Disqualified as a Villainess - Chapter 71

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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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#71.

***

I lowered my gaze from the sky to look at Chloe.
“The price for summoning the Chaos Gate is the life of every living being within the Alchemy Circle connected to five Heart Gates.”
Chloe’s green eyes trembled visibly.
If the Ludovisi Family—which meant I—had joined hands with the Chaos Forces to aid them, she should never have been in this place.
Chloe desperately grabbed my arm.
“You’re going to kill everyone here? Why would you do such a thing?”
I irritably shook off her hand.
“Blindly assuming I’m the culprit might ease your mind, but it solves nothing.”
If that weren’t the case, why would she still be here?
If it were me—or even a demon who had summoned calamity—wouldn’t I flee first, thinking of my own safety?
I was base, selfish, and cared only for myself.
A faint shadow fell across my usually composed brow.
“An unexpected variable has emerged, but fleeing was never an option from the start.”
I hadn’t anticipated they would all open simultaneously, but my plan remained unchanged.
“I intend to stop it.”
Chloe’s face had turned ashen as she stared at the Alchemy Circle slowly taking shape.
“You came to stop it? That makes no sense whatsoever—”
“Will you flee? You believe you possess considerable latent potential, don’t you?”
She’s lost her mind.
Chloe clenched her cold hands and stumbled backward.
Seeing her pallid face, I let out a quiet laugh.
“Whether you flee, face the calamity head-on, or kill me convinced I’m the culprit to stop it—that’s your choice. I’ll do what I must.”
Chloe stood frozen, staring at me, then suddenly spun around and ran.
There was still time before the summoning; she was rushing to evacuate the people.
‘Is this truly the best course?’
Chloe turned back toward me, breathing heavily, her green eyes widening.
My bracelet glowed with golden light as I stood alone.
Saaaa—
Like the sound of waves, the whisper of wind brushing through leaves filled the air.
The eerie xylophone sounds that had echoed everywhere suddenly ceased, and an uncanny silence fell.
My platinum blonde hair, which had been fluttering in the wind, settled calmly.
“What is that?”
A golden scale materialized before her.
“A magical engineering tool…?”
Seeing me grasp the golden scale in my hand, Chloe was seized by confusion and dread.
“What exactly is inside that…?”
Was she a demon descending to bring despair, or an apostle bearing a mission of salvation?
A chill ran down my spine.
As I turned away, an icy shudder seized me once more.
It was the overwhelming magical power I sensed—a force rivaling that of an apostle.
Chloe did not bother to turn back and verify it.
I had a plan from the start: evacuate the people and save their lives.

***

Moments later, the people gathered at the center of the Border with Warp Facility were engulfed in chaos.
“The Chaos Gate is opening!”
“Thousands of Chaos entities, including high-rank ones, will pour through! We have to escape before the summoning circle completes!”
For some reason, the warp facility was dead, and all means of transportation had been taken by the higher-ups, including the Prince.
Watching the crimson summoning circle take shape, those who remained realized it was already too late to flee.
“Damn it, did all the bigwigs run away?”
“Saint Chloe! Do something! You’re supposed to be a great Saint!”
Amid the people’s screams and laments, Chloe stood alone, staring blankly into the void.
I had not heeded Prince Dominic’s words to flee together.
I simply needed to confirm something.
Whether Octavia’s words were truth, or if the demon had lied with a serpent’s tongue.

“There’s nothing you can do by staying here, Chloe!”

In the end, just as the Prince who abandoned me had said, I was truly powerless and useless.
“Saint Chloe!”
At that moment, the voice of Holy Knight Commander Ewain rang out.
In that brief moment when I found solace in his worried expression, he asked.
“Do you know where Lady Octavia is?”
Chloe’s lips parted weakly, and she shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Logan Ortega Duke narrowed his coral-colored eyes coldly and rubbed his hair roughly.
“Damn it. A scale like this can’t be stopped even if a 1st-class division came. That carefree Saint seems to have already left, and the Admiral….”
“Weary one bearing heavy burdens, you speak with such abundance of words.”
Matteo, called the “carefree Saint,” appeared with his arms crossed and smiled.
Logan turned to him with an awkward expression.
“You didn’t run away?”
“Though I may not save the lamb, I am not so weak as to kneel before mere Chaos.”
It was roughly saying, “I’m not going to die anyway.”
“It’s also an opportunity to see something new.”
The Saint continued, bringing his face close to Logan.
“Prince of the Wrath Kingdom, you possess Phase ability, do you not?”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t call me that.”
Logan, the Prince of one of the Seven Kingdoms representing Wrath, wore an uncomfortable expression.
Phase ability was the power to alter the state of matter or energy—like an editing technique, it could delete things dimensionally, reverse phases to invert effects, or restore previous states.
For himself alone, it allowed him to resist death or have his body restored through the same principle.
“And my ability isn’t enough to erase or reverse a large-scale Chaos Gate….”
Suddenly, an ominous silence fell.
Flutterflutter—.
Breaking the brief silence was the sound of hundreds of birds in the mountains taking flight at once, their wings beating in unison.
Logan felt goosebumps rise across his entire body. The surrounding air grew chillingly cold.
His instincts sent endless warnings of death.
Thud.
As if a sinister darkness reached out, the people around him began collapsing one by one.
There were no screams, no groans.
“Are they dead?”
It was sudden death.
Logan, who had placed his hand on the neck of the fallen, looked up in shock.
He watched the flock of birds fleeing over the mountain simultaneously plummet.
‘I almost died just now?’
An unconscious phase reversal was repeating—returning to the state from 5 seconds prior just before his breath stopped.
The only ones still standing completely were Ewain with his magitech sword, Saint Matteo, and Saint Chloe.
“This sword continues to block something incomprehensible….”
At Ewain’s words, Chloe pulled out a sacred relic necklace that flickered with light as if resisting something.
‘So the Ludovisi Family’s enhancement technology was indeed applied.’
The common thread among those who remained unaffected was that they possessed items created by the Ludovisi Family. Of course, the Saint of the Great Empire would be an exception.
“The summoning circle suspended in the sky is draining the life force from every living being in this place.”
Matteo pressed his palms together in prayer and closed his eyes.
“All we can do is pray that the Prince of Wrath’s ability functions properly.”
“No, I told you I can’t. My ability isn’t an area-of-effect skill—it’s for personal use only.”
That was when Logan waved his hand dismissively.
Sensing a familiar aura from somewhere, Logan turned his head.
‘My mana? But it’s far too vast for that…’
It was in that moment of unease.
Whoooosh—!
A pillar of azure light erupted from the Northern Omen District, piercing through the night sky.
Logan’s coral-colored eyes widened as he gazed upon the beam of light.
Soon, pillars of light rose in succession from the remaining four districts, connecting with one another to form a pentagonal outline encasing the entire region.
He recalled Octavia’s request to infuse mana into five ominous stone coffins.
‘Could she have created an Alchemy Circle using the five coffins?’
But Octavia wasn’t someone with an innate ability, nor did she possess the mana to activate an Alchemy Circle.
There was no way she could be alive in this situation.
“…Octavia.”
Yet Logan thought that if anyone could pull off the impossible, it would be that mad scientist.

***

Kelsedny Admiral stood outside the Central Quarters, a cigar clenched between his teeth as he gazed up at the night sky.
Beep—. Beep—.
An emergency recall signal blared from the naval rocket, yet he remained motionless, his eyes fixed only on the sky where the summoning circle materialized.
“Life Equivalent Circle.”
Once that circle activated, every living thing here—save for a handful of the exceptionally strong—would vanish as sacrifice to equivalent exchange.
But it was no concern of his.
He was neither altruistic nor possessed of compassion.
Death and life were merely the natural flow of order; he felt no sorrow or anguish toward them.
From birth, I had been tasked with a singular mission: to annihilate all that defied order.
“There is no reason to save a woman who threw away her chance to live and fled.”
Especially not when my own survival hung in the balance.
Kelsedny Admiral gripped his chest where the corrupted core lay, his gaze fixed forward.
A question suddenly surfaced in his mind.
“How do I know about the Alchemy Circle?”
Whose death granted me this alchemy?
Something flickered beyond the fog in his memory, yet its shape remained impossibly elusive.
Only Octavia’s utterly detestable smile was etched into his mind.
Then light erupted in a brilliant flash, and the world blazed bright as noon.
In that same instant, his irises transformed to molten gold.

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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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