I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 53

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 53
Without the Crystal of Resurrection, her body would have shattered under the weight of the stars’ pressure.
Kalien raked his fingernails across the empty air.
Brilliant crimson flames erupted along the trajectory of his movement.
The fire consumed his body in an instant. Soon, a catastrophic vortex of flames began to ravage the Observatory.
The flames created centuries ago to protect Rahnar had transformed into a world-annihilating inferno.
“Lost Soul.”
A colossal shadow descended over the burning Observatory. Structures decomposed down to the particle level were sucked entirely into the gaping maw of the Broken Chaos.
The Kirges Observatory—the sole place to observe the cosmos, the closest point to the stars in Rahnar—vanished without a trace in mere minutes.
【My incarnation, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?】
The shadow, writhing in thousands of tendrils, descended upon the charred earth with a malevolent laugh.
【Are you finally getting the urge to move again? Karga.】
“I’m afraid I might actually do it.”
The Kirges Main House here, Whezel whom I’d just left, and even Railo and Yeljewa—they were all gathered in Delpiam.
It was truly a luxury buffet.
Just one thing missing: the Great Annihilation. That Sacred Relic was always near me. Close, yet in a place I could never touch.
‘Should I just steal it quietly?’
After all, this was for Rosien’s sake as well.
The moment Kalien was about to take a step, driven by instinct.
Rosien’s resolute voice pierced through my mind.
“If it were right before my eyes, I would tell you plainly. I need no help of this kind.”
“….”
“Not at all. Not even a little bit grateful.”
Kalien drew a deep breath first.
Then I suppressed the rage that had surged to the crown of my head.
【Aren’t you going?】
“Not yet.”
He exhaled an irritated groan through clenched teeth and turned his gaze away.
“That one is needlessly righteous.”
【Then why do you indulge her?】
“Because that righteousness saved me.”
A portrait sitting alone on the blackened earth caught my eye.
“…And it seems she was executed.”
It was the only thing that didn’t burn away in the flames of destruction.
It couldn’t burn, so naturally it remained.
Kalien crouched before the portrait. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the woman’s back in the painting for a long time.
“I didn’t know she’d been executed.”
The woman in the portrait had many names.
Rozentia Renos, Lozietti Kirges, Rosien Wynack.
Since the essence was the same person regardless, any name would do. Kalien didn’t bother distinguishing between the three, but I called them by different names depending on the moment.
That’s why my favorite name has changed three times over. Naturally, the name I cherish most now is Rosien.
Yet the name Rozentia still stirred a bittersweet nostalgia whenever I recalled it—a person I’d met when I was still quite a decent human being.
Back when I was human.
“I, I think this is unjust. You shouldn’t be confined in a place like this, in such a state.”
In truth, Kalien retained almost no memory of that time.
On the day I was reborn through the covenant with the Dark Castle, most of my memories from when I was a “decent human” had turned to ash.
The fragments that remained were terribly fragmented.
After an eternity had passed since my confinement in the detention camp, a woman named Rozentia Renos came to visit. She said she was the Princess of Abuye.
After coming and going several times like that, she finally left the door wide open and fled without looking back.
Kalien touched her cheek, hidden beneath her crimson hair, with my index finger.
“I thought you’d run away then. Because you were afraid of me.”
Back then, she trembled like an aspen leaf every time she came to me.
“H, how could you say you were once human…? It’s an unjust trial. No matter how important the balance of power is, you can’t abandon a human so cruelly, not like this.”
Yet her voice remained clear, and that was—
Tempting.
I wanted to possess her.
Eventually, I became desperate for her.
Every time I watched her receding figure turn away and distance herself, I became unbearably anxious and restless. If only I had legs, I could chase after her; if only I had arms, I could hold her!
So when she opened the prison door one last time, I asked her if she would leave with me.
But Rozentia rejected me coldly.
“I can’t go with you, and just because it’s me doesn’t mean you don’t frighten me! So leave quickly. Never appear before me again, go far away…!”
With those words, she fled first.
So I resolved that if we ever met again, I would never frighten her. Rozentia’s face and name, the emotions and vows I felt upon seeing her—these were among the few fragments of my past that Kalien clearly remembered.
For hundreds of years, I made that vow thousands of times.
Next time, I would act a little more beautifully, a little better, more tenderly and kindly.
Then surely this time she wouldn’t run away and would quietly become mine?
Ah, but then—
Kalien let out an exasperated chuckle.
“I knew she was dead, but I didn’t know she’d been executed. You should have told me, Princess. Instead of telling me to disappear…”
With the courage it took you to come trembling down to this detention camp, you should have told me that you weren’t afraid of me, but of the death that was coming.
If you had, I wouldn’t have needed to take this long detour for hundreds of years…
A slow, deep satisfaction bloomed across Kalien’s face.
“You didn’t need to worry that I might frighten you, did you?”
You saved me, lied for my sake, and were executed for that sin. It was pitiful and heartbreaking.
Yet at the same time, throughout the hundreds of years I’ve lived as a monster after being reborn, it was the most satisfying thing of all.
Laughter kept leaking out in small bursts.
“I, I actually really dislike you, you’re ugly! By tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll regret this. So hurry and go!”
After fleeing like that—
“Even on the execution platform, she never repented to the end.”
She never regretted it to the very end.
“Isn’t this adorable beyond measure?”
Had Rosien been watching from the side, she would have gasped in horror. Did he just call the executed woman cute? She would have questioned him thus, but what could one do about the facts as they stood?
In truth, how Rozentia Renos had died in the past mattered little to me.
Because Rosien was at my side now, and she would remain so in the future.
Rosien had not confessed to me the full extent of her prophetic knowledge. Yet there was no need to pry.
Kalien already knew of that ancient prophecy.
‘The dead Princess of Abuye shall surely be reborn one day.’
From that verse, I understood that Rozentia Renos had perished.
‘Raised in Kirges, beloved by the myriad stars.’
From that verse, I knew she would one day be born within Kirges.
‘And in time, terrible chaos shall—’
I also understood that she would meet me again.
‘And bring forth the annihilation of the Transcendent Families.’
Thus I also knew that she would remain at my side until the world itself reached its end.
So Rozentia, Lozietti, Rosien—she would never betray me.
Kalien held this immutable future as an unshakeable certainty.
Yet still, revealing my true form or the existence of the Lost Soul was absolutely forbidden. I recalled the young girl who had convulsed in terror upon seeing my reflection captured so vividly in the Planetarium.
“…No, absolutely not.”
Soon a serene smile played at the corners of my lips.
“I find the sight of things trembling before me utterly tiresome.”
I was deeply satisfied with my current form.
The beautifully adorned appearance pleased me, and Rosien, who cherished this form, was equally precious.
“If I become just a little more virtuous, won’t Rosy come to love me even more? Then I’ll inscribe the Elixir pact upon her as well. Ah, perfection itself….”
Muttering alone before the portrait was madness incarnate.
I tapped the portrait repeatedly, then sank into the distant past, then smiled foolishly while recalling the young girl—this cycle I repeated.
At last, I straightened my spine and rose to my feet.
My crimson eyes flickered toward the night sky.
“It matters not what you say to Rosien, ‘Judge of Darkness and Chaos.’ That prophecy shall absolutely come to pass.”
The future read by Yeljewa’s star, the “Foretelling Eye,” would inevitably arrive. I would ensure it myself.
After three lifetimes, this time Rosien would fall into my hands.
The finest method was indeed a mutual Elixir pact. A relationship where each was indispensable to the other. That was most fitting.
Rosien’s three stars—the “Judge of Darkness and Chaos,” the “Omniscient Word Sorcerer,” the “Creator of Beginning and End”—their full power would come into my embrace.
And on the other hand, I would ceaselessly imprint my existence upon her.
Kindly, beautifully, tenderly as I had done thus far, melting her guard, making her accustomed, filling her with a sense of security….
So that no matter what form I took, she would never even conceive of escape.
‘If only we could merge into one thus.’
Then, for the first time in five hundred years, the age of the blind stars would unfold anew.
The day when the great conflagration of destruction would engulf Rahnar once more was not far off.
【So then, when is that day?】
“Well…. At the very least, my princess must reach adulthood.”
【Only a few years left.】
“Merely a blink of an eye.”
【Indeed.】
The Lost Soul chuckled in agreement. To the Dark Castle, which had existed alongside the Cosmos since its birth, a few years were nothing more than the time it took to blink.
Kalien rose to his feet and departed the Planetarium, tucking the portrait of Rozentia Renos deep within his core.
【So then, Star, prepare yourself with utmost vigilance.】
The Broken Chaos—the very embodiment of cosmic disorder, absolute evil, and another name for the end—hummed as if singing a song.
【Your chaos shall not perish, and it shall return once more.】

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————