I Woke Up from Hibernation and Found a Husband - Chapter 93

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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 93
The fate of twins became bound as one. It was never merely a matter of life and death.
“No sorcerer has ever broken this contract. Not even I, the one bound by it.”
Such was the price paid for eternity. Yet Sio harbored no regrets in those days.
“That was my ignorance and my arrogance.”
Though their fates were intertwined, the lives they lived diverged irrevocably. Sio, revered for possessing strength unprecedented and destined to surpass the Village Sorcerer Leader. Tenel, cursed by prophecy, burdened with feeble power, condemned to live as a shadow.
With each passing year, the extended life—defiant of their shared destiny—pressed ever heavier upon Tenel’s shoulders.
“Look at him, parading about with his head held high just because he’s Sio’s brother. A parasite clinging to another’s lifeline.”
Sharp words became daggers that tormented Tenel. The brighter Sio shone, the deeper the darkness that consumed Tenel grew.
At fifteen, Tenel found himself trapped alone in the Underground Sanctuary beneath the Village—a place elders had forbidden anyone to approach. There, he encountered another turning point.
“It was an Underground Temple where the remains of the Hardline Faction’s leader and his associates were sealed—those who had died cursing with all their might.”
Wretched souls who had breathed their last while chanting curses born of resentment toward Berus and Sio’s Clan.
“Malevolent energy seeped through the loosened seal and consumed Tenel.”
Kill Berus.
Destroy the Empire.
Take vengeance upon those in the Village who tormented me.
I suffer so—why should they not?
Vengeance. Vengeance.
By the time Sio sensed the situation and rescued Tenel, the boy was already muttering curses, consumed by the vengeful spirits of the dead.
“So that corruption at that moment is what made him a murderer?”
Claire’s formal speech had returned, and Sio offered a bitter smile.
“That was not yet the moment.”
At that time, Sio faced a choice: seal Tenel along with the wretched entities, or—
“I intended to die with Tenel then.”
Kenneth closed his eyes as though he had anticipated this choice.
“If it could not be undone, if the malice already embedded could not be expelled—I wanted to abandon everything and leave together.”
But he could not.
Sio awoke in a familiar room weeks later.
“My Clan could not relinquish my power. While I lay in a comatose state, they sealed Tenel and saved me.”
The greedy elders of the Village would not accept losing Sio’s strength and potential.
He despaired.
A seal performed by the lives of dozens of sorcerers could not be easily undone, even by Sio. Moreover, if he forced it open through sheer power, Tenel’s very soul risked being shattered and annihilated.
“That is when time stopped for this body.”
With half of himself—Tenel—sealed away and frozen in time, Sio’s own time ceased to flow as well.
“They wished to make me a living god.”
Though Sio resolved to merge with the Empire, the Empire itself was preoccupied with erasing indigenous forces from history. As generations passed and identity eroded, Sio’s Clan sought an anchor—and their gaze fell upon Sio himself.
A being possessing boundless potential to replace the vanished Sacred Sanctuary. Yet Sio, utterly exhausted by Imber’s blind fanaticism, ultimately abandoned his Clan.
“After that, Imber—having lost its center—was consumed by mutual distrust and destroyed itself. The Empire, too, saw no reason to record the existence of those indigenous forces.”
For countless ages after his Clan’s collapse, Sio waited for Tenel’s seal to weaken.
“I believed only I could end that child. Arcadia was an organization I created to endure that waiting.”
Despite his unchildlike prudence, his essence remained fundamentally human.
Loneliness, hope, anger, ennui—to soothe the multitude of emotions within him, the organization he had founded alone gradually evolved into a vast entity over countless years.
“When the time came, I intended to abandon everything and depart. But even that was my arrogance.”
One day, Tenel’s seal shattered abruptly. It was deliberate intervention.
“The layered barriers were destroyed by a formidable supernatural ability.”
When Sio detected the change and located the Sealing Location, Tenel was already gone. Not only Tenel, but the skeletal remains brimming with vengeful spirits had vanished as well.
“If supernatural ability was used, was it the work of Empire citizens?”
“Partially. It appeared they had joined forces with descendants of Imber’s Hardline Faction survivors.”
The convergence of the Hardline Faction’s descendants—those who sought to massacre Berus and reclaim the sacred rain—and the forces of the Empire aiming to overturn its entrenched power structure.
“But by the time I traced them through Arcadia, they had already been consumed by Tenel.”
Tenel, brimming with the morale of the dead instead of meager mana, had become one with the vengeful spirits entirely. The hatred toward Berus, the resentment of centuries spent suffering in sealing—those who had not comprehended this weight were devoured by the specter they themselves had awakened and met their end.
“To a specter hungry for power, they were appetizing prey.”
After the massacre, Tenel concealed his form and rapidly grew stronger in darkness, feeding on the sorcery and supernatural abilities he had absorbed.
“I attempted to stop him, but it proved impossible. Once the essence within him transformed, we found ourselves on parallel lines—unable to intervene with one another.”
Like a gap forming when a finger touches a mirror, a strange chasm bloomed between them.
Moreover, whenever Sio attempted to directly capture him or intervene in his actions, Tenel’s power would grow stronger, as though absorbing Sio’s own strength.
“So you intervened indirectly through Mother and others?”
“Yes. I wish I could have used more people, but as those who knew the full truth increased, Umbra became more fortified, as if it had gained legitimacy.”
Like how ‘fear’ gives form to something encountered in darkness the moment one ‘perceives’ it—Tenel had long since become something that could no longer be called human, a bizarre entity altogether.
“If merely knowing the full truth influences him, then telling us should be acceptable?”
Sio nodded at Theodore’s question.
“Now it is. Our story has entered its final act, to the point where such trivial matters can no longer affect us.”
“Final act?”
“I learned through pursuing Tenel that ordinary methods cannot capture him.”
An existence that slips away like an illusion whenever grasped. After several failures, Sio changed his approach. If he could not capture him by any means, why not instead set a trap at the location where they were headed?
“A total lunar eclipse occurring three months hence. That day, all celestial bodies align in a single line—a most extraordinary occasion.”
For Imber, the moon is the symbol of mana and life. At the moment of greatest vitality, the cosmic order shifts and shadow consumes the moon.
“Light and darkness, life and death—when all boundaries between them blur in that instant, the boundary between Tenel and myself will also blur, allowing us to intervene with one another.”
A period that arrives perhaps once every thousand years. Both sides were targeting that very day.
* * *
Inside the carriage returning to House Voltier.
Claire and Theodore gazed blankly out the window, their expressions heavy with thought.
“Claire.”
Theodore was the first to gather his wits. He gazed at Veronica’s keepsake in Claire’s hands and asked her carefully.
“Are you alright? You’ve just witnessed your parents’ final moments.”
At those words, Claire recalled the Tomb of Veronica she had seen before parting with Sio.
‘Leaving Veronica’s remains in the Public Cemetery was a warning directed at me.’
Sio, who had recovered Veronica’s body, had concealed her Tomb deep within the Greenhouse. Along with it lay several other gravestones.
“It still feels unreal.”
The helpless child had grown, and touched upon the truths her parents had concealed. Despite now knowing what she had long wondered about, what she felt was not relief but profound sorrow and rage.
‘Mother.’
I longed to see my parents now. Even if only briefly, even if just a single exchange—wouldn’t this parched ache in my heart finally subside if I could speak with them?
‘But that’s impossible, so all that remains is vengeance.’
As my heart darkened and deepened, Theodore spoke as though he’d discovered something in the box.
“Claire, the fabric at the bottom of the box. I think you should lift it.”
Theodore had noticed the blue velvet cloth lining the box’s interior was slightly raised at one corner.
“Hmm?”
As I carefully lifted the fabric away, crude letters carved into the box’s bottom came into view—rough, uneven characters etched as if with a small dagger by hand.
‘I love you, Claire. Be happy.’
Tears welled up in an instant, falling drop by drop into the box. How long had it been since I’d wept like a child? I couldn’t even remember.
Without a word, Theodore drew my shoulders toward him and held me carefully in his embrace. The steady rhythm of his touch soothed my heart.
‘Yes, don’t focus only on what’s been lost.’
The warmth radiating from Theodore steadied me. This warmth—the first I had truly managed to protect.
‘There’s still so much left.’
Problems remained to be resolved. This was no longer merely a matter of vengeance.
‘To protect.’
We both vowed in silence to fight for the sake of protecting those we cherish.

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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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