Villainess X Villain: They are obsessed with each other!

Chapter 312: Chapter: 311 Am I forgetting something? [5]

As the gentle voice echoed through the workshop, Julius slowly turned his head, his brows knitting together in faint confusion.

Standing quietly at the entrance was Lyra, his wife. She wore a simple dress dusted with dirt from the road, and although she tried to compose herself, the worry on her beautiful face was impossible to hide.

Dark circles had formed beneath her eyes, and strands of hair clung messily to her cheeks, as though she had been searching for him without rest.

Julius looked at her only briefly before silently turning away, his attention returning to the unfinished sculpture standing before him.

Without uttering a single word, he raised his hammer and chisel once more, the familiar rhythm of steel striking stone filling the workshop as if her arrival had never happened.

Lyra remained where she was for several moments, hoping he would at least acknowledge her presence, but the only response she received was the steady sound of carving echoing throughout the room.

A deep sigh escaped her lips before she slowly walked closer, carefully stepping over the countless fragments of white stone scattered across the floor.

Her eyes wandered across the workshop, noticing half-finished sculptures standing in every corner, untouched food that had long since gone cold, and the thick layer of stone dust covering almost everything.

It looked less like the workplace of a sculptor and more like the prison of someone who had forgotten the outside world entirely.

Stopping only a few steps behind him, she spoke in a gentle voice that carried neither anger nor blame, only concern.

”Dear... you haven’t come home for the past seven days. The children keep asking where their father has gone, and no matter what I tell them, they refuse to stop waiting for you. What are you doing so diligently that you’ve forgotten everything else?”

Julius never answered. His eyes remained fixed upon the statue as though every word spoken around him had simply dissolved before reaching his ears.

The chisel continued moving with unbelievable precision, shaving away tiny fragments of marble one after another while his expression remained completely devoid of emotion.

To him, nothing existed beyond the stone before him.

Every curve demanded perfection, every detail had to match the image lingering inside his mind, and the more he carved, the more vivid that image became until it almost felt as though the woman herself stood before him, smiling with those endless black eyes that had haunted his dreams.

Seeing no reaction, Lyra’s worry deepened. She stepped even closer and gently reached toward his shoulder, her voice becoming softer as she tried once again.

”Dear... you can finish this another day. Please, come home with me. The children miss you, and I’ve been worried sick ever since you disappeared. You’ve barely eaten, you haven’t slept properly, and you’ve shut yourself inside this workshop without speaking to anyone. This isn’t like you.”

Still, Julius remained completely silent. His body continued moving almost mechanically as though guided by instincts rather than conscious thought.

Every careful strike brought the sculpture’s face closer to completion, and as he slowly began carving the eyes, something inside him shifted.

The moment his chisel touched that part of the marble, an indescribable feeling surged through his heart.

Those eyes... he knew them. He had seen them somewhere long before that dream, somewhere far beyond the reach of his memories.

They were impossibly familiar, carrying a depth that seemed capable of swallowing the heavens themselves, and the longer he stared into the unfinished face, the more reality around him began to fade.

The workshop slowly disappeared from his senses.

Lyra’s voice became distant, reduced to little more than an indistinct murmur drifting somewhere behind him, while the only thing occupying his thoughts was the woman taking shape beneath his hands.

At first, he believed he was merely captivated by her beauty, but that illusion shattered almost immediately. What swelled inside him wasn’t admiration, nor was it simple infatuation.

It was an obsession so overwhelming that it frightened him even as he surrendered to it.

Every strike of the hammer seemed to awaken emotions that had slept within the deepest corners of his soul, emotions so old and so powerful that they no longer felt like his own.

He wanted her. Not because she was beautiful, not because she was mysterious, but because every instinct inside him screamed that she was the only existence that truly mattered.

The thought made no sense. He didn’t know her name, didn’t know where she was, or even whether she had ever existed outside that single dream, yet none of those questions seemed important anymore.

All he knew was that he had to find her somehow, no matter what stood in his way.

His breathing gradually became uneven as his grip around the chisel tightened until his knuckles turned pale.

Blood slowly trickled from his lips where he had unconsciously bitten down hard enough to tear the skin, yet he didn’t notice the pain.

His golden eyes remained fixed upon the sculpture with terrifying intensity, but beneath that unwavering focus was something profoundly unsettling.

The light within them had become distorted, consumed by an obsession that bordered on madness, making it seem as though he were no longer looking at carved stone but at the woman herself.

A slow smile stretched across his face, widening little by little until it no longer resembled the smile of a sane man.

”...I’ve missed you...” he murmured so quietly that even he barely heard the words. ”I’ve waited... for so long.”

Behind him, Lyra felt her heart sink. She had never seen Julius like this before.

The warmth that had always filled his eyes whenever he looked at her or their children had vanished completely, replaced by a hollow fanaticism that terrified her more than any monster ever could.

She called his name again and again, each plea growing more desperate than the last, but he never once looked back.

It was as though she had ceased to exist, forgotten by the man she loved despite standing only a few steps away.

”No...” Lyra whispered, tears gathering in her eyes as panic finally overtook her. ”This... this isn’t right.”

Her gaze desperately swept across the workshop before stopping on a large iron hammer resting against the far wall.

After only a moment of hesitation, she hurried toward it, her trembling hands wrapping around its heavy handle as she struggled to lift it.

She didn’t want to destroy his work, nor did she wish to hurt him, but the man standing before her no longer resembled her husband.

Whatever had consumed him was dragging him further away with every passing second, and if she allowed it to continue, she feared she would lose him forever.

Meanwhile, Julius continued carving as though nothing around him existed.

The madness within his heart deepened with every passing breath, while fragments of memories that didn’t belong to this life surfaced one after another before his eyes.

A crimson moon. Endless fields stained red. A woman with flowing black hair smiling gently as she reached toward him.

The images flashed by too quickly to understand, yet each one fed the unbearable longing consuming his soul until his lips began moving on their own.

”Rose...”

The name escaped him naturally, carrying an affection so deep it sounded as though he had spoken it countless times before.

”Rose... .”

His smile widened further, his voice becoming disturbingly calm.

”I’ll kill everyone who stands between us... just wait a little longer. I’ll find you... no matter where you are.”

At that exact moment, Lyra tightened her grip around the iron hammer, tears streaming freely down her cheeks as she gathered every ounce of strength she possessed before swinging it with all her might.

The heavy iron head crashed into the unfinished sculpture with a deafening explosion.

Cracks instantly spread across the marble like lightning before the entire statue shattered into countless pieces that rained onto the workshop floor.

The carefully carved face split apart, the black-eyed woman who had existed only within Julius’ heart disappearing alongside the broken stone, and for a brief, horrifying moment, it felt as though someone had died before his eyes.

Julius stood motionless, his pupils trembling violently as he stared at the shattered remains scattered across the floor.

The hammer slipped from his fingers without him noticing, his breathing stopping entirely as disbelief slowly twisted into unbearable despair.

His lips parted soundlessly while tears welled within his eyes, and a broken expression spread across his face as though the fragments lying before him were not carved marble but the lifeless remains of the woman he had spent an eternity searching for.

”No...”