Chapter 199 ……………………………………………….
I stared wide-eyed at the emperor who had suddenly appeared out of thin air and tugged hard at the goddess’s hem.
“I want to go back! It’s okay now, right?”
[Hmm. That would be for the best.]
The goddess, who had been observing the situation with me, reached out and covered my forehead. Light spread, and I felt as though my body were floating.
As she returned me to my original body, she spoke.
[It will be very difficult, but when you face that man, do so under the assumption that you will pour in every last bit of divine power you possess.]
“Then… won’t I die?”
[…]
The goddess smiled silently.
It felt as if she were saying that I had already decided the answer to that question long ago.
So I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, I was in Dmitri’s arms, being carried somewhere.
Slowly blinking, I moved my stiff lips and called out to him.
“O… brother….”
“…! You…!”
Dmitri stopped running, lowered his gaze, and parted his lips.
“Why all of a sudden… no, more importantly, are you okay…?”
“Ah… well….”
I pressed a hand to my chest and frowned. While my eyes had been closed for that brief moment, my soul seemed to have returned to its original vessel.
‘But wait… wasn’t Dmitri supposed to face Lebanon together with the Emperor?’
The presence of the Emperor and Lebanon felt so distant that I had to close my eyes and concentrate to sense them.
Seeing me press on a wound that hadn’t fully healed, Dmitri frowned deeply.
He draped his outer coat over me and said,
“His Majesty decided to deal with that man himself. I was going to take you to the Pope so you could be treated in the meantime. But… it seems that’s no longer necessary.”
He knew I had awakened my divine power, and thus knew I could heal myself.
Cold sweat broke out as I focused on channeling divine power into the wound.
In less than five minutes, it was completely healed.
As I exhaled in relief, sweat beading on my brow, I felt a heavy gaze fall upon me.
I slowly lifted my head and looked at Dmitri.
“I’m fine.”
“…”
“Please put me down. I need to go to His Majesty. That man can never be defeated by the Emperor’s power alone—”
Before I could finish, Dmitri stepped in front of me.
“Brother?”
“…”
“This isn’t the time. He uses black magic. He’s also a puppeteer—unless his main body is destroyed, he can summon puppets, and if he corners His Majesty—”
“Lirien.”
“…Did you just call me by my name?”
Now, of all times…?
‘He has something to say.’
And it was something that would make things very difficult for me.
I hesitated, took a step back, then turned as if to pass by him.
But Dmitri reached out, grabbed my wrist, and stopped me.
Slowly, he moved his tightly sealed lips and began to speak.
“I don’t believe that man’s words. But I heard something I couldn’t ignore.”
“…”
“Reincarnation? He said you were poisoned to death in your previous life. …By Yevgeny.”
“…”
“I want to believe it’s a lie, but after seeing how you’ve acted all this time… I want to hear it from you.”
“…”
“What happened to you in your past life?”
I lowered my gaze, closed my eyes, then opened them again.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Why…?”
“Are you trying to choose me?”
“…”
Suddenly, Dmitri pressed his lips together and averted his gaze.
This time, I stared at him steadily, clenching both fists.
“Yes. I turned back time.”
“…”
“But what does that mean to you, Brother? It means something to me, but it’s not something you need to care about.”
After all, you still seem to love Yevgeny.
“Whether my mother and I were killed by your brother and mother or not—what are you going to do with that information?”
“…”
“Can you bear it? The sins committed by the people precious to you?”
“…”
“You hate me, don’t you?”
I let out a hollow laugh and stepped away from him.
“I’ve endured contemptuous looks every moment. His Majesty never paid me the slightest attention, and anyone who tried to listen to me was executed by the Empress or expelled from high society by Yevgeny.”
I still remembered it vividly.
I couldn’t ignore a young noble lady being humiliated in society because of one of Yevgeny’s cruel pranks…
So just because I handed that girl a handkerchief, Yevgeny expelled her from high society that very day.
I felt sorry for her—and utterly miserable myself.
“A powerless royal is more easily isolated than even the most insignificant noble house, Brother.”
“…”
“Because they’re an opportunity to stain noble blood. People would rather attack the most discarded blood among royals than touch a bloodline that’s loved.”
Pointed at, cursed, and yet still used—I did countless foolish things just to be useful somehow.
‘I just wanted to be loved.’
“What was so different between Yevgeny and me?”
With a face that was neither smiling nor crying, I asked Dmitri.
“Why did you hate me…? Why did you look at me with such disgust…?”
“…”
“Look. What’s the point of listening? You’ll just deny reality anyway. And yet you still want to hear my story…! What are you going to do with it? Because of that damned sense of justice? That wretched sense of guilt? Are you apologizing now just to ease your conscience?”
I slapped his hand away.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I have no reason to lighten the burden on your heart.”
“Lirien….”
“You feel sorry for me? Then choose.”
I grabbed Dmitri by the collar, gritting my teeth as I whispered,
“Yevgeny or me. Which one will you help?”
“…!”
“Or else… I’ll use my wish right, Brother.”
Dmitri’s pupils trembled weakly.
The gift he had given me for the first time, that night in the glass greenhouse—something I had kept asking about and burying away for this very day.
“Choose me, Brother Dmitri.”
I smiled as brightly as I could.
“Don’t make me any more miserable than this.”
Lebanon staggered, clutching his severed arm.
‘So the Emperor really is the Emperor, huh.’
Before he could even summon a puppet, Rius struck first.
Even escaping the Forest of Illusions had only been possible because the puppets he’d summoned earlier bought him time.
‘And here, I have no puppets to protect me.’
Lebanon let out a short laugh.
“Such hypocrisy. Truly unmatched.”
“You still have the strength to run your mouth, it seems.”
“Not at all. I’m so dizzy I feel like I’m about to die.”
“Then how dare you injure whose body, exactly?”
Rius approached him slowly, openly displaying his foul mood.
He raised his sword high to finish it.
Just as he was about to drive it straight into Lebanon’s skull, someone ran up behind him and shouted.
“Father…!”
“…Lirien?”
Rius’ eyes widened as he turned to his daughter.
‘She wasn’t dead…?’
When he’d seen Lirien in Dmitri’s arms earlier, he hadn’t felt the aura unique to the living.
But her breathing had stopped only recently.
If the timing were right, he could still take her to the Pope and save her.
Relief surged—followed by an indescribable rage. A vile urge to tear apart the man who had done this to his daughter.
Still, killing him too easily here felt insufficient compared to the pain his daughter had suffered.
He intended to crush his head while avoiding vital points, then take him to a priest and revive him again.
That was—if he hadn’t seen his daughter running toward him, alive and well.
“Don’t come—!”
“No…! Don’t stab him, Father…! If you do, the black magic’s corruption will—!”
“You mustn’t take your eyes off the enemy.”
—!
Rius turned his head to look ahead, but his body suddenly lurched, forcing him to use his sword as support.
Lowering his head, he saw the dirt beneath him stained red.
Only then did he realize his abdomen had been stabbed.
Before Lirien could even scream, Lebanon—his right arm already restored—leapt upward and landed in front of her.
“Your Highness. I’ve missed you.”
“I haven’t…!”
“I failed earlier, but this time I’ll do it properly.”
Lirien twisted her lips as she looked at the hand reaching toward her.
“I won’t fall for it again.”
“You’ve exhausted too much power to face me.”
“That’s only if I’m afraid of dying when my divine power runs out.”
Right now, she didn’t care whether she burned through her life force by expending all her divine power or met a meaningless death because of it.
‘All I want right now is to kill the man in front of me as brutally as possible.’
Lirien grabbed Lebanon’s outstretched hand and smiled sweetly.
“Perfect. I’ll make you my companion on the way down.”
“Your Highness…?”
“You’re dead.”
She expanded her divine core to ten times what it had been during Yevgeny’s time.
Divine power began to rage threateningly from her body.
The man who had always looked so relaxed stiffened instantly and tried to pull his hand away.
But who was Lirien?
She was a girl who had made a deal with the Master of the Mage Tower at the age of ten.
Knowing full well she would be killed, she wagered his lover’s relic and sacrificed her own life to gain countless connections.
So this trivial life—rather than wasting it meaninglessly like in her previous life—she could discard it without hesitation if it meant landing a decisive blow on the one who had toyed with her.
‘So I’m sorry.’
No matter how many mouths she had, she wouldn’t have enough to apologize to Richard.
Countless lights began to envelop the space between her and him.
“Lirien…!”
She heard Dmitri calling her from behind.
With just a slight shift of her gaze, beyond Lebanon’s back, she could see the Emperor staring at her.
‘…There’s no revenge more perfect than this.’
They say this, don’t they?
“If you want revenge on someone, become someone precious to them.”
‘And then disappear right before their eyes.’
It’s a lie that I forgave you.
The suffering my mother and I endured was only possible because of your indifference.
‘You should feel the pain too.’
What it’s like to lose someone precious.
If I burn through all my divine power and life force, not even the Pope will be able to save someone whose life has already run dry.
I didn’t let go of Lebanon.
Each time divine power poured into his body, the form that still resembled a human began to melt grotesquely.
“N-no…! This body—I worked so hard to make it…!”
With a voice splitting into metallic screeches, he glared at me and screamed.
“You think I’ll just vanish like this?! I’ll curse you—curse you to die in agony for the rest of your life…! I’ll curse you into the abyss!”
“You’re already doing that.”
You felt it too, didn’t you?
“My death. That’s why I said I’d take you with me.”
Be honored, you idiot.
Soon, my vision went dark.
