The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 136

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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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The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride — Chapter 136

“If you wanted a kiss, you should have said so. I would’ve given it gladly.”
“I’m going to kill you! How dare you—!”
“Well, we can worry about whether I live or die later.”
In that instant, Lia’s vision blurred.
Leon’s figure, smiling with a bitter edge, doubled before her eyes as the entire backdrop swayed and tilted.
Lia felt her consciousness slipping further away and struggled desperately to hold on to it, but it wouldn’t obey her will.
“Damn it…….”
Darkness swallowed her whole, and Lia collapsed forward. Leon caught her gently and rose to his feet, cradling her close.
Only now did he tenderly stroke her now-docile hair. Then he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek.
That alone was enough to stir something in him—his cheeks flushed a deep pink, and for a moment he looked like a boy newly fallen in love.
But the knights who had witnessed the entire scene found his behavior deeply unsettling.
It had looked as though Lia was attacking the Emperor, yet something about it felt like the exact opposite.
‘Besides, the two of them are already intimate.’
Everyone who worked in the Imperial Palace knew that the Emperor had abandoned his long-standing fiancée in favor of a new beloved.
So now, with the chaos subsiding, the situation felt fundamentally wrong.
As the knights hesitated and exchanged nervous glances, Leon opened his eyes and spoke.
“Take care of it.”
“……Your Majesty?”
The sudden command left them bewildered, but they had no chance to think further.
Their gazes fell lower and lower until they saw their own bodies inverted above them. Before they could comprehend what had happened, they ceased to exist.
Standing behind where they had stood were Dark Sorcerers clad in priestly robes.
“What are your intentions now, Your Majesty?” Pedro, the leader of the Dark Sorcerers, followed close behind Leon as he carried Lia away.
Pedro glanced sideways at Lia, who slept peacefully in Leon’s arms.
“I told you clearly. If I can have Aria, nothing else matters.”
Several days prior, when Pedro had grasped Leopold’s hand under the pretense of prayer, the two had exchanged a brief mental communication.
Relief at learning Leon’s true identity was short-lived—the bombshell he dropped left Pedro reeling.

But now he was threatening to hold the throne hostage—a shock to say the least.
Still, acquiring a woman shouldn’t take long, so Pedro had been willing to cooperate.
Yet seeing Leon now, an inexplicable unease crept over Pedro.
Moreover, without any concern for others’ eyes, Leon had suddenly demanded that Pedro bring all the Dark Sorcerers to the Imperial Palace.
His attitude suggested that if he had Aria, nothing else mattered at all.
“……Are you saying you no longer intend to become Emperor?”
Pedro ventured the question carefully, and when Leon let out a low chuckle, his heart sank.
“I’ve been alive all this time precisely to meet Aria again. In this life, I intend to spend my remaining years with her, just the two of us.”
“Then what of the empty throne, Your Majesty?”
“Well, I suppose… would you like to be Emperor?”
“……Your Majesty?”
“I have no further interest in the throne, and there’s no one else worthy of the Imperial seat. Besides, I’ve already set things in motion—if the remaining royals aren’t dealt with, you’ll be the ones suffering for it. Wouldn’t it be better if you became the Emperor of this realm instead?”
Pedro was so shocked he stopped in his tracks, but Leon simply walked past him, heading somewhere with Aria.
“Oh, and one more thing—erect a strong Barrier across the entire Imperial Palace. We can’t have uninvited guests slipping in.”
With that, Leon departed. Pedro, left standing alone, heaved a heavy sigh and turned back.
“Set up the Barrier as commanded to prevent intrusions.”
“……Do you truly believe His Majesty intends to relinquish the throne?”
“I can’t say. His true intentions have always been difficult to discern, but this time it doesn’t feel like a jest.”
There was no predicting what would come next. Nothing was more terrifying than an unknown future.
Throughout all this time, both the old Temple faction and the Dark Sorcerers had been under Leon’s true leadership.
Initially, it had been a relationship formed for mutual benefit with the Dark Sorcerers.
The first Dark Sorcerer leader, Karrigo, had been the one to propose to the despondent Leon that he become a Dark Sorcerer and seek revenge.
‘In the end, His Majesty became a Dark Sorcerer.’
With that power, he had killed his twin brother, erased from history, and attempted to forcefully claim the woman he loved—but ultimately failed, and she was sealed beyond his reach.
The early Dark Sorcerer records showed that in their attempts to break her seal, they had sacrificed countless people and captured witches seeking clues.
No method worked, so Leon, on the verge of death, had stolen his descendant’s body and thus endured until now.
Over those three hundred years, the fledgling Dark Sorcerer had reached heights even Pedro could never attain.
Leon was not merely a protector to the Dark Sorcerers—his very existence was their history itself, and the ideal that all Dark Sorcerers ultimately aspired toward.
They had reached this point under Leon’s guidance, and if his presence were to vanish, Pedro could not even imagine what would occur.

In that moment,
Thwip—!
“Aaaagh!”
A black spear flew from nowhere, piercing straight through Lucian’s body.
Having already been attacked several times, he should have been riddled with wounds.
But when the spear vanished, his body bore no trace of injury. That meant this was no physical attack.
‘Keep your mind sharp! If you escape from here, you can save Dio and Lia!’
Even as pain threatened to overwhelm his consciousness, Lucian fought desperately to maintain his reason.
But whenever he exerted himself to counter the unknown Black Magic,
Thwip!
“Grgh!”
Another spear materialized and pierced him.
Lucian’s focus wavered as he clutched at his side where the spear had struck. There was no wound, but the pain was utterly real.
“……Don’t think I’m about to surrender.”
Lucian’s resolve would not break. This time, two spears came flying and embedded themselves in his body. He only groaned, but did not stop working to counter the Black Magic.
“I’ve got it……!”
At last, Lucian figured out how to dispel it and gritted his teeth as he moved to eliminate the spell. Sensing the threat, the pattern of attacks shifted to something far more direct.
Even with spears piercing each of his limbs, even as he bit his lip against the agony, Lucian saw a spear heading straight for his face and squeezed his eyes shut.
As he braced for the terrible pain to come, beyond his closed eyelids, everything suddenly blazed bright.
He cracked his eyes open and watched the Black Magic around him turn to ash and scatter away.
“……What is this?”
Lucian glanced around and realized someone was nearby.
A man with his back turned looked strangely familiar, as though he’d seen him once before. Just then, the man turned his head.
The moment Lucian saw him, his eyes widened—but he quickly composed himself.
“Leon… no, it’s not.”
A man with chestnut hair and golden eyes appeared before him—the man Henry Reifel had drawn on Leon’s orders.
At first, Lucian had wondered if this was Leon’s doppelganger, but the gentler expression and the softly downturned corners of his eyes made clear this was someone different.
“You’re Odel, aren’t you?”
The man smiled silently.
He approached Lucian and helped him up from the ground.
His eye level was slightly lower than Lucian’s—yet something about looking at Odel felt strange.
His face was entirely unlike Lucian’s own, and Leopold wasn’t across from him, yet it felt exactly like staring into a mirror.
“You should have died three hundred years ago.”
“……Just before death, my brother stole my strength. Probably to deceive Aria. Thanks to that, some fragment of my consciousness lingered on.”
He was certainly the opposite of Leon. Just as Lia had said.
“There’s something I really want to show you.”
When Odel extended his hand, a Portal opened, and beyond it lay what appeared to be the Imperial Palace.
“Would you spare me a moment? It won’t take long.”
He should refuse—every second counted if he wanted to save Dio and Lia—yet something made refusal impossible. As if under a spell, Lucian took Odel’s hand and stepped through the Portal with him.
What unfolded before them was the past from three hundred years ago, seen through Odel’s eyes.

.

Odel confessed with his whole face flushed crimson. Aria before him could only blink.
‘Please, would you enter into a genuine relationship with me?’
Odel held out a bouquet with trembling hands, shaking so badly that petals scattered to the ground. Aria stared at it for a moment before letting out a soft laugh.
‘I was wondering why you’ve been acting so strangely lately—you were planning to confess.’
Aria took the bouquet and examined it. Odel watched her anxiously, his eyes darting about. As Aria inhaled the fragrance, a gentle smile crossed her lips.
‘I’ll grant you this special permission.’
‘R-really……?’
‘What? Did you confess as a joke?’
‘No, that’s not it!’
‘Then why do you look so dazed? You should be happy.’
As Odel belatedly realized that Aria had accepted his confession, his expression shifted by degrees. Finally, he pressed his lips together and began to tear up, leaving Aria bewildered.
‘Why are you crying?’
‘But…… I didn’t know if you’d accept. If you had refused, I didn’t know how I could face you afterward…… ‘.
As tears streamed down Odel’s pitiful face like grains of rice, Aria found herself laughing despite herself.
A man weeping after his confession was accepted, and a woman laughing after receiving one—a ridiculous sight, yet a perfect pair.
Lucian watched the scene with displeasure.
“Are you showing me this to brag?”
“Not at all.”
Odel chuckled softly. The scene shifted, and they arrived somewhere else.
‘Aria! Big brother’s finally coming!’
‘They say he’s conquered the neighboring kingdoms—I hope he wasn’t hurt.’
‘Carserin’s with him, so it should be fine. We promised—he swore to protect big brother.’
At the thought of his brother’s return, Odel couldn’t contain his excitement. Aria, finding it endearing, reached out and caressed his cheek.
‘Are you going to tell Leon?’
‘Of course I am. Won’t he be surprised?’
‘Carserin will probably mock you both for courting while he was working so hard. But Leon…… who knows what he’ll say.’
‘Big brother would definitely congratulate us. I want to surprise him so badly. And I want to be congratulated!’
‘Then we’d better prepare for a proper surprise.’
The two were caught up in the excitement of surprising Leon and Carserin when he arrived.
But Lucian, who knew what tragedy was to come, couldn’t bring himself to view this scene kindly.
As he thought so, Odel’s expression turned bitter.
“……I didn’t know my brother loved Aria.”
“…….”
“If I had known, I never would have entertained such thoughts.”
The weight of those words made Lucian’s brow twitch.
“Are you saying you never planned to confess to Lia? You’d simply abandon your love and hand her over to Leon?”
Odel had no answer. Only silence—and then the scene shifted once more.

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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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