My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 92
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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 92
Silmare’s sharp cry pierced the air.
In that instant, the Crown Prince coughed up a spray of blood.
He scraped the dark mass across the floor with his boot, then laughed low, his lips crimson-stained.
The moment Kesenor and Agnes arrived beside him, the Crown Prince kicked Kesenor aside and seized Agnes.
Had there ever been a time when he’d ignored his limits so thoroughly and issued commands anyway?
The Crown Prince knew well enough that he couldn’t coerce Celesta indefinitely.
Yet now he had no choice.
When was it?
When he’d first grasped the ability to bend Celesta to his will as he pleased.
Balthior had fallen ill for an entire week after that—barking orders at her like one plays with a doll.
That was when he’d learned the cost: push too hard, and she could die.
No matter how freely he could control Celesta, there were limits to what he could demand of her.
The same held true for anyone else.
The stronger the opponent, the more of himself he had to burn through to suppress them.
‘But she is your weakness.’
Somehow, this woman had made him break his own commands.
And if she possessed some strange ability to reverse the situation—
Kesenor sprang to his feet, but a blade had already come to rest against Agnes’s throat.
“Balthior…!”
In that moment, meeting Kesenor’s eyes sent a thrill down his spine.
The man who always bent his head with gentle deference, who wore submission like a mask, now laid bare his fury without pretense.
It was intoxicating—his whole body trembled with delight.
So in the end, the hostage in his grasp was worth more than anything else.
A mere baron’s daughter buried in this provincial backwater!
“Don’t move carelessly, Marquis Kesenor. You might be able to use Magic to stop me, but my hand could be faster—couldn’t it?”
Yet he couldn’t afford to linger.
Kesenor Celesta was never safe without a collar.
The Non-human Race across the way presented the same problem.
‘Should I withdraw now?’
As the Crown Prince considered it, he suddenly recalled the mark that had gleamed on her hand and Kesenor’s.
“Ah, what was that just now? A Seal Mark born from a Covenant between you two?”
Keeping the blade pressed to her throat, the Crown Prince seized Agnes’s wrist and lifted it.
A Leaf Mark blazed across the back of her hand.
Seized by a sudden, violent premonition, the Crown Prince bit down on the edge of his glove and tore it off roughly.
His own hand bore the same mark.
Another Seed.
But unlike Kesenor’s, this one shone crimson.
Both Agnes and the Crown Prince’s marks glowed blood-red.
‘What is this?’
Why did a mark identical to the Marquis’s appear on him as well?
Looking up in bewilderment, he found Kesenor, Silmare, and Ignitan staring at him in shock.
“No…!”
Then came a child’s sharp cry of anguish.
“Sister!”
Amy screamed from the second-floor railing, her face flushed crimson.
Lapitor, standing behind her, held her firmly back as she lurched toward the edge.
His gaze too was locked on the marks on the Crown Prince’s and Agnes’s hands, wavering in confusion.
“Ah.”
The Crown Prince smiled, his mouth curling up as comprehension dawned.
He couldn’t say for certain, but this mark seemed to be a symbol of great significance.
And the child—Amy—was the only one who knew it would manifest on him, the Crown Prince himself.
There was something else besides.
Amy Laberose clearly understood the meaning of the red mark that had appeared on the Crown Prince’s and Agnes’s hands.
“Let me go!”
Meanwhile, Agnes had eyes only for Amy from the moment she saw her.
The turning tide of events felt deeply ominous.
Kesenor, who had seemed ready to act, went rigid the instant he saw the mark on his hand; the others too froze in place.
Why had the mark appeared on the Crown Prince as well?
Was he also a Seed?
But nothing mattered more than Amy.
The fact that she was here, in the very place where the battle raged, made it feel as though his heart would stop altogether.
A year ago, the sight of Amy vanishing beyond the Rift was still vivid in his mind.
If I lose you again here, what will I do?
If someone wounds you, if I lose control and swing my blade—what then?
“Run! Now!”
Before leaving Amy’s side, Agnes had made a plea to Lapitor.
‘If you could just stay beside Amy…’
‘I can’t leave you and run, though.’
‘I’m not asking you to leave right now. Only if danger comes. Press the red button three times, and it will Teleport you both to safety. Please, I’m begging you—watch over Amy.’
This had to be that moment. So why was Lapitor standing frozen, doing nothing?
As Agnes thrashed in panic, she noticed that Lapitor was staring blankly at something glowing on the Crown Prince’s hand—a red Seed.
What could that possibly matter?
She would have torn the mark from her own palm if she could.
Just as she was about to shout at Lapitor again—
A sensation like blood draining from her entire body made her stagger.
In alarm, she looked up at the Crown Prince, and found he was watching her intently.
“Agnes Laberose.”
It felt as though something were being pulled from her through the hand he gripped.
The mysterious power that had only just begun to bloom and rise within her was rapidly being drained away.
And with each moment that passed, the mark on the Crown Prince’s hand burned a deeper, more brilliant red.
She tried to wrench her hand free in terror, but the Crown Prince held her wrist in a grip so tight it hurt.
“Let go!”
The Crown Prince coughed blood again.
But the amount was less than before.
Lowering the blade that had been aimed at Agnes’s throat, the Crown Prince let out a low laugh.
‘By now, her insides should be writhing.’
The moment he grasped her true worth.
Like a dam bursting, a torrent of that scalding, nameless power flooded into him from her.
It was as though the light that had allowed Silmare to cast Magic became his own.
It healed the shattered remnants within him from forcing Kesenor, and filled the void with new strength.
And in that moment, he felt as though he might become an omnipotent god himself.
“Don’t move, Celesta.”
That earlier command must have been his last chance.
Kesenor, who had been slowly rising to his feet, froze in place.
There was resistance—he could feel it—but it seemed that was the limit of his strength.
A thrill ran through him.
‘Normally, he would have lost consciousness the instant I gave the order.’
Kesenor must have noticed that something was wrong.
There was pleasure in watching the shock cloud those proud eyes.
Suppressing the urge to laugh aloud, the Crown Prince gave orders to his knights.
“Bring the child to me.”
Lapitor held Amy protectively, but the knights quickly encircled them both.
And so the body of the woman struggling in his arms went rigid.
“Ha… hahaha!”
At last, the laughter burst forth unbidden.
“So that’s why you all gathered here—because of her!”
The hidden Non-human Races had broken a thousand-year taboo and emerged for this reason alone.
“Celesta as well!”
Because they had found a treasure that might perhaps stand against him.
This woman was the cause of it all.
“But it has all come to nothing.”
Absolute certainty.
With Agnes, he could bend even Kesenor—whom he had scarcely been able to suppress—like a slave.
Omnipotent dominion.
It was in his hands.
“I will never let her go.”
The Empire was his, so everything within it—including her—was his as well.
Soon, not only the Empire but this entire continent would fall under Kardium’s rule.
And thus Balthior made his declaration.
It was the first meeting between Balthior and Agnes from the novel—exactly as Amy had desperately tried to prevent.
He held her struggling form against him with brute force.
“From now on, you belong to me, Agnes Laberose.”
* * *
Amy couldn’t even scream.
The tragedy that Agnes, the heroine of the novel, could not escape.
She had traveled across the entire continent, desperate to prevent it.
Had it all been for nothing?
Through her vision, pulsing crimson.
A scene from the novel she’d read in her past life unfolded before her eyes like a film.
Agnes, a fallen noblewoman, wandered the realm as if fleeing from something.
It was around that time that she once worked sorting Mana Stones in the Celesta Territory.
But Kesenor never discovered her there, and afterward, Agnes encountered the Crown Prince, who had come to that area in secret inspection.
The moment the Crown Prince grasped her hand, seized by an inexplicable compulsion, a crimson mark bloomed across the backs of both their hands.
And with it came a savage possessiveness that consumed him entirely.
‘Did I fall for her at first sight over some woman like this?’
Balthior was bewildered, but he saw no reason to resist.
As master of the Empire, he had every right to possess her, who belonged to the Empire.
Above all, she was nothing more than a commoner.
Soon after bringing Agnes to the Imperial Palace, Balthior came to understand something.
The emotion he felt was not lust, but a profound sense of completion—as though a fundamental wellspring of power that had always been lacking in him was finally being filled.
She could grant him power divine in its magnitude.
“Look, Agnes! With you at my side, I can reign supreme over all. When I command, everyone crawls like dogs, too terrified to disobey!”
Realizing he could oppress not only Kesenor but even those others who had dared treat him with disrespect, Balthior locked Agnes away.
She was a treasure he could never afford to lose.
Of course, when she refused to be docile and threw herself from a high balcony to escape, she did not die.
Balthior found even that appealing.
No matter how high she leapt from, no matter if she threw herself upon blades, she bore not a single wound.
Though her power was pitifully fragile, her body was as steel—so when he seized her in her desperate flight and handled her roughly, she would not break.
Balthior used her without restraint.
The method was simple.
All he needed to do was catch her as she fled and suffered, and hunger for her strength—and he would have what he desired.
Each time, the Seed marked upon the back of her hand would burn with searing heat, leaving scars like a brand, but such pain was trifling compared to the power that flooded his being.
After he drained her strength, she would always collapse like something utterly depleted, pitiful and vacant.
Of course, it mattered nothing to Balthior.
“You need only live, Agnes.”
Gazing into eyes that grew dimmer with each passing day, Balthior whispered softly.
“Even if you remain at my side and draw breath here, that alone will be of use to me.”
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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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