The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 144

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

The Ghost Bride of the Forsaken Prince — Chapter 144

Engulfed in White Flames, Leon writhed as agony seared itself into his very soul.
The purification of his spirit—so thoroughly corrupted, so deeply tainted—burned far more viciously than any physical flame. His mind fractured under the onslaught, reason dissolving like ash.
As Leon collapsed in an instant, Kaiser caught him from behind and cried out:
“Lucian, now!”
To erase him from this world entirely, he must die now.
Unlike Lia’s unique case, a spirit severed from its body simply vanishes into nothing.
Lucian raised his blade. Leon fixed him with a hollow, piercing glare.
As Lucian’s brow furrowed and he drove the sword downward,
“……Lucian.”
A trembling voice cut through. The blade halted inches from its target.
Lucian’s eyes wavered, unfocused, adrift.
“……Are you going to kill me?”
Before him stood not Leon—but Leopold. Or perhaps both at once; the distinction had blurred beyond recognition.
The reality he had forced himself to ignore came rushing back to the surface.
Leon had inhabited Leopold’s body from the very beginning.
That was why he had doubted the man’s identity for so long, why he had writhed in betrayal and despair when he learned the truth.
He had steeled himself by repeating: ‘My brother is dead.’ Only then could he face Leon.
But now, with Leopold’s face before him, Lucian found himself paralyzed.
Tears pricked at Lucian’s eyes as he trembled; Leopold’s mouth twisted upward in a cruel smile.
“Fool. You’ll never kill me. Killing me is killing your brother.”
Leon, wearing Leopold’s mask, laughed at him.
In the process of seizing Leopold’s body, he had absorbed all of his memories, all of his cherished moments.
That was how he had deceived Lucian for so long.
Not only Lucian—Kaiser and Lia would be helpless against him too.
He already knew how desperately they cherished the boy.
“Bastard……!”
“How can you even call yourself human……?!”
Kaiser and Lia gasped, their outrage burning—yet as Leon had anticipated, they could do nothing. Their hands were bound by the same chains that bound Lucian.
After long, ragged breaths, Lucian released an anguished cry.
“Aaaaagh!”
Thud—!
Lucian’s blade buried itself in Leon’s shoulder. A wound, but not a killing stroke.
Leon gasped at the searing pain, resuming his act as Leopold with a grieved expression.
“Lucian, how could you do this to me……!”
“Haa…… haa…….”
Lucian’s breathing grew more ragged, more desperate. Watching him, Leon intensified his performance, twisting Lucian deeper into confusion.
He could see Lucian’s emotion fracturing.
“If you don’t kill me now, I’ll hunt Lia forever. And I’ll make her soul mine as well.”
A vile gaze swept across Lia. She understood it was provocation—a calculated strike at Lucian. But Lucian did not.
Lucian clenched his teeth and seized Leon’s throat with both hands.
Crash—!
Both men tumbled to the ground. Lucian’s arms trembled as he strangled Leon, whose eyes burned with arrogant contempt.
“Press harder and yes, I’ll die. But your brother’s body dies with me. Then you’ll spend your whole life suffocating under the guilt of having killed him.”
“Shut your mouth! My brother is dead! You killed him and then——!”
“Who says I killed Leopold?”
At Leon’s next words, Lucian froze.
This did not sound like desperation born of the moment.
“How do you think I deceived even Lia’s eyes?”
Leon had long since seen through Lia’s deception—that she examined his soul under the pretense of checking his condition.
Leon was a fallen spirit from ages past. His soul was a sludge-black so thick that nothing could penetrate even an inch ahead.
Yet the soul Lia had examined all this time was white. Why?
“Rather than absorb Leopold’s soul, it was far more useful to layer mine beneath his—a mask to fool you all.”
“No…….”
Lia’s eyes trembled violently.
“Yes. Leopold is still alive.”
Hope torture. They had fought Leon without reservation because they believed Leopold dead—but if he lived, then this entire battlefield had been Leon’s palm from the start.
“How it revolts me—how this worm cherishes his little brother.”
Leon’s mockery drilled into Lucian’s stunned ear.
“Weak as they come, yet the brother warned: don’t raise a finger against the boy. Comic, isn’t it? The older one struggles to keep his younger brother alive, yet the younger one throws himself at killing the elder. Amusing, truly?”
“Will you shut that mouth?!”
Unable to bear it, Kaiser burned his White Flames brighter. As the purification intensified, Leon groaned—but the smile bleeding from his lips would not cease.
“Choose. Love or family. Those are your only two paths. Choose wisely.”
Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Leon’s laughter gnawed at Lucian’s mind. The hands throttling him had long since lost their strength.
‘He’s alive. Knowing that—can I truly kill this monster?’
No.
God help him, no.
He had volunteered as Leopold’s stand-in for five years—five years of waiting for him to wake. When Leon took the body, Lucian had no choice but to accept his brother’s death.
Now that he knew Leopold lived—how could he lay a hand on this creature?
Seeing Lucian surrender, Kaiser’s expression hardened.
He pushed the Purification to its limit, drawing upon his own reserves.
Perhaps, if he burned away all of Leon—Leopold’s soul might still be salvaged within.
“Ha-ha! Useless! Leopold and I are already one! When I die, so does he! No matter how much you struggle——!”
Leon spoke his triumph aloud, then suddenly went rigid. His body convulsed violently, seizing as if something else was awakening.
“I, impossible……!”
This was different from the anguish of White Flames. Something else entirely.
“Ugh! How—how are you—I devoured you long ago!”
Leon’s words seemed to be quarreling with himself, as though speaking to a voice only he could hear.
He tore at his own hair, arched backward like a bow, thrashing—then stopped.
All eyes fixed on the empty golden gaze. Then his lips parted, and a gentle voice emerged.
“Lucian.”
“……Brother?”
Leon—no, Leopold—smiled softly and reached toward Lucian’s face.
“I’m all right.”
“——Damn! Who gave you permission to——!”
“If we don’t kill him now, three hundred years of nightmares will repeat. I have to protect what I love.”
“Silence! I said silence!”
Leopold’s expression and voice flickered like a split personality, but ultimately it was Leopold who held dominion over the body.
Leopold guided Lucian’s hand to his own throat, pressing it there.
“Don’t blame yourself. Don’t grieve. Do what you must. If I fall by your hand, I can leave peacefully…….”
Tears gathered in Lucian’s eyes.
With a trembling hand, he applied pressure. Leopold’s eyes closed in serene acceptance.
He surrendered to death without resistance.
Lucian squeezed his eyes shut, his hand quivering—then released his grip.
“……I’m sorry, Lia.”
Through tears, Lucian turned to face her.
“I can’t kill him. Not with my own hands.”
“Lucian…….”
Watching him gasp in agony, Lia clenched her fists.
“Of course not! Do you think you could live afterward—knowing you murdered your own brother?”
Leon seized control again, hurling abuse at Lucian—words that mocked Leopold too, who had given his life willingly.
Even as Lucian realized Leon had retaken the body, he could not raise his head.
Tears fell steadily beneath his bowed crown, and Lia’s fists clenched harder.
“Love! Family! You can’t choose between them, you’re pathetic! That weakness will devour you whole!”
“No. You’re wrong.”
Lia’s cold voice cut through Leon’s mockery. Lucian looked up at her, eyes swimming with tears.
She glared at Leon with genuine fury.
“From the start, there was never a choice to make! What do you think the human heart is? A lover and a brother—do you think it’s normal to weigh the two most precious beings against each other on a scale?!”
“Lia…….”
Lia seized Leon by the hair.
“Lucian doesn’t have to choose. Dealing with you is my responsibility.”
To face Leon at last.
She had come this far without breaking, held up by countless hands filled with love. Now it was her turn to repay that debt.
Mana surged from Lia’s body as she forced her way into the depths of Leon and Leopold’s souls.
White flames from Kaiser’s assault flickered throughout the mindscape, their smoke drifting like ash as they purified Leon’s soul.
Yet even after prolonged purification, black smoke still clung to every corner.
Where lesser minds might despair at extracting such a vast, scattered essence, Lia saw it differently.
‘A soul meant to cohere scattering like this—it has already lost its strength.’
Perhaps the Elixir she had given him earlier was finally taking its toll.
‘Whatever the reason, it works in my favor.’
Violet Mana bloomed in Lia’s palms. Where Kaiser’s White Flames purified Leon’s soul, Lia’s Mana would obliterate it entirely.
‘How many spirits have I already destroyed?’
If Leon had spent three hundred years body-hopping, soul-hopping through other lives, then Lia had lived three hundred years as nothing but a soul—and thus her understanding of spirits far exceeded his.
And she knew exactly how to unmake them.
Lia’s hand seized the black spirit drifting in the void. Though it took the form of smoke, it solidified in her grasp.
Screeeech—
As she pulled the spirit toward her, it compressed into her palm, releasing an otherworldly shriek.
Within moments, a sphere of condensed soul sat compact in her hand.
She pressed it between her palms. Crack—the sound of shattering echoed as it began to dissolve from existence.
‘Stop! Stop this!’
Leon’s desperate voice echoed throughout the mindscape.
This was agony of a different kind than purification. No—beyond pain, this was annihilation. No reincarnation, no escape. A nullification so hollow and futile that even oblivion seemed kind by comparison.
For a spirit that had clung to existence for three hundred years, such an ending was unthinkable.
‘Stop, I beg you……?’
Lia’s fury ignited at his arrogance.
‘Tens, hundreds of people have suffered because of you! And now you ask me to stop?!’
Her rage burned past any restraint. There were limits to shamelessness.
‘All of this began with you—with your obsession with me. So destroying you, erasing you from this world—that burden is mine alone to bear.’
Lia made a choice: she would stop blaming herself.
She was the sole victim. The perpetrator showed no remorse, walking free with brazen indifference—so why should the victim torment herself with guilt?
The weight of these feelings belonged not to her, but to Leon.
Lia moved forward without wavering now, without fear, her violet eyes burning with an unshakeable resolve.
They held the same light as the day Leon had first fallen for her.
‘I will end you here. Now.’
Lia issued her declaration of judgment upon the fallen soul.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————