The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 138

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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 Phantom Bride of the Abandoned Prince — Episode 138

“…We can’t hesitate.”
“Dio!”
Just then, a groan sounded, and Dio’s voice rang out. He rose from his seat with a pallid face. Lucian and Harry rushed to support him.
“Lucian, if we hesitate even slightly, Lia will be in danger. You haven’t forgotten that our opponent is a monster who’s been obsessed with Lia for over three hundred years, have you?”
……
“In the past, he brainwashed her and tried to make her his own. What makes you think he won’t do the same now?”
No one could speak in response to Dio’s words. His argument was the most realistic proposal yet made.
“Whether ten more people arrive or a hundred, it won’t make much difference to the First Emperor. So go rescue Lia right now.”
Lucian felt something catch in his chest at the unwavering light in Dio’s eyes. Soon after, he lifted his bowed head and made his decision.
“I was already thinking the same thing.”
“That’s what makes you my friend.”
Dio laughed heartily and patted Lucian on the back.
With time running short, Lucian rose from his seat.
“Age, I ask for your assistance.”
“…Living and living, never did I think the day would come when I’d help humans with these hands.”
Yet the corners of Age’s mouth were lifted as he spoke.
“Dio, you rest for a bit. Harry and James, I’ll ask you to keep others from getting involved. Can you handle it?”
“Of course. Leave it to me.”
“We’ll take care of things here.”
Lucian left the room first with Age. Only after their presence faded did Dio wipe away his smile and clench his teeth hard.
“How are you feeling?”
“…No, I thought I was dying. Truly, if it weren’t for Age, I would have passed from this world.”
Though his wounds were cleanly healed, he’d lost so much blood that strength wouldn’t return to his body. Dio, slumped on the floor, looked up at Harry.
“Are you truly all right with this?”
“…All right with what?”
“The First Emperor has taken Leopold’s body.”
Harry clenched his fists tightly.
Truthfully, just before Lucian left, he’d wanted to ask him to save Leopold. But…
“If Lucian hesitated because of my plea and got hurt instead, I could never forgive myself. And…I can’t be certain anymore whether Leopold is even alive.”
Everyone unspoken but already sensed the truth—that the real Leopold might have been killed by Leon.
With a sniffling sound, Harry wiped at his eyes.
“We should move too. We must do whatever we can to help Lucian.”
At James’s words, Dio and Harry exchanged looks and nodded grimly.

* * *

“Damn it! Where the hell is this! I followed the map exactly!”
Kaiser huffed indignantly, breathing fire. It had been thirty minutes since he’d entered the Underground Tunnel, and yet despite what Habier had said about arriving quickly, Kaiser still hadn’t found a single path to the Imperial Palace.
Even with his wings spread, flying at high speed.
Kaiser flew through the tunnel at rapid speed once more. But again, he arrived back at the same place.
“Argh! Why did they make the tunnel like this!”
Kaiser forgot that he was directionally challenged and blamed the tunnel instead. As he flew about aimlessly in the Underground Tunnel, he sensed a presence.
It wasn’t far away. And that presence was deeply unpleasant and vaguely familiar.
“Why did Your Majesty erect such a Barrier in such haste?”
“Because of it, we couldn’t get inside either.”
“Could His Majesty have done this? Surely the Sun commanded it. There is no one else capable of such an act.”
“Last time, His Majesty’s acting was so good that I completely fell for it.”
“It was to root out spies. There is a saying—to deceive the enemy, first deceive your own allies.”
Dozens of humans in black robes walked in a line through the tunnel.
Bingo.
“Hm?”
The black mage at the rear came to a halt, tilting his head. His colleague ahead, noticing he wasn’t following, stopped as well.
“What is it?”
“No, I thought I heard something.”
“Our voices must be echoing.”
“Doesn’t seem like it…”
“We’ll arrive soon anyway, so hurry up.”
He hastened to follow behind the others, and the black mage scratched his head, troubled. Just as he was about to catch up with his colleague…
“…Ugh!”
His mouth was sealed shut, and at the same moment came a chilling sound—crack-crack-crack.
Before he could even process what had happened, the black mage’s body crumpled.
Soon, screams of terror erupted from the Underground Tunnel in succession, and bright flashes of light burst forth.
After perhaps five minutes had passed, the screams that had echoed so violently through the tunnel fell silent.
The passage where the black mages had been walking was so full of corpses that there was nowhere to step. Among them, Kaiser gripped the neck of what appeared to be their leader.
The man suspended in midair clawed at Kaiser’s arm, gasping and choking.
But against an arm where dragon scales jutted out prominently, he couldn’t leave a single scratch.
“Who… who are you…!”
“That’s not for you to know. You know the way to the Imperial Palace, right?”
The black mage’s eyes trembled finely. Catching this precisely, Kaiser offered a smile of triumph.
To the mage’s eyes, it looked like the smile of the Grim Reaper.
“Guide me to the Imperial Palace. Then I’ll kill you without pain.”
“Just kill me now…!”
At the man’s show of bravado, Kaiser tilted his head. The next moment, Golden White Flame bloomed from his body.
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
Feeling as though thrown into hellfire, the black mage let out a horrible scream.
“I’ll ask again. Guide me and die peacefully? Or experience every form of suffering before you die? Fair warning—a person won’t die from just this.”
“I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you everything, please, please extinguish this fire!”
Unable to hold out long, the black mage surrendered. Kaiser laughed darkly, then tucked him under his arm and headed for the Imperial Palace.

* * *

“Mmm…”
Lia opened her eyes with a soft moan. The first thing she saw was a pure white skirt.
‘White?’
Bothered by the unfamiliarity, Lia frowned. She was certain she hadn’t put on anything white today. As she moved to raise her hand in confusion, something jarred.
Clink.
“…What?”
Her hand discovered itself bound to the chair. Not only that, but her upper body was also restrained against the chair’s backrest—she couldn’t move.
“You’re awake?”
At what sounded like Lucian’s warm voice, Lia turned her head. But the voice belonged to Leon. He was mimicking Lucian’s tone.
The realization that she’d been deceived kindled irritation within her.
Leon’s expression grew pained under Lia’s gaze, which looked at him as though he were less than an insect.
“Even for me, that look hurts my heart.”
“Stop spouting nonsense. Untie this while you’re still being reasonable.”
“If you promise to stay calm.”
“You really…!”
“Your throat must be dry. I prepared a feast just for you.”
Leon completely ignored Lia’s objections. The naturalness of his action was astounding.
Leon wheeled over a cart. It was laden with things that Lia had loved when she was Aria.
Leon pulled up a chair beside her and thrust a cup into her hands.
“Here, drink slowly.”
“Get that away from me!”
“You’ll spill it on your Wedding Dress.”
“…What?”
Lia gasped and examined her own clothes again. It wasn’t just a white dress—it was a Wedding Dress.
“I had the handmaidens change you, so don’t worry about it too much.”
Leon added his explanation, but by then, Lia heard nothing.
‘How long was I unconscious?’
The windows were all curtained, so she couldn’t gauge the time outside. The space she occupied was a rather vast hall.
From the fact that a door was barely visible in the distance, it seemed to be one of the halls in the Imperial Palace…
There was something subtly suggesting she stood on a dais.
Lia tried to look around, but Leon gripped her cheek roughly first.
When she shot him a glare with widened eyes, Leon smiled with crinkled eyes.
“I told you to drink.”
A forceful pressure was applied. Lia frowned but, unable to resist, brought the cup he offered to her lips. Inside was ordinary juice.
Once she’d drained the juice, Leon’s expression grew satisfied.
“Are you hungry? I prepared things you like. What would you like to eat first? Maybe Cake, as expected?”
While Leon rummaged through the cart deciding what to feed her, Lia swiftly took stock of her surroundings again.
Though her movement was restricted, the shape of the chair and the emptiness of the hall allowed her to piece together where she was.
“…Is this the Imperial Throne?”
A seat only an emperor could occupy. It was adorned with every brilliant Jewel in the world.
“That’s right. Since it’s the seat I’ve cultivated my whole life, I wanted to give it to you. Of course, merely sitting there doesn’t make you emperor.”
Leon placed something on Lia’s head.
“A Crown suits you well too.”
Not content with the Imperial Throne, now a Crown as well. Lia was aghast—did he think she was a doll for him to play with?
‘Well, seeing as he smiles so innocently even after all the abuse I’ve given him, he’s surely not of sound mind.’
“What do you want from me?”
In that instant, Leon’s spine tingled, and an indescribable pleasure crept up through his legs.
Right now, she looked exactly like the Aria he’d loved back then.
Before, she’d seemed like a different person, so there was something unsettling about it. But that arrogant attitude, that disdainful gaze—it was identical to that time.
Feeling as though he’d stepped back into the past, Leon’s heart, long dead, began to beat.
“I don’t want anything.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m serious. All I need is for you to stay by my side.”
In Leon’s eyes, lit with love and beaming with a foolish smile, Odel’s face and Lucian’s face overlapped.
And as she saw the faces of the two she’d loved most and loved still—in the man who’d shattered her peace and happiness—nausea rose in her throat.
Unaware of Lia’s heart, Leon reached out with a tender hand to stroke her cheek.
Naturally, Lia twisted her face away in disgust and avoided his touch.
“All you need is me by your side? That makes no sense. If that were really your intention, you shouldn’t have sealed me in the first place!”
“Your memories haven’t all returned, I thought, but it seems they have now?”
“Don’t change the subject. Answer me.”
“Back then, I was too foolish. I thought I had to make you mine by force. It was a mistake to kill Odel in a fit of rage. When I heard he was proposing to you, I was so angry I couldn’t see straight.”
Lia’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Your resistance was so fierce, you see. That Sealing Magic was really just a threat.”
“…How can you speak so calmly about killing Odel!”
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
The chair Lia sat in began to shake, and the hall trembled with it.
Violet Mana surged violently from her body. It seemed as though she might kill Leon with it.
“Ugh…!”
But soon the violet Mana gradually subsided.
As though her strength were being drained away, her body wouldn’t respond. Lia panicked and examined herself.
Now that she thought about it, the same thing had happened just before she collapsed.
“…Lia.”
A sinister voice sounded above her bowed head. Before she could help it, a chill ran down her spine, and Lia slowly lifted her gaze.
Leon looked down at her with eyes unnaturally widened.
“If you don’t want to anger me, I’d advise you not to speak that name again.”
It wasn’t advice—it was a threat. If she spoke that name once more, her life would be forfeit.
A taut tension filled the air.
Bang—! Bang-bang—!
At the sound of the door being battered, Leon and Lia’s heads turned. Lia’s heart began to race.
“…Lucian.”
“An intruder has arrived.”
The two wore expressions that diverged sharply onto parallel lines.

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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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