Chapter 47: Two Dragons Shall Not Meet

Polly turned her head, and the very moment her hips left the chair, a figure beside her rushed forward to quickly scoop up Oni.

Her expression froze instantly.

"Ah!" Ayana, startled, let out a piercing scream. She clutched her stomach and tumbled from her chair. "I'm going into labor!"

Those nearby scrambled to lift Ayana and carry her toward the bedroom. Handmaidens hurried off to notify the High Priest.

Harold’s face turned deathly pale. He stared at Oni, whose body lay limp and whose face was as white as paper, his entire frame trembling.

Polly stood to the side, twisting her fingers together.

The High Priest rushed in, pushing through the crowd of ashen-faced onlookers. He knelt and reached out to check Oni’s breath, then felt for a pulse at her neck, his own face filled with disbelief. "Dead?"

"High Priest, Lady Ayana is in premature labor!" Ayana’s personal maid pulled and tugged, ushering the High Priest into the bedroom.

About half an hour later, the sound of an infant’s cry echoed from the room, though it lasted for only a single note. At that same moment, Oni slowly drifted back to consciousness.

She felt her time running out. The continuous mental exhaustion of the past several days had pushed her already frail body to the brink, and adrenaline was granting her one final moment of clarity.

Tears still hung on Harold’s face, creating a deeply awkward scene.

Oni slowly raised her hand. Harold instinctively closed his eyes and tilted his head, bracing himself for a slap.

Unexpectedly, Oni’s hand fell gently against his cheek, wiping away his tears.

Harold froze. He opened his eyes, his mouth agape, eyes shimmering with tears as if he were about to utter something sentimental. Instead, Oni suddenly delivered a sharp slap, sending his face reeling to the right.

"I didn't mean to deceive you..." Harold began to explain in a panic.

Before he could finish, her body went limp, and she lost consciousness once more.

Harold shook her, unable to believe it, trying to determine if she had truly passed again or had merely fallen into a state of suspended animation.

At the doorway, the personal maid, carrying out Ayana’s final instructions, cradled a swaddled infant girl. The baby looked at Harold—who was still clutching her own "corpse"—with a dark, grim expression.

Oni was completely bewildered. How had this happened? Why had she become Margaret, her newborn niece in name?

No matter how hard she tried to think, she could not fathom the situation; it seemed to have transcended her understanding. However, she mused, since she had already transmigrated once, a second time hardly seemed strange.

Now, her most urgent task was to find a way back into her own body. If she didn't return soon, she feared her corpse would turn stone-cold.

As for where the real little Margaret had gone, she had no energy to ponder it; she assumed she had simply "logged the other player out."

"Goo-goo, ga-ga..." Little Oni (Margaret) reached out her tiny hands, opening her arms toward her own corpse, frantically signaling the maid to let her go over.

Perhaps due to the premature birth, her lungs were not fully developed, and she felt the oxygen intake was insufficient; this suffocating sensation was unbearable. But that wasn't the point—her intuition told her that as long as she touched her own body, she could return.

Ayana’s maid looked at the tiny Margaret in her arms, then at Harold, who was weeping while holding Oni’s corpse. After a moment of hesitation, she walked over.

"Jarl..." The maid approached Harold with little Oni, gesturing for him to look. "Your brother’s first child is a girl!"

However, Harold was in no mood to look at a newborn, not even his own niece. He seemed entirely consumed by the grief of losing his beloved.

"She has been guided by the Valkyries, and I shall follow her to Valhalla!" Harold looked as though he had aged ten years in a heartbeat.

Little Oni watched as her corpse’s skin began to take on a deathly gray hue. She burst into desperate tears: *For heaven's sake, let her go! Just let her touch it!*

She was terrified that the blood in her corpse would coagulate, which would truly mean the end.

Suddenly, as if struck by a thought, Harold laid Oni’s body down flat on the floor. He took little Oni from the maid’s arms as if she were a puppy and brought her close to the corpse. "Do you see? The family heir you longed for has been born, but why have you died?"

*Close! So close!*

Little Oni bit her tongue, straining her tiny hand, her eyes sparkling with intense focus and a smile—she was about to touch the face of her own corpse!

*Just a little more, Freyr, grant me strength!*

Yet, at this critical moment, Harold—who knows what madness took hold of him—suddenly pulled her back, pressing his thick beard against her face, his expression one of utter sorrow.

"..." Little Oni, her face pricked by his beard, felt a mix of helplessness and anxiety.

*You wait, you thick-browed oaf! Trying to break my spirit, are you? You just wait...* Little Oni gnashed her gums, waving her tiny hands and letting out angry, incoherent baby noises.

Harold seemed to snap out of his grief. He placed little Oni on the chest of the corpse and, grabbing her hands, folded them into an embrace around her.

"Hah—!" Oni’s corpse suddenly opened its eyes, gasping for air, clutching Margaret tightly to its chest.

Harold was startled. "You aren't dead? You aren't dead? Thank the gods!"

Oni ignored him, her gaze fixed on little Margaret’s body. She puzzledly reached out to check the infant’s breath.

Sure enough, just as she had suspected, there was no breath! She couldn't dual-log two bodies!

Oni’s expression shifted. Feeling the state of her own body, her look became complex. After a moment of hesitation, she, lying on the floor, held little Margaret high. "I felt the call to Valhalla, but the Valkyries have granted me a temporary reprieve. This child is the heir to the lordship, chosen by Woden and myself! Her name shall be 'Margaret Robertsson-Dute.' In the future, she will be the Queen of Gotland and the co-sovereign of Scandinavia!"

She left her new body two treasures: the divine right of kings and the first right of succession.

Time was running out; there was nothing more she could do. In truth, if she had the time, she would have liked to map out the strategy for the unification of Gotland, but now that her "main account" was about to kick the bucket, she could only hope her subordinates could withstand the attacks of the two rival Jarls.

It had all happened too suddenly; she had no preparations in place.

"Harold, live on well. I am leaving!" Having made her choice and delivered her final words, Oni hurriedly pressed her forehead against little Margaret’s.

"No!" Harold let out a cry of agony. The sensation of space-time distortion struck her again, and she was instantly transported into little Margaret’s body.

Oni’s original body went still once more. Little Margaret, wrapped in her swaddling clothes, rolled off her face and fell softly to the side.

*Switching accounts!*

In little Oni’s mind, her own voice echoed: "In ancient times, two dragons lived in the same abyss. One was the True Dragon, wielding heavenly mandate to rule the four seas; the other was the Hidden Dragon, biding its time in the depths. Yet, when the True Dragon and the Hidden Dragon meet, one must suffer—this is the way of nature, which no human can defy. The True Dragon holds the high seat and supreme power, while the Hidden Dragon dwells below, gathering strength. To coexist is difficult; the majesty of the True Dragon and the cunning of the Hidden Dragon, if they clash, one must surely fall."

*How fitting!*

With the passing of Oni’s main body, the situation in the territory seemed to grow even more complex. Polly’s eyes were fixed intently on Harold’s back, flashing with a strange light, which little Oni—glancing around inadvertently—caught instantly.

*Damn it, I forgot about this. I forgot to issue a kill order. Now that my main account is offline, this woman seems to have lost her restraint. And with the nominal authority I just granted her, I’ve effectively invited the wolf into the house.*

The situation had reversed; the roles were swapped. She was now an orphan, and the other party had become the steward?

Would she turn into a wicked steward next?

"Jarl, do not grieve. The Lady has merely gone to Valhalla!" Polly stepped forward to comfort Harold.

*Harold, stay strong! If you let yourself be seduced, I won't forgive you! Huscarls, drag this woman out and behead her! Behead her!*

Little Oni, lost in her own angry, incoherent baby wails, felt her head practically steaming with rage as she was carried back to Ayana’s room.