To His Hell and Back

Chapter 527: Decisions of Mothers-II

What she saw in this final memory was Jullie standing before a woman she now recognized all too well.

Wendy. The sorceress Arabella had killed.

Jullie’s eyes were stretched wide in disbelief as Wendy smiled at her, calm and almost affectionate. Jullie’s chest had been torn open, hollowed through, and the hand that had pierced straight through her belonged to Wendy herself. Blood soaked Wendy’s arm, dripping slowly to the floor, yet she showed no sign of discomfort, only satisfaction.

Wendy leaned close, her lips brushing near Jullie’s ear as she whispered something only meant for her. Jullie could barely respond. Blood spluttered from her mouth as she stared back, fear and shock tangled so tightly in her expression that they were indistinguishable.

"You all... forced him with your delusions," Jullie cursed weakly, her voice breaking under the weight of pain and betrayal.

Wendy didn’t even flinch. Her smile widened instead, sharp and pleased, as if Jullie’s suffering was nothing more than confirmation.

"It was always our plan to separate you from the lord," Wendy said, folding her bloodied arms with a soft chuckle. "But of course, you would never have known that."

She tilted her head slightly, eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. "The truth is... Lord Morpheus didn’t only seek power to avenge the betrayal he felt from Lady Circe. You’re wrong, Jullie."

More blood spilled from Jullie’s lips as her knees weakened, but Wendy’s gaze remained cold, filled with the dark mirth of someone who delighted in watching life drain away.

"He wanted power to protect you too."

Jullie let out a hoarse, broken laugh despite herself, pain tearing through her chest with every breath. "To open the gates of Hell and seize Heaven?" she scoffed weakly. "And you dare say that was for me?"

Her eyes burned with resentment even as they dulled. "That was never protection. It was always about power. His desperate hunger to rule everything... to control it."

"You are so silly, Jullie... truly, painfully silly. So foolishly, hopelessly silly," Wendy chuckled, her voice lilting with mock affection before it shattered into loud, unrestrained laughter. She laughed as if the world itself were a joke meant only for her amusement, as if Jullie’s suffering was nothing more than a punchline. "It seems you still don’t understand anything at all. Weren’t you the one who said you wanted to go to Heaven?"

Jullie’s eyes widened to their limits, the shock so violent it nearly stole what little breath she had left. Disbelief followed close behind, settling heavily in her chest.

She stared at Wendy as though she were no longer looking at a person, but at something grotesque and alien, some twisted creature wearing human skin, one that could no longer distinguish right from wrong.

"I didn’t mean it like that," Jullie rasped, her voice trembling as blood coated her lips. "I meant I wanted to die clean— free of sins, free of blood. I meant it as a wish to stop Morpheus from drowning himself in killing, to stop him from becoming something irredeemable."

Wendy hummed thoughtfully, tilting her head as if considering a child’s naive explanation. "Well," she replied lightly, "he took it literally. And besides, he truly believed that if he could take control of Heaven itself, he could place a crown upon your head. He dreamed of ruling the world with you at his side, governing everything together."

"You are all insane!" Jullie screamed, the pain in her abdomen spreading outward, turning frighteningly numb. She was dying— she knew it now. Her body was already beginning to betray her, signaling that she had only minutes left.

A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind, but none could form into words. All that surfaced was regret. Regret, and Morpheus’s face, and the crushing realization that she herself had been one of the reasons his obsession with Heaven had taken root.

"Heaven and Hell were never meant for beings like us," Jullie whispered as her legs finally gave out, her body collapsing heavily onto the ground. "Why can’t you understand that? In your thirst for power, you trample over the balance of the world itself. As his followers... wasn’t it our duty to guide him? To tell him what was right and what was wrong? To protect him from losing himself?" Her voice cracked, raw with bitterness. "But none of you ever tried to stop him. Not even once."

"Well," Wendy sighed, sounding almost bored now. "You still don’t understand, do you?" She crouched slightly, her bloodstained hands gesturing as she spoke. "Unlike you, we never served the Lord for his heart. We served him for his power. He offered knowledge others could never obtain, strength no other realm could grant. You cared about his emotional well- being." Wendy smiled coldly. "We cared about what he could give us."

To Jullie that wasn’t loyalty but to Wendy and other sorcerers? That was loyalty. Loyalty to Morpheus’s power... all this time.

It was all to Morpheus’s power.

Not him personally. Just his power and what he could offer.

Her eyes gleamed with manic delight. "So tell me, how could we ever refuse him when he came to us with such a brilliant idea? An ambition grand enough to control not only this world, but the worlds beyond it— both Hell and Heaven."

Jullie’s face drained of what little color remained as she watched Wendy practically bounce with excitement, her snickering sharp and unsettling, something between a cat’s purr and a demon’s hiss. There was no remorse in her expression, only hunger.

"We never even dreamed of controlling Hell, let alone Heaven," Wendy continued breathlessly. "But he showed us it was possible. And once we saw that path... we had to make sure his dream came true." Her smile stretched impossibly wide. "To rise higher than gods. Higher than angels. To become something the universe itself would have to kneel before."

"You’re so confident," Jullie coughed for air, "But don’t you think that it’s possible for you to lose? For Morpheus to fail."

"Of course not." Wendy walked forward towards her, smiling, "Because we have gotten rid of the one person who could ruin all our plan."

Jullie gnashed her teeth and Wendy only laughed wickedly at her reaction.

"Your existence is quite a sore to the eyes. Because of you, Lord Morpheus hesitates but once you are gone, he will return to his usual self. That’s why... all we needed to do was sow seed of discord between you two, drive a wedge that really did occur and now we took your life... the dead can’t meddle with the living’s business anymore."

Wendy then turned, her bloodstained fingers idly brushing against her sleeve as she looked over the fellow sorcerers standing beside her. They leaned closer, their voices lowered into hushed whispers that carried no urgency, only mild curiosity. What Arabella could catch was fragmented, muffled by distance and fear, but the words still reached her ears.

"...will the Lord be upset at Jullie’s death?"

"He won’t," Wendy answered coldly, without even sparing the speaker a glance. Her gaze drifted back to Jullie, whose eyes were already beginning to dull, the light within them fading like a candle starved of air. "Lord Morpheus’s emotions have never matured enough for him to understand that what he feels is despair, not hatred." Her lips curled faintly. "We should tell him soon that Jullie ran away... and died."

Arabella remembered the desperate urge to run toward Jullie then, her feet itching to move, her body trembling with the instinct to scream her name. But she didn’t. She froze—because Jullie, even in that state, had moved her lips ever so slightly, silently begging her not to come closer. To wait. To survive. To stay hidden until Wendy left.

Wendy lingered.

She stood there longer than necessary, her posture relaxed, her expression thoughtful, as if she were savoring the moment. As if she wanted to be absolutely certain that Jullie would not rise again, that there would be no miracle, no interruption. Only when Jullie’s breathing grew shallow and uneven did Wendy finally turn away. She walked off with a wide smile, one brimming with satisfaction, clearly delighted by the knowledge that Jullie would die alone, unseen, and forgotten.

Only then did Arabella move.

She ran to Jullie’s side, her legs weak beneath her as tears clung stubbornly to her lashes. Up close, Jullie’s face looked wrong—one half still resembled her mother so vividly it made Arabella’s chest ache, while the other revealed Jullie’s true face, twisted with sorrow so profound it felt unbearable to witness.

"Jullie... Jullie," Arabella cried, her small hands trembling as they hovered uselessly, unsure where to touch.

Jullie forced a smile, faint and fragile, and lifted her hand with effort, gently rubbing Arabella’s hair as she used to. "One day..." Her voice was barely there, too weak to carry. Arabella leaned closer, her breath hitching as she caught the last fragments of sound. Jullie’s fingers tightened around her brooch. "You will meet him. He will not be a good soul."

At the time, Arabella hadn’t understood who he was meant to be.

Now, she did.

In that moment, her childhood self dissolved into her present one. Memory and reality overlapped painfully, and Arabella could finally feel the weight of what she had been too young to grasp before. That crushing powerlessness—that was why she had forgotten everything. Why her mind had buried it so deep it became unreachable.

"No matter what you do," Jullie whispered, her voice thinning with every word, "stop him..." A pause, strained and trembling. "Even if it means... that you have to kill him."

Arabella felt the hand she was holding grow colder. Her grip tightened instinctively, but it was already too late.

"But, Bella," Jullie whispered one last time. "Please..."

The word dissolved into silence.

Arabella’s eyes flew open.

She was staring at the ceiling of her bed, wooden tiles looming above her as if they were pressing down on her chest. The room was quiet, yet her soul felt distant—left behind in that forest, still clutching Jullie’s lifeless hand. Her heart pounded violently, as though mourning had only just begun.

"Please..."

Jullie’s voice echoed faintly in her mind.

"Please... make him understand his mistake."

Arabella lay there, unmoving as tears dripped from the corners of her eyes.