I’m Trying to End This Possession - Chapter 324
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 324
* * *
Purgatory.
A prison that endlessly repeats memories of terrifying or painful moments.
‘As expected, the Pope chose to go to Purgatory.’
Rodrigo Windsor clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Pope Justio Grants had a cold temperament, but in reality he was closer to being a true Ramun priest than anyone else.
He wasn’t the type of person who would easily sacrifice others just to save his own life.
Still, he had held a glimmer of hope, but it was disappointing. This ability couldn’t be harvested unless it manifested on its own.
Instead, he had obtained that body containing powerful divine power and magic, so he should be satisfied with that.
‘Now, let’s see what the Pope’s purgatory is like.’
Rodrigo looked into a small mirror from the safety of his Underground Laboratory.
This mirror would show him Justio Grants’ purgatory. What could be the fear and pain of that noble Pope?
He looked in with pure curiosity, but.
‘What?’
Rodrigo furrowed his brow.
Nothing was reflected in the mirror.
Just pitch-black darkness. There was nothing in the purgatory. Not even Justio Grants’ soul.
‘Where did it disappear to?’
He had definitely dropped him into the purgatory he created. He had felt his soul falling into purgatory. But.
It had vanished without a trace.
“How can this be possible.”
Had he opened a path himself and escaped from purgatory?
There was only one case like this. Someone who couldn’t be contained by purgatory, that is, someone without pain or fear.
But surely he couldn’t be completely without painful memories?
To become a Cardinal-level priest in the Ramun faith, didn’t one have to walk the path of asceticism as a requirement?
One hundred days in the hot desert heated under the blazing sun, one hundred days on snow mountains with blizzards, one hundred days in desolate wastelands with harsh winds,
They had to endure three hundred days of such solitary ascetic training, during which countless priests died or fell to corruption.
The Pope must have gone through such a process too, so how could he not have a single fragment of painful memory?
Or perhaps. Had he overcome all pain and fear in life to the point of knowing no suffering?
Thinking this made him laugh. It was truly a quality befitting a Ramun Pope.
‘There’s a saying that one who doesn’t know true pain doesn’t know true love.’
That was what the Ramun doctrine pursued.
The Sun God considered excessive emotions or extreme passion taboo, and made abstinence, patience, tranquility, and moderation virtues.
Indeed, he was truly the favorite of such a god.
* * *
As Rodrigo expected, Justio Grants had no painful memories.
Of course, there had been many difficult moments in his life, but that was all. No matter what past he recalled, it couldn’t torment his heart.
Perhaps because of this, he had never once encountered nightmares, and for such a Justio, purgatory was useless.
Justio’s soul escaped from purgatory—that strange dimensional space—and briefly left the Human World.
In that instant, drawn by some enormous power, he crossed the ‘boundary’…
He heard it.
Not with his ears, but with his soul.
The voice of the sun, conveyed not through language but through will.
That sacred voice was both an instant and eternity, a single word yet a great epic like a long book.
“Lyos. There’s something I want,”
The story of a woman tempting a man to bring demon fragments up to the Human World.
“Just tell me anything.”
And the story of that man—Lyos—who was bewitched by that woman and tainted by evil, beginning to walk the path of a traitor.
It was a story of denying the Sun God, rejecting him, dishonoring him, and furthermore trying to bring evil beings into the world.
‘I see.’
Finally, Justio understood.
‘It wasn’t that divine oracles wouldn’t come down, but that they couldn’t come down.’
Lyos. His nephew had broken all the sacred relics through which oracles could descend. Even what remained had been manipulated.
The oracle telling Justio Grants to ascend to the imperial throne was also false.
It was Lyos’ scheme.
He wanted Justio to grow close to Dana and harbor sympathy, pity, or even greater favor toward her.
Since it actually happened that way, Lyos’ plan could be considered excellent. Justio had truly sympathized with Dana.
But that was all.
That was a very private emotion, and Justio didn’t make his decisions based on such personal feelings.
And now Justio knew what he had to do.
The voice of the sun was resonating and echoing through his entire soul.
‘Before twenty suns set and the twenty-first sun rises…’
That is, before 20 days passed, he was commanded to definitely execute Dana.
“That woman is a witch!”
Cardinal Dominic had been right.
“Because of that woman, This World will fall into the hands of demons!”
Dana must definitely be eliminated.
That role was his duty as the Ramun Pope.
If he didn’t do it, Lyos’ rebellion would succeed. If that happened, the Sun God would be forever banished from This World and lose all influence.
This World would be completely tainted by demonic power.
“-don’t!”
He would absolutely not let that happen.
“No, stop!”
Soon after, Justio’s soul descended back to the Human World, to his body. His soul gradually permeated his flesh, and his five senses began to awaken.
“The Pope’s soul has escaped from purgatory! So that soul will soon return to his body! So hurry!”
“I said no!”
“Get out of the way right now! I have to kill the Pope!”
His faintly returning hearing detected loud voices.
“Why are you doing this, Dana!”
“Why, you ask. Isn’t it natural to try to save my life’s benefactor?”
These were the voices of Rodrigo and Dana.
“So? Because the Pope saved you, you’re going to risk your life for the Pope too?”
“You don’t understand, do you? Well, you are a monster after all. How could a monster understand humans?”
Was his soul and body not yet fully integrated?
Justio tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn’t lift. Like being paralyzed by sleep paralysis, he couldn’t move even a fingertip.
“Move aside, Dana.”
“No, I absolutely won’t move!”
“Really? Won’t you move even after this?”
“What are you doing!”
Then, Justio felt something covering his body. Something warm and soft embraced his body as if protecting him. And…
“Ah!”
Crack!
A sharp sound echoed.
A violent sound as if tearing and ripping flesh.
And very close by, right next to his ear, he heard a woman’s groan.
“Ah, ugh…”
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The clearer his senses became, the more ominous it felt. This was definitely the sound of skin being torn.
There was no doubt about it.
The woman wrapped around his body was being attacked.
“You must not forget that the Pope is your enemy, Dana!”
That voice belonged to the man. To Rodrigo.
“You’re too emotional. What loyalty could you possibly owe to someone you can never walk the same path with!”
And Justio, held in her embrace and protected, felt it all completely.
The trajectory of something very sharp slashing across the woman’s back, the convulsions each time, the pained groans, and despite it all, the hot and fervent embrace that stubbornly held and endured for him.
He felt it with all five senses, again and again.
Utterly powerless. Unable to move even a fingertip.
“Fine, let’s see how long you can endure. Keep holding him like that.”
Crack!
“Don’t you know that if you miss this moment, there won’t be another chance to kill the Pope?”
Crack!
“You will surely regret this, Dana!”
It was being transmitted so vividly.
The pain the woman was experiencing, the bone-chillingly excruciating agony felt too clearly, and yet he could do nothing, so thick veins bulged above Justio’s neck.
Stop.
“Fine, do as you wish.”
Stop.
“I was planning to extract your soul from that body anyway. As you wish, let that body meet its end together with the Pope.”
Stop!
At that moment, finally Justio’s soul and body became completely one.
Justio’s eyes snapped open. At the same time, he stretched out his hand and caught what was rushing toward her.
The weapon that had been tearing her apart all this time. This thing burning in dark red was a whip formed from hot magic power.
“Ugh, urgh…”
After pushing the woman who had collapsed on top of him to the side, Justio roughly yanked the whip. Then whoever was holding it was dragged over like a scarecrow.
“Kugh!”
Justio grabbed that being’s throat as if to bite it off.
He was certain it would be Rodrigo’s face, but he was wrong. It wasn’t anyone’s face, and wasn’t even human to begin with.
Like a clay doll, it was a lump of red magic power clumped together, a monster in human form.
Rodrigo Windsor must have temporarily possessed his experimental subject.
“Rodrigo Windsor.”
Justio spoke to that experimental subject. His voice was low and cracked.
“Listen carefully.”
“Kgh, kgugh.”
“As you said, you missed your chance to kill me. So I will come find you.”
Crack. Justio squeezed its neck as if to crush it.
“You cannot escape from me.”
The next moment, the experimental subject burst apart in his grasp. Only after it was completely destroyed did Justio turn his gaze to the woman lying beside him.
The woman who had been holding his body all along.
Her back was in tatters.
Even worse than what he had expected from the sounds…
“Your, Your Holiness.”
With a retch, Dana spat up blood while lying face down. Her lips were stained bright red.
“…In Purgatory, how…”
Dana stretched her blood-soaked hand toward him. As if she wanted to confirm his safety.
“…”
Justio did not take her hand. Like a stone statue, he just stood there frozen as if even his fingertips had hardened.
Then Dana grabbed his wrist firmly.
“Are you… safe…”
“…”
“…Thank goodness… truly…”
That was the end.
Dana closed her eyes as if she had lost consciousness. He could feel the strength draining from her fingers that gripped his wrist.
Soon she began to slowly fall downward.
Dana’s hand slowly brushed past Justio’s palm as it descended. Her tender fingertips, hot with fever and soaked in blood, scraped against each joint of his fingers as they slipped away smoothly…
Just before the intersection that would never come again ended forever, Justio caught the edge of her sleeve.
Very briefly.
For a moment so short it could be called an instant, he held the tip of her sleeve with his fingertips and… preserved it in this distance.
Soon after, he let go without regret.
Thud. Dana’s hand that had been suspended in mid-air fell to the floor.
“…”
After a moment, Justio looked down at his own hand.
Finger marks remained on his wrist like a brand, red as rose petals.
The moment he saw it, a premonition washed over him. It was a prophecy so certain that there was no way to deny it.
A nightmare.
This woman will become my nightmare.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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