Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 124

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 124
I sensed it instinctively. These past two years had been nothing but the true calm before the storm. The aftershock of having twisted this world’s very flow to my whim—it was about to descend upon me right now.
I gathered my numbed fingertips together and barely managed to speak.
“For now… stay hidden inside.”
Raulus understood my meaning at once. The form of a wolf with silver fur and sky-blue eyes began to fade gradually. The silver cross earring hanging from his left ear—something he’d never removed from his body—swayed gently.
“…”
Even knowing full well that Raulus was being targeted for his divinity, I couldn’t leave him manifested. Though I’d done nothing but mistreat him, throughout all this time he’d never once left my side. As that presence vanished, the void it left filled instantly with dread.
“…No. Get a grip.”
I shook my head vigorously. He wasn’t gone—merely without physical form. I could summon him again whenever I needed. I could still hear his voice.
“Get a grip. …Get yourself together.”
Slap. I struck both my cheeks sharply to clear my mind, then rose from my seat. I pushed my body’s sensitivity to its absolute limit, just as I’d practiced countless times before.
I read the flow dissolved within the air. A sharp sting.
“Ugh…”
A sensation bordering on pain spread across my exposed arms and the backs of my hands. In the past, I would have cried out, unable to endure the flow of mana saturating the air. But truthfully, my current state wasn’t much better. My fingertips ached. The familiar sensation of skin being torn apart climbed from my hands up my forearms to my elbows.
“Nngh…”
Yet I couldn’t flee. I didn’t need to see what was happening below to know. The mana concentration directly beneath me was so dense that even I struggled to repel it, hanging like fog. In that dining hall where four people precious to me waited.
“…”
If I ran away now, it would be a threat to kill them all. The only saving grace was that I still retained the divinity I’d absorbed from Auredhian within my body.
“At least I kissed him before coming here. Right. Well then.”
I barely managed to hold back the tears threatening to spill.
“…Brave children don’t cry.”
I murmured to myself the words I’d always said to Brizni. But it did little good. Tears I couldn’t hold back soon filled my eyes. My vision blurred. I really wanted to go back…
“You weren’t joking, were you?”
“It’s strange that you suddenly changed your mind.”
If I’d known things would come to this, I wouldn’t have said such things. No—when I met him again that day, returning from the Temple, I shouldn’t have accepted him like that. Even if it hurt, I should have sent him back immediately. If I’d known things would turn out like this…
“What do I do?”
A desperate murmur escaped my lips.
“I have to find some way to send word…”
Should I send Raulus? But without Raulus, I had nothing to rely on. Besides, the one I’d be waiting for wasn’t someone I could ask permission from—”May I just deliver a message and come back?” This abduction made it terribly difficult to promise a return…
A footstep. With my heightened senses, I felt the core of concentrated mana shift. Footsteps I shouldn’t have been able to hear struck my eardrums as if they were right beside me.
They say that when fear reaches its peak, tears stop flowing. But that saying seemed to be wrong. Plip, plip. Tears born of pure reflex traced down my cheeks and fell in drops below my chin. Even rubbing my eyes roughly did little to stop them.
I eventually gave up trying to wipe away the tears. Instead, I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood.
“We promised to share this burden.”
It was only yesterday that I’d resolved not to give up, thinking I wasn’t alone. I clenched my teeth and thought again and again of ways to reach him. But before I could even make a decision, the flow in this completely sealed space—windows and doors shut tight—changed.
The curtain leading to the balcony billowed inward once, sharply. Beyond the pale ivory fabric, reddish-brown hair rippled like embroidery in empty space.
“It’s been a while.”
The humid air of a summer night rushed in. A sorcerer with reddish-brown hair sat casually atop the narrow railing, smiling bewitchingly—cradling a terrified child in her arms.
“My lovely Princess.”
* * *
Brizni couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening.
“Mother…?”
Tezebia, who had been cutting her steak into small pieces with fork and knife, froze in that very posture. Brizni tilted her head blankly before turning to look away.
“Father?”
Duke Lebanon, seated at the head of the table, had been in the midst of pointing out his younger brother’s eating habits. His brow furrowed slightly, his mouth open as if about to speak. Yet no words emerged from those lips.
“….”
Brizni’s frightened gaze swept frantically across the long table. Sergei Lebanon, who had been doting on his niece with playful affection, and the servants standing in a line beyond the table—all had turned to stone, cold and motionless as sculptures.
A horrifying screech of chair legs scraping against the floor pierced the child’s ears. Brizni watched in a daze as the figure in the black hood—whom she had thought frozen like the others—rose from their seat.
“Black sister….”
The hood fell back, and reddish-brown hair cascaded from beneath the cloak. The white mask that always concealed half her face was nowhere to be seen. This was not Brizni’s first time seeing her, but it was her first time seeing her bare face.
“You.”
At that cold voice, the child’s small body flinched. The Master of the Underground, inhabiting Soleia Elad’s form, beckoned to the girl.
“You’ll make a fine hostage. Though with the Princess being so clever, I doubt I’ll have much need for one.”
“B-B-Brizni wants to…stay with Mother….”
“Come here.”
A command wrapped in seduction—no child of merely three years, no matter how divinely blessed, could refuse such a thing.
Yerenika was weeping. This was the first time Brizni had ever seen Yerenika cry. In the child’s world, impossible things kept happening.
“There was no need to bring the child.”
That her aunt, always so gentle and kind, could speak in such a voice—Brizni had never known. Only then did tears well up in her eyes.
“Aunt….”
Something was wrong. This was all wrong. As she began to sob, cracks appeared across Yerenika’s face.
“Let her go.”
Hades glanced down at the small girl cradled in his arms, then lifted his gaze back to the Princess. Tears streamed down her pallid cheeks, falling one by one. Yet her expression remained rigid and unyielding, not a flicker of distortion. Yerenika spoke coldly.
“What you want is me, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
“My Princess truly is clever, I must say.”
“Put the child down. Now. And restore everything downstairs to its original state.”
“You’re hardly in a position to give me orders.”
“If I take offense and commit suicide, you’ll never reach Udeta, will you?”
It was a threat with considerable bite. Hades laughed with delight. The corners of the woman’s face he wore curved upward in response.
“Now that you mention it, you’re far more cunning than you appear.”
“Take it as a compliment. Brizni, come to your aunt.”
The distance between them was less than five paces. Hades suddenly released the tension in the arm holding the child. The small body plummeted below the railing, toward the balcony floor.
“Ah….”
But there was no collision. A shimmering aura of sacred light enveloped the child and lowered her gently to the ground. Brizni ran toward Yerenika, tears streaming down her face.
“Wahhhhh…. Auntie….”
“It’s alright. Be good now, Brizni? Stop crying.”
Her voice was as warm and affectionate as always. Yet Brizni could see her aunt’s face, drained of all color, still bearing the marks of unshed tears. The corners of her eyes, which usually curved gently, were now flushed red. Brizni sobbed and stammered.
“M-Mother. Father…. They’re not moving…. Something’s wrong….”
“Ah…. Enough of that.”
And Hades’ patience was not particularly long. He swept his long, undulating reddish-brown hair aside and spoke.
“I’ve let the child go, so now you must come to me, Princess.”
“….”
My hand stilled against Brizni’s back. My sky-blue eyes dipped downward for a moment before lifting to meet his gaze directly. Hades flexed his slender, elongated fingers, curling them into a fist and releasing it. Though my responses lagged by half-beats, Soleia Elad’s body accepted him without particular resistance. My beautiful face curved into an alluring smile.
“I cannot say how much time it took to adapt to this body. This waiting is sufficient.”
“You have no right to say that.”
Yerenika shot back harshly. The Princess of Lebovni’s aura had shifted subtly over the past two years, yet her essence remained unchanged.
“If you’re coming, come quickly. Either way, I’d prefer we finish this sooner rather than later.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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