I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 98
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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 98
I bore considerable responsibility for how steeply her Seongyeol had surged to this point.
I should have cradled and soothed her when she showed only mild symptoms. Instead, I had pestered her relentlessly through the entire night without letting her sleep.
I had wanted her to need me more desperately. Even knowing how dangerous a Seongyeol rampage was for a Transcendent, I had treated it carelessly.
Just months ago, I myself had wavered with that wretched condition, yet I had actually considered exploiting it with Rosien?
Kalian wanted to kill the past version of himself who had laughed gleefully at such a garbage plan.
“I have to wake her immediately.”
【Wait and see.】
“Shut up? Wait for what? The child is suffering like this!”
A stream of profanities tumbled from his lips. Kalian glared at the shadow as if he might tear it to shreds.
Unlike the incarnation of murderous intent desperate to shatter the barrier draped over the villa, the Broken Chaos remained serene.
Had the Dark Star hidden within the shadow been capable of smiling, it would surely have worn the grotesque expression of a bizarre clown baring its teeth.
【Don’t get excited, Karga. In the end, you will obtain what you desire.】
Hundreds of shadow tendrils coiled around Kalian’s ankles.
It was the moment when he, burning with fury from head to toe, could no longer restrain himself and was about to release his barrier.
A flash of light suddenly blazed through the bedroom.
* * *
“Hey, her condition is really bad, isn’t it? Do all humans who suffer from Seongyeol end up like this?”
“You’d have to have experienced it to know. Hmm.”
The Guardian Stars, essentially the root cause of Seongyeol itself, proved utterly useless to Rosien.
From the woman curled fetal-like on the bed, thin whimpers flowed without ceasing.
The Formless Messenger snapped his fingers.
“Right, she’ll probably find it hard to calm down in front of us. Then shall we call him over?”
“Who?”
“The true owner of this body.”
The Guardian Star’s barrier washed away from Luize Whezel’s form. Light gradually returned to the golden eyes that had lost focus.
The Formless Messenger sank into the incarnation’s consciousness, whispering with delight.
【Let’s do this right, Luize?】
* * *
“Sister, Rosien. Rosien, are you okay? Damn it, what is this situation, exactly!”
Someone’s voice echoed like a reverberation inside my head.
“Where’s the Elixir, your Planetarium!”
Every sense except sight was abnormally heightened.
The layered Seongyeol burned through my insides like wildfire. Sweat or tears—I couldn’t tell which—kept sliding down my forehead and cheeks.
During my time as Lozietti, I had never experienced pain of this magnitude.
“Stay conscious, sister! You can’t lose control of your body!”
Someone pressed the Planetarium that had rolled away into my hand.
But the Planetarium only rattled uselessly, providing no cooling effect whatsoever.
I barely managed to speak a few incantations.
‘If only I could fall asleep instead.’
Sleep never came, nor even drowsiness. Yet the sorcery’s effect mercifully halted the heat that threatened to detonate me from within.
Because of it, I could finally wrench away the hand supporting me.
“Get away from me… A mere wandering spirit, knowing your place.”
“Rosien!”
“You, you should pledge your loyalty to your own Star instead. This wretched creature… The Guardian Stars desire it, and you lend your body without hesitation…?”
The words trapped inside me spilled out without filter, raw and unguarded.
I shoved Luize away roughly and wiped my cheeks. Tears flowed so heavily I couldn’t see ahead.
‘I have to leave.’
If I remained in this place swarming with Guardian Stars and their incarnations, I would truly burst apart like a Star whose lifespan had ended.
I barely wove together a short-range incantation and uttered the command, and Luize’s bewildered form vanished before my eyes.
The hot night wind battered my face mercilessly.
An invisible, colossal barrier blocked my path—a boundary reinforced dozens of times over with the Stars’ protection.
Staggering, I drew my blade from my waist. The Great Annihilation cried out in alarm.
【Huh? Hey, Rosien, wait—surely you’re not planning to use me?!】
I swung the sword heavily. The barrier, constructed from a ‘rank’ several dimensions above, dissolved cleanly along the blade’s trajectory.
With barely enough strength in my wavering legs, I dragged my exhausted body beyond the boundary.
“Haa… where did they go…?”
My head felt like it would split open. Through blurring vision, I surveyed my surroundings.
They didn’t seem to be nearby.
I turned my back on the villa and entered the forest path. I wanted to distance myself from it as far as possible.
I no longer wished to be among the Guardian Stars.
Beings who could crush me like an insect whenever they pleased.
Whether I lived or died here mattered nothing—I was merely a tool to capture the Lost Soul.
My teeth ground together. Simultaneously, I grew desperately anxious that the Stars might drag me back at any moment.
I reached out instinctively for my ally.
“Kalian.”
A metallic sound escaped my throat.
With each step, the headache pierced my brain like an awl from all directions. Eventually, I couldn’t go much further and collapsed onto the middle of the road.
“Ugh…”
I didn’t know what to do when pain became this unbearable.
I had never needed anyone. I didn’t know how to ask for help, nor did I understand what others could do for me or how they might do it.
But when suffering exceeded my threshold, when it crossed into a realm I could no longer control, I found I couldn’t help but reach out.
Perhaps I had no choice but to desperately need someone to rely upon.
‘It hurts. It’s hot, it hurts. So unbearably hot…’
Lightning struck down upon my head, and my entire body felt cleaved in two. My heart blazed like iron heated in a furnace.
Sorrow crashed over me in a wave.
I collapsed onto the grassland, prostrate, and began to shed tears.
“Why won’t you come? Haa… why, why…?”
When he needed me, he never left my side for even a moment. Yet when I call for him, why won’t he come?
This wretched, wretched…
A shadow appeared in my blurring vision.
A distant, rumbling sound reached my ears.
Was it Luize?
No, it wasn’t. This was a resonance from an entirely different dimension, transcending even the Formless Messenger’s power.
I felt it drawing closer to me.
Without seeing it, I could picture it clearly before my eyes. What stood before me now must have taken the form I had seen only once, years ago.
A shape so horrifying that no description could capture it. Those crimson eyes….
Yet in this moment, what enveloped me was not fear.
It was relief that my ally had arrived.
Its presence rapidly diminished. Shrinking to the size of an adult man, it finally took on a complete form and appeared before me.
My body was yanked upward.
My breath burst forth as though I had been forcibly dragged from beneath the water’s surface.
“Rosy!”
Before my eyes were a pair of eyes burning like raging flames.
Contact. The moment I felt his presence through my fingertips, a tremor ran through me.
The anxiety that had constricted my thoughts melted away simply from knowing I was no longer alone. My body, barely holding together, crumbled and dissolved as strength drained from me.
“Rosy, are you alright?!”
An urgent voice pierced through the ringing in my ears.
Kalien, continuously brushing down my back, spat out curses.
“Damn it…. Letting you get into this state was supposed to be for my sake? No, I’m the fool. God, Rosy. I’m so sorry I’m late….”
“Why did you, take so long….”
“Is it burning too much? Does it hurt? Where, how, damn it. The Crystal has no effect on Seongyeol at all? What kind of Sacred Relic is this!”
I heard Kalien rambling incoherently. His shock and confusion were as palpable as my own.
“Rosy, just breathe first.”
Physiological tears streamed down my face. Cool hands repeatedly wiped away the moisture on my cheeks.
Perhaps because he was a reassuring presence, with each brief contact, the magma-like Seongyeol within me gradually dulled.
I clung to him desperately, trying to breathe.
“You, you’re…. really, terrible….”
“Don’t talk. Just breathe, okay?”
“When you’re needed, hnn… if you don’t let go, never let go, then….”
“Right, yes. I’m sorry. What would I gain from this…. Rosy, let’s start with deep breathing first. I’ll count the rhythm for you.”
The collar of his shirt, where I had buried my face, became damp.
I heard him counting while patting my back, but I couldn’t match the rhythm at all.
The rapidly escalating heat had only stopped, but the mana raging beyond my control remained. The headache showed no signs of subsiding either.
This agonizing state would continue unless I drew out what had accumulated within me.
Already having crossed the threshold, I struggled with the decision.
In truth, the answer was already clear.
“This won’t do. Let’s go somewhere, anywhere. Somewhere quiet. This isn’t a good place….”
Kalien’s words were cut short. I had seized the back of his neck and forcibly pulled him down.
I kissed him to survive. For the first time.
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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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