs had yearned for death.
Her silver-white, long, curly hair cascaded down. She held her head high, her slender neck, from chin to collarbone, completely exposed.
She embodied with her entire being what it meant to "offer her neck for slaughter."
Shaiap lowered his head, his own long, similarly colored hair falling from his shoulders. The two pairs of blue eyes met.
...The Zoldycks strictly prohibit family members from killing each other.
The Zoldycks are professional assassins, not murderers. Similar to the laws of ordinary society, the rule "strictly prohibit fratricide" is a minimum requirement, a "bottom line," to ensure the family's survival. Unless in special circumstances, anyone who violates this bottom line is executed.
Shaiap raised his hand and brushed Mörs's forehead hair.
Mörs seemed to be accepting some kind of supreme honor, her eyes brighter than ever before.
"..." Shaiap took a step back, took out his phone, and sent a string of numbers to a specific number.
Immediately, Mörs's eyes widened, and blood began to pour from her mouth, mixed with some flesh fragments – pieces of her heart.
Mörs did not know that years ago, when she had blown up a house for a piece of cake, provoked Shaiap, and was defeated by him, she had been implanted with a miniature bomb in her heart during surgery while in the hospital – these were the so-called "insurance measures."
That bomb was not enough to blow her entire body to pieces, but it was enough to destroy her heart – Shaiap did not want to see his daughter's corpse become bloody and messy.
"...Daddy." She made her final lip movements with some surprise.
Then she collapsed.
She was dead.
After a few seconds of silence, Shaiap stepped forward and closed her dimming eyes.