The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 137

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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 Forsaken Prince’s Ghost Bride — Episode 137

As expected, the next scene unfolded with Odel and Aria telling the two of them about their relationship.
Karserin reacted exactly as anticipated, but Leon froze solid. At the sight of him walking past in silence, both Odel and Aria were taken aback.
‘He must be so shocked. I was stunned too, so what must he be feeling?’
‘……Is that so?’
Karserin assured them not to worry, but having not seen his brother in a year, Odel felt uneasy about Leon. In the end, he followed him.
‘Brother! Is something bothering you? Or did something happen on the way here?’
Leon was handing his overcoat to one of the servants. He glanced at Odel for a moment, then ignored him and finished changing clothes.
Though they had argued before, never had Odel experienced such outright dismissal, leaving him utterly bewildered.
Once the servants withdrew, Odel awkwardly approached Leon as he adjusted his appearance in the mirror.
‘……Brother.’
‘Odel.’
‘Oh, uh……!’
Hearing his name called for the first time broke into a wide smile.
‘I’m exhausted. Leave.’
But the words that followed made his shoulders droop. The cold command, delivered without so much as a glance back, deflated him utterly.
‘Can we talk later……?’
Odel left with a forced smile to the end. But there was no reply.
After Odel left, Leon, alone in the room, smashed the mirror with his fist. His rampage left the chamber in ruins.
“……Since that day, I haven’t had a single proper conversation with my brother. Even when we did speak, it was nothing but business.”
Lucian turned his head to look at Odel, whose posture had sunk low with sadness.
From then on, Leon’s consistent ignoring of Odel continued. Finally, Aria, unable to bear it any longer, stepped in to confront him.
‘Stop it. If you’re angry about something, you should say so. Why are you doing this to Odel? Is he your punching bag? Just because he’s your brother, does he have to keep accepting your tantrums?’
It was painful to watch. Especially for Lucian, who knew everything.
After Aria fired those words at Leon and left, his eyes transformed. Then Kaligo, the leader of the Dark Mages, approached him.
‘……Did I not tell you? There is no one who gives to Your Majesty with sincere heart.’
‘…….’
‘I shall grant you power, Your Majesty. With it, seize what you desire.’
‘……What is it you want?’
‘The eternal peace of the Dark Mages.’

Kaligo’s eyes gleamed quietly.
‘We have lived persecuted through countless ages. Now only we remain among the Dark Mages in the Empire. We are weary of being hunted. If Your Majesty will become our steadfast bulwark, I pledge to you both mighty power and eternal servitude.’
‘I have no talent for magic. How can you grant me power?’
‘Do not mistake us for ordinary mages. We have our own method.’
In the end, Leon joined hands with the Dark Mages. They sacrificed one hundred people as offerings to transform Leon into a Dark Mage.
It was the beginning of a history stained in blood.
After that, events unfolded as Lucian already knew from Karserin’s letters. And at last, the day of the final confrontation arrived.
“……At that time, I had planned to propose to Aria by showing her the house I’d built for us to live in together.”
The Mansion had been prepared long before Leon’s arrival, and since he’d had no proper chance to speak with his brother, he only revealed his proposal plan after completing all preparations.
‘I’m thinking of proposing to Aria by showing her the Mansion I built. I know my brother has been avoiding me lately, but this felt like something I had to tell him.’
‘Propose……you say?’
For the first time since their cold war began, Leon showed a reaction. Taking it as positive, Odel nodded eagerly.
‘Remember? Ever since I was little, I said I wanted to build a happy home in a two-story house. I’ve built a Mansion on the mountainside where we can live together. Neither Aria nor I care much for crowded places.’
Perhaps because he was talking to his brother after so long, Odel grew animated, describing what rooms he’d prepared in the Mansion, how the structure was laid out.
‘I’ve set up a space in the basement where Aria can research magic. You remember how she used to say it was her dream to have a research room in the basement when we were young.’
Soon Odel was beaming, having forgotten all awkwardness with Leon. Unaware that his brother’s face had grown coldly rigid.
‘I’m going to propose now. I told Aria beforehand to be there waiting. Now that I’ve told you too, I can go propose with a light heart…….’
Thunk—!
Odel, turning with a bright smile, froze. An incongruous sound, entirely at odds with the moment.
Sharp pain bloomed across his abdomen, and his vision swam. Odel lowered his head with trembling eyes.
‘……What……?’
A blade was lodged in his belly. And it was Leon who had driven it in.
Leon’s face impassive, he pushed the sword deeper into Odel’s abdomen with more force. Odel coughed up a surge of blood.
‘Brother, why……?’
‘Because you’re repugnant.’
Odel’s eyes trembled, and tears welled up. Not from pain—but from the tears that flowed at his beloved brother’s betrayal.
‘Propose to Aria? No. You can’t marry Aria. The one who will marry Aria is me.’
Odel’s eyes widened to the size of lanterns. Only then did he understand why his brother had been ignoring and avoiding him all this time. And what he was saying.
‘You whine all day and do nothing but assist from behind, and you think you’re suited for her? Do you actually believe you’re a match for Aria? What arrogance.’
‘Cough, hack……!’
He wanted to protest, but blood surged into his throat, choking his words. And somehow, whenever he tried to summon magic, his Mana Formation scattered, leaving him powerless.
Odel grabbed Leon’s hand, the one gripping the sword, with blood-stained fingers. But Leon recoiled as if something filthy had touched him, wrenching away and shoving Odel aside.
Odel lost his balance and collapsed to the ground.
‘I suit Aria far better than a coward like you. You can die slowly here while you imagine who will be at Aria’s side.’
‘Aria…….’
As Leon turned to leave, Odel seized his hem.
‘……She won’t want this.’
Despite the terrible betrayal, the golden eyes that looked up at Leon were pure and crystalline. As if that purity irritated him, Leon scowled and kicked at Odel’s face.
And so Leon departed, and Odel died slowly.
Watching Odel’s blood pool on the floor, Lucian murmured.
“I understand now why you showed me this.”
Lucian’s gaze fixed on Odel beside him. Odel was smiling sadly.
“You’re my past life, aren’t you?”
“……Yes.”
The dissonance Lucian felt whenever witnessing Odel’s past. When Odel was betrayed by Leon, his own chest felt torn asunder. But that alone had not given him certainty.
“Ever since childhood, I’ve had strange dreams from time to time. In them, I spent happy days with someone. And when I woke from those dreams, the sadness was unbearable. The thought that I would never see them again.”
Though he often forgot the contents of the dreams, because it happened more than once or twice, he couldn’t forget the emotion.
“Then why did you show me this?”
But knowing that Odel was his past life didn’t mean he’d accepted that fact.
“Stop your brother. So many people have been sacrificed because of him.”
“…….”
“Only you can stop him. Please, stop your brother and save Aria.”
Lucian’s brow twitched. He stepped closer to Odel, looking down at someone slightly shorter than himself.
“Don’t misunderstand. I was already planning to do this without you saying so.”
“……I see.”
“And you still haven’t answered my question. If you’d known this would happen beforehand, what would you have done with Lia?”
In Lucian’s eyes, Odel seemed to regret not sensing Leon’s feelings. As if, had he known, he would have yielded Aria to his brother.
Odel, understanding what Lucian meant, closed his mouth. At the sight of his hesitation, Lucian’s chest surged with emotion, and he seized Odel by the collar.
“She’s the woman you love. Are you saying family matters more to you than love? Do you have any idea how much Lia……!”
The image of Lia crying out Odel’s name as she recalled that memory flashed across his mind.
Now that he knew the two had been lovers, that was no mere longing—it was anguish.
Lia had suffered and grieved so deeply, yet this past lover was thinking of yielding his beloved to his brother. It was unforgivable.
“You have no right to love Lia.”
Lucian hurled Odel away roughly and strode past him.
Lucian stepped toward the portal he had crossed through. As his form vanished, Odel exhaled a long breath.
“……I hate myself too. I wish I’d been someone confident like my brother, someone who knew how to protect his woman. I’m grateful my reincarnation is you.”
Odel watched the slowly vanishing portal and closed his eyes.
“But Lucian, there will come a day when you face the same choice I did.”
Will you be able to choose love without hesitation when that day comes?
Odel’s body gradually began to scatter. Soon it dissipated into bright light and vanished from the world.

.
.

“Lucian!”
At the sound of his name, Lucian’s eyelashes fluttered as his eyes opened.
“……Age.”
His vision blurred; he blinked several times before Age’s figure came into focus. Lucian, having been hazy for a moment, pushed himself up on his elbows.
At the edge of his vision, as he pressed his temples, he saw Dio collapsed in a pool of blood.
“Dio!”
The sudden movement made his head spin. Age steadied him.
“Any longer and we would’ve been too late.”
Beside Dio were James and Harry. Age must have tended to them, for despite the torn clothes, no wounds were visible.
Lucian let out a shaky breath.
“……How are you here, Age?”
Then Lucian suddenly wondered how Age, who had gone elsewhere, was now at the Imperial Palace.
“The Palace is in chaos, Lucian.”
Harry answered in Age’s stead. According to Harry’s explanation, the Dark Mages had seized control of the Imperial Palace thirty minutes ago.
They had disguised themselves as priests to lower people’s guard, then attacked the knights and attendants one by one, rendering them incapacitated.
“And that’s not all—they’ve erected a Barrier so reinforcements can’t come from outside.”
Following where Age pointed, Lucian turned to see darkness settling over the sky beyond the window. It looked as though night had fallen.
But looking closer, the sky was wrapped in a dark curtain-like Barrier.
“If it weren’t for the Summoning Stone I gave you before, I would’ve had a hard time getting in.”
Back when Age was overseeing Lucian’s training, he had created a magical stone that could summon him in case of emergency.
James, recalling this, had hurried to break the Summoning Stone in Lucian’s Office.
“……I heard a loud noise from the Garden and thought someone was attacking, but that wasn’t it.”
James and Harry, who had been working, had witnessed clearly what unfolded in the Garden. And they realized what Lucian and Lia had feared had come to pass.
“The former Emperor and Empress are also locked in confrontation with the Dark Mages, from what I understand.”
“And Lia……?”
At Lucian’s trembling voice, Harry fell silent. As Harry and Age’s expressions darkened, Lucian grew anxious.
“What happened to Lia!”
“……Lia was taken by Leon.”
Lucian’s heart sank with a thud. Harry explained, as calmly as he could, what he had witnessed.
“But try not to worry too much. The First Emperor doesn’t seem intent on harming Lia.”
“I know where she is. There’s a place inside the Imperial Palace where an unusually severe Barrier has been erected.”
That place was the hall where the Imperial Throne stood.
“Kaiser noticed something odd midway and relocated, but he doesn’t seem to be there.”
“……I wish Kaiser were here too.”
They discussed how to break through this situation.
“We can’t just charge in ourselves. It’s too reckless. We need to gather reinforcements.”
“Gather for what? Our opponent is a Dark Mage—and a monster three hundred years old. Do you really think an ordinary human can face him?”
Their opinions diverged. Harry was for making thorough preparations, while Age insisted they had to move now with just themselves.
Both had merit, so a decision was not easily reached.

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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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