Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 88

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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 88
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Warmth suddenly flooded through my body as it had begun to stiffen. Strength returned to my rigid limbs. My fading consciousness sharpened once more.
Cheon Gyeol-u’s eyes flew open. Before him shimmered silver hair that sparkled like snowflakes in sunlight, and jade-green eyes glistening with moisture.
“Your Highness! Are you all right?”
“My lady?”
“Yes, it’s me! Can you hear me now? Your hands aren’t trembling? You’re not in pain anywhere?”
Se-ru-hwa poured out her questions in a trembling voice. Cheon Gyeol-u rose in bewilderment.
Just moments ago, my entire body had been paralyzed, blood flowing endlessly from my mouth. Now I felt nothing but refreshed—almost weightless.
‘My ribs too… I was certain the bones were fractured, yet they’re perfectly sound.’
The boy examined his condition, then looked at the girl with a dazed expression.
Draped across my lady’s shoulders as she gazed at him with concern was a mysterious, translucent jade-colored fabric that floated ethereally.
“…A spirit garment?”
“Ah.”
At my unconscious murmur, Se-ru-hwa’s expression grew troubled.
“…I was in such a hurry that I attempted spirit possession the way I learned in shamanism class… and this happened.”
“Spirit possession? You received a divine descent?”
The Crown Prince asked in startled surprise, and the girl sighed softly, nodding slightly.
“Yes. I used it to heal you just now. I’ve treated all the visible injuries, but how do you feel? Is there anywhere else that hurts?”
The boy looked down at his restored body, then at the girl’s tear-stained face.
Her eyes were swollen and red. Her lips were split as if bitten through. Her hands clutched her garments. It was clear at a glance how much she had worried and struggled.
‘She saved me?’
My heart grew heavy.
If the Crown Princess had received a divine descent and become a shaman, the royal family could fall into ruin. Memorials demanding her deposition would rain down like arrows, with not a few officials “loyally” prostrating themselves to demand she be sent to Hoguk Temple as a nun.
‘…I will not allow such a thing to happen.’
This girl was my wife. No one else could even imagine it.
‘Never. Not a single soul.’
Setting aside emotion and judging purely by reason, it was only right. Se-ru-hwa was the royal family’s benefactor, and she had just saved his life a second time.
‘…And now I am indebted to her again.’
Truly, even if I stripped away every personal feeling and judged by reason alone, would deposing such a Crown Princess not make me a beast incapable of gratitude? Yet if there were those so mired in superstition that they dared speak such nonsense, I would silence them by whatever means necessary.
‘Yes, by whatever means it takes.’
In that brief moment, the Crown Prince resolved to confront the royal relatives and ministers directly if needed, and his face broke into a gentle, serene smile.
“I am well now. You have saved me again, my lady.”
“It’s because I got you involved in this in the first place.”
Se-ru-hwa examined the Crown Prince’s entire body with eyes that gleamed strangely, then released a sigh of relief.
“Fortunately, all the poison has dissipated. You’re truly all right now? Can you move?”
“Of course. My body feels wonderfully light. Such a miracle—you are truly remarkable.”
“A miracle…”
Se-ru-hwa repeated the word with a dazed expression, then suddenly looked down at her own hands as if seeing them for the first time. The girl clenched and unclenched her fists in confusion, then a satisfied smile bloomed across her face.
“Yes, it was a miracle! Truly.”
Se-ru-hwa chirped excitedly, her voice lifting with barely contained joy.
“It’s like a miracle, really. I thought I had to make it work somehow, and it actually came true….”
Her expression radiated accomplishment, her cheeks flushed with delight. Her body trembled with the urge to leap and dance, yet she restrained herself with visible effort.
Adorable. The Crown Prince found himself thinking it again. My Lady is truly adorable. How could someone so endearing have healed and saved him from the brink of death, and now she wore those celestial robes? Perhaps my Lady had truly descended from Heaven as a heavenly maiden?
The boy, lost in his composed reverie and utterly oblivious to his own foolish musings, remained unaware as the girl cleared her throat softly, composing herself.
“Your Highness, if you don’t mind, could you help me with something?”
“What is it you ask?”
“Over there.”
Se-ru-hwa pointed toward the distant space behind her.
The serpent demon, maddened by terror and exhausted from its luminescence, lay sprawled with its tongue lolling out. She pointed beyond it.
“I need to go that way, so please help me.”
“Pardon? You need to go that way?”
“Woo-sang Daegam’s grandchildren should be over there. I can sense it—the shadows flow in that direction… Um, well, I think my Xue Tribe abilities have awakened. That power to distinguish fortune from misfortune… not quite prophecy, but an enhanced intuition. That’s why I feel we must go that way.”
The girl explained in a flustered rush, her words tumbling over one another.
‘Xue Tribe abilities? Didn’t she say nothing much changed after her growth pains last time?’
It seemed odd, but the Crown Prince decided not to press the matter.
Had my Lady ever been wrong before? The Queen Mother had awakened, the King had forgiven him, and he would be accepted not as a monster but as a Taoist who wielded Dark Spirit Art—even those dreamlike promises had all become reality.
‘If my Lady says to go that way, then I must go.’
The boy nodded and pushed himself to his feet.
“What should I do?”
* * *
“That demon is called the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake….”
I gave the Crown Prince a brief explanation of the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake.
“…It’s such a persistent demon that if we leave it and move on, it will regain consciousness and chase us again. We have to deal with it while it’s exhausted and helpless.”
“Deal with it?”
“That demon won’t die unless we extract the Ten-Thousand-Man Blood Stone from inside its body. We have to cut open its belly and pull out the stone.”
I felt deeply uneasy asking this of a child who had just barely survived death, but I had no other way to pierce through that creature’s hard scales.
“I’ll show you the location with my celestial robes, and you just need to cut it with your Dark Spirit Sword.”
“With the Dark Spirit Sword.”
The Crown Prince repeated my words weakly, adding with resignation:
“I apologize.”
“What?”
“My sword cannot pierce that creature’s scales. I attempted it earlier, and it failed….”
The Crown Prince clenched his teeth in frustration. I asked, bewildered:
“The Dark Spirit Sword couldn’t cut through?”
“…Yes.”
“That’s strange. My master said the Dark Spirit Sword has power similar to sword force. Even if the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s scales can repel sword energy, they shouldn’t be able to withstand sword force….”
At my words, the young Crown Prince’s face suddenly lit with realization.
“Sword energy won’t work, but sword force will….”
“What?”
“Sword energy and sword strength… the difference is merely between what manifests naturally and what has been honed and refined. Refined means fixed, ordered, perfected….”
The Crown Prince murmured softly, deftly drawing a curved blade forged from darkness within his own shadow. The Dark Spirit Blade he had wielded continuously until now had taken on such a concrete form that it appeared to be a sword painted black.
The boy moved slowly through the empty air with it. Darkness coiled like smoke as the blade of the curved sword lengthened. Watching the undulating edge, the Crown Prince laughed with a sense of relief.
“I see now. Larger and longer doesn’t mean stronger. What I can refine and wield at this moment is only this much. Without even achieving self-knowledge, let alone knowing both myself and my enemy, there’s no way I could cut it down….”
“Your Highness?”
“I believe I can do it, my Lady.”
The Crown Prince lowered his blade and turned to me with a refreshing smile.
‘Something feels different… like the boy has matured a little.’
I watched that relieved smile for a moment, then remembered this was no time for leisure and shook my head.
‘I need to hurry. Seeing shadows flowing in that direction means Geuseon-dae is over there, and if he’s heading toward the children, this is serious.’
With eyes that now perceive the flow of spiritual energy similarly to the Heavenly Eye, well, let’s just call this the Heavenly Eye too. After all, both are powers dwelling in my eyes.
‘The characters Heaven and Afterlife inherited from their respective realms combine into my name as a deity—Heavenly Eye. Whether inherited or created by me, it’s all Heavenly Eye, so this counts as such.’
In any case, I could see the direction from which shadows filling the corridor flowed, and from that I could discern where Geuseon-dae, the master of those shadows, must be.
“Be careful, Your Highness.”
I approached the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake stretched out alongside the Crown Prince, then stopped a few paces away and let him proceed alone. If it thrashed about, the Crown Prince could evade, but I couldn’t, so I needed to maintain distance.
“You really must be careful. We don’t know when it might strike.”
“Yes, I will be careful.”
The Crown Prince answered my worried addition without hesitation. Then, gripping the Dark Spirit Blade, he approached the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s neck.
I extended my wing-robe lengthily. Through the Heavenly Eye, I could see precisely where the spiritual energy was concentrated within the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s body. That was where the Ten-Thousand-Life Stone lay.
“It’s here.”
Pointing to that spot with my wing-robe, I suddenly thought.
‘My divine power too… the concept of healing seems separated like the Ten-Thousand-Life Stone, gathered distinctly within me.’
If it’s divided like this, couldn’t I now distribute this into the Straw God, creating them continuously this way without needing seals, allowing me to live on…?
My heart trembled at the hypothesis that suddenly occurred to me. I quickly steadied my breathing and pushed that thought from my mind.
‘…For now, let me think about that after we escape safely from here.’
While I briefly became excited then calmed myself, the Crown Prince was steadying his breath, aiming the Dark Spirit Blade at the spot I had indicated.
“….”
The boy lowered his eyes halfway with a serene expression. Long, delicate lashes cast shadows across his cheeks. Soon the wavering blade of the Dark Spirit Blade became so solidly honed it appeared like a true steel edge.
The Crown Prince brought the blade down in a clean motion. With a soft sound, the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s belly split open. Dark serpent blood gushed forth, and between the torn skin, something like a bluish stone appeared.
The Ten-Thousand-Life Stone. That inner core, created when ten thousand lives transformed into death, possessed efficacy nearly equivalent to a panacea.
To the eye, it was a jewel roughly the size of an adult’s fist. Entangled in blood vessels, it pulsed like a heart within the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s belly.
The Crown Prince glanced back at me as if asking whether this was correct. When I nodded, the boy fearlessly thrust his hand into the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake’s blood-churning belly.
Grasping the Ten-Thousand-Life Stone, the Crown Prince wrenched it out with force. The tangled blood vessels tore, scattering blood in all directions.
“SHRIEEEEEEK!”
Simultaneously, the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake convulsed in a final death throes. Its gaping serpent jaws struck like lightning at where the Crown Prince had been. The old wooden floor was pierced through, and splinters and dust shot up to the ceiling.
That must have been its last strength, for the Ten-Thousand-Man Snake went still, its head embedded in the floor.
The Crown Prince was nowhere to be seen.
“Your Highness!”
I cried out in alarm, but a calm voice came from nearby.
“Yes, my Lady.”
The Crown Prince had appeared at my side without my noticing. The hem of his robe, billowed outward by his violent movements, settled down slowly like the wings of a crane folding.
The boy extended his hand toward me, slick with the monster’s blood, then hesitated. He wiped it hastily on the cleaner folds of his garment before offering it again, this time with gentle care.
The Crown Prince smiled brightly as he placed a softly luminous blue-green jewel into my palm.
“I have brought it for you.”

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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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