Male lead blackens around 60, although truthfully he's always had the potential to blacken (not just because of his past but because of his genes) but even so he never hurts the female lead or anyone close to her. Instead, he locks her up in (his own view) the coziest and best place for her, his mansion, full of things that she likes. And yes, she does escape, but she comes back and they work on his problems.

I really, really love how the male lead acknowledged and knew he had problematic thoughts. His main priority was still taking care of FMC and making her happy, but because of his genes he can't stop or prevent himself from feeling angry and jealous of other people who even just look at FMC. He tries hard to rehabilitate, to suppress everything, and it works for a short while (he even took medicine to suppress his darker emotions) but because of the s*upid b*tch nobles, it gets drawn out. And you know what happens here?

He still doesn't hurt anyone, other than himself. Because he didn't want to hurt Pernia, FMC who didn't want him to just hurt innocent people and give in.

It's at this point that Pernia herself realizes that he sacrificed so much for her too, while she wanted him to act normal so that she could have the life she wanted. So they leave for their own territory and she works on accepting him for who he is (blackening and all) and he learns to tolerate other people around her.

Again, male lead never hurts the female lead, he doesn't lock her up like he did before, and she chooses to stay with him because she loves him.

They end up together, but worry not because the crown prince also gets his sh*t together and becomes a better person!

After Pernia becomes best friends with the Saintess, he asks her how to be close to the Saintess, and Pernia teaches him empathy and kindess how to not talk smack about people and actually understand others. Eventually Saintess has to go to another country to study medicine, and he lets her go because that's her dream, even when she decided first to stay because of him, and promise that he'd help her in making the country better for the people although eventually he follows her so that they don't have to choose between one and the other.

They have twins at the end of the main story and they have a sweet relationship too.

Another thing that lowkey made me angry was the FL getting pissed with the ML after finding out how obsessed he is and the FL tries to run away from a war zone by herself and immediately gets herself kidnapped lmfao. It caused the ML to go berserk and kidnap her back after mu*dering the entire enemy army (imprisonment type of deal). After escaping, she left him in the snow with no power to move or fend for himself due to the power of the Saintess.

But in reality it’s probably his devil powers just driving him nuts. So if they wanna solve the obsession they probably have to find a way to extract his powers.

That character is not bad though, he still helps MC and MC especially when it comes to his specialty

She trained him like a wild animal. LMAO. Giving rewards, repeated actions, etc. I didn't see MC giving punishments (ML really tries his best to follow)

Turns out male lead is an actual Yandere, and starts throwing all kinds of red flags to the female lead who is fortunately not here for it leading to forced isolation; forced kidnapping, rampage killings... personally I can't stand how the relationship went from such healthy communication to such toxic behavior - all the behavior I've been trained to look for in cases of domestic violence... don't even get me started on the emperor

Didn't expect the bittersweet ending but I absolutely loved it, nearly cried like baby. It ended more realistically than any yandere novels I've read. No miracles to release him from his misery, just the working common sense of FL...

The love they have for each other is so deep that they could withstand the toxicity parts of the relationship. When Lucian blackened, he only wanted Pernia and it didn’t matter what Pernia thought. I was on board when Pernia realised how toxic it was but when Pernia realised that she became the kind of person that “traps” Lucian to be the person he is not, I knew immediately that it was going in the other direction.

But I do understand where Pernia is coming from. She is responding to Lucian’s love for her as he said that he likes her for who she is while the reasons she listed as to why she likes him is because of Lucian’s portrayal of himself to be well-likeable. So Pernia felt lacking in her feelings for Lucian’s pure feelings and it upsets her which is why she tried so hard to see Lucian for who he is.

And Lucian’s feelings developed purely before he blackened so it’s safe to assume that he didn’t have the intention to possess her from the beginning and it was only after he received less of Pernia’s attention that it triggered. So I don’t think that their relationship started unhealthy because the 2 of them actually liked each other.

Pernia actually wanted to be the object of Lucian’s possessiveness towards the end and it’s such an irony because she disliked it initially. So while she is willing to be “trapped”, Lucian realised how his feelings for Pernia actually meant for her to be happy and that happiness is more than just his love. I love how the tables turned at this point because it showed how the both of them are being understanding and thinking of the other. They are both unconsciously coming to a compromise and it really brought the story to a greater high which I absolutely adored.

(I’m talking about the possible baby)

The way ML turns yandere is written. While the threat of it occuring was always in the background, its frustrating because the solution is essentially the FL trying to "rehabilitate" him as if he's an animal. It comes across to me almost like enabing the behaviors. She sacrifices her healthy boundaries because she thinks she can save him. It just feels so wrong.