Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 129

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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 129
I gripped my spinning mind tightly. How was I supposed to deal with a madman? No matter how I thought about it, the only option seemed to be for me to go mad alongside him. I barely managed to summon my strength, grabbing Hades’ wrist and yanking it downward. I glared at him and spat out my words.
“L-let go right now. If you don’t, I’ll really bite my tongue clean through and die.”
Actually, I didn’t even need to bite my tongue. All I had to do was sharpen the blade of the sacred power within me and slice through something inside my body—it would be easy to go down in a single breath.
Lose my body, or take my own life? My already rigid mind couldn’t judge which choice was more rational. All I could think was that this was truly insane.
“You can’t do that. Do you know how long I’ve waited?”
A pale hand spread wide and brushed mine away like shaking off an insect. The skin became transparent in an instant, withering away to reveal blackened bone. A skull, half-separated from Soleia Elad’s body—Hades’ true form—rushed toward me in a flash.
“…!”
I’m going to be devoured. I instinctively squeezed my eyes shut. But Hades couldn’t reach for me any further.
“Oh, Soleia Elad?”
Voices echoed from the far end of the alley. I recognized them as belonging to those who had been repairing the magical circle on the iron gate we’d passed earlier.
“There you are! We’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
That was when Hades’ body went rigid.
“We’ve completed all the tasks you ordered. However, the sections damaged by sacred power are simply impossible to restore…. Soleia Elad?”
“Ah… how bothersome….”
Hades muttered in a low voice. I watched his body twitch and convulse. His beautiful face turned slowly to the side.
“….”
Was it my imagination that his movements seemed half a beat too slow? The hand gripping my shoulder alternated between becoming dry bone and returning to smooth skin.
“Ugh….”
Hades couldn’t finish his words. Every hair on his body stood on end. I held my breath. The air had changed. The magical power dissolved in the air began to ripple with a completely different character.
I stared blankly up at Hades—at the absolute being wearing Soleia Elad’s face. It was still a flawlessly beautiful countenance. But I could sense that the flow of magical power enveloping that body had transformed entirely. It was intuition—the most exquisite ability to read magical power, unique to me alone in this world.
“What are you doing? You’re so stupid.”
Soleia Elad’s voice burst forth between bright red lips. My eyes flew open. My intuition crystallized into certainty.
“Sol….”
“Always take the left at a fork in the road.”
A voice completely different from moments before—urgent and hurried—flowed rapidly between those lips.
“After that, keep your eyes forward and climb straight up. Enduring is your burden, Princess. And….”
The voice that had been smooth as a serpent was trembling now. I could see light flickering in those black eyes that had been dead and empty. Even as I already knew the truth, I couldn’t help but stammer my words.
“Really, really….”
Is it really Soleia Elad? But Soleia Elad was one beat faster.
“Go stop that man right now.”
Stop whom? My mind wasn’t working fast enough. My nails, with nowhere else to go, scraped against the wall behind my back. A sharp pain shot through my fingertips.
“That man… who are you talking about…?”
“Your man. The one you took from me. The most powerful sacred power.”
Soleia Elad’s beautiful face contorted.
“I have no intention of watching that immolation ceremony again with my own eyes, so stop it.”
“Ah.”
“If you can’t, my master will just devour you or leave you be as he pleases.”
Even now, Soleia Elad was Soleia Elad. Even in this chaos, her sharp threat made my mind nearly spin out of control. But one part of my mind was slowly comprehending what she meant.
An immolation ceremony. A purifying fire massive enough to burn the entire Imperial Palace. The man who could make it possible. Before Auredhian could discover this place and purify it entirely, I had to stop it… The moment I understood, I bolted upright.
“That’s… that’s…”
“Stop talking nonsense and hurry—”
“It all depends on how long you can hold out!”
Time was truly running out. Even at a glance, Soleia Elad looked precarious. She had barely awakened, but how much longer her body—now a vessel for Hades—could endure remained uncertain.
“No matter what you see, don’t lose heart. Just run. Understood?”
Leaving those sharp final words piercing my back, I resumed my sprint.
* * *
“Gasp…”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d fled for my life like this.
“Ugh…”
The sacred power remaining in my body was barely a third now. And the distance I still had to cover stretched tens of thousands of miles. Cold sweat beaded across my forehead. I wiped away the droplets rolling beneath my jaw roughly and surveyed my surroundings.
“Left, absolutely left…”
That meant there was a fork ahead. I didn’t understand what she meant by not losing heart no matter what I saw, but as I ran onward, I could definitely feel myself ascending gradually. The slope was growing steeper. And besides…
[Oh, I sense it.]
“Right? I’m not imagining this, am I?”
Raulus, dangling from my shoulder, nodded.
[Yes. This seems to be… that child’s sacred power.]
Diego Schmart. The dark-haired priest’s face flashed through my mind.
[This doesn’t seem to be the Surface itself, but rather somewhere that was once purified.]
“A purified place?”
[Yes. My sanctuary. Let’s climb a bit higher, little one. Once we enter the Purified Zone, your condition should improve.]
He was right. Simply carrying Raulus out was already straining my limits. The Purified Zone. Directly purified by Diego Schmart. This Underground Tunnel had been constructed to cleverly avoid the purified areas—or perhaps what remained after the purification work had collapsed.
After running for some time, I finally spotted the first fork in the distance. My head spun from oxygen deprivation. I grabbed the earthen wall and barely managed to stop before the junction.
“Left, go left…”
I entered the left passage without hesitation. Whether to trust Soleia Elad’s words wasn’t something I could afford to deliberate in this situation. Either way, I had to choose one of the two paths…
“Gasp.”
But the moment I stepped into the left passage, I sensed something wrong and froze in place. Drrrrrr—.
“Uh…”
A bewildered groan escaped me. My body shook violently once. It wasn’t because my legs gave out or my sacred power finally bottomed out. Literally, the ground was trembling.
“An earthquake?”
Out of nowhere? I panicked and pressed myself flat against the wall. This was a calamity that didn’t exist in any of the tragic death scenarios I’d imagined. An earthquake. A natural disaster! Was I going to be buried alive here?!
“Ah.”
But within seconds, I realized this trembling was different from a simple earthquake.
[The passage is moving.]
“Y-yes, it is.”
I stared down at the floor in a daze. It wasn’t shaking randomly in all directions. The floor—this corridor—was definitely moving somewhere. Magical energy pricked my entire body. I understood instinctively. This was Soleia Elad’s magic.
She hadn’t just shown me the way to the Surface. She had created the path itself. Probably the fastest shortcut to ascend. Even in my confusion, I was half in awe.
“Wow, this woman’s scale is something else…”
Drrrrrr. The sound of something twisting continued endlessly. That strange trembling finally ceased after what felt like several more minutes.
“It stopped, did it stop?”
I confirmed the ground had stopped trembling and resumed my pace. The sacred power remaining within my body had been chipped away in chunks. Yet separate from that loss, I felt a presence distinctly stronger than before—not the aura of the person I loved most, the one I cherished above all else. But it was sacred power potent enough to kindle the embers of my hope.
It was Diego Schmart’s sacred power.
[Hurry, little fragment.]
Raulus urged me forward. Shrunk to the size of a fist, Raulus flickered between transparency and visibility, as if about to vanish entirely. I bit my lip hard and began running again.
“If I’d known this would happen, I should have at least learned some martial arts…”
I ran on, muttering nonsense, until I spotted another luminous fork in the path ahead. This time, I didn’t hesitate. At the second fork, I turned left, and just as before, the ground shifted. But this time, I felt it move distinctly upward rather than sideways.
“At this rate, I should be able to reach the Surface Level soon, shouldn’t I?”
I murmured while waiting for the ground to stop moving. Each time the magic activated, I felt my sacred power halved—a sensation that made my skin crawl. Still, if I could just reach the Surface Level…
But life, as always, was not so forgiving.

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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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