Chapter 631: [Event] [The Beauty And The Beast] [11] Deborah Dolphis

Deborah Dolphis.

Her name alone was enough to send a chill through history books and historians alike.

She was the one who had ignited the flames of war against Sancta Vedelia—and Dolphis Kingdom, her own kingdom. She toppled the throne she was born to protect, murdered her own brother in cold blood, and led a monstrous army composed genetically modified hybrids. One by one, cities fell under her army.

Was it grief?

A shattered heart mourning Xenos’ defeat?

Was she acting out of despair?

No. That was too simple. Too human.

Deborah Dolphis wasn’t someone who’d lose her composure over sentiment. She had admired Xenos, certainly—they were alike in many ways: cold, ruthless, brilliant beyond reason. But I couldn’t see her broken emotionally over his loss. It just didn’t fit.

"It could have all been avoided," Roda had muttered at the time, arms crossed. "If only her parents had paid better attention to what their daughter truly was."

I remember nodding silently. Because she wasn’t wrong.

The truth was terrifying. Deborah had constructed a hidden lab—no, a twisted sanctuary of science—right beneath the palace grounds. While her royal family slept peacefully upstairs, she was downstairs slicing into the unknown, experimenting on living beings as if they were puzzles to solve. Her own private Frankenstein’s playground.

"She had them all fooled," the guide said. "The King, the Queen, even the Prince. None of them knew what she was truly doing. She needed their trust, their complacency—to keep her research alive. For her, knowledge wasn’t a goal. It was an obsession."

The guy definitely had a soft spot for Deborah Dolphis. Then again, he was a historical guide—his job was literally to unravel the legacies of people like her.

"Sounds like she wasn’t just a genius," I said, crossing my arms. "She must’ve been a hell of an actress too."

The guide chuckled, shaking his head gently. "No," he said, smiling. "Calling her a genius would be... insufficient. It’s a shallow word, honestly. Deborah Dolphis transcended genius. Even today, Sancta Vedelia grieves not for the lives lost, but for the knowledge that was lost with her. Before she vanished, she burned all her research—every formula, every discovery, every glimpse into the unknown."

He paused, seemingly upset as well for that loss.

"She had unlocked secrets that only the Gods were believed to possess," he continued quietly. "And perhaps... some that even they never dreamed of."

"She could’ve done so much good for the world," Roda said, a bit disappointed. "If only she hadn’t chosen the wrong path."

"Well... maybe we just can’t really understand people like her. I mean, you heard him—’God-level genius,’ right? She probably saw the world in a way none of us could even begin to grasp. People like that almost always end up being dangerous lunatics."

Roda turned to me with narrowed eyes. "Are you... defending her?"

I grimaced, glancing at her from the corner of my eye. "Not exactly."

The guide chuckled, amused by our little exchange. "Your boyfriend isn’t entirely wrong, Miss," he said. "People like Deborah Dolphis do see the world through a different lens. The real danger, though, lies not just in how they think—but in how they convince others to think like them. That ability to implant their ideology... to make others follow them without question. That’s power."

"I wouldn’t totally agree with that," Roda cut in, folding her arms. "Ideology matters, sure. But even the dumbest, most twisted belief system can become a movement if the person behind it has enough presence. A name, a reputation—that’s all it takes for people to follow. Fear helps, too. Most leaders of evil organizations lean on that."

The guide nodded thoughtfully. "A fair point. Deborah Dolphis was... different. Every account paints her as a woman with a presence that was impossible to ignore. Just one look, and you’d know she wasn’t ordinary."

I raised an eyebrow. "What, she hypnotized everyone with her looks or something?"

Roda sighed in relief. "Thank the heavens you weren’t born in her era."

"Oi," I shot her a glare.

Look, beauty-wise? I’ve seen the peak. I’ve met Cleenah and Nevia—legitimately divine-level beauty. Took me a while to even hold a conversation without looking away awkwardly. I got used to it eventually, but it was an adjustment, to say the least.

The guide laughed. "She was beautiful, yes, but most who met her didn’t see her as human. Not because of her looks—but because of the terror she inspired. People saw her more as a force of nature than a person."

"So," I asked, "it was Quinn Victor Raven who took her down, right?"

He nodded. "Indeed. After he slew the Behemoth’s Horns and brought down the Behemoth itself, the Hero finally faced Deborah Dolphis. Their battle ended with her death... and with it, the war."

"Behemoth’s still around though, even after all these years. How’d they survive without her?"

Of course Medusa had helped greatly these last years but before that?

"Deborah may have died... but not all her Hybrids did. Some escaped, scattered. And as it turned out, they hadn’t lost their ability to reproduce," he said.

I think I finally understood how they survived—how their numbers didn’t just persist, but actually grew.

The guide had mentioned that Deborah Dolphis destroyed all her research before her death, but... that wasn’t the whole truth, was it? Medusa had somehow gotten her hands on those forbidden blueprints, those formulas, and used them to create more Hybrids.

So much for ’all her work being lost or destroyed’

And now that I thought about it, Behemoth and the Iris Project... they were a lot more connected than I’d initially assumed. It made sense, though. Behemoth idolized Deborah Dolphis. The Iris Project practically worshipped Xenos Arvatra. And both of those individuals weren’t just contemporaries—they were close partners in life, research, and war.

Still, it was important to remember—Deborah hadn’t created Behemoth. Just like Xenos hadn’t founded the Iris Project. They were never the masterminds behind the organizations. They were more like the spearheads, the figureheads. Leaders of their armies, yes, but not the ones who planted the seeds.

Behemoth had always had one singular obsession: the resurrection of the Behemoth.

And the Iris Project? Their obsession was bringing Xenos Arvatra back from the dead.

But resurrection isn’t exactly something you do with a snap of your fingers. Not unless you’re a god. And even then, there are... rules. Laws. Boundaries you’re not supposed to cross.

Not that any of these lunatics cared.

The Iris Project had been trying—and failing—for decades. They couldn’t find a proper Vessel. That was always their biggest hurdle. Or so I’d believed. But now... I wondered if that was just one part of the equation.

Was there something else they needed?

My thoughts drifted back—back to that strange, glimmering liquid they took from Alea. That sample. It sent chills down my spine the moment I remembered it. Could that have been the missing piece?

I suddenly felt a shiver crawl down my back.

If all they needed now was a Vessel...

No. No, it can’t be. Not him.

Xenos Arvatra was the last person I ever wanted to see walk the earth again.

After a long silence, I turned to the guide. "Are there... any good Hybrids?"

He looked a bit surprised by the question, but then smiled. "I see you’ve been thinking about this from all sides. That’s good. And yes, there are. Not all Hybrids are soldiers or monsters. The ones who were born as Hybrids, rather than created... they’re different."

Ah. That made sense.

Over the last hundred years, the Hybrids had started reproducing naturally. Their children weren’t experiments—they were just kids. Kids born into a chaotic world, but with no desire for war or bloodshed. They wanted to live. To be left alone. To blend in. Most of them did just that—hiding in plain sight, tucked into the corners of society, quietly existing among the rest of us.

No weapons. No evil agendas. Just people trying to survive and yeah I couldn’t blame them but there must be only a very few of them.

Unlike the ones forcibly turned into Hybrids or born as hybrids, the ones I saw in Medusa’s lab had chosen their transformation. Purposefully. Willingly. They weren’t victims of cruel experiments—they were people who had shed their past lives, abandoned their humanity, and embraced monstrosity to hurt the world that had once hurt them. There was no ambiguity there; their intentions were clear, and none of them were good.

They wanted vengeance.

"I don’t understand something... Do we even know what her real goal was?" Roda suddenly asked.

The guide sighed. "That’s the million-gold question, isn’t it? One historians still debate to this day. One her own family probably asked a thousand times. But no matter how much we dig, no one has unearthed a definitive answer. What was Deborah Dolphis really trying to achieve? Some think it was just... curiosity. Pure, insatiable curiosity. Simple, yet oddly fitting—for someone like her."

Curiosity. Could that really be enough to justify the things she did?

I wasn’t so sure. It’s not like she was insane—at least not in the way we define insanity. No, Deborah was terrifyingly intelligent—brilliant, even. A hundred times smarter than me, probably a thousand. But maybe that’s exactly what made her so difficult to understand. Maybe no one ever could... except for Xenos Arvatra.

Now, he was a different breed of maniac.

Just as twisted. Just as brilliant. Just as dangerous. Xenos, the responsible of the Third Great Holy War, who unleashed armies of undead upon the Triangular Continent in pursuit of the Garden of Eden.

But even now, I didn’t understand what he truly wanted with the Garden of Eden.

Time slipped away without us noticing as we continued to listen to the guide for a while. The museum had grown quieter, the chatter of students fading into silence. None of our classmates had caught up to us, thankfully.

Eventually, we snuck out, slipping through the side exit like a couple of teenagers avoiding curfew. I couldn’t shake the feeling—I probably looked like some low-life scumbag, sneaking out with another woman while my girlfriend was still inside.

"I never imagined learning about history outside of class," Roda said as we strolled down the quiet street. "It’s... different."

"And not biased," I added. "Celeste’s father never missed a chance to glorify Sancta Vedelia. And after his lecture on Deborah Dolphis, I almost believed she was the second coming of Rodolf the Wise."

Roda laughed, brushing a lock of her white hair from her face. "Do you hate my uncle that much?"

"Not at all," I replied, a little too quickly.

Truth was, I was still a bit annoyed about getting cut off during my heartfelt, Oscar-worthy monologue to Elizabeth. Not that I’d ever admit it out loud.

"Well," Roda said, spinning on her heel and offering a bright smile, "it wasn’t a bad visit at all. Plus, we even scored a souvenir."

She flipped a small bronze coin into the air and caught it between her fingers. Engraved on one side was a crude depiction of the Behemoth—slain, sprawling, with a lone man standing triumphantly over its massive corpse. The artistry was amateurish, the lines shallow and uneven, but there was a rugged charm to it.

I pulled out mine from my pocket and twirled it between my fingers. "Only because he thought we were a couple on a sweet little date," I said, snorting with laughter.

"A date in a museum," Roda muttered, raising an eyebrow. "Classic Edward. Very romantic."

I blinked. "What?"

She gave me that amused, slightly condescending look women tend to perfect by the age of twelve. "It’s not that hard to figure out what a woman wants, you know. But you? You clearly missed a few classes in that department."

"So what, I’m hopeless?" I asked, hiding my pout.

Was I that bad?

Roda giggled. "No, not hopeless. It’s part of your weird little charm."

"Oh...then do you think I’d have a shot with Deborah Dolphis, then?"

"Absolutely not."

That was fast.

I let out an exaggerated sigh. "Well, at least I’ve got you—a half-naked royal princess who randomly appears in my room."

Roda froze. Just for a second.

"...!"

She spun and launched a roundhouse kick my way. I jumped back, narrowly avoiding it.

Too slow, princess.

"You really should’ve thought of a better plan to sneak into my room if you didn’t want to be teased," I added, grinning.

Roda crossed her arms annoyed.

"Well," I said with a casual wave, walking backward, "see you tomorrow, Roda."

And with that, I turned tail and dashed off, leaving her standing there—half-embarrassed, half-annoyed.