Alchemised Reading Log IV (Part III, Ch.66–Epilogue) — Survival Is the Hardest Kind of Love
⚠️ Spoiler filled discussion below. Reading logs 1 to 3 are here !
The opening chapters of Part III handle Helena’s memory recovery so well: she’s caught in a cognitive dissonance between the man she remembers and the one in front of her. The reunion isn’t euphoric, it’s messy. She’s sick, confused, trying to reconcile two versions of her own history. And I liked that the pacing gives us, as readers, the same time to adjust.
Kaine isn’t ecstatic either, he’s rather terrified she’ll hate him once she remembers everything. He’s angry, protective, and obsessed with keeping her safe, while she slowly starts reclaiming agency, wanting to research, act, and protect him in return. Their dynamic shifts beautifully here: they’re still two wounded people, but the imbalance finally starts to fade.
Part I was gothic and haunte. Part II was faith collapsing and moral chaos. Part III is about recovery. Helena has more agency now, even if she’s still scarred by everything she’s lived through. I really love how the book handles that : not as a miraculous recovery, but as a long, uneven, human process.
I also love how Sen Lin Yu handles their intimacy. I’ve said before that I dislike the forced-sex trope, but this book treats it with rare honesty. It’s acknowledged as rape and also as something traumatic for Kaine himself. When Helena initiates again, he’s terrified : the violence he’s done lives inside him. And that first intimate scene of Part III where she says “stop”, just to prove to herself that she can, is one of the best healing scenes of the book. The second intimate scene, when she says “it was ours, and they stole it from us. We have to take it back”, really made me emotionnal.
Shiseo's death was another part that hit me. He is such a quiet yet impactful character ! His companionship with Helena but also his backstory, everything about him was intriguing to read. I wish we get a book on his story and his country.
The Atreus arc in this Part was really interesting to read. His conflictual relationship with Kaine was more explored than Part II. It made the scene where Helena confronts him with the truth about his wife very impactfull. That mix of hate, envy, and twisted love between Artreus and Kaine was fascinating. His final sacrifice for his son hit the right note: redemptive but not overwrought.
The reunion with Lila felt bittersweet. Their confrontration was inevitable, I even expected more anger from Lila. But knowing that Helena is the only one left, it made sense that she would be more lenient towards her relationship with Kaine. I wish Helena and Lila had one more confrontation with Lila about her hidding her Vivimancy, the hypocrisy it was and how it left her alone and the way Eternal Flame used Helena. It felt like a missing emotional beat.
And then… the ending. I genuinely expected Kaine to die through out the book. All along, I thought his death was inevitable, the tragic lover’s redemption arc. When he didn’t, I was surprised, but pleasantly so. Killing him would’ve been the easy choice: the grand tragic ending, the poetic punishment. But making him survive? That’s harder. It’s so much more interesting to explore how people live after what they’ve done. Survival is messier than sacrifice and writing that takes guts.
That said, I still think their final escape could’ve hit harder. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt the story needed some final loss to pull the climax together. Whether it was losing Lila and raising Apollo alone, or losing Amaris, or some other irreversible cost. Something that makes the “escape” bittersweet. Every great arc carries a trace of loss, and for a story soaked in grief, ending without that sting felt slightly anticlimactic. After so much build-up and devastation, the fact that everyone we care about survives pulls the emotional tension back instead of releasing it. The catharsis is quieter (maybe intentionally ?) but I still found myself wanting one last cut before the fade-out.
Still, I loved the final pages. The scenes with Kaine and Helena trying to build something ordinary out of ruins felt real. Survival, not glory. Kaine affraid of his daughter and thenn instantly falling in love with her. The friendship between Apollo and Enid was adorable. And that history-book ending, the fact that the sacrifices of Helena are erased, hit deep. They survived, but history didn’t care. That’s the truest tragedy of all.
By the end, I was honestly satisfied. Alchemised isn’t perfect, but it’s ambitious, heartfelt, and morally complex. The world Sen Lin Yu created really stands on its own. I would love to see them write more in it : a prequel about Cetus and Orian, a side story about Shiseo and his country or even a sequel about Enid and Apollo. There is so much potential here !
I’m giving it 4.5 stars. It didn’t make me cry like a baby. That award still goes to The Sword of Kaigen for 2025. But it still hit a lot of emotional beats.
