Queen of Revenge - Chapter 71

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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 71
* * *
Dietrich could not believe what was unfolding before his eyes.
From the moment he ventured into the Unregistered Territory, he had steeled himself for the worst.
The battlefield was an endless succession of new trials. Without risking one’s life, nothing could be seized.
Yet he had never imagined something this horrific would occur.
A Demon descended upon Prince Emeric, tearing savagely at his left chest.
Aaaaaahhhhh—!
Prince Emeric’s scream echoed across the frozen expanse.
Dietrich’s face drained of all color.
[Demons devour the human heart.]
A passage from Kairon Winterbark’s report crashed down in my mind.
What had been mere text now materialized before my eyes as horrifying reality.
At some point, Prince Emeric’s screams ceased. His body, convulsing violently, went limp.
‘He’s… dead…?’
The Demon, its face buried in Prince Emeric’s chest, lifted its head and licked its lips. Within the black crystalline structure hanging from its neck, crimson light surged like waves.
[Hah, I thought I was actually going to starve. Why has my luck been so terrible since last time…]
The horses, seized by terror, reared and thrashed.
Some threw their riders and bolted in the direction Prince Emeric’s horse had vanished.
Meanwhile, the Demon’s body had grown to its waist and pelvis. Bracing itself on two arms, it resembled nothing so much as an enormous spider.
The Demon’s tongue repeatedly swept across its lips. The expression of one parched with thirst.
Dietrich understood in a flash of lightning.
It was unsatisfied.
One human was not enough. It craved more flesh.
“Fall… retreat!”
The objective had been achieved regardless.
Prince Emeric was dead. With his heart torn from his living body, survival was impossible!
To avoid meeting Prince Emeric’s wretched fate, I had to flee immediately.
Dietrich wheeled his horse around and kicked its flank hard. In that same instant, the Demon that had regenerated its thigh began pursuing him.
It was not alone.
The snowy field moved with a sound like serpents slithering. Shadows approaching from beyond the blizzard multiplied.
The horde of Demons, lured by cunning bait, trembled with excitement at the feast laid before them.
“Aaahhh! Help me!”
The Guard Knights shrieked and fled in Dietrich’s wake.
The ravenous Demons gave chase. A few sluggish mercenaries and knights were devoured in moments.
“Help me, come with me! Don’t abandon me—, aaahhhhh!”
“I can’t let go of this—!”
Those who thrust their desperate, reaching comrades into the Demons’ jaws drove their horses forward like madmen.
Corpses accumulated across the snowy field. A truly abhorrent sight.
Kairon Winterbark watched the scene with cold indifference as the Fortress Army soldiers approached him one by one.
“All the effort we put into driving them here has borne fruit, Commander.”
“I’ve roughly organized the rest—we just need to burn it. The ones who chased after the Second Prince should be dealt with in front of the Fortress.”
“Running away with their tails between their legs at a sight like this? The Elite Forces aren’t much to speak of.”
They each held fragments of Demon flesh in their hands. It was something they had repeated countless times over the past several years.
“I’ll recover Prince Emeric’s body for now. Goodness, they really picked it clean.”
“Commander, what should we do with this?”
Cedric held up a piece of the Demon.
“Should we burn it? Or do you need it?”
Kairon Winterbark said nothing, instead staring down at his own hands, slick with blood. Then he glanced at Emeric’s corpse sprawled across the ground.
That moment when Emeric had spotted me—the look in his eyes had been slightly unsettling. That terror, as if he were facing something inhuman.
It was nothing new. This place, this stench of blood, the feel of flesh fragments, even the corpses of humans torn apart by Demons—I had grown so accustomed to it all that I felt nothing anymore.
I didn’t even think of myself as human anymore. I had been born human, certainly, but now—both physically and mentally—I could hardly be called merely human.
So it was strange that my feelings were so peculiar.
“Don’t get hurt. Neither external nor internal wounds.”
Was it because of that concern?
Because of that woman who treated me as though I were an ordinary person who could be easily wounded and scarred?
Kairon Winterbark moved his lips, which seemed oddly reluctant to part.
“No, give me a handkerchief. I want to wipe away the blood.”
* * *
Dietrich ran with his tail between his legs.
Partway through, he finally fell from his horse.
He snatched the reins of the Adjutant’s horse riding beside him and clung to them.
“Get down!”
“Y-Your Majesty…!”
Whether the Adjutant fell or not, Dietrich mounted the riderless horse and rode with all his strength.
After riding desperately, the Fortress finally came into view. A spark of hope flickered.
“Open the gates!”
Dietrich screamed with all the strength he could muster.
“Open the gates at once! Hurry!”
But the Castle Gate did not budge.
Dietrich barely managed to stop his horse just before it crashed into the gate.
“Open it! I said open it! Are you defying a prince’s command?!”
The Demons were already closing in, just ten paces behind.
Dietrich kept glancing back, pounding the Castle Gate with his fists.
“Is anyone there! Open the gates, I’m telling you!”
No answer came from within the Fortress.
Finally, Dietrich stepped back a few paces and looked up.
The Gatekeeper stood atop the Castle Gate.
He was clearly watching, yet he wouldn’t move?
“Prince Emeric is dead! Full authority of this Fortress returns to me! Death to any who defy the King’s command! Will you still not open it?!”
Shadows multiplied one by one atop the Castle Walls. Yet the Fortress gate remained firmly shut, and the Demons drew ever closer.
It wasn’t just one either. Even a rough count revealed well over ten.
“Protect—protect the Prince! Hgh, hghaaaa!”
The Loyal Knight raised his trembling sword and charged forward.
The Demon rushed to meet him with a grotesque snarl, and a horrifying sound of bone and flesh shattering erupted.
“People are dying! Open the gate, hurry—!”
But all that poured forth was the cold gaze of indifference.
No. They were not mere bystanders—they were accomplices.
A tremendous shock struck Dietrich’s mind.
The Fortress Army and Winterbark residents had certainly never favored me. Yet neither did they follow Emeric.
The forces the Third Prince had left behind within the Fortress had already been completely suppressed. They sought to purge the impurities and restore things to their original state.
The gate would not open.
Consumed by despair, I spun around, my eyes darting frantically across my surroundings. All I saw were terrified Guard Knights and Demon hordes closing in from every direction.
‘This cannot be.’
There was no one to help me.
Moreover, it was the principle that matters occurring in this Unregistered Territory would not be scrutinized for responsibility.
Even if the Prince and his Guard Knights were annihilated here, if the people of Winterbark all held their tongues, no one would investigate the truth of this incident.
‘This cannot be, cannot be, cannot be!’
The terror of death crushed me.
All the accomplishments I had achieved thus far, the path I had run, the goals I had yet to reach—none of it crossed my mind.
I did not want to die here.
“…Kairon!”
I dropped to my knees without hesitation.
“Kairon, I—I was wrong. I have feared you since you were very young… that is why I did as I did. But I swear I had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with you being driven out to this place…! It was all the doing of my elder brother and Emeric, you know that!”
It was my first time. My first experience of begging someone for my life.
Even as I spoke, my Guard Knights were devoured one by one by the Demons. Their throats torn, their hearts ripped out. Blood mist erupted from all directions.
Red points glimmered across the bodies of the Demons who had absorbed human vitality. Those who had only fragments of limbs remaining regenerated their bodies in the blink of an eye.
“Forgive me. I will become your…. I will become your strength. Just tell me what you desire!”
Anything, just say the word….
My voice trailed off.
A Demon that had drawn right before my eyes suddenly thrust its face forward. It was the very same Demon whose head Kairon had torn off at the very beginning.
The creature, its pupils greatly dilated, tilted its head as it looked at me.
[Huh, there’s not much meat left on this one—.]
Thwack!
A blade pierced through the Demon’s throat and emerged on the other side.
The sword that had rushed to within inches of my face trembled, then was drawn back out.
Drenched in the spurting blood, I was overwhelmed by the figure that appeared behind the Demon.
The god of death. Or rather, in this very moment, he was my savior.
Kairon stepped down hard on the Demon’s back with one foot. As he shook the blood from his blade, he spoke coldly.
“Do not forget this terror you feel now, Elder Brother. Etch it into your mind.”
“….”
“This is the very essence of my life, and the lives of the people here.”

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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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