I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 26

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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 26
The acrid stench of burning flesh hung thick in the air. Kalien examined his palm, blistered a vivid crimson from the heat.
Then he let out a quiet, bitter laugh.
“What’s the use? You’re nothing but a fragment that fell from a star. If you’re so aggrieved, why don’t you call upon your own star? The ‘Arbiter of Darkness and Chaos,’ was it?”
【Begone! I would sooner face oblivion than surrender myself to the incarnation of a lost soul!】
“Without a master, you can’t even choose to fade away on your own, can you?”
【Without a master? I have one!】
The Sacred Relic shrieked. In that perfectly timed moment, a sharp, ringing cry pierced through from outside the Holy Temple.
“Everyone, move aside—!”
Rosien. Kalien let out an exasperated sigh.
“Ah, really. Rosy…!”
How does she always arrive so quickly?
* * *
I witnessed the Holy Temple on the brink of total chaos and clicked my tongue in disapproval.
One could call it a realm of distortion. What in the world was happening in the middle of the night?
It seemed necessary to stabilize the situation. The Holy Temple twisted and warped in defiance of gravity, and with the energies of Whiszel, Kirges, and Wynyak all tangled together, it was difficult to secure a clear line of sight.
I forcibly seized the Planetarium from a Kirges sorcerer sprawled near the entrance.
“I’ll borrow this for a moment, brother.”
The lid of the activated Planetarium swung wide open. Celestial bodies spun in dizzying circles along their interwoven orbits.
‘Guardian Star of Kirges, O Orator of All Things, I beseech you.’
I apologize for calling upon you so frequently. I’m grateful for all your aid thus far—might I impose upon you just once more?
The moment the prayer left my lips, a pillar of light descended from the ceiling. It struck directly into the Planetarium I held in my hands.
I froze in shock for an instant.
“Wh—what?”
Such overwhelming power?
The Guardian Star seemed to have made a deliberate choice. As if watching and waiting for this exact moment, the power surged forth explosively—not from my own Planetarium, but with a force that rivaled it nonetheless. The stars along the orbits spun wildly, almost frantically.
At this level, I could manifest half the power I wielded in my previous life.
The warped and distorted Holy Temple began to fill densely with the runes of Kirges. Countless glyphs surrounded us from all sides.
In the next instant, the view cleared as if by magic.
A boy standing upon the distant altar appeared before me like a painting come to life.
‘Kalien…’
His palm bore a vivid scarlet burn mark—evidence of his failed attempt to seize the Sacred Relic.
My heart ached. Oh, those beautiful hands… But the real problem wasn’t the hands at all; it was those unfocused eyes.
‘Look, our rabbit would never let the Sacred Relic capture his attention like that!’
He must be possessed. I gritted my teeth and approached the Sacred Relic with determined steps.
“Hello, ‘Great Oblivion.’ It’s me.”
【You liar!】
The Sacred Relic shrieked upon recognizing me.
【I asked for a beauty! Who brings something like that?! Bringing an incarnation of a lost soul into the Holy Temple! You fraud!】
“I’m sorry, my child isn’t a bad person, really…”
【Silence! Get over here this instant!】
What a temperament.
I leaped onto the Altar before the Sacred Relic’s fury could explode. Kalien, who had been staring blankly at me, reflexively stumbled backward.
The Sacred Relic commanded abruptly.
【Seize it!】
“Pardon? Is that… acceptable?”
【No more questions. Take hold of it. Become my master!】
“Y-yes, understood!”
How could I dare defy a command from the Sacred Relic? I grasped the sword’s hilt without hesitation.
That was when it happened—the Guardian Star of Wynyak, which had remained dormant until now, suddenly responded.
“What—?”
Tremendous light erupted from the sword’s hilt. The Guardian Star of Wynyak was bestowing its blessing upon me.
“…!”
The camouflage sorcery layered across my face shattered in an instant, and crimson hair streamed upward into the air. I had shed the shell of the Unknown Boy and returned to my true form.
‘Wait, hold on.’
I gazed down at the Planetarium still spinning dizzily below, my mind reeling.
‘I’m receiving blessings from the Kirges Star simultaneously?’
Had there ever been a moment in history when a single human received protection from two stars at once?
This transcended the mere matter of secretly learning the secret techniques of two families.
In this very moment, the “Judge of Darkness and Chaos” and the “Oracle of All Things” from that cosmos were both fixing their gaze upon me.
Why? It was extraordinarily rare for the stars to observe humans directly.
The reason remained unknown, but…
My lips parted slowly without my realizing it.
‘Wow, this is…’
The corners of my mouth curved upward uncontrollably on both sides.
I tightened my grip on the sword’s hilt. Like a blade being drawn from its scabbard, the exquisitely forged blade gradually revealed itself in the empty air.
The unsheathing was eerily smooth, as if pulling a spoon from pudding.
This was the true form of Wynyak’s Sacred Relic. I beheld the fully revealed blade with rapturous eyes.
The legendary weapon wielded when the “Judge of Darkness and Chaos” walked this land in human incarnation.
I tested the blade with a swing. A crescent-shaped sword aura flew like lightning and pierced the opposite wall.
In the next instant, the wall crumbled to dust and vanished.
“…!”
I urgently chanted an incantation to prevent the ceiling from collapsing. I instantly understood why this Sacred Relic bore the epithet “Great Annihilation.”
Merely touching it once was enough to comprehend.
‘This is insane.’
I had imagined that one touch would fulfill all desires, yet the power far exceeded my meager expectations. Now I understood why the Transcendent Families were so obsessed with Sacred Relics.
A contractor of the star wielding the Sacred Relic. A being whose very existence altered the power dynamics of the Continent—a transcendent beyond transcendence.
No wonder they hid it so desperately!
“Wait, this isn’t the time for this.”
My senses snapped back. Where was Kalien?
I swept my gaze across the surroundings with keen intensity. Instead of the rabbit I sought, a black jaguar bounded into the Holy Temple.
Luize, his form transformed, glared at me with a low growl.
“You—that Sacred Relic…!”
“Ah, I apologize. I acted without thinking in my haste.”
“You must never surrender it to him!”
Him? My nape bristled with sudden dread.
Something stood behind me.
“Don’t turn around!”
Luize’s tension stretched to its breaking point. His gaze fixed not upon me, but upon something behind me—his face bearing the shock of witnessing something catastrophic.
‘Why… why…?’
Luize clenched his teeth and called out to me.
“Rosien!”
“Rosy.”
Two voices overlapped from opposite directions.
If I had to choose which was more shocking, it was undoubtedly the former. My mind went completely blank.
‘Rosien…?’
Surely not, I thought, glancing at Luize, but I had not misheard. The boy’s face held absolute certainty.
It felt as though someone had brought a hammer down mercilessly upon the back of my skull.
How could this be? Different age, different appearance, different voice, different origin?
Had I missed some sign while I wasn’t paying attention? No, when I saw him days ago, there was absolutely no indication of this…!
‘If Luize knows, then surely the other Family Heads…?’
Just as I bit my lip and prepared to lunge toward Luize.
“Rosien.”
A familiar voice reached me from behind.
Luize cursed aloud.
“Rosien, don’t turn around!”
But my head was already turning. It was an instinctive pull.
“…Kali.”
From the staircase descending beneath the Altar, Kalien gazed up at me.
Ah, another one. My expressionless brother. Now I could see how vast the chasm was between his smiling and unsmiling faces.
His reddish eyes moved, taking in my face.
Soon that piercing gaze traveled down my arm to the sword in my hand, then alternated between that and the Planetarium unfurling behind my back.
I watched with a mixture of fear and fascination as enchantment bloomed across Kalien’s eyes.
“Rosy.”
He gazed at me as though I were a delectable cake placed at the center of a banquet table.
Only then did I realize how I must appear to him.
In my hands lay Wynyak’s Sacred Relic. Of course it would appear alluring. What transcendent being could resist such a thing?
‘But this is somewhat…’
My shoulders instinctively shrank back as a sense of danger surged rapidly through me.
That was not merely the gaze of curiosity and desire for a Sacred Relic. The greatest emotion now blooming across Kalien’s beautiful face was.
Hunger, and a thirst so maddening it threatened to consume me whole.
He looked as though he might pounce upon me at any moment and devour me without mercy.
I barely managed to force open my parched throat.
“Kalien. You’re the older brother I know, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
The boy smiled with breathtaking beauty, as though painted by an artist’s hand.
“I can become anything you desire, Rosy.”
[Don’t fall for his tricks!]
Luize’s voice cut through like a snarl.
Having exhausted his patience, he transformed into a black jaguar and leaped across the undulating space with a powerful bound.
[Lozietti Kirges!]
“Rosy, embrace me.”
Kalien spread both arms wide, his eyes crinkling at the corners in an invitation for me to come to him.
As though enchanted, I leaped down from beneath the altar.

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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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