The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 396

When you think about it, Arellin had always been like that.

Whether she was simply an interesting existence, whether Cheyen learned she was a singularity, or even when Cheyen reached out a hand of salvation—she always went against his expectations.

A normal human would have chosen the easy option every single time.

She never chose it.

Not once.

Cheyen clenched his teeth.

If that were all, it wouldn’t have irritated him this much. What truly enraged Cheyen was the change that the existence called Arellin had brought about.

Cheyen stared at Mercedes with wounded eyes.

How could you do this?

An overwhelming sense of betrayal ignited his fury.

What had supported Cheyen all this time was the identity of “my master’s savior.”

Even if that salvation had failed.

Even if both he and his master had been degraded into half-baked immortals, living a shabby, weak, trash-like eternity—he still had to be the only one.

I’m the only one who understands you.

If you deny me, then what am I?

He had always believed that nothing could replace this twisted, ruined relationship—born from being unable to save, from failing to save.

“How could you.”

Knowing how long I suffered in this darkness because of your mistake that pushed me here—

How could you,

“Not even knowing why you became weaker than me.”

Unable to contain the boiling betrayal, Cheyen unconsciously let his authority spill out. His entire inner world churned violently.

Power gained by being worn down, eroded, and driven mad through nauseatingly endless time—time remembered by him alone.

“You don’t even remember how many times you begged me for mercy. Or how many times we had conversations like this. Or how you treated me……”

Even if I resent you and abandon you, you must not abandon me.

You’re not allowed to.

“Master, do you know why I hunted down and killed mages?”

“Because only then would you move. Only then would you come to see me.”

“If I don’t do this, you won’t meet me.”

Moments only he remembered.

“Please stop. Please…….”

“They’re innocent. This is all my fault.”

Cheyen let out a quiet laugh.

“So you’re going to seal me again?”

“That’s the best option.”

“Really? Is it really, Master?”

Before the time axis rewound, Cheyen had once been weak enough to be killed by Mercedes.

But after countless cycles—so many he could no longer count—and after time piled up until even an incomplete immortal’s mind began to erode—

Cheyen realized he had become stronger than his master.

Yes. Stronger.

An immortal’s authority ultimately came from the feats that the world remembered.

The moment Cheyen’s atrocities recorded in the Akashic Records surpassed the achievements Mercedes had built, Cheyen was reborn as a stronger immortal than him.

And so, the Nightmare of the Star gained the power to easily shatter the First Star.

And yet.

“You’re telling me that just ten-odd years changed you? You expect me to believe that?”

Even ten years was nothing more than a blink to an immortal who lived for eternity.

But in every worldline, the master who once knelt, cried, and begged Cheyen for mercy for the sake of other mages—was gone.

That image of his master, kneeling and pleading through tears, was still vividly etched into his memory.

And yet now—

When those calm golden eyes, no longer begging for mercy, looked straight at him, something inside Cheyen snapped.

He could no longer suppress the raw emotions bursting out of him.

He couldn’t forgive it.

To you, I was supposed to be the one existence you could never let go of.
You were supposed to cling to me.
I was supposed to be the only one who could give you salvation.

That absolute truth shattered.

Why?

Why did you find peace somewhere else?

And finally, the scenery of his boiling inner world changed.

Reality perfectly synchronized with the inner world.

—A vision of hell descending upon the present world.

 

 

*****

 

 

 

Mercedes recalled his conversation with Sloth—a story about a pitiful child with a tragic fate, and a mother who could never abandon that child.

—That child was never properly loved, not even once, after being born.
—And yet, that child loved this world.

She never blamed her foolish mother even once, and she loved the world and its lives—despite never being loved herself.

—Those who don’t know always say the giants fell because that child was born. But was it really the child’s fault? Wasn’t it a disaster caused by their own complacency, ignoring all the other signs of collapse?

As the queen of the giants, Sloth had to choose.

Kill her own child to preserve her people’s stability—or save her child and be abandoned by her people.

She chose the latter, and so she earned the disgraceful title of “Sloth,” enduring the condemnation of her dying kin and the mockery of other races.

—Why couldn’t you kill them?
—Because if even I turned my back… then that child would truly have been loved by no one.

Her choice was justified.

Even if the whole world branded her as lazy for shirking her duty, Mercedes could not condemn her.

Then what about himself?

‘Did I truly think about Cheyen?’

Mercedes had been born holding countless blessings.

The past and present recorded in the World Tree—and even fragments of unreadable futures.

Looking back, his obsession with the truth of the world and endless pursuit of knowledge had only been possible because of his long-lived race.

He had forgotten.

Forgotten because what he held was too familiar.

That he, too, was capable of making mistakes—

—that all lives feel regret.

That regret was natural.

Regret was the result of reflection, and a chance not to repeat the same mistake again.

But what about him?

The fully synchronized inner world projected a single scene.

Their past selves.

Cheyen, still pure and righteous—before Mercedes had ruined him.

And himself, longing only for death.

「Master, Master. Why are you crying alone?」

He had been too arrogant.

He had never once considered the possibility that he might be wrong.

「Could I save you, Master?」

Even though he knew that this outstretched hand was not salvation offered by someone capable of bearing him.

In truth, Mercedes had known subconsciously that his experiment might fail.

Because no one could give another being their “existence.”

「Master… what did you make me into?」

I was too arrogant.

Drunk on the certainty that I was always right.

Ruining you, failing—that alone might have been unavoidable. But everything I did afterward should never have happened.

He couldn’t handle his first taste of frustration and regret with maturity.

Believing Cheyen’s anger was justified, he couldn’t stop him.

He treated every catastrophe Cheyen caused as inevitable.

He blamed Cheyen easily, using that to avoid and justify his own mistakes.

Only after meeting Arellin—only after reaching the end of this completely broken conclusion—did Mercedes finally face the past properly.

“At that time.”

Enduring Cheyen’s fury head-on instead of avoiding it as he always had, Mercedes spoke.

“I should have killed you instead of sealing you.”

“…!”

Cheyen’s eyes, burning with rage, were dyed with pain. The golden eyes so similar to his own narrowed like a beast’s.

Mercedes reflected on his foolishness.

The weight of a life belongs solely to oneself. It cannot be transferred or carried by another.

True salvation can only exist if the one to be saved desires it.

In the end, salvation is something one must achieve alone.

That was why he had come here.

“Because I thought you broke like this because of me. Because you, too, are one of my mistakes. Because I made you this way—”

To correct the past mistakes he had hidden behind such excuses.

Unintentional errors. Decisions made too late. The consequences that followed.

He had thought he needed to atone and pay for them—but that was wrong.

This was his sin. Something he had to settle himself.

If he didn’t, someone else would have to.

He couldn’t pass that burden onto Arellin.

He didn’t want to remain such a worthless master until the end.

“So what can you even do, Master? Can you really stop me? In such a weak state?”

Mercedes calmly acknowledged Cheyen’s mockery.

By his own power alone, it was difficult.

But—

“-!”

Cheyen’s eyes widened at the power Mercedes summoned.

────.

A force like death itself—one that could erase everything in an instant—made Cheyen’s eyes widen as far as they could go.

“That is……”

The connection between Mercedes and Arellin was two-way.

Which meant Mercedes could use the power Arellin possessed—regardless of whether he himself could endure it.

The power of the end wielded by the Apostle of the End.

It was annihilation itself.

Looking at his sins, his mistakes, his happy past—and perhaps even his… son—Mercedes smiled faintly.

He had never had a child.

But perhaps this was what having one felt like.

He should have done this sooner.

He should have corrected things before Cheyen went further astray.

“I’m sorry. For not doing this earlier.”

Cheyen’s eyes flew open.

Thunk.

There was no violent resistance, as Mercedes had expected.

Unexpectedly, Cheyen didn’t resist at all, and their end was quiet.

Power spread from the dagger lodged in Cheyen’s heart, erasing their existence.

“Ah……”

As if trying to say something, Cheyen smiled faintly. He grabbed the hand of Mercedes—the hand that had stabbed him.

Pressing it down to drive the blade deeper into his own heart, Cheyen finally smiled in satisfaction and scattered into nothingness.

What had that smile meant?

Mercedes wondered—but he had no time left.

As an emotion he couldn’t fully define passed through him, Mercedes, too, returned to nothing.

Together with Cheyen.