The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 185
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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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Chapter 185
That’s how he separated his past self from the present ‘Gideon’. He had succeeded in separating his contaminated self through the opportunity of return.
Sometimes those buried pasts would surge up violently, but he believed it would be fine if he could somehow endure it well.
Perhaps he thought he could forget completely.
Stop the disaster, collapse the star or shoot it into the sky, annihilate Pascal.
Become emperor, become a wise ruler, with a heart of atonement, fulfill his given responsibilities, do his best in all things, make those within reach as happy as possible.
In such a peaceful world, time that heals everything would flow and flow again.
If Lillieta would stay by his side.
The broken ‘Gid Pascal’ would disappear, and he could live as the excellent emperor ‘Gideon’, having ordinary and normal love.
That’s what he believed.
‘How naive I was.’
She had found out.
The things he had buried. The times he had tried to forget.
Gideon knew this was Pascal’s scheme. He also guessed that bastard’s purpose.
To make him go berserk in the most effective and precise way.
Nevertheless, this was an inescapable trap and an unavoidable catastrophe.
Now he could no longer turn away from his twisted parts. The things he had suppressed were surging up.
Just like once, in the most desperate timeline. Like that summer when he became a demon beast and crushed the Last Line of Defense.
He was crumbling.
Oaths are a matter of one’s own perception. Since oaths are the result of willless Ode being drawn to human strong will, when will crumbles, Ode doesn’t follow either.
Even if no one is watching, if you think you’ve broken your oath, punishment falls. Even if everyone condemns you, if you remain confident, the oath is maintained.
Gideon judged and despised himself coldly. Thus his oath began to collapse.
Because he wanted to run away from all responsibility. Because the reason to maintain ‘Prince Gideon’ was disappearing.
And for him, going berserk was synonymous with becoming a demon beast.
Because what was already broken was being suppressed by Ode, by conscious effort and will close to self-hypnosis, by ‘oath’.
His vision distorted at will. Something seemed about to burst out of his body.
Gideon tried somehow to swallow it down and smiled.
“Rita, I did my best to be the me you know. I’m still trying now. I’ll keep trying in the future. Forever, until I die.”
“…”
“So… couldn’t you forget?”
Even as he said this, he knew the result. That once she knew, forgetting would be impossible. That it was already irreversible.
No, actually it could be reversed. If he wanted to reverse it.
He could steal the star from Pascal and use it.
Turn back time. Use that bastard’s reference point to return to right after his homecoming and make it all never happened.
As a result, even the parts he had managed to separate would be contaminated, but anyway, he could make it never happened. He could make her not know again.
Despite seeing his eyes regain their original color after return, confirming his intact right eye, making an oath while separating the past, declaring to Beacon that he could no longer perform ‘tricks’, dreaming of a new future, and resolving countless times never to use the star again.
Gideon unconsciously felt an intense impulse.
Lillieta noticed that he was feeling such an impulse. Her expression crumbled.
“Gid, if I don’t forget.”
She continued with trembling lips.
“Will you make me forget?”
“…!”
“By turning back… time?”
The question pierced into his chest like a bullet. The impulse he hadn’t been aware of became clear like a wound.
Gid realized once again how out of his mind he was. And how he must look to her.
What both had momentarily forgotten finally moved then.
Joker was still recovering his blown-away upper body, and the Red Queen wasn’t moving as she had spread out her misty kingdom.
But Heart King was free. The thing that had been waiting for an opportunity approached during the moment when both Gideon and Lillieta were disturbed and swung his sword.
Behind Lillieta, the Old King suddenly emerged from the faintly flowing mist and brought down his blade toward her.
She looked back. A beat too late. She would somehow avoid a fatal wound but it would graze her arm or leg.
Gid couldn’t move. Just keeping his twisting body fixed was overwhelming.
So he instinctively moved something else.
A pitch-black ‘something’ burst out again and pressed down on Heart King. Crushed it.
Rita saw exactly what that something was this time.
Something like the front paw of a beast, no, a monster made of countless intertwined black thorny branches.
The thing that had crushed the demon beast and burst it smoothly returned to its place.
Dense contamination aura. A demon beast of Named-class or higher.
Suddenly the scent of patchouli drifted from somewhere and brushed her nose.
She unconsciously aimed her magic gun at it. Swiftly and precisely.
It wasn’t a conscious action. A reflexive act born from long combat experience.
But where it had returned and disappeared, Gideon was standing.
He looked at the silver muzzle aimed at his chest and smiled.
“Ah.”
He raised the corners of his mouth and whispered.
“Right, it can’t be reversed.”
“…!”
Rita, startled, belatedly lowered her gun, but it was too late. He had already realized how she perceived him.
Gid closed his eyes and muttered.
“It shouldn’t be… reversed either.”
Black thorny things began sprouting from him. The things he had been suppressing pierced through his skin and grew.
Explosively.
“…!”
A violent wind arose.
Rita instinctively raised both arms to cover her face and bounced backward. Exploding thorn fragments grazed her arms and legs.
As soon as the wind subsided, she lowered her arms and raised her head.
Her pupils dilated enormously. A massive demon beast she had never seen in her life was reflected in those eyes.
A Black Dragon… made of twisted and tangled thorny branches.
It looked down below. The dragon’s head covered with thorns like scales had no eyes.
Two empty holes, deep like an abyss.
Seeing her with scratches all over her arms and legs, dark red blood drops welled up from those empty holes. Like wells filling with blood.
The dragon shed tears of blood and raised its head toward the sky.
Black flames burst from its mouth.
Dragon’s breath like what Rita had imitated.
The flames pierced through the mist that was being dismantled while covered in spider web-like green magic, and even pierced through the barrier of the isolation space maintained by the Saint and Witch together.
The night sky was visible where the flames had passed.
The Black Dragon spread its wings. Though the wings that looked like thorny branches spreading had neither feathers nor membrane, the dragon lightly lifted its body.
It soared up and bit the Red Queen’s neck.
Kiiiiiiaaaaaak!
Bitten by the dragon and dragged up into the sky, the Red Queen let out a horrible scream. The Black Dragon that had flown up completely tore off its neck above Rhamcard Arena.
The Red Queen’s head and body separated. With paper bundle-like hair fluttering, the queen’s head with faces front and back and the body with four arms fell separately.
And gradually disappeared. Like the crown’s jewels and heart flowers had, they shattered and vanished in mid-air.
Lillieta stood dazedly in the arena where glittering red powder was falling and looked up at the star-filled sky.
The sky where a black shadow blocking the starlight was cast.
The Black Dragon that had bitten the Red Queen to death looked down briefly. Its entire body writhed unstably. The tears of blood pooled in its well-like eyes overflowed.
Before those blood drops could fall to the ground, the dragon turned its head and flew somewhere across the night sky.
Toward the north.
The distant noise of people outside the arena who saw the demon beast flying in the sky could be heard.
What is that?
It’s a dragon!
It’s the Black Dragon!
The Black Dragon has come again to save the Empire!
Waaaah!
She bit her lips until they bled as she listened to those cheers.
“What? What just happened? Why is the isolation space torn? It felt like dragon’s breath, Rita is this your doing? Wait, why are you all scratched up like that? You’re covered in blood!”
Olivia screamed frantically as she ran down the completely destroyed Broken Stands.
Instead of answering her, Lillieta looked around. Thanks to the scent hitting her nose, she could quickly find her target.
Behind Olivia.
When Rita aimed her Muzzle at her, Oli’s eyes widened and she froze in place.
Bang, with a sharp firing sound, the Matan shot past the tensed Olivia’s temple and hit the hidden monster.
Kieek!
What revealed itself with a shriek was the Black Joker whose upper body had been blown away earlier.
The bastard that had somehow revived was aiming for the back of Olivia’s head when the Matan pierced through its shoulder and it collapsed.
Even with the Red Queen dead, her minions remain as separate monsters. Though they can no longer revive infinitely or regenerate endlessly after losing their queen.
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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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