Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 91

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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 91
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[I never intended to entrust this to you from the beginning.]
A skeleton wrapped the woman’s body like a coiled rope, whispering dangerously. Above her head, the fractured earth reconnected with a thunderous roar. Holy power raked through the underground air like grasping claws.
“I told you, didn’t I?”
A voice fragmented in short bursts echoed faintly from within the skeleton. Black eyes flickered between finger bones.
“That he’s not a man you can capture by charging in recklessly like this….”
Hades laughed coldly.
[How will you explain losing even the woman who summoned Raulus?]
“….”
[It wasn’t the Emperor—it was that woman. The one who could reach beyond Udeta in a single breath. No wonder I’ve felt so cursed all along.]
They continued descending, plunging toward the world of spirits that existed in the Underground. Remordi drew gradually closer. Beneath an absolute taboo that even those with holy power could not perceive, their world now lay just before them.
Black mana swirled violently in a circle. The entrance to Remordi. The moment Hades and Soleia Elad passed through the black circle, the holy power that had been savagely clawing at their bodies vanished without a trace.
“…!”
Her body became suddenly light. She had returned to the world beneath Remordi, where corpses and spirits dwelled.
Thud. Soleia Elad’s body crashed hard against the underground earth. She grimaced and severed all connections with her ‘puppets’ left on the surface. There was no room to scatter her focus.
“Lady Soleia Elad!”
Someone called to her. One of the Magic Tower’s disciples. She opened her mouth to respond, but skeletal fingers sealed her lips shut.
[Fine. I’ll admit it. I never imagined that little princess possessed the ability to summon Raulus.]
A mana-incompatible wretch who suffered as though dying from the slightest fluctuation of mana. The Princess of Lebovni who always smiled brightly with an innocent, cheerful face. I had thought of her only as an obstacle to claiming Auredhian Belgot—but how had she summoned the absolute being beyond Udeta? No, the ‘how’ didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact itself: that she had summoned Raulus, regardless of the means.
[To think I’d see that shameless face before me again….]
Hades’ skeletal fingers tapped lightly against Soleia Elad’s cheek.
[This is why I said it would be troublesome if I were discovered. It would be troublesome if the taboo between Udeta and Remordi were broken.]
The featureless skull twisted grotesquely, rattling with an eerie sound.
[I can no longer leave this in your hands.]
“What—what are you trying to do…?”
[I’ll take your body for myself.]
Soleia Elad gasped sharply and hurried to dissuade her master.
“That’s absurd. How could you possibly adapt to a living body….”
[A body like yours would be more than sufficient to endure, wouldn’t it, Soleia Elad?]
Sharp finger bones scraped across her pale cheek. Fine blood seeped from the cheek already torn by the whirlwind of holy power, bleeding anew.
[The one with the most powerful corrupted force on the surface.]
“Nonsense…!”
[Even if it takes time for me to adapt, it’s hardly impossible.]
Soleia Elad no longer saw value in listening to Hades’ words. If she remained like this, she would truly be consumed. She shoved away the bones that bound her, and the skeleton crumbled downward with a crash. But it quickly reassembled with a rattling sound.
Soleia Elad swept her gaze across her disciples, who watched her with anxious eyes, deliberately ignoring Hades’ sinister laughter. They were Black Mages of the Magic Tower who, ever since contracting with Hades, had hidden their bodies beneath Remordi whenever persecution came from the surface.
“Why have you come down here, abandoning the Magic Tower?”
Yet even as Soleia Elad finished her question, she already knew the answer.
“Auredhian Belgot….”
That meticulous and calculating Emperor must have arranged in advance to seal the Magic Tower the moment trouble erupted. This assault on the Imperial Palace had been a true surprise attack, unforeseen even by her plans—and yet the Emperor had already surrounded the Magic Tower. Moreover, the number of disciples who had safely evacuated to the Underground appeared to be less than half of the Magic Tower’s total personnel. Soleia Elad bit her lip.
“…Rosel?”
“He’s heading south, they say….”
One of the disciples answered with a trembling voice.
“He said his connection with Soleia Elad ends with this incident.”
Chernata Rosel, the Master of the Magic Tower, had also fled. It seemed he had no intention of siding with the Emperor. In truth, he had no righteous position to stand on either. The elderly mage who had denounced Soleia’s parents as Black Mages and sent them to the gallows, only to take their daughter as a disciple and disguise her as a bastard of a marquess to escape his guilt—he had known for years that Soleia was a Black Mage and had turned a blind eye.
Soleia reconnected with the puppets on the surface she had briefly severed. The corpses left behind on the surface opened their eyes in unison. Soleia concentrated her senses on the puppet she had placed within the Imperial Palace—Leria.
“Leria.”
But there was no response from that puppet. Soleia opened her mouth to call Leria once more, then—
“…!”
A searing heat swept over her entirely, and she immediately severed her connection with Leria. That beautifully mad Emperor was purifying the entire Imperial Palace by burning it down. The beautiful man she had thought worthy of kneeling before her was proving his worth with his entire being. No matter how generous and lenient he appeared, an Emperor was an Emperor—the sole heir of Raulus on the surface. Five years of careful preparation, knowing this from the start, had crumbled to dust. So had the Magic Tower she had cultivated.
[Don’t you want to achieve your goal?]
Hades whispered sweetly.
[You said you wanted to create a world where you and your disciples could roam freely on the surface.]
“….”
[You said you wanted to drive out the sacred from the surface and create a world for the oppressed Black Mages. You said that was how you’d avenge your dead parents.]
Soleia bit her crimson lips hard. Could she do it with her power alone? Capturing that Princess who had received Raulus’s sacred blessing.
In that moment, she felt a gaze directed toward her from somewhere. A light of vigilance flashed in those obsidian eyes.
“Who…!”
But there was no one. Those watching her were only the spirits swarming in the Underground and Black Mages like herself. Yet from somewhere, continuously….
Sky-blue eyes that had shed tears without ceasing, never looking away from her, flashed through her mind. Impossible. This was beneath Remordi. Even knowing it made no sense, unease crept over her.
[Do you think you can do it with your power, Soleia?]
If she couldn’t do it with her own power. Then perhaps, even knowing it was madness, surrendering her body to her contractor was…. Her body slowly turned. Toward the skeleton beckoning her forward with a curling gesture, Soleia took a step without realizing it.
[Yes, yes. Good girl.]
Soleia hadn’t yet realized that even this was Hades’s enchantment. Hades was the King of the Underground who, since being cast out from primordial Udeta and imprisoned in the Hell beneath Remordi, had always ruled over corpses and spirits, and possessed the power that was the origin of Black Magic. Resistance was impossible from the start.
“…!”
In the end, Soleia couldn’t evade the sharp bone piercing through her back.
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“Gasp…!”
That was as far as I could see. Up to the moment that creature—with a beast’s skull shaped like a human skeleton—pierced through Soleia’s body. And that was also my limit. The rate at which my sacred power was draining to form Raulus’s shape was faster than the sacred power flowing into my body from Auredhian. Eventually the flow reversed. The moment the sacred power remaining in my body hit bottom, the senses I shared with Raulus were severed.
“…!”
Darkness. My vision turned pitch black. The horrific landscape of Hell beneath Remordi was completely engulfed in darkness. Someone seemed to be calling me, but I couldn’t hear them clearly. The sound grew louder, then softer, repeatedly.
‘Am I really going mad?’
I felt Raulus shattering into pieces beneath Remordi from the magical backlash. In that moment, only one thought circled through my mind. Am I really going mad…? With that thought, just before the power that weakened me crashed down once more, I managed to lose consciousness.
I regained consciousness ten days later.
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“-So. Some headed south. Is that correct?”
“Yes. It matches the route through which the mana stones were being smuggled.”
The conversation sounded faint, as if coming from very far away. Before I could even understand the content, the voices grew muffled and distant. My vision was submerged in darkness. With no strength to move even a single finger, I simply lay still with my eyes closed. Sensation would return eventually.
“What’s the status of the Imperial Palace restoration?”
“Well, about that….”
“What is that?”
“Well… yes… since you’ve purified everything so thoroughly…”
“…”
“And with the Magic Tower’s personnel cut in half… all the remaining staff are currently under interrogation…”
It was clear that someone was stammering out an answer. In a daze—neither fully asleep nor awake—I continued to listen to the conversation unfolding around me.
“Schmart is personally overseeing the interrogations, but given how delicate this matter is… and as you know, the Priesthood cannot sense magical power, can they? So we have no choice but to extract confessions…”
“How troublesome. And utterly useless.”
The voice responding was unmistakably familiar to my ears. Sharp and cutting, yet ordinarily it would have been somewhat relaxed, and sweetly tender.
Why does he sound so angry?

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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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