I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 119

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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 119
There was no prestigious Guardian Star here, and no Lost Soul that had killed me.
I couldn’t guess their race, but there was only a Pointed-Ear Youth who appeared innocent and kindhearted.
When I opened my eyes for the second time, the scenery around me remained unchanged. I lay in the bedroom of a small cottage furnished with a warm atmosphere.
The young man who had been dozing at my bedside jolted awake. I smiled brightly at him out of sheer joy.
‘It hurt like hell, but I survived!’
I was finally free from that ominous, unsettling prophecy!
I couldn’t contain my laughter and expressed my gratitude to the young man. A harsh metallic sound came from my throat.
“Thank you for helping me. Thanks to you, I’ve awakened safely…”
The young man now wore an utterly bizarre expression. It was the look of someone staring at a corpse that had come back to life.
‘…Wait.’
Safely… safely?
A sudden, eerie sense of wrongness washed over me, and I pressed my palm against my chest, feeling around.
Now that I thought about it, something that should naturally be there was missing from my body.
The beating of my heart.
The young man pointed at me and cried out.
“Non habes cor!”
It was still a language I couldn’t understand at all. Yet I grasped it instinctively.
The young man pointed at me, then tapped his chest area twice. Then he shook his head side to side.
“Vere. tu homo misertus…”
I understood in a flash, like lightning striking.
My heart was gone.
‘Damn it. That Lost Soul bastard stole my Revival Crystal!’
Everything suddenly became crystal clear.
I had been attacked by the Great Annihilation at the Continental Conference Hall. Seeing the black shadow ripple at the point of penetration, it was undoubtedly the Broken Chaos that had used the Great Annihilation to attack me.
That cursed Dark Castle had skillfully extracted even the Revival Crystal from me!
‘No wonder it kept directing that heat at me—it felt off!’
The moment the Crystal was torn from me, a long-distance teleportation ability activated.
I was fortunate to be alive in this hollow body without a heart, but then in the conference hall where I had vanished…
I had disappeared without a trace, leaving only the Revival Crystal that had been extracted from my body rolling across the floor.
I turned deathly pale.
“Kalian.”
All the memories came flooding back so vividly that I wondered why I hadn’t recalled them immediately.
He had been right in front of me. He would have witnessed everything that unfolded before his eyes without missing a single detail.
I couldn’t help but groan.
“This is the worst…”
I had left Rahnar in the absolute worst possible way!
This was something I hadn’t anticipated or prepared for.
‘I have to go back right now…!’
I frantically felt around my neck. There was nothing for my fingers to catch on.
‘My Planetarium!’
The moment I began frantically patting down my entire body, the young man startled and babbled something in a foreign tongue.
I reached out and seized the hem of his garment.
“My, my belongings—have you seen them? The clothes I was wearing when I fell here, or, or that flat circular disc on a necklace like this…!”
After exhausting myself with gestures and movements, the young man snapped his fingers as if understanding. He opened a drawer beside the bed and retrieved a bundle.
My vision was strangely hazy, so it took me a long while to recognize it as mine. Inside the bundle lay the clothes I’d been wearing just before the Lost Soul’s attack, neatly folded.
“Yes, that’s it!”
As I hurriedly felt through the bundle, something hard met my fingers beneath the fabric. I was saved!
It seemed I hadn’t lost it because I’d gripped the Planetarium tightly in my hand at the last moment.
The moment my hand touched the flat disc, the universe sleeping within the Planetarium opened before me.
I searched through the three-dimensional cosmos that materialized in miniature and found the incantation for creating a long-distance teleportation portal. I’d even prepared the incantation with Rahnar’s coordinates marked in advance, just in case I needed to return.
[ᚳᚱᛖᚨᛏᛖ ᛈᛟᚱᛏᚨᛚ (Create Portal)]
But the incantation did not manifest.
Only dim light scattered like sparks before fading away.
My body had grown so weak that I could no longer draw upon the power inherent in the Planetarium.
“Damn it, this won’t work…”
I’d left Kalian back there. He must think I’m dead.
What if he thinks I won’t be resurrected without the Crystal?
Even if it strained me, there was no choice. I uttered the incantation once more.
“ᚳᚱᛖᚨᛏᛖ… ugh.”
In that instant, tremendous resistance surged from the Planetarium, and an invisible force violently thrust me backward.
“O mea, visne mori?!”
The young man who spoke in that foreign tongue cried out urgently and intervened. But it was already too late.
Something surged up from my throat, and the bitter, metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. My head spun.
‘Ah, this is too much.’
Can’t anything go right just once?
Like a flower with a broken neck, I lost consciousness again.
* * *
After waking and collapsing, only to faint again the moment I regained consciousness—repeating this cycle three times—I finally abandoned my resolve to return to Rahnar immediately.
At this rate, the life I’d barely preserved would slip away forever.
‘My body has become far too weak. Is it truly because the Crystal was taken from me?’
I stared endlessly at the ceiling, feeling dejected.
In truth, this was normal. For nearly twenty years, I’d lived with an iron-hard body thanks to the Crystal’s power, so the difference felt all the more severe now.
But strictly speaking, this was no time to complain. By all rights, I should have died the moment the Crystal was stolen from me.
Had I not sought treatment from Railo beforehand, I truly would have become a corpse, weathering away in this foreign land.
In that sense, the contingency Railo had prepared for me was quite excellent.
The day I grasped the nature of my condition, I sought out Railo immediately.
“You want me to examine you? Do you have an ailment?”
“I will soon. Here, take a look at the Revival Crystal embedded in my heart. I need to understand exactly how it functions, what effects it produces—everything.”
Though he was a man who lost his nerve whenever I stood before him, Dorian Railo was the finest physician in Rahnar.
“You’re aware that the Revival Crystal doesn’t merely resurrect, yes? It’s an absolute relic that enables simple recovery, regeneration, revival, and even rebirth. I suspect Rosien’s reason for beginning life anew from infancy lies there. If the target’s damage is too severe, the crystal activates by rewinding time itself. Rare, but it happens.”
“The Creator of Time and End said that without this crystal, I would die. Is that correct?”
“You’d die, certainly. How can a human live without a heart? But since the Sacred Relic is synchronizing with you almost perfectly, losing your heart alone shouldn’t cause immediate death. The relic’s power has permeated your blood, bones, and muscles thoroughly, so it will maintain your current state. As long as you keep charging the crystal’s power, even a lost heart will regenerate swiftly.”
“As long as I keep charging the power, that is…”
That’s why I devised a method: continuously infusing parts of myself into my body.
Things like tea brewed from my hair, or pills formed from my blood.
Fortunately, I opened the Planetarium’s subspace sorcery without issue. I consumed the life-essence tonics I’d stockpiled in that subspace indiscriminately. They were the same remedies that had proven remarkably effective in regenerating Yeljewa’s severed right eye long ago.
As I emptied each vial, I felt my vitality gradually returning.
Yet sensation still eluded my entire body. As though I’d been poisoned by paralytic toxin.
‘My vision’s deteriorating, and I keep hearing tinnitus. My pain sensitivity is dull…”
My soul clung precariously to this hollow shell of a body.
I hadn’t even recovered enough mana to wield sorcery freely. Whenever I attempted to open high-difficulty sorcery circles, they simply repelled me.
At this point, anxiety began creeping in.
‘Can I actually return? What’s Kalian doing?’
He must have been quite shocked.
Still, I was grateful I’d warned Kalian beforehand. I’d also been wise to give advance notice to the Transcendent Family Heads, especially Owen, just in case.
‘Raylo was in the conference hall too, so they would have known I didn’t die.’
Nevertheless, I’d taught Alpien defensive barriers in case Kalian lost control.
Even if Kalian burned Rahnar to ash in his rage, like Yeljewa’s second prophecy foretold, those within my barrier would survive.
I’d also considered the possibility of not returning to Rahnar immediately. I’d accounted for a minimum of one year, maximum of ten. I’d told Kalian as much.
So my plan and preparations were flawless. I’d addressed every conceivable scenario.
There was only one variable.
How long could Kalian maintain his sanity without me?
‘At least he’s an Elixir. He should sense that I haven’t died, right? He must.’
Yet my spine kept crawling with unease, and goosebumps rose on my arms.
Since we were each other’s Elixir, I should have been able to sense roughly what state Kalian was in.
But I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I couldn’t even gauge something simple and fundamental—whether he was alive or dead.
Dread began flooding in, wave after wave.

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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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