Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 87

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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 87
The boy being dragged by the winged garment stares at me with wide, unblinking eyes. His neatly arranged robe and hat, which had suited him so perfectly, are now mangled and torn, soaked in blood. His youthful cheeks are covered entirely in raw abrasions, and from his slack mouth flows a steady stream of dark, coagulated blood.
‘Good heavens.’
Watching the child crawl across the ground in such a state while still gripping the Dark Spirit Sword with all his might, my eyes involuntarily grow hot.
‘If I’d been even a moment later, I would never have seen him again.’
I suppress the tears threatening to spill over and pull the winged garment toward me. The Crown Prince’s body, which I could never have lifted easily with my own strength, is drawn along effortlessly by the power of the divine-essence-woven garment.
I retreat a considerable distance beyond where the thrashing serpent’s tail can reach, then immediately pull the Crown Prince into my arms. Though I’m still too small to properly embrace him, it becomes more of him holding me, but regardless.
‘He’s alive. I saved him.’
Only when I feel his warm body heat against mine do I finally find some measure of peace.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
“…Lady.”
The young Crown Prince attempts to embrace me in return but hesitates, instead covering his bleeding mouth with his sleeve as he smiles.
“I’m relieved you’re unharmed.”
“You can smile at a time like this?”
“Truly, truly a relief, Lady.”
“Your Highness is anything but relieved!”
“Are you injured anywhere?”
“I’m perfectly fine. But Your Highness is in terrible condition! Where are you hurt like this?”
I frantically examine the Crown Prince’s body, but he merely continues smiling despite looking as though he might collapse at any moment.
“You truly are unharmed, are you not?”
“I’m fine, I said! Look here—where are you hurt? What is all this dark blood? Why are your hands trembling?”
“I was greatly worried.”
“This isn’t the time to worry about me! Where are you injured? Your Highness, you are listening to me, aren’t you?”
“My apologies, Lady. I’m afraid my hearing is somewhat impaired at the moment.”
The boy speaks sheepishly and tilts his head toward me. Beneath his askew hat, he presses his forehead against mine as the Crown Prince whispers.
“Please speak closer. What did you just say?”
Beneath the sleeve covering his mouth, the boy’s eyes curve softly.
“…!”
Suddenly, a loud crash echoes. From a distance, the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake, wild with terror, slams against a wall.
I start in alarm.
I push the Crown Prince away, now far too close, but then I realize this boy is coughing up blood from beneath his robe sleeve and freeze.
He’s smiling like that? And what’s this? His hearing is affected too?
My worry threatens to transform into anger.
“Wait, Your Highness, let me….”
Without thinking to hide it, I frantically search my belongings to retrieve the Eight Pillar Order, but then I remember that this cursed order is useless here and stop.
‘Medicine, I need medicine. Never mind the injuries—his current state seems like poisoning from the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s venom.’
I press my forehead firmly against the Crown Prince’s and raise my voice to ask.
“Your Highness, can you hear me now? Did you breathe in that metallic, crimson smoke? Do you feel your entire body going numb, as though floating on clouds?”
“…Yes.”
The boy’s voice, once clear as a spring, has become damp and heavy. His usually crisp, precise articulation now blurs and drawls. Yet he continues to smile.
A chill of fear ran through me. He’s not in his right mind. He’s clearly dying from the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s poison.
‘What do I do?’
Tears threatened to spill.
‘All manner of medicine is in the Treasure Vault. I should have carried some with me. I should have brought An-si, or at least used a seal.’
I tried to pull away the Crown Prince’s sleeve, which he kept pressed against his mouth. But even as his body grew increasingly limp and sluggish, he stubbornly held the fabric in place.
“Your Highness, please move your hand. Quickly!”
“I cannot….”
“Why not?”
“If the Lady finds out… it could be dangerous….”
Dangerous? What could be dangerous? The blood? Is he afraid I’ll become poisoned too? This young boy, in the midst of all this, is still worried about me?
Finally, tears burst forth. I gritted my teeth and moved my divine raiment, wrapping it around the Crown Prince’s wrist and pulling it away. What my strength alone couldn’t budge, my divine raiment managed to shift aside.
“No, I cannot….”
The Crown Prince’s face was fully revealed as his arms lost their strength. The boy, pale as death, coughed violently—hack, hack—and vomited up blackened blood.
He’s definitely dying.
I’m going mad.
An-si isn’t here. The Eight Pillar Order is blocked. I can’t call Mother or Father. The boy is dying right before my eyes, and there’s no one but me.
‘I have to do something. Anything.’
Think, Sang Ra-hee-yo. You’re a deity. You’re a great goddess, Princess Cheonmyeong. Do something!
‘…Black blood. Poisoning. Toxic essence.’
I recalled the treatment Mother often performed when I coughed up blood from my ailments.
‘Something like bloodletting. Draining excess divine power. If I mimic that… could I drain the toxic essence as well?’
But how?
‘First…’
I forced open my tear-blurred eyes and tried to remember how I’d moved my divine power before. To recreate that moment when I could see the flow of qi, when the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s tail moved in certain directions. I breathed calmly and deliberately, moving my divine power like force.
‘Ki Ho-cheol said that borrowed divine power can’t be used as one’s own strength.’
But my divine power is mine. It’s power I lent to myself. So it should be different!
My divine power rose obediently and gathered at the corners of my tear-filled eyes.
Then I could see it. The night sky filling the Crown Prince’s body. The meridians where darkness flowed. The poison spreading in dark crimson.
I didn’t understand the principle, but I could see it nonetheless. Just as I could pierce through human life with the Eyes of Cheonmyeong. I could see the direction the poison flowed. Through that direction came foresight. In moments, I could sense where it would go.
‘It’s heading for his heart!’
That vile toxic essence was approaching the boy’s heart. Snake venom containing the deaths of ten thousand.
If he were a pure Doo-eok-sini, that poison would have been swallowed by the vast darkness. But because the Crown Prince had a child’s body, or because he was an unprecedented human Doo-eok-sini, he couldn’t swallow it and was being poisoned instead.
There’s no time.
‘Like Mother did… I’ll push my divine power in and draw the toxic essence out.’
It would be possible without resistance if the energies were similar, but I had no time to worry about such things now.
‘To minimize resistance, I need at least minimal divine power….’
I placed my hand on the Crown Prince’s chest as he leaned against me, half-collapsed. I carefully pushed the divine power I’d drawn up like force into his body.
I watched without blinking. In the darkness of the Doo-eok-sini’s body, like a night sky, I could see my divine power—a single thread of jade-colored light—boring through. The darkness writhed violently, trying to block the path the thread was taking.
“Ugh….”
“Just a moment more, just a moment more. Bear with me, Your Highness.”
I murmured soothingly to the Crown Prince, whose body naturally resisted the foreign energy. His dark eyes, barely open and hazy, looked at me.
“Lady….”
“Yes.”
“Is it you, Lady?”
Was the Crown Prince asking whose energy was burrowing into his body?
“Yes, it’s me.”
“I see….”
His words trailed off as his eyes grew heavy and began to close. Immediately after, the darkness that had blocked my divine power suddenly grew docile and yielded the way. Like the darkness that brightened wherever I placed my hand, the dark spirit within the boy’s body retreated and gave way wherever my divine power flowed.
‘….’
An indescribable feeling washed over me, but this was no time to be lost in such emotions.
I carefully extended threads of divine power. Since the Crown Prince’s body offered no resistance and allowed my divine power to move freely, I could move faster and faster.
‘I wish my divine power had the ability to purify or heal.’
My power, lacking dominion over anything, still had no distinctive character. So I had to resort to crude methods.
I wrapped thread-like divine power around the dark red poison creeping toward the Crown Prince’s heart. Once, twice, three times, four times… I continued wrapping the poison with my divine power and then pulled.
“…!”
The boy’s body convulsed violently. The Crown Prince coughed up bright red blood this time. Fresh blood, not dead blood.
I froze and trembled.
‘If I pull it out, the poison will scrape through his body and cause internal injuries!’
If I continued extracting it this way, all of the Crown Prince’s organs would be damaged. It was no different from spreading the poison faster.
What do I do? I have to get this out. What do I do! I can’t think of anything.
I really am different from Mother. I can’t do this as skillfully as she can.
Of course not—in two hundred and ten years, I’ve never done anything properly. The great Princess Cheonmyeong? In truth, I’m just a pathetic child who can’t even manage her own body.
I need Mother and Father’s help just to survive. I can’t even do what every lowly creature manages—simply ‘living’ on my own.
‘I can’t do this. I won’t be able to.’
What if, as I extract the poison, the Crown Prince dies? What if he dies and I become his killer?
The Crown Prince I’m holding right now—what if he dies?
I’m terrified. Far more terrified than when I fell into the River of Three Paths.
I’ve watched the dead in the Afterlife day after day, witnessed countless deaths, and died myself several times, yet the thought of this boy dying here fills me with a terror so overwhelming it’s unbearable.
Why? I don’t know.
I couldn’t move, frozen and vacant, staring at the Crown Prince.
The poison bound by my divine power thrashed. The Crown Prince’s body temperature began to drop. The shadow of familiar death fell across his pale face.
‘Mother, Father, what do I do? I can’t do this. I have no idea how….’
Just as a sob rose to my throat, I saw the Crown Prince’s sleeve stained dark red. The blood-soaked sleeve he had covered his mouth with to keep the poison from splashing on me.
I bit my lip hard. As it split and the taste of blood filled my mouth, my mind snapped clear.
‘What do you mean what do I do! If I’m going to save him, I have to do something! There’s no one else here! Not Mother, not Father, not An-si!’
There is only me here.
I am Sang Ra-hee-yo, Princess Cheonmyeong. Daughter of Mother and Father, who triumphed in the war against Doo-eok-sini where countless gods fell and ascended to godhood by their own power—a great and mighty deity.
I am here now. A god is here.
‘If I am a god, then act like one—work a miracle!’
I embraced the boy growing cold and prayed desperately. I made a plea to myself.
A miracle. Please, a miracle. Let me become the miracle itself!
In that moment of desperate yearning so intense my mind went blank, the divine power flowing from my fingertips began to radiate with brilliant light.
“…!”
Within the Crown Prince’s body, dark as the night sky, jade-colored threads of light blazed forth. Brilliant white. Pure, crystalline white.
White light spreads outward. As if a river of stars bloomed across the night sky, luminescence unfurls through the darkness. Like clouds of stars, it smothers the crimson poison beneath it.
The poison, engulfed in light, glows brilliantly. Yet soon it dims. It shrivels. It buries itself within the stars.
I understood instinctively. Here and now, the miracle I had yearned for most desperately was manifesting.
My divine power had been infused with the concept of healing.

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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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