The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 145

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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 Phantom Bride — Chapter 145

Once Lia had made her decision, there was no hesitation in her. Not a shred of mercy remained within her anymore.
She was consumed entirely by the mission to erase Leon from this world, methodically destroying his very soul.
‘Krrgh!’
Watching his spirit dissolve rapidly, Leon felt a surge of panic.
‘At this rate, I really will die.’
He had no intention of fading quietly. But how was he supposed to stop her?
Screeeech!
Another spirit dissolved in the interim. More than half of the souls she’d destroyed were already gone.
As the noose tightened around him, Leon’s mind raced in desperation—and then his eyes landed on something perfect.
Leon’s lips twisted into a crooked smile.

.
.

Meanwhile, Lia pressed forward with an expressionless face, focused entirely on erasing the spirits blocking her path.
Her ferocity was so overwhelming that the spirits instinctively shrank back from her.
Then the smoke-like spirits suddenly halted, beginning to coalesce in one place.
Her cool violet eyes fixed on the point where the smoke gathered.
She’d thought he lacked the strength to consolidate his form—had she been wrong?
‘It might be his last desperate struggle.’
Either way, one fact remained unchanged: he had to be destroyed.
Lia’s expression never faltered as she rushed toward the gathering smoke.
Just as she thrust her purple spear forward—
‘You truly don’t care what happens to this one?’
The black spirit, now taking human form, tore open its chest.
‘……Leopold!’
Inside the black spirit, Leopold’s soul flickered, pulsing with a pure white light.
Lia hesitated, and Leon seized the moment, his lips moving swiftly.
‘He struggled earlier, true enough, but the wretch was dying from the start. He’s been part of me for a long time now. If you want to save him, I’d suggest you don’t come any closer.’
Half of it was a lie. Leopold was indeed dying, but he was not part of Leon.
Leon had merely surrounded Leopold’s soul to make it appear as though he had.
But without this deception, there was no way to stop Lia’s relentless advance.
Watching Lia’s expression darken, Leon was certain he’d succeeded—until the next instant.
‘You really do disappoint me until the very end.’
A killing intent descended over Lia’s dark face. Leon felt in that moment that something had gone terribly wrong.
‘I should have known better than to try using Leopold against her.’
Savage purple mana erupted across Lia’s entire form, and Leon could not hide his alarm.
‘Wait, wait! I said you don’t care what happens to him, didn’t I?!’
‘The only person I have to deal with is you.’
Whoosh! Boom!
Multiple spears materialized around Lia, rocketing forward with fierce momentum and tearing holes through Leon’s barely-held-together form.
‘Krraaaagh!’
The wounds did not seal. They dissolved entirely, as was inevitable.
In desperation, he tried using Leopold as a shield, but—
‘Grrrgh! Why……!’
The purple spears veered narrowly around Leopold, targeting only Leon.
This was a power that no one without full recovery of memory should possess. No—even if she had recovered Aria’s memories, such overwhelming power made no sense.
Leon’s form, now riddled with holes, stared ahead with eyes filled with terror.
Lia’s face held no emotion whatsoever—cold and indifferent.
It was as though he had ceased to mean anything to her.
Why could he never be loved by her?
That pathetic sibling, the oblivious Red Dragon, even a worthless descendant—she loved them all. Why not him alone……?
‘What makes them different from me?!’
At Leon’s cry, Lia raised her hand, ceasing her relentless assault.
‘No one loved and cherished you more than I did! So why did you love Odel instead of me?!’
‘…….’
Compassion flickered into Lia’s expressionless eyes.
‘I loved you too, Leon.’
Her voice was plain, unadorned.
Beneath the depths of her rage, tenderness toward him and a fragile affection still lingered.
Feeling the sincerity of her words, Leon’s gaze wavered helplessly.
‘It wasn’t romantic love, but I loved you just as much as I loved Odel and Karcerin.’
So when she heard that he had killed Odel, when she saw him trying to force himself upon her—
She had desperately wanted to deny reality, to look away. And yet she wanted to set things right, even if it meant conflict.
‘But it’s far too late for us to return to what we were.’
She had lived three hundred years in emptiness, not knowing why she had become a ghost.
If she had never met Kaiser and Lucian, she would surely still be bound to that mansion, wasting away.
Remembering those three hundred years of captivity, Lia suddenly recalled something.

‘Aria, I brought the book you like.’
‘Lilies remind me of you.’
‘Just wait a little longer. I’ll rescue you from that place, I promise.’

The memory that surfaced was a fragment she had experienced yet never lived.
It belonged to her time as a ghost, before consciousness had awakened.
Lia gained the ability to think not long after Leon’s death.
Only after making the first offering to sustain her soul could she begin to reason.
In those days of unconsciousness, Leon visited the empty mansion every day.
He held fast to the belief that Aria’s seal would one day break, keeping watch so that the mansion would not feel abandoned.
But as decades passed and his life drew short, Leon—waiting for Aria—grew weary.

‘……If only you had chosen me, none of this would have happened.’

That was the last day Leon ever visited the mansion.
After his resurrection in his son’s body, he no longer sought it out, using only the underground tunnel to access the basement when necessary.
Thus, the awakened Aria never encountered him.
Leon, alone in the mansion, seemed terribly lonely compared to those peaceful days they had all spent together.
But that was all there was to it.
The person before her now bore not a trace of the person she once knew.
‘Now disappear from my life for good.’
As Lia bid him farewell with a pained expression, Leon felt his last glimmer of hope turn to ash and scatter.
With his will to live extinguished, Leon’s spirit could no longer maintain its form and simply crumbled.
His upper body collapsed, and Leopold’s spirit separated from him.
Only Leon’s face remained, and it turned to gaze at Lia.
‘……If I had supported your love for Odel back then, would things be different now?’
‘…….’
‘Or if I had been Odel instead, would we have ever loved each other?’
‘Meaningless speculation now.’
‘……I suppose so.’
Leon closed his eyes, then opened them again.
Lia’s face was so expressionless that anyone would feel the loss of it.
He would have preferred her resentment, even her contempt, any negative feeling—anything to live eternally in her memory.
‘Lia, hate me, despise me, resent me your whole life, and…….’
With his mouth gone, Leon could no longer speak to her.
Though his lips seemed to move desperately, his words did not reach her.
Then, with only his eyes remaining, Leon smiled like a mischievous child and vanished.
Watching Leon’s spirit disappear without leaving so much as a speck of dust in the white mindscape, Lia unclenched her fist.
‘From this day forward, you will never haunt my memory again.’
She understood what he had been trying to say with those final words.
She would no longer be bound by Leon’s shadow, floundering in the past.
She would prepare to move forward into a bright future with those by her side.
Lia turned away without hesitation and approached Leopold’s unconscious spirit.
‘……He’s alive.’
Weakened greatly, but alive. As long as he was alive, she could save him somehow.
‘Leopold, I’m going to return you to your family.’
Lia cradled Leopold’s spirit carefully and withdrew from his mindscape.
A ray of light pierced through the seemingly endless tunnel.

* * *

“Lia!”
At the sound of her name, Lia’s heavy eyes opened. Before her lay Lucian’s face, streaked with tears.
Lia smiled brightly and caressed his cheek. For a moment, Lucian’s golden eyes wavered.
“It’s all over now.”
“…….”
“You don’t have to worry anymore.”
Though simple and without elaboration, Lucian understood immediately what lay beneath those words.
Lucian struggled to steady his trembling lips and held Lia as tightly as he could. Then, in a shaking voice, he whispered low.
“……Thank you, Lia.”
“I’m the one who should thank you for staying by my side.”
In the warmth they shared, their love for each other melted between them.
Soon they pressed their foreheads together and shared a brief kiss.
“Mm…….”
“Whoa! Lia, you! Didn’t you say it was all done?!”
An unidentifiable sound came from beside them, and Kaiser let out a startled cry.
Turning, they saw Leopold beginning to stir.
Kaiser reached for his White Flame, thinking he’d have to face Leon again, but Lia stopped him. In his confusion—
“Where……?”
Leopold spoke in a hoarse voice. Lucian’s eyes went wide as he looked back at Lia. Seeing his lips move, Lia smiled.
“Leon is no longer in this world. There’s no one left to torment you.”
Lucian bit his lip hard, his face contorting as though he might cry. He moved toward Leopold.
Leopold, not yet fully conscious, slowly opened and closed his eyes repeatedly.
Then, as Lucian came into his line of sight, Leopold began to smile broadly.
It was a smile as radiant as sunlight—nothing like the false expression Leon had worn.
Tears began to fall from the corners of Lucian’s eyes.
“Brother…… Do you remember me?”
“……You’re my brother.”
Lucian laughed breathlessly and helped Leopold to his feet.
“Ugh…… My shoulder hurts so much.”
Then Leopold suddenly winced at a sharp pain in his shoulder.
As he reached for his shoulder, his eyes went wide when he saw the sword sticking blatantly out of it.
“Wait, wait…… Aaaaagh! A sword, a sword!”
The shock of actually seeing a sword embedded in his own shoulder eclipsed even the pain itself.
Lucian, the sword’s owner, went ashen and hastily tried to calm Leopold. In an instant, Lia and Kaiser gathered around him, removing the sword and applying healing magic.
While they were absorbed in treating Leopold—
“Your Highness! Are you unwell?!”
The firmly closed door burst open as Habier and Age rushed in.

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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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