Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 89

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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 89
Auredhian hastily steadied me.
“Yerenika.”
A tone I had never heard from him before. Anxiety was evident in his voice. I immediately relaxed the frown I had been wearing and opened my expression wide.
“Don’t worry! I just need to confirm one thing.”
“But what exactly are you—”
“Once I ask one question, I won’t say a word whether you kill that woman, spare her, or do whatever else. Just let me see her once.”
I wrapped my arms around Auredhian’s neck and pulled him toward me, pressing my lips against his now-cold cheek. He had every reason to worry. But I had a premonition—no, more than a premonition, a fierce conviction—that if not now, I would never have another chance to face Soleia like this.
Soleia’s crimson lips parted.
“You would kill me, you say…”
Soon her lips curled upward at both corners.
“You won’t be able to, Auredhian.”
Soleia’s face gradually contorted. I had never seen the usually composed and serene Soleia fall apart so completely.
“There will come a day when you regret that you could have ended everything on your own terms.”
My instincts flashed red, warning me. If not now, I would never hear this.
“Soleia.”
My voice was steadier than I expected. I immediately patted the arm embracing my shoulders from behind and opened my mouth again, each word deliberate and clear.
“What is that?”
I pointed with my index finger at the bone hand still jutting out from the ground. Her obsidian-like glossy eyes flickered toward where I was pointing. Then came a faint smile.
“Who knows.”
The beautiful, wicked, and cunning witch whispered.
“My master?”
Snap. One strand of the holy chain severed. It was the chain that had been strangling Soleia’s neck.
“The King of the Underground.”
A humming voice continued.
“The one who rules the realm of phantoms.”
The King beneath Remordi. A god. The god of the dead. Only then did everything become crystal clear. Just as I had summoned Raulus, Soleia had long ago summoned the god of wicked things. I let out a weak groan.
“When exactly did this happen…?”
“Can you see this hand, dear Princess?”
Blink. Soleia’s eyes closed. Her eyelashes fluttered downward, then those obsidian-black eyes opened again.
“A mana-incompatible person. I heard they’re sensitive to mana.”
Only then did I realize something was terribly wrong. I spun around urgently to face Auredhian.
“Your Majesty, that… that, I can’t see it…”
But I didn’t need to finish my words. Reflected in those reddish-violet eyes was only me, the split earth, and Soleia bound upon it. His gaze swept across where I was pointing. I stared blankly at the scene reflected in those eyes.
Nothing. The words Raulus had spoken flashed through my mind.
[Those who wield sanctity cannot perceive mana.]
[Feel it, crumb. That wretched aura.]
He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t find it. Then I understood why this man remained so composed. Why the Holy Knights surrounding Soleia at a distance, binding her in a circle, showed no shock at that bone hand. How could they be astonished by something they couldn’t see?
“To sense two incompatible forces simultaneously…”
A dangerously low voice whispered. Those black eyes that had always been fixed solely on Auredhian were now locked entirely on me. A chill ran down my spine. Those glossy, bead-like eyes held not a glimmer of light.
The intricate web of divine power that had bound Soleia’s body shattered with a crisp crack. The chains pulled taut as if they would snap clean away.
“Ah….”
It would break. I knew it instinctively. The divine chains binding Soleia’s neck and limbs trembled visibly. And almost simultaneously, skeletal fingers that had been scraping across the fractured earth shot upward in an instant. Gaunt bones rose like serpents into the air, grasping at Soleia’s ankle where it was exposed between the folds of her dress.
“…!”
But that too was likely a sight only I could perceive. The moment that thought reached me, I spoke without hesitation or forethought.
“Raulus.”
He intended to drag her down. Underground…! I couldn’t allow that to happen, and I couldn’t afford to lose Soleia like this. Those eyes that had already lost their light so completely kept troubling my heart….
Click. Crack. The chains that had been woven together in dozens of layers unraveled one by one. What happened next was truly instantaneous. At a speed so terrifying that the man holding me firmly from behind couldn’t react, I was helplessly ‘dragged toward’ Soleia. Magic of allure—the kind that pulled people in.
“Yerenika-.”
Auredhian’s urgent call was completely drowned out by the sound of wind being torn apart so close I could almost touch it. Thud, thud—enormous invisible thorns pierced through my body from head to toe.
“Gasp….”
In the blink of an eye, I found myself floating above the fractured earth. Or rather, it was more accurate to say I was caught by Soleia. As if my weight meant nothing, she lifted my chin with just the tips of her fingers. With that slightest contact, my body lifted off the ground. My breath caught tight in my throat.
Soleia drew my chin closer toward her. We were at a distance where our lips might touch.
“You said Raulus, didn’t you, my beloved Princess?”
“Ugh, gasp….”
“That absolute being beyond Udeta. Isn’t that right?”
Crack. The skeletal hand gripping Soleia’s ankle crept slowly up her leg. Soleia whispered softly.
“What do you think, Lord Hades? Instead of that man, would you take this Princess instead?”
I swallowed a gasp of air. That’s… that’s a lie, right…? A chilling cracking sound and a voice that scraped against my eardrums came from beneath Soleia’s feet.
[…Yes. Now I understand clearly which one is the nuisance.]
In that moment, I realized with the force of lightning. Soleia’s target had changed. From Auredhian Belgot to me, Yerenika. Now the original story was finally beginning to twist properly.
But I had no time to welcome that realization. I felt the color drain from my face vividly. The cold sweat running down my spine froze solid. I clawed at her hand and cried out in a hoarse voice.
“Are you insane? Come to your senses, sister!”
“Unfortunately, I’m quite sane, Princess. Call me once more.”
Soleia pressed her lips lightly against the chin she held raised. Where her lips touched burned as if scorched by fire.
“Not the surface world, but the most powerful divinity in this realm.”
She really has gone mad! In the end, I twisted my face and spoke.
“Raulus.”
My mouth moved of its own accord. Instead of resisting Soleia’s control, I simply let the words spill out as my lips moved.
“Take all the divinity remaining in my body. I don’t care.”
It’ll hurt for a moment, but I don’t want to be dragged down to Hell…!
I shouted desperately.
“So come down right now!”
This time, my desperation seemed to reach Raulus as well, and he hesitated no longer. Divinity was sucked from my body in a torrent. As Auredhian’s divinity—which had barely kept my body from collapsing—drained away, my waist buckled immediately.
Pain unlike anything before assailed me. And it seemed to happen almost simultaneously. Auredhian’s rage finally exploded.
* * *
It was pure destructive chaos itself. A fierce gale erupted. The flow of divinity that had enveloped the entire Imperial Palace until now seemed like child’s play as sharp, thorned divinity came rushing like a tempest, engulfing Soleia. As Soleia reflexively unleashed her magical power, the two forces collided intensely. Right before my eyes.
“Ugh….”
The thick steam smell created by two tremendous forces colliding and the tremor that shook heaven and earth left me unable to gather my senses. The next moment, my vision tilted sharply ninety degrees. Silver fur fluttered across my field of vision. The moment Soleia’s hand released my chin, the divine chains binding her snapped loudly apart.
With one arm and her waist freed, Soleia retreated sharply backward. The moment her hand left me, the pain constricting me was cut exactly in half.
“Hack, ugh. Gasp….”
I drew in ragged breaths and managed to lift my head with great effort. Something was gripping my body firmly. The moment I glimpsed the large, razor-sharp fangs looming mere inches away, I realized Raulus had fully manifested. He held me in his mouth, having snatched me away from Soleia, and clicked his tongue in displeasure.
[Is this how you live normally, little crumb? I must say, this sensation is hardly pleasant.]
With each word Raulus spoke, his breath—saturated with divine power—swept across my entire face. The bitter irony was that this sanctity wasn’t even his own, but rather what he’d absorbed from me. As if my meager reserves of divine power weren’t already pitiful enough….
Between the gaping fissure in the earth, a skeletal arm suddenly thrust upward and seized Soleia’s ankle, the bones scraping together with a bone-chilling sound. Raulus’s gaze turned downward.
[I must be a fool not to have noticed it clawing at the surface so obviously.]

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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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