Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 87

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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 87
I understood immediately what she meant. Malevolent energy. Magic.
[But I have no sensation in my body….]
The moment those words escaped my lips, a sharp, piercing ache shot through my arms, and I let out a shriek.
“Ahhhhh! It hurts!”
[Huh?]
The deep blue fabric of my dress cascaded downward with a whisper. Again. My body had returned. Raulus, who had been biting down as though he meant to cleave me in two, tilted his massive head.
[You keep flickering in and out, don’t you?]
“Gasp—no, don’t let go! And don’t tilt your head!”
I desperately clung to one of Raulus’s teeth. If I fell now that I had regained my body, it would be instant death! Sensation flooded back all at once. My breath caught, then rushed forth again. That cold, pervasive aura filling my entire being—I recognized it. Saturating the Imperial Palace in dense concentration was the divine essence of this palace’s master: Auredhian Belgot.
“Wow, really. What are you doing…?”
[I told you. If we’re late, he’ll destroy everything.]
Raulus replied flatly.
He was right. The divine essence that normally swirled around him had swollen a hundredfold, a thousandfold, and now swept through the entire Imperial Palace like a tempest. That overwhelming divine power flowed ceaselessly into my aching body.
With such divine essence raging like a storm, my body had returned, if only briefly—just as it had when Raulus first descended. But it would not last. I watched as the hem of my dress, fluttering in the void, began to turn translucent. Soon I would slip back into Eun-seo’s spiritual form.
[Feel it. Quickly. I cannot sense magic.]
I bit my lip hard and focused my mind. Let me feel something. Anything. Please. I did not need to concentrate long. A tingling sensation spread from my fingertips and toes toward my heart—an intensity so overwhelming I wondered why I hadn’t sensed it sooner. Then, abruptly, all sensation vanished completely.
[Wh…?]
I looked down at myself in bewilderment. Bloodstained jeans. White shirt. I had returned again. But it did not end there. My whitish fingertips began to grow increasingly transparent.
[Gasp.]
I drew in a sharp breath. It was not merely fading—the boundary between myself and the void was blurring. Not just my hands, but my arms, my legs, my entire body.
[Where is your body?]
Raulus had seen it too. Watching even his silver fur turn transparent, I grasped the situation at once. My body was dying. Leria, what are you doing with my body! Though sensation had already severed, I could not feel the flow of magic. Yet the point from which that churning magic had emanated moments before was singular. I slowly turned my head.
A palace situated in the southwest of the Imperial Palace. The palace where the welcoming ceremony had been held, where all the nobles of Belgot and the envoys of Lebovni and Azekien had gathered.
[Luxia Palace….]
But I corrected myself within a second of speaking.
Shatter!
Every window of Luxia Palace exploded into fragments. From within, a bluish-tinged silver aura erupted outward in a violent burst.
“Gasp….”
Before I could even react to the sight, Raulus leaped into the void. A terrible sensation of falling engulfed me. Yet the descent lasted only an instant. Raulus landed gently on the ground and set me down with a rolling motion.
[Go, little fragment.]
I scrambled to my feet. Raulus’s silver fur was wavering as though it might vanish at any moment.
“No, this can’t be. How did I summon you!”
[Go. Find your body first.]
Raulus nudged my back with his snout. The sensation was barely perceptible.
[If the summoner’s body is weak, I cannot exert my power. Find your body, then call me again. In the place where that accursed aura feels strongest.]
“Accursed aura? What do you mean….”
[Among all the auras your senses can perceive, the one most accursed and unclean. The scent of death. The reek of corpses. The sound of withered bones. Such things.]
Withered bones. Immediately, I recalled the skeletal hand writhing in the center of Luxia Palace’s Banquet Hall.
That’s right. What I felt then was by no means the power of any human. So then, behind Soleia, there must be something more….
The moment I witnessed Raulus’s form dissolving into the void alongside a faint shimmer of light, I sprang to my feet and resumed running.
* * *
Crack. Crunch.
The sound of bones snapping filled the corridor. The chestnut-haired maidservant, her neck charred pitch-black by the sacred power the Absolute One had unleashed directly, shuffled out of the antechamber with her shattered body creaking at every movement. In her hands, veins bulging like taut blue cords, she carried a single body.
“Your Highness? Where are you, Your Highness?”
A flustered voice echoed from the far end of the corridor.
“Did you return to the Banquet Hall? And where has Schmart gone again—oh my!”
Leria staggered forward. Her limp body, occasionally convulsing, felt as heavy as a water-soaked wad of cotton.
“Bring her to me.”
Her mistress’s command echoed through her mind dozens, hundreds of times over. Leria obediently followed the order. She dragged the Princess’s body past the wide-open violet door. She turned the corner.
“Schmart, are you all right?!”
Someone cried out from behind like a scream. But Leria did not hear it. The Princess’s slender, delicate body was already scraped and bruised. Leria paid no mind and dragged her down the staircase. The small body struck the steps with dull thuds.
I must bring her. I must bring her. In the hollow shell of a body whose soul had already departed, that single command echoed endlessly. I must bring her.
The maidservant, now nothing but an empty husk, did not even perceive the Princess’s body being dragged by her own hands as it flickered in and out of existence.
“What have you done?”
Auredhian clung desperately to the last thread of his sanity, grinding out the words. The woman whose arms were bound by sacred power arcing like a spear laughed as though possessed. The distance between them was close.
The moment Soleia’s command to bring the Princess fell from her lips, the man who had maintained his distance closed the gap in an instant, seizing her by the collar. Sacred power, intertwined like chains, bound her limbs and hurled her through the shattered window. Her body soared into the void before plummeting to the ground below.
The scent of steam wafted thick and heavy. It enveloped the surroundings like mist. Hot air that could never be called the warmth of summer swept across the vast garden.
“What did you do to Yerenika?”
The man who had pursued relentlessly twisted his mouth. His grip tightened mercilessly around her throat. Sacred power and mana collided head-on, producing an eerie, grinding noise. Even held fast, not a single crack appeared on Soleia’s face.
“I had no choice, Your Majesty.”
“What did you do?”
“I did not wish to behave so recklessly and without reason either. But when my master commands, I must obey.”
She showed no intention of answering his question properly. Auredhian abandoned the attempt to extract answers from the wicked witch and immediately rose to his feet.
“Radin.”
His voice was low, resonant like a tolling bell. This was the end. These four days of the welcoming ceremony were Yerenika’s last hours in Belgot. And he had failed to prevent them.
“Rugi.”
With each name he uttered, his retainers appeared one by one in the garden. Sacred power as sharp as spears, mirroring their lord’s, wove densely above Soleia’s head.
“Selvi—”
“Ah, here I come.”
Auredhian’s thoughts froze solid just as he was about to restrain Soleia and immediately search for Yerenika. Soleia’s outstretched finger pointed behind him.
Crunch. Crunch. Heavy footsteps trampled across the grass. The sound of something being dragged accompanied them.
“As I told you.”
The witch bound by sacred power whispered.
“It would have been better to place a collar around my neck. You did not know what lay behind you, and you held no winning hand.”
Auredhian could not bring himself to turn around, yet he heard that whisper strike down like lightning.
“In the end, it is you who will kill that Princess.”
Gradually, anger and sorrow seeped into that voice. Emotions whose origin he could not fathom. Soleia’s smile twisted grotesquely.
“You once promised that since the Princess is so sweet and lovely, why not preserve her beautifully without damaging her too much?”
Auredhian dimly realized what was being dragged across the ground. His thoughts came to an abrupt halt as though struck by lightning. No—surely Diego Schmart had been with her…
My concentration wavered for but a moment—and in that instant, the sacred chains binding Soleia Elad’s right arm shattered with a sharp crack. She smiled, her face contorted with malice. A hand cold as death itself traced across Auredhian’s cheek.
Snap. Snap. The sacred chains that had constricted his ankles and waist snapped asunder as well. Soleia Elad drew closer, as though to seal her lips against his. Her voice descended like a seductive whisper.
“You should have listened to me.”
Thud. Something was hurled mercilessly into the grass. Auredhian turned without hesitation. The moment pale pink hues caught in his vision—tangled and melting into the blades of grass—his breath ceased entirely. Soleia Elad’s voice echoed through the fog of his consciousness.
“How is it? Even for a princess you love dearly, a corpse is repulsive, is it not, Your Majesty?”

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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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