The Way To Protect The Female Lead’S Older Brother [EN]: Chapter 191

What consumed Nix now was a feeling entirely new to him.

But for some reason, it stirred up an old, unhealed scar, causing an unbearable ache deep inside.

He felt an unbearable anger and resentment, a desperate urge to explode with emotion.

Clang!

The weapons collided with similar force, shattering on impact. Severed metal fragments pinged off the glass window.

Noel stared blankly at Nix, who seemed hell-bent on killing him, then focused on a fragment that had fallen nearby.

Finally, with hesitation, he reached out and grabbed it.

Clang! Clang!

Nix was fully occupied blocking the dolls’ relentless attacks.

Moreover, the doll he was attached to seemed to have found a new tactic, slamming Nix against the wall with its back.

Bang, boom!

Crack!

A crackling, ominous sound echoed from the glass wall, which had already endured immense force several times.

Nix’s lips tightened.

Wham!

He twisted violently, slamming the doll strangling his neck against the wall.

Clang!

At that moment, the glass covering one side of the wall finally shattered, and the doll lost its balance.

Nix was almost swept away, but he quickly released his grip and scrambled out of the way.

The doll plummeted to the ground.

In the sudden surge of wind, Nix staggered backward.

Thud!

“Ugh!”

A sharp pain pierced his side.

He turned his head to see Noel looking at him with a pale face.

Blood gushed from Nix’s body, flowing down the metal fragment Noel held.

A rough voice escaped Nix’s mouth.

“Noel Bertium… !”

He was about to strike Noel, but the moment he saw the terrified green eyes, he involuntarily paused.

“G-Grab Nix! Keep him from moving!”

Noel didn’t miss that fleeting opportunity.

Before Nix could retaliate, the dolls slammed him to the ground as before.

“I… I can’t help it!”

As he struggled with all his might, blood gushed from the wound where Noel had pulled out the metal fragment.

Unlike the dolls, Nix, whose stamina was limited and who was already injured, couldn’t shake them off as easily as before.

“I’m the one who created you in the first place. So, whatever I do to you is up to me… !”

Noel muttered incoherently, as if making excuses, unsure of who he was even talking to.

“So, so… !”

He trembled, his hand soaked in blood, yet he gripped the piece of metal again.

Noel seemed intent on tearing out his heart.

“Noel… ! How could you! How could you do this to me… !”

Nix’s desperate voice fell like blood onto the shattered glass fragments on the floor.

But all of this was truly futile.

The moment the dark figure, who had always haunted his dreams and illusions, caught his eye.

The light reflecting off the glass scattered, casting a strange shadow on the man’s face.

*Is this an illusion?*

To see the figure of that black monster, who always appeared just before death in his dreams, like this again.

*If so, is this really the end?*

*Am I really facing death right now?*

*Is that why I’m seeing such hallucinations?*

But it was not an illusion.

Deon stared at Nix, who was resisting desperately, his eyes bloodshot and filled with venom.

Unlike the dynamic and tense scene before him, the air around Deon was calm and still.

His inorganic eyes, revealed beneath the black hair fluttering in the wind, quietly captured the boy struggling pathetically on the floor.

In Deon’s memory, Ashil was always smiling with a foolishly innocent face, or crying as he looked up at him with eyes filled with deep despair and fear.

He was like that when he was alive, and not much different after he died and became a doll.

Ashil was so pathetically weak that he couldn’t even point a knife at the person trying to kill him.

Deon couldn’t understand it, but perhaps that was the purity that Roxana loved about him.

A weakness that evoked feelings of pity and compassion, yet was also different, making one want to cherish and protect him.

Of course, Deon had never felt warm feelings when he saw such things.

However, he was sure that Roxana’s lingering attachment to Ashil was due to such aspects.

But now…

“Die for me, Nix.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Noel Bertium… !”

*That Ashil* was shouting desperately with a face full of malice strong enough to impress Deon for a moment.

No longer could the remnants of the past be felt in the current Ashil.

A corrupted pure white.

Ashil, who had never resembled Deon even for a moment when he was alive…

Unbelievably, at this moment, he looked like the same ‘Agriche’ as him [Agriche is likely a family name or a specific type of person, implying a shared lineage or characteristic].

Only now, after he was already dead and had become a moving corpse, finally.

In an instant, a strange thrill flowed through Deon’s body.

As unfamiliar as the sight of the strange Ashil was, the sensation he was feeling was also unfamiliar to him.

While watching the boy in front of him, the emptiness in the deepest part of Deon’s heart rippled slightly.

Something flickered vaguely before his eyes.

It led Deon, flickering with a faint light, as if it could be grasped but not quite.

Whack! Crash!

Suddenly, the grip on Nix loosened.

Noel, who had been aiming for his heart, was pushed away by a strong force and slammed into the glass wall that hadn’t yet been broken.

The sound of something breaking and shattering echoed in succession. The eardrums were numb from the vivid noise exploding nearby.

It was an uncontrollable, raging black storm.

A disastrous force that would destroy everything around it and eventually disappear like dust without a trace.

The monster in the illusion, who had approached unnoticed, asked Nix.

[Do you want to live?]

The view was all monochrome.

Only the splattering blood and the monster’s eyes had living color.

The screaming in his ears was also the same deep red color.

The view was hazy as if ashes were scattering.

*I want to live.*

Nix answered in a daze, unable to distinguish whether this was reality or not.

[Even if it means killing all those who stand in your way?]

*Is this a hallucination seen just before death?*

*I am…*

The monster’s voice, which had penetrated to the deepest part of his unconsciousness, finally reached Nix’s origin.

Then the monster laughed.

A sound mocking him resounded loudly from the mouth torn to his ears.

It was a very sharp laughter that made his skin tingle, and it had a very fishy smell that made him want to vomit.

Red blood gushed out from the torn space.

It rose rapidly from the floor and finally swallowed Nix to the top of his head, blocking even his breath.

A silent scream became a small bubble and sank miserably into the overflowing flood of blood.

[Then kill.]

[Kill.]

[Kill everything that stands in your way.]

[Because that’s our way.]

Black ghost. Black monster. Black demon. Black reaper.

That which could not even be distinguished as real or hallucination wrapped around Nix’s body.

Nix moved as if possessed, not even knowing whether it was by his own will or by others.

Yes…

Begging pathetically to be saved was enough for once.

He was also tired of being humiliated and kneeling down, feeling his own powerlessness to the bone.

If he didn’t want to be kicked by that boot again, he had to kill.

Otherwise…

Otherwise, he would die… !

“Ni… Nix…”

Then suddenly, a faint voice brushed past his ear.

The black fog that had been obscuring his vision slowly cleared.

Immediately after, Nix suddenly stopped moving at the sight that appeared before him.

Noel, whose whole body was brutally mutilated, was lying under him, trembling convulsively without even moaning.

Only then did the pungent stench of blood, thickly pooled around him, seep into his nose.

A sharp pain belatedly surged into his hand, which was tightly clutching a broken piece of glass.

Nix’s hands were covered in blood.

But the blood that was soaking his face and body, and spreading on the floor, was clearly Noel’s.

As soon as he realized that, the strength in his hand momentarily disappeared.

Ah…?

*What am I doing right now?*

Nix’s unfocused eyes wavered.

He gasped as he looked at Noel, who was heaving his upper body and vomiting blood from his lips.

The murder when he was Nix was definitely easy.

But now he was clearly not a complete ‘Nix’… and what occupied most of him now was rather than Nix, it was rather…

Besides, even if that wasn’t the reason, Noel was Nix’s, not anyone else’s…

“Ashil.”

It was at that moment.

The man, who had been standing silently only three or four steps away, muttered quietly, as if he had been so close for a long time.

The moment he heard that name…

Nix trembled with the ecstasy that struck his spine like lightning.

Ah, where else could there be such a contradiction?