The Villain Who Will Kill Me Is Too Handsome, It's Troublesome - Chapter 63
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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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Chapter 63.
“W-wait, why is everyone—? We must protect His Majesty, snap out of it—!”
As the knights in front collapsed, those behind them began to murmur in confusion. They too were starting to feel that eerie, creeping dread.
Something was terribly wrong.
The men ahead fell one by one, and as their turn approached, the mirror came into view.
“A… a monster?”
“Is that… black fog supposed to be His Majesty?”
“No, wait—!”
The figure reflected in the mirror did resemble the Emperor—or what remained of him, consumed by jealousy and rage, utterly unrecognizable. And the killing intent that radiated from it was palpable.
That was what the fallen knights had felt. Not even aimed at them directly, yet a sensation like invisible hands strangling their throats.
Panic spread.
“What… what do we do?”
“W-well, for now—”
Flee? But abandoning their sovereign was no act of chivalry.
Better to simply faint and be done with it? Yet something told them they’d meet their end in that monster’s grasp if they did.
So then…
Those still conscious turned to the Saintess and the Holy Sword’s wielder, their eyes desperate and pleading, however shameless the appeal.
“Kirien, fall back.”
Kirien obeyed without hesitation, retreating at Artiela’s word.
The Source of Malice’s face twisted. His eyes burned crimson, the pupils narrowing to a serpent’s slit, and even without the mirror it was clear he had become something monstrous.
“I didn’t know you could use that.”
“Everyone needs to see the truth.”
“Not a fool, then.”
“I’ll take the compliment.”
Kirien pressed close to Artiela’s side like a hound, his growl aimed at the Source of Malice.
How pathetic the sight was.
And Artiela beside him, offering praise—how unbearable to witness.
The Emperor and his other self had much in common indeed. That’s why their resonance was so perfectly aligned.
Without Kirien, Peter would have made a perfect sacrifice.
“But what now? Everyone who saw…”
Peter lifted his foot and crushed the throat of a fallen knight nearby.
“…will be dead.”
“Aaaahhh!”
“It’s a monster! We have to run!”
Black Flames rose from where Peter’s foot had fallen, the terrible fire consuming the loyal knight in an instant.
“Stop!”
Artiela’s body reacted first, lunging forward, but Ysiel held her back.
“It’s too cramped in here.”
She understood. A high concentration of people in a confined space would multiply the casualties.
“Everyone, retreat! You need to survive!”
After shouting the order to the Emperor’s knights, she began striking the Bedchamber walls with Sword Energy.
Ysiel meanwhile dragged Kirien to the opposite wall that Artiela was demolishing.
“Wait, look here.”
“Yes, but Saintess, please—look at this.”
Kirien pointed at the Mirror of Truth. More precisely, at the Emperor within it.
“Why is something like that even here?”
“Ah… this is…”
It’s not a perfect fusion. Well, the Emperor isn’t the Source of Malice’s true intended sacrifice anyway.
‘That’s why I couldn’t sense it until now.’
Now she understood how that creature had managed to hide.
With luck, there might be a way to save the Emperor’s life yet.
“Ati!”
Artiela had already destroyed three walls. If she kept going, she’d bring the whole structure down. Enough.
But close combat was out of the question. She had to prevent Artiela’s left hand from being unable to grip the Bardo.
Catching Ysiel’s signal, Artiela grabbed a nearby Stool and charged at the Source of Malice.
“Cut it out! Stop this, you bastard!”
She swung the Stool at his body.
Ysiel’s Holy Power struck at the perfect moment, sending him reeling backward, and without hesitation Artiela kicked the Emperor, driving him into the empty space she’d created.
Peter fell onto the cleared floor, the furniture already swept away.
“Enough games. How do you like the taste of Divine Judgment?”
Peter braced himself on his dusty palms and pushed slowly to his feet.
“Ha, haha.”
He lifted his head.
Peter’s eyes—scarred, desperate—fixed on Artiela.
“Artiela, do you hate me so much?”
His tone had shifted. The aura radiating from him grew thin and frail.
“If you judge me, the malevolent force will flee and only I will die. Yet you mean to judge me anyway?”
A pity play?
“I don’t understand why you’d do such a thing, knowing full well what it means.”
Ysiel extinguished the Black Flames the Emperor had conjured with her Holy Power, trying to analyze the force contained within them.
Rage, despair, disappointment, and betrayal.
The emotions emanating from those flames were unmistakably the Emperor’s own. Absurdly, she had no idea what right he had to feel betrayed at all.
“You try so hard to save a knight who’s practically a stranger, yet you cast me aside. Why?”
For now, the Emperor’s ego seemed to loom larger than the Source of Malice itself.
“You took up with Duke Rupel the moment you saw him, yet I—I who’ve had eyes only for you for over ten years—why do I not measure up?”
“Stop.”
Artiela raised the Bardo before her.
The soul beyond it was hollowed dark near the heart, as if burned by flame. His eyes, too—blackened and hollow with jealousy.
A soul already so emptied might not truly be alive, even if it drew breath.
Artiela decided, out of pity, to hear the rest of his plea.
“How much did I cherish you, adore you? I endured it, letting you dream as Crown Princess Consort, and waited—how could you do this to me?”
What was he even saying? He’d deluded himself thoroughly.
Now she was listening to it all.
“Are you finished with everything you wanted to say?”
“What woman exists that an Emperor cannot possess? You are my woman, merely lent to Edelion for a time.”
“Truly done?”
“So if you reject my proposal, House of Soltis and Edelion both deserve punishment for defying Imperial decree—”
“Is that truly what Your Majesty’s heart wishes to say?”
“I am… I am… why am I not enough?”
The Emperor crumpled where he stood. And in that same moment, the malevolence thickened again, creeping toward Artiela like a slow tide.
“Stop being a knight. Please, just come back to me.”
Repeating what he truly wished to say, his voice breaking.
“Mm? Artiela.”
The Emperor reached out, as if to seize her.
“That isn’t love.”
It was obsession.
Artiela dodged backward from the Emperor’s lunge, evading his grasp. In the same motion, she drew her blade.
For the sake of righteous judgment.
“Artiela! There’s a Ritual Inscription written in Dark Magic beneath his heart!”
Ysiel called from behind, reflecting the Mirror of Truth. Complex runes appeared where the Holy Sword’s sight could not reach.
“Let me try to remove it first.”
“Be careful. If he acts like last time, give it up and judge him.”
To turn away even from a thread of possibility was to prove oneself unworthy of the Holy Sword’s bond. Somehow, she had to make this work.
Artiela kicked a fallen piece of Marble toward Peter, then rushed at him with a sliding glide.
“Your… Your Majesty!”
The Emperor’s guards cried out in shock.
Peter, who possessed no strength to speak of, batted the flying Marble away as if it were nothing.
“Here.”
And faster than that, Artiela was already behind him.
“You….”
Peter spun, swinging his arm—trying to snag Artiela’s wrist.
“Watch out!”
Ysiel didn’t need to speak; Artiela already knew.
So she used the four legs of the Stool to cage him in, then drove the Stool forward with all her weight.
Peter thrashed, still grasping for Artiela’s arms.
“Even if both my arms became useless, I’d sooner become a priestess than abandon being a knight to become an Empress. That’s a far more certain path.”
So abandon your hollow dreams.
With a heavy thud, Peter struck the floor, the Stool now pinning him from behind.
“Stay still and you won’t get hurt.”
Artiela held the Stool fast with her boot and untied her Hair Ribbon, binding Peter’s wrists to the wooden legs.
“Ati!”
Ysiel came running.
Artiela turned the Emperor onto his back and felt along his chest until she found a suspicious scrap of cloth in a pocket.
“As I thought.”
It was fabric inscribed with Dark Magic.
Ysiel summoned blue flames of Holy Power and set the cloth ablaze.
A grotesque sound followed, and a black miasma began to seep slowly from Peter’s body. It rose in spiraling coils, coalescing into a sphere.
Why was it growing larger?
Ysiel and Artiela struck at it simultaneously. The black sphere, wrapped in the brilliant light the sisters had created, began to shrink—only to suddenly burst forth with luminescence of its own.
‘Please, let his wounds be healed as brightly as this.’
Artiela watched in silence as the dazzling radiance poured out. And please, she thought, let him live—let him repent and atone for his sins.
‘Murder of the Emperor would be rather problematic.’
The Emperor lay prone below her, as still as death.
Then came the tactless voice of the Second Princess, appearing belatedly.
“Aaahhh—! His Majesty is dead! Here—we must seize the traitor who has slain His Majesty!”
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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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