The Crown I Will Take From You - Chapter 276

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Part 2, Chapter 123

Even as pressure like a whip striking her nape poured down, Rachel frantically turned her head.

‘How can I divert their attention? How do I deceive these people?’

However, Rachel didn’t know that Medeia had no intention of creating an escape route for her.

“Your Holiness, the answer likely lies in the covenant cup this woman tampered with.”

When Medeia gestured with her chin, Rachel’s attending priest approached.

The attending priest standing before the Pope smoothly removed his robe. Where the familiar cream-colored robe disappeared, flat flannel armor gleamed.

It was Theo.

Rachel turned pale with shock. Only now did she realize why her brainwashing to capture Medeia hadn’t worked.

“How, how did you, when, since when…?”

Had he been hiding by her side? Then where was the original black mage?

This Theo, how did this knight avoid her brainwashing?

However, the moment Medeia picked up the covenant cup, Rachel realized all her questions were meaningless.

“The High Priests who have long served in the Holy Kingdom would know that when wicked beings like black mages touch this covenant cup, their traces cannot be erased.”

Medeia held the cup high for all to see.

“Primordial Darkness.”

The Pope’s voice, examining the interior of the silver cup that had turned completely black, fell over the stone-heavy silence.

“Bl, black magic…”

The priests who had been holding their breath let out groans. Only black mages who dabbled in forbidden arts handled Primordial Darkness.

“Fine, let’s say traces remain on the cup.”

Then, breaking the silence, Rachel raised her voice.

“But where’s the proof that it was me?”

Her voice was trembling. No, as she tried harder to suppress the trembling, an unpleasant metallic clang emerged.

Rachel widened her eyes.

“Black magic? How could I have stayed in this sacred temple for months with such evil power? Do you believe that’s possible?”

At Rachel’s denial, tainted with madness disguised as injustice, Medeia waited no longer.

Swoosh. Her outstretched hand grabbed the curtain.

The covering curtain slid to the floor, fully revealing the hidden mirror.

Rachel was clearly reflected in the clean mirror.

“Aaaaah!”

“Lo, look there…!”

The priests’ horrified screams echoed.

Rachel slowly turned her body.

Her appearance reflected in the mirror was…

Black cracks rippled in her heart. What caught attention most of all were her hands, originally pure white.

The mirror’s sacred power of revealing truth had torn through the black magic disguise that had been concealing her hands.

At that moment, sharp gasps burst from among the priests.

“Th, that… what on earth…”

“Evil! A thing of darkness!”

Even priests who hadn’t awakened holy power could feel it—the malevolent aura emanating from her right hand was eerie and wicked.

Rachel’s right hand was withered and twisted black like a long-rotted tree branch.

Flesh was cracked, and at every joint of that hand that didn’t even look human, black energy writhed.

“Black magic!”

Rachel’s true appearance revealed in the truth-reflecting mirror.

That was,

The moment when the cruel truth was fully exposed—that their Saint, whom the temple had waited hundreds of years for and firmly believed to be the Goddess’s representative, was an evil black mage.

When sharply honed holy power was felt from the Pope and High Priests, Rachel’s face contorted like a demon.

‘Like this… it crumbles like this? So helplessly?’

Her violet eyes once again swept over those in the Hall of Judgment.

Only the Pope and high-ranking priests were there.

Since she was caught anyway, she’d send out the black mage disciples to silence these people.

“Kill them. Everyone here.”

Rachel issued a command to summon all the attending priests outside.

“…”

But no response came from outside.

“Didn’t you hear? Kill them all.”

“…”

Thwang-!

Then, a dagger grazed Rachel’s cheek. She froze.

Thud.

Something was thrown in front of her.

“Looking for these?”

Chezare, leaning casually, was grinning wickedly at Rachel.

As the sack was untied, what was revealed were the bloodied daggers of the attending priests—no, the black mages.

“They had skills too good to die like dogs here.”

“…!”

Rachel’s vision wavered.

What rushed toward her darkened eyes wasn’t the victory she had so eagerly anticipated, but ruin.

* * *

“No! You’re mistaken! That girl deceived you! She’s conspiring again to fool us all—!”

Medeia walked toward Rachel.

“Whatever deception I use, could it match yours?”

Medeia took in the sight of the Saint glaring at her with hatred.

The despair, confusion, chaos reflected in Rachel’s large eyes… and the hatred directed at her.

“Seize her!”

Temple Knights roughly grabbed Rachel as she tried to rush at Medeia. A scene opposite to the previous life was created.

The beast caught in the trap had become the Saint, and the hunter pursuing her had become herself.

Medeia bent down.

It would be a lie to say she didn’t have the base desire to see that sight more closely, properly.

And the moment Medeia’s figure was accidentally reflected in the mirror,

“Ooooh—!”

Platinum radiance burst from the mirror, illuminating Medeia.

Simultaneously, the necklace around her neck came undone smoothly.

The necklace floating into the air absorbed the brilliant lights.

“N, no…”

Rachel groaned at the sight.

She instinctively realized.

This was the moment when the true Saint of the Holy Kingdom—no, the continent—who had been hidden all along, was being revealed.

“Th, that necklace is… Shadeia’s…”

Pope Benedict recognized the emblem passed down to Shadeia’s shamans.

As leader of the Old Church, he knew that the first representative had been a Shadeian shaman.

The Pope staggered. Then he collapsed with a thud.

“The representative! This person was the true Saint!”

The awakened priests also felt the vast holy power bursting from Medeia. They unconsciously knelt and pressed their foreheads to the floor.

“Suddenly, why on earth…”

Bewildered, Medeia looked at them and tried to step back.

“Wicked black magic blinded our eyes so we couldn’t recognize the true representative!”

“The true representative!”

“No, that can’t be…”

The most shocked was High Priest Paollo.

His face was pale, as if all the blood had completely drained from it.

He shook his head violently.

He couldn’t accept what he saw in the mirror—Medeia wrapped in light and Rachel still surrounded by dark instruments.

“It’s a lie, it can’t be….”

He struck his forehead against the floor and wept.

The one he had waited for so long, the Goddess’s representative who would save this continent from disaster, was actually a black mage.

This was beyond simple betrayal—it was blasphemy that shook the very sanctity he had believed in.

“Remove this woman.”

Pope Benedict’s voice toward Rachel was cold and resolute.

“Take her to the Tower of the Condemned.”

Unlike the other High Priests who were shocked by the truth revealed by the sacred relics, his face showed neither horror nor confusion.

‘Perhaps he had sensed this moment from the very beginning.’

The Pope swallowed a sigh as he looked at Rachel’s rotted right hand reflected in the mirror.

“…If Your Holiness also suspects Saint Rachel, I would ask for your help with this matter. This is an issue that affects the safety of the entire continent, beyond just the Central Temple.”

Under the pretext of wedding preparations, Medeia had already hinted at today’s plan to the Pope.

The specially constructed Hall of Judgment. The sacred relics that reflected truth. All preparations to test Rachel were carried out silently under the Pope’s direction.

‘Black magic….’

The sense of unease and discomfort he had felt whenever facing the Saint was finally explained.

However.

The Pope’s eyes fell on Theo. He had thrown off his attending priest robes and stood beside Medeia.

‘To think that in this vast Central Temple, only one Holy Knight saw through her true nature.’

The Pope swallowed his lament.

The Central Temple was not what it used to be.

The Goddess’s power had grown dim, and those who served the Goddess had also been tainted by corruption and desire.

At that moment, in the corridor.

Sensing someone’s presence, Jason hurriedly hid behind a pillar.

“Ahhh, let go! I am a Saint! You lowly things! Let go! I am innocent! It’s a trap, you’re all being deceived!”

Rachel screamed sharply as she was dragged away by the Temple Knights. Her face was filled with venomous rage and madness.

There was no trace anywhere of the gentle and graceful ‘Saint’ she had always been.

Jason unconsciously bit his lip hard.

It was shocking.

Standing outside the Hall of Judgment, the truth he had barely learned through eavesdropping was utterly unbelievable.

To think that Saint Rachel was actually a black mage.

‘Then… even back then?’

The second wife he had chosen, abandoning Medeia and the children.

Had he truly been bewitched by a mere black mage, abandoning his family and committing irreversible sins?

His breath caught. It felt as if his bones were freezing.

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