Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Eren left soon after giving his farewell speech to the audience.

He didn't stop Agatha and others from throwing a celebration in his honor for breaking into the Grandmaster Rank.

He believed that he didn't need to oppose all of Anfang's traditions. It was fine if others celebrated in his name. And it was fine to follow traditions just for the sake of following them.

After Eren left, the platform was taken over by the stage artists he had hired long back during his graduation ceremony. The play this time depicted Eren's struggles at the time of the Lazarus Project. It was his story but with some dramatic flair and exaggeration. Sort of twisting the truth and enlarging the drama for a theater-like experience.

The play was broadcast on various parts of Ravendale at the same time, enabling the people of the continent to get some insights into what actually happened that caused the Great Shattering.

The play also had an onscreen Eliza serving as the onscreen Eren's arch-nemesis. The actors playing these two lead roles were chosen carefully by the city administration. As such, the audience received the play quite well.

After the play, one of Argo's recorded performances was going to get rendered spectrally on the platform. The colosseum was soon filled with various bustling noises and shouts as the Rankers started enjoying the celebration.

The Grandmaster for whom this celebration was organized was nowhere to be found. However, nobody complained. It was as if people had come to a tacit understanding to just enjoy themselves for the day before moving on.

***

Sansara World 2.0. Maya's abode.

"That was quite a speech you gave there," Eliza said as she saw Eren approaching her. It seemed that the Witch of the Enderflames saw Eren making his public appearance via a spectral feed available to her inside Sansara World 2.0.

She wasn't surprised by the fact that Eren had taken his time coming here. After all, some personal goodbyes needed to be done for the one last time.

"I could have said more. But then they'd have to pay me," Eren said casually as he stepped towards Eliza. It didn't take him long to stand right in front of her.

Eliza was not alone. Leela and Layla were also with her. Plus, Maya and Alephee stood close to each other in the vicinity as well, discussing stuff only they were aware of regarding the upcoming task.

***

A lot of things happened to Eliza after Eren defeated her during the onset of the Great Shattering.

Eren made sure that Eliza, Layla, and Leela could never hurt him or his allies. He used the Sin Series restrictions that only he had access to.

He then set the trio free, enabling them to seek vengeance on the Anfang Alliance. This was so that the Anfang Alliance could focus on its greatest threat– Witch of the Enderflames and leave Ravendale alone for some time until he got things in order.

One could say that Eren's plan had worked too well. This was because it took the Alliance a whole nine months to initiate a siege on him. A part of the credit needed to be given to Eliza.

Eliza had not kept quiet after she recovered from her physical and soul-related injuries. She could not do anything against Eren. her pride had already been broken so she could not use her Sin Series Abilities on him anymore either. It was as if she had become a toothless tiger when it came to battling against Eren.

Eliza did the next smart thing after she realized the situation she was in. She decided to make use of the chance given to her by Eren, seeking payback from the Anfang Alliance for what they did to her, her House, and all of the half-bloods of her time.

It seemed that Lady Zee's consciousness also influenced Eliza's actions to some degree. This was because she had located and fought with a group of cultists from the Illuminati who had persecuted Lady Zee for having the same name as Eliza's original name.

One could call it a mere coincidence or fate itself that Lady Zee shared her original name with Eliza. However, since Eliza's name was considered an ill-omen in Afang by a lot of Rankers who knew about the Calamity Era, the cultist Ranker had to call herself Lady Zee.

Eliza was pissed when she got to know about Lady Zee's past experiences. Her Sin Series Ability influenced her to take a hard stance against Lady Zee's enemies within the Illuminati.

It didn't take much effort on Eliza's part to destroy a large number of Illuminati assets during the past nine months. She defeated the man from the Illuminati who had forced Lady Zee to change her name. However, she didn't kill him.

Just like what Lady Zee wanted, Eliza changed the name of the man after defeating him effortlessly in an open duel. She renamed him Asswipe and asked the other witnesses to call him by his changed name from then on.

Of course, Eliza didn't care about what she had to do across all of Anfang to settle Lady Zee's score with some members of the Illuminati. She destroyed a few cities that were closely connected with the cultist organizations, causing more headaches for the Alliance than what it was forced to deal with due to the Great Shattering.

It seemed that Lady Zee and Eliza had decided to accept each other after being forced to share the same body. The two were slowly letting their soul fusion change themselves into someone who was both of them at the same time.

They had agreed to let the other take control of the body they shared intermittently. This was the compromise Eliza had decided willingly in order to recover from the grievous soul-related injury she had.

Eliza got access to Lady Zee's black flames after she accepted the latter and took revenge in her stead. She managed to merge the properties of black and green flames, turning her spells even more potent and destructive than what they were before.

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AN: Lady Zee's circumstances were explained in chapter 647.