My Body Has Been Possessed By Someone - Chapter 262

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

Chapter 262
* * *
Silvien Valentino walked down the Corridor. With each step, crimson footprints traced his path.
Now, while the Capital descended into chaos from the monster assault, Silvien had seized complete control of the Emperor’s Palace.
It hadn’t been particularly difficult. When confusion reigned from the appearance of monsters and the Black Mist, there was nothing more absolute than the word of Duke Valentino in such a crisis.
“A Black Rift has opened within the Emperor’s Palace. Everyone must evacuate immediately.”
At that command, everyone in the Palace fled in panic. While all rushed outward, only Silvien Valentino moved inward.
Everyone believed without question that Duke Valentino was entering to save His Imperial Majesty—but that was far from the truth.
“Duke Valentino? His Majesty is currently…!”
A scream. Blood erupts.
Silvien Valentino shook the blood from his hand and continued onward. Behind him, the corpse collapsed.
“Your Grace!”
“What are you doing?! This is His Majesty’s…!”
Guard Knights protecting the long Corridor rushed toward him. Every face was familiar. Which meant they were all Black Apostles.
I had known. That Teresa was not the end. That the Emperor’s surroundings were filled with Black Apostles.
‘I should have eliminated the weeds faster.’
Matters concerning the Imperial Family were sensitive, dangerous, and so I had postponed them. And now, inevitably, I found myself doing the most troublesome work of all.
“D-don’t come closer! Don’t…!”
Distant. I stepped on the nape of the Black Apostle crawling away like an insect, then continued forward. And stopped.
At the end of the long Corridor, now a mess of corpses and blood, no one remained to guard the Emperor’s bedchamber.
Silvien Valentino opened the door.
“Your Majesty.”
The Emperor, as always, was intoxicated by drugs. The Empress was beside him, and at the sight, Silvien Valentino let out a light laugh.
Once they were bitter enemies, yet now they had reconciled so perfectly.
“I pay my respects to Your Imperial Majesty.”
Silvien Valentino bowed respectfully. The Emperor’s brow furrowed.
“…Duke Valentino?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Who… said you could enter?”
“Your Majesty, please revoke the confinement order issued upon Duke Adis.”
“I… refuse.”
“Why?”
“It is an imperial decree. The Duke’s understanding is… unnecessary.”
Sluggish words. Slurred pronunciation. Silvien Valentino clicked his tongue. It appeared the Emperor had fallen victim not only to drugs but to some strange illusion magic of the Black Apostles.
How had things deteriorated to this extent?
The Emperor seemed unable to properly comprehend even the catastrophe unfolding outside. Since Teresa’s death, he had grown increasingly dependent on narcotics.
Yes, betrayed by the woman he loved. Moreover, that woman had died. It must have been a tremendous shock. Any human would have collapsed under such weight.
But.
‘Humans may collapse, but a king must not.’
And what was the result? Through the cracks of his collapse, the Black Apostles guarding the outside had manipulated his mind. They manipulated the king. They manipulated this nation.
“Your Majesty. Are you aware that a king’s incompetence is a sin?”
At those words, the Empress—drowsy from her medication—snapped her eyes open.
“How insolent, Duke Valentino.”
Silvien Valentino’s blue eyes moved slowly toward the Empress.
“The nation is crumbling! Yes, absolutely crumbling!”
The Empress was even less lucid than the Emperor.
The medication she took to suppress her chronic itching was itself an opiate, so she had been using drugs far longer than the Emperor.
And so she was far more deteriorated.
“It all started after that bitch got involved. That filthy, dark creature….”
Disjointed sentences, like the mumbling of a drunkard.
Yet for the first time, something like emotion flickered across Silvien’s eyes. Displeasure, or something akin to rage.
But he soon smiled, lifting the corners of his mouth.
“I beg your pardon for a moment of rudeness.”
Splurt!
Coarse droplets of blood sprayed across the Emperor’s cheek.
He blinked.
Duke Valentino’s hand had touched the Empress… her head…
What was happening? Was he hallucinating again?
The Emperor asked in a dazed voice.
“What are you doing?”
Then Silvien answered calmly.
“Committing an act of rudeness, I’m afraid.”
In that moment, something fell with a soft thud. It rolled toward his feet. He found himself staring into wide-open eyes.
“…!”
A shock like lightning tore through his body.
Gasping, the Emperor drew in a sharp breath. The terror of death looming before his very eyes swept away the drug’s effects in an instant.
“Is—is anyone outside!”
“No. There is no one.”
Silvien answered in his stead.
“It appears Her Majesty the Empress fell victim to a monster that infiltrated the Imperial Palace. Her remains are severely damaged.”
“What?”
“The more unfortunate truth is that Your Majesty is next to be devoured by the beast.”
The Emperor scrambled to his feet and rushed toward the door.
“Gasp!”
But he stumbled after only a few steps, tumbling forward. His jaw trembled. Why had he fallen? Why was blood pouring from his abdomen?
“Why—why would you do this…!”
Blood and foam gathered at the Emperor’s lips. Silvien answered calmly.
“A king who destroys his nation through incompetence, and a subject who brings that king to justice. Such events have occurred frequently throughout the histories of other lands. Now it has finally come to pass in the Empire as well.”
The Emperor crawled backward, shrieking as Silvien approached.
“I—I’ll quit the drugs! I won’t touch them anymore!”
Silvien Valentino stopped short before him. He tilted his head, curious. Blood-stained silver hair swayed with the motion.
“Is that truly so?”
“Yes! And I will also lift the confinement order imposed upon Duke Adis!”
“A wise decision, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor exhaled in relief. Thank heavens. The crisis was finally—!
“Had you regained your senses sooner, it would have been better for us all.”
Those were the last words the Emperor would ever hear.
Silvien Valentino stripped off his blood-soaked gloves and hurled them aside.
“Duke Valentino.”
Upon turning, Knight Guards of Valentino stood waiting. They pulled a massive cart, and when the black cloth was drawn back, the corpse of a monster was revealed.
“We have brought it.”
“Well done. I think it best we leave the monster here.”
The Emperor and Empress, along with their Guard Knights, were slain in a monster attack.
Duke Silvien Valentino, arriving late, disposed of the creature.
Thus the story would be recorded.
‘Treason, after all, lacks refinement.’
Such a vulgar tale would never be found anywhere in the historical records.
Merely an unfortunate tragedy brought about by monster attacks.
Nothing more.
* * *
Silvien Valentino rode immediately toward the World Tree Forest. Kanna was likely there.
But the moment he arrived, the World Tree scattered into smoke and vanished. The Black Rift began to seal as well.
‘What has happened here?’
Silvien Valentino drove his horse toward where he sensed a presence. There, he encountered Alexandro Adis.
“Duke Valentino.”
Alexandro Adis wore the expression of one who had been waiting for his arrival.
Indeed, he had been. Alexandro Adis had only the final stage remaining.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Alexandro Adis explained briefly what had transpired.
Had anyone else spoken such words, they would have been unbelievable—but the speaker was Alexandro Adis, a man incapable of jest.
“So you’re saying Kanna’s soul has shattered?”
“Yes.”
The price of wielding power beyond her capacity was the fragmentation of her soul.
Kanna must have heard that terrible sound of destruction. Yet she continued regardless.
“She was pulled into the spell formation.”
Everything of Kanna—her power, her life, and the fragments of her shattered soul—was drawn into the spell formation that sealed the Black Rift.
Her body’s life had been restored, but it was merely an empty shell.
“That means…?”
“It means Kanna’s spirit has slipped beyond the Black Rift, beyond the world’s wall.”
A suffocating silence fell.
Silvien Valentino clamped his mouth shut. In all his years of living, he had never heard words more terrible than these.
“So what happens to Kanna Adis?”
“She won’t be able to open her eyes until she recovers her soul.”
“Can it be found?”
Alexandro Adis nodded.
This far. Only this far.
Alexandro Adis’s path ended here.
There was nothing more he could do for her now. This very moment, this place—it was his final destination.
Someone would have to venture beyond the boundaries of this world and retrieve Kanna’s scattered pieces, but….
‘I cannot.’
Like Kanna, his soul was shattered into fragments, and death loomed near. He would draw his last breath soon.
Moreover, even the Adis clan—who were resurrected from death again and again, leaving their souls unstable—could not accomplish this. There was a risk that their souls would shatter in the process of crossing the world’s wall.
“If it can be found, will you find it?”
He pressed into Silvien Valentino’s hands a vial containing Kanna’s blood and three pages torn from a book.
These were pages from the ancient alchemical tome that Kanna had discovered—the one that had belonged to Seon-hee—pages she had torn out and kept.
One page contained the method to traverse worlds.
One page held the means to cross through time.
And the final page bore the ritual diagram to recover a soul.
“Kanna possesses a faint holy power. You’ll be able to recognize her by it.”
“So you’re telling me to search through multiple worlds like grasping at straws, using only holy power as my clue?”
“Yes. After everything is finished, return to this moment, this time period.”
At those words, Silvien Valentino let out a bitter laugh.
“This doesn’t seem like it will end in just a few years.”
Despite his words, Silvien Valentino accepted the items without hesitation. He studied the detailed script written across the torn pages, contemplating.
‘What should I do.’
Silvien Valentino never engaged in ventures where he would lose.
As he had said, this was not something that would end in merely a few years, nor something that could be summed up by the word ‘hardship’ alone.
But….
Silvien Valentino gazed intently at Kanna’s face.
There had been a time when he believed this woman was dead.
Back then, he had regretted countless things he could not do while she was alive.
‘Yes, that’s how it was.’
And so Silvien Valentino was certain of one thing.
If he ignored the possibility of this woman opening her eyes, he would likely never sleep peacefully, not even at the moment of his death.
And eventually, he would regret it again.
He was sick of regret.
“Then I’ll see you in a while.”
From that moment, a very long journey began.
In this world, only one person.
A long, solitary journey—Silvien Valentino’s alone.
* * *
A moment later, Alexandro sensed a presence and turned.
Silvien Valentino stood suddenly beside him—the man who had vanished moments before.
Silvien gazed around as though witnessing something unfamiliar for the first time: the wind brushing his cheeks, the verdant trees with their azure leaves, the crystalline expanse of sky above.
Then, at last, he looked down at his own hands.
His hands in this moment of time.
The unblemished hands of a young man, unmarred by a single line.
Alexandro asked him.
“How much time did it take?”
It took Silvien a long while to comprehend the language.
“It would be better if you didn’t know.”
Silvien spoke quietly, a smile crossing his lips.
His blue eyes shone with the serene luminescence of a star that had traversed eternity.
“You could not hear it without tears.”

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