“…”
A groan of agony.
Adelle clenched her teeth and tightly gripped the sword. Hot blood began to seep from the emperor’s abdomen.
The gruesome sensation of tearing flesh and puncturing organs was transmitted to her fingertips.
Even the feeling of taking a life still felt unpleasant.
Nonetheless, she desperately drove the blade further into him, knowing that even a moment of hesitation would cost her her own life.
With that singular thought, Adelle exerted all her strength.
“Kk, Kkhahaha!”
At the sight of her, the emperor burst into laughter.
He hadn’t anticipated that such an opportunity for an attack could arise so easily, despite being a medium.
Though a regular person might have felt anger, all he felt was amusement. It had been so long since he had been struck like this that the sensation was almost refreshing.
His laughter refused to taper off anytime soon.
A murderous intent could be felt emanating from Adelle’s blue eyes. Meeting her gaze with a smile, the emperor spoke.
“You’re interesting. This saintess is quite daring, aren’t you?”
‘Saintess?’
Before she could ponder the emperor’s words, a fist came hurtling towards her. Caught off guard by his sudden attack, Adelle hurriedly raised her arm to block it.
With a sharp sound, Adelle was flung all the way to the wall.
Bang!
“Kehk!”
The sudden feeling of suffocation caused her to retch. She shakily managed to rise to her feet.
Observing her, the emperor smirked.
“Indeed, allowing an attack like this hasn’t happened in hundreds of years.”
Grasping the blade lodged in his abdomen, the emperor effortlessly pulled it out. Despite the blood gushing like a fountain, he smiled nonchalantly.
Woosh…
As Adelle extended her hand, the blade flew towards her. Seeing this, the emperor’s lips curved upward again.
“Ho. You handle it better than expected.”
“Madman…”
At the sight of him approaching slowly without attempting to staunch the bleeding, Adelle muttered under her breath.
This blade was enchanted with magic that prevented recovery from the wound inflicted. The old woman’s inability to properly stop the bleeding upon being stabbed by this blade could largely be attributed to that.
She hadn’t anticipated that he would move around so toughly without attempting to stop the bleeding.
“Thanks for the compliment.”
As if responding to her curses, the emperor drew closer. Adelle then threw the sword in her hand.
Thud.
He effortlessly caught the blade with his bare hand. Blood flowed between his tightly clenched fingers.
The emperor, who had discarded the blade on the floor, stepped on it.
“Showboating is still just showboating. How do you plan to deal with someone like me?”
“Shut up.”
She was aware.
The moment the blade she flung as her last resistance was neutralized thus, she knew her chances of victory were already gone.
Still, she suppressed the urge to immediately reverse time.
Saintess, and hundreds of years.
The keywords she’d just heard were enough clues. She had to keep the conversation going to gather more information.
“What do you mean by ‘saintess’?”
“Is that your last words?”
The emperor, seemingly already detecting her thoughts, chuckled maliciously before extending his right hand to strangle Adelle by her neck.
The feeling of suffocation grew stronger as her vision started to blur.
“K-.. Kk..”
“Not good, Adelle-sama!”
Upon hearing Adelle’s groan, Lily quickly grabbed and pulled at the emperor’s arm.
This allowed Adelle to finally regain her senses, gripping the emperor’s wrists with both her hands.
Though she tried her best to twist his wrists, her arms lacked strength. The emperor ignored Lily who was pulling at him from the side.
He focused entirely on strangling her.
“Ku…”
The fear of death began to creep in. The thought resurfaced that she would soon regress upon dying.
However, when Adelle’s gaze met the golden eyes, she felt something was off.
‘Why can’t I hear the clock ticking?’
The clock.
The sound she heard every time she regressed. It always rang at her moment of death, though she rarely properly heard it due to the severe pain.
This time, the sound was completely absent.
The question of why was fading away before the fear of death. Her entire body felt as though every nerve was standing on end, causing her to furrow her brows.
‘Am I… dying?’
Instinctual fear began to rise.
Her mind was gradually hardening. Panic set in as her vision blurred bit by bit.
No amount of desperate strength she exerted with both arms made any difference.
The clock sound continued to not ring. Even a futile hope that it would chime with her death lingered.
‘I don’t want to die…’
She was short of breath.
She caught a glimpse of a contemptuous smile from the man with golden eyes. The emotion of fear was gradually growing faint.
‘A, Bel…’
Why did his name come to mind at a moment like this? To think his irritating name would come to mind as she was dying…
Maybe she had cared for him more than she’d thought…
Just as her thoughts were about to completely halt…
A bright white light began to seep from Adelle’s right hand. A line of the mark engraved on her palm emitted an intense, dazzling light.
Before the emperor could respond, a white magic circle enveloped his right arm.
A massive amount of mana started to gather around her. A powerful presence emerged beside Adelle.
Simultaneously, the emperor’s arm was cleanly severed. With a savage sound, his cleanly cut arm flung him backward.
Spraying blood from the severed end, another figure appeared in his field of vision.
“Cough…khr…”
Adelle, who had collapsed on the ground, was gasping for air. With oxygen lacking, she roughly inhaled as she weakly raised her head.
She saw a man.
A neat uniform, silver hair. Delicate eyebrows and mysterious silver eyes.
The head of the Hardenberg family and her fiancé, Abel.
He gently lifted Adelle, then turned to look at the emperor who had fallen.
“This… I never expected such a desperate measure…”
“Shut up.”
A dazzling white magic circle was inscribed in the air. A sea of mana gathered around him.
The unsettling sensation caused the emperor to grin as he arose.
“Array deployment.”
Upon Abel’s muttering, dozens of spears of light floated in the air.
“Attack.”
At the wave of his hand, the spears were launched.
The emperor stretched his remaining left hand and cast a spell. A golden magic circle appeared in the air, blocking the incoming spears one by one.
“Kk…”
However, the golden circle began to crackle.
Unable to withstand the endless barrage of spears from Abel, the magic circle finally shattered.
The emperor stretched his hand once again, drawing dozens of magic circles.
“I don’t have time to play with puppets.”
With his muttering, all the magic circles surrounding Abel shattered.
An overwhelming amount of mana difference was used to nullify the magic altogether.
A method that the emperor, merely as a medium, couldn’t possibly block.
“Heh. Quite an impression-worthy day this has been.”
Mid-muttering, a spear pierced through his neck. Without emitting even a scream, the emperor smirked.
Maintaining his composure until the end, Abel clicked his tongue.
With a thud.
The emperor’s medium dropped to his knees and fell. The body lay limply on the ground.
The golden eyes dimmed as if the power source had been turned off.
This was why dealing with the emperor was always so complicated—he could possess and control the emperor’s eyes or hands as needed.
“Abel…”
“Are you alright, physically?”
“Yes…”
A sigh escaped Abel at her reply that he knew didn’t hold truth. The red handprints on her neck, the already broken left arm, the dark circles under her eyes.
It irritated him seeing Adelle pretending to be fine despite being pushed to her limits.
Placing her gently down and leaning her against the wall, Abel retrieved a potion from his pocket.
He opened the red potion bottle and carefully trickled its contents into her mouth.
As soon as the potion flowed down her throat, Adelle furrowed her brows.
“Ugh…”
“Swallow it, no matter how bad it tastes. Otherwise, you won’t heal.”
Despite her shaking her head in protest, Abel remained unfazed and continued pouring the potion.
Attempting to spit it out, Adelle eventually swallowed under his firm gaze.
“Haa… haa…”
The effect of the potion was immediate. The pain in her arm had already disappeared completely.
Silently observing her, Abel finally spoke.
“If I had been even a little late, what would you have done?”
To Abel’s words, Adelle couldn’t muster any response.
It was true that her reckless actions were meant to obtain information from the emperor.
The regression ability she trusted not activating was completely unforeseen.
Had she not recalled his name in the end…
She would have surely died then. Thinking about it caused her body to tremble.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re supposed to say thank you at a time like this.”
“…Thank you.”
Abel sighed again at her muffled mutter.
Then he removed his own uniform coat and draped it around her before standing again.
“Rest for a while.”
Though he wanted to scold her further…
He decided it was better to let her rest a little for now.
