Isn’t Being A Wicked Woman Much Better? - Chapter 180

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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 180
Pitch-black darkness descended, swallowing the surroundings in an instant of absolute shadow.
Uuuong— uuuong—
The air vibrated with ominous portent. The sickening sound of flesh tearing away gave way to the grotesque cracking of bones and joints twisting out of place.
“…!”
And there, crouched in the corner of the Altar, was someone witnessing the descent of a demon.
It was Miya Binoshu.
Long before the Fourth Empress appeared, I had been here in the Underground Cavern, sifting through records pertaining to demon summoning rituals.
After Albert’s death, the Black Mages’ surveillance of me had grown lax. While Francois Marquis was preoccupied with legal proceedings over illegal fund embezzlement, I seized the opportunity to slip away from the Marquis’s estate and had been reading texts about demons within the cavern.
‘Francois Marquis said the gateway to the Demon Realm would soon widen and a crimson moon would rise….’
I gnawed at my lips as I scanned the records inscribed upon flayed human skin.
‘If only I could make a contract with a demon myself….’
I could no longer trust the Fourth Empress. She had boasted of killing Deborah Simour, yet every plan had failed.
‘The Third Prince is even more foolish.’
Deborah Simour had not only survived but received a magnificent birthday gift that all the young ladies of nobility envied, and now she sought to steal my position as the ‘Saint’.
‘Even among the Priests, some have begun to suspect me of being a fraud.’
A fraud.
Since hearing that Deborah Simour was alive, I had not slept peacefully even once. Tormented by horrific nightmares every single day, my nerves grew increasingly frayed, and my hatred toward the young lady deepened.
‘If only you were dead, I could remain not a fraud but a Saint whom everyone praises as virtuous.’
If Deborah Simour disappeared, the Fourth Empress would cease her fracturing, and the people of the Empire would naturally believe I had received the blessing of the Divine.
‘Yes. I only need you gone.’
I, who had devoted myself to charity in the Slum District, was the true Saint. A spoiled, reckless young lady who had indulged in every luxury being called a Saint? It was preposterous.
‘How exactly can I summon a powerful demon?’
The methods for summoning demons recorded in the texts were somewhat abstract, like poetry. The only passage I could comprehend was that one could connect with a demon through blood as a medium.
I drove a sharp blade into my forearm and let my blood drip onto the summoning circle of Lucifer, which bore the form of a hexagram. As I swallowed the sharp pain and stared at the magic circle filling with blood, I heard heavy footsteps echoing from somewhere.
I quickly hid in the narrow space behind the Altar.
‘The Fourth Empress?’
Watching the Fourth Empress appear with disheveled hair, I held my breath. She thrashed about wildly, hurling curses at Simour, then suddenly began cutting her own arm—she looked utterly mad.
As I shrank back, watching the Empress’s blood creeping toward me, my vision suddenly went pitch-black and I swallowed a gasp. I could see nothing, yet an intense and desolate presence seemed to strangle my throat.
‘A demon….’
Moments later, the sound of bones twisting echoed through the darkness before ceasing, and sparks rekindled above the extinguished candelabra. Beneath the sickly blue flames, the shadow of a demon with goat-like horns wavered and danced.
—You are one who carries sacred blood and malice….
I heard the voice flowing along my spine once more.
It was the demon’s chilling whisper I had heard when I first participated in the blood ritual following Ophelia.
* * *
“There’s something there!”
“We’ve found the Fourth Empress!”
Near the Imperial Palace, the area surrounding the Sky Forest was already encircled by the Tower Battle Unit led by Duke Simour and Isidore’s White Knight Order.
Since both the Simour and Visconti families had pressured the Imperial Court to authorize a search for the leader of the Black Mages who had attacked the ship, the Imperial sanction was granted swiftly.
Palace servants testified that the Fourth Empress had headed toward the Sky Forest, and as Isidore had already deployed informants around the Imperial Palace to monitor her movements, tracking her whereabouts proved simple.
The mages conducting a search through the darkened forest using flight magic soon discovered the Fourth Empress slowly emerging from a deep cavern beneath a hillside surrounded by gnarled tree roots.
The Fourth Empress’s base of operations was not even particularly far from the forest’s entrance.
“There!”
Duke Simour, having completed his spell preparations, swiftly surrounded the Fourth Empress with his mages. Despite being encircled by enemies on all sides, the Fourth Empress showed no sign of alarm.
“Why does she seem so composed?”
“Could she have given up entirely?”
Then someone caught sight of the Fourth Empress’s golden pupils, slit vertically like a reptile’s, and recoiled in horror.
“There really was someone within the Imperial Family connected to Black Magic!”
The Fourth Empress, who had been standing in silence, suddenly let out a low murmur.
“…So Deborah Simour knew from the beginning that I was the mastermind.”
Watching the magical forces and knights converge swiftly as if predicting her movements, the Fourth Empress let out a hollow laugh.
She, who had orchestrated rifts from the shadows and manipulated the Imperial Family, nobility, and even priests alike, now felt the pathetic sting of being manipulated within another’s grasp for the first time. She laughed softly, then slowly raised her arms.
As the voluminous sleeves slid downward, a pitch-black beast’s arm, grown from the severed stump, was revealed, and black-tinged flames erupted from all directions like molten lava bursting forth.
“Deploy the defensive barrier!”
Cassius Elder, who had been assisting Duke Simour at his side, cried out.
The black flames surged fiercely, but were blocked by the robust defensive magic cast in multiple layers and extinguished without spreading across the entire forest.
However, this was merely an elaborate deception orchestrated by the Fourth Empress.
“…!”
The Fourth Empress’s black arm, densely covered in scales, suddenly swelled to an enormous size. Immediately after, pitch-black claws gleamed sharply as they hurtled rapidly toward Duke Simour’s heart.
Whoosh!
But that surprise attack was intercepted by a pure white arrow that came streaking through the darkness.
“Why are you here?! Didn’t I tell you to stay home?!”
Duke Simour, having discerned that the Fourth Empress possessed formidable power, erupted in anger at Deborah’s sudden arrival, and she responded in an unruffled voice.
“You hardly have the leisure to scold me right now, Father.”
A luminous aura—witnessed only by a select few scholars—materialized around Deborah Simour, and the Tower Elders surrounding Duke Simour gasped in astonishment.
“That, that is!”
“Holy power taking the form of magic!”
The holy power, the moment it took the shape of a pointed arrow, flew fiercely toward the Fourth Empress.
“Deborah Simour!!”
But the pitch-black aura emanating from the Fourth Empress shattered the arrow of light effortlessly.
“How dare you touch my precious child, who will become Emperor!”
“Emperor? Who would acknowledge that pathetic fool as Emperor?”
Deborah Simour shot back sharply, and the Fourth Empress began to lose her composure, descending into a rampage. The paternal love of Duke Simour and the sight of his daughter protecting her father had struck the Fourth Empress’s most sensitive nerve.
The pitch-black scales clinging to the Fourth Empress’s arm expanded their reach progressively, and her left face darkened to a pitch-black hue in stark contrast to her pale right side.
She shrieked a piercing cry while releasing black energy.
“My son! Where is my son Ravi?! Give me that child at once!!”
“The Third Prince is already finished. Because of your endless greed!”
Deborah cried out as she cast holy magic.
“You loose-tongued wretch! Cunning bitch! I will drag you down to the very depths of hell itself and ensure you never see light again for all your days!”
“How dare you! Who do you think—”
At that moment, Duke Simour roared in fury. He, who had always maintained composure, unleashed violent emotion and conjured a towering spear of ice. The lance, condensed with the magical power of a 7th-class mage, pierced through the Empress’s chest.
“Why are you tormenting my daughter… my innocent daughter?”
The Fourth Empress was not alone in her rage at losing her son. Duke Simour had been swallowing an icy, piercing anger as he felt his own helplessness accumulate over time.
Ever since Deborah had faced mortal danger in the Library, Duke Simour had to exercise endless restraint, suppressing the urge to immediately lead his private forces and overturn the Empire itself.
“I’m fine. After all, I survived, didn’t I?”
“Deborah….”
“I will survive no matter what. So please don’t worry.”
Recalling Deborah’s weary face as she returned on the day of the Library arson, smiling weakly as she looked at me, I could no longer contain the fury I had been suppressing all this time.
“Cough, cough!”
Duke Simour unleashed superhuman power, casting advanced ice-binding magic in rapid succession. The overwhelming might displayed by a 7th-class Grand Mage left the Fourth Empress helpless and caught in the onslaught.
With Duke Simour’s direct intervention, the tide of battle swiftly turned in our favor, and a total assault was unleashed upon her as she began transforming from human form into that of a black dragon.
Kyaoooooo!
Wings erupted from the Fourth Empress’s back as her body convulsed violently. She opened her maw wide and unleashed a black breath like that of a demonic dragon from the abyss. Where the toxic breath touched the forest, all life drained away, leaving only blackened, withered remains.
‘That is….’
Deborah Simour’s eyes widened in shock. A vision from a dream suddenly came flooding back to her.

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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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