What Happens When The Second Male Lead Powers Up [EN]: Chapter 751

Noctiluca (2)

Meanwhile.

The dawn moon hung low in the western sky above the battlefield.

*Clang!*

A faint blue light began to tinge the darkness.

Everyone knew sunrise was only a few hours away.

The knights of the Grand Duchy anxiously looked back at their lord.

“Your Grace, what are we to do?”

“We’ve mobilized all the Ether restraints in the military camp. How long can the Margrave hold out like this…?”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

The sound was less a scream and more the roar of a wild beast, the death throes of a dying animal.

The knights flinched, stumbling backward. Some squeezed their eyes shut.

Adriana Albina, the Margrave—the cardinal who once bore that name—was, for all intents and purposes, no longer among the living.

Her existence had been compressed into a fierce, potent force focused solely on her heart, a massive concentration of earth-attribute Ether on the verge of exploding.

The beautiful floral crown was gone. Her feet, once pristine, were caked in dirt and wounds.

Tears of blood streamed from her silvery-white eye sockets. Her mouth, constantly spitting blood, was a horrifying dark red and glistening, making her look like a demon that had devoured a person.

Several Ether restraints were fastened around her neck, which was flushed red as if about to burst.

Both wrists and legs were wrapped in black Ether shackles, stained with blood. She resisted, breaking her own bones in a desperate attempt to escape.

Dead tree roots and vines poured from her hands, which were tightly bound to a rock in the canyon.

The stench of rotting flesh permeated the air.

“Kahaaaaaaa! Haaaaaaack!”

*Thump, thump…*

Grand Duke Judith Camingha looked down at the plants falling weakly from her fingertips.

Dead rafflesia [a parasitic flowering plant known for its large size and foul odor] stretched out, red like animal entrails, covering the ground.

‘Corpse flower.’

“…This is the end of the undertaker.”

“Aaaaaaaaaaa! Kyaaaaaaaack!”

Margrave Albina, after a long and bloody battle with Count Arno van Roy, had returned to the battlefield with a fist-sized hole in her heart.

Since she returned alone, the Count must have gone to the House of the Lord first.

It was a grievous wound, one that would have killed an ordinary person instantly.

But she refused to die.

She scorned the pure white pilgrimage to the side of God and rejected the chance to return completely to the Creator’s embrace.

The Holy Knight chose not to die.

“Aaaaaaaaaaargh! Michael!”

“…”

“Nooooooooooooo!”

Instead, she chose self-destruction.

“Good heavens…. Is this truly a harbinger of mad death?”

“…”

A path that could never be forgiven, that would forever be denied the Lord’s gaze, where each fragment of the broken vessel was cursed and could never be reborn.

She chose annihilation, directly opposing the will of God.

“Michael! Michael! Michael!”

“It’s terrible. So terrible I can’t bear to watch, Your Grace.”

“My God…. I don’t think I’ll ever forget her end until the day I die. How could this…”

“Take the remaining troops and leave this place.”

“Yes, Your Grace?”

The knights of the Grand Ducal family looked at Judith in surprise.

But the old man did not turn back.

“Hasn’t most of the evacuation been completed?”

“Y-yes, Your Grace. All the vulnerable, including the boy soldiers and the wounded, have been sent out of the exit. Most of the troops are confronting the Sneiderr rebels’ catapult unit on the main street. It’s quite a distance to here. If there are any personnel left in the alley, it would be us and the attendants…”

“Yes, everyone get out.”

“…”

“The Crown Princess must not come this way either. Block them well.”

“…”

It was an ominous request.

The knights exchanged quick glances, but they couldn’t disobey their lord’s orders.

They were once Holy Knights.

However, they couldn’t endure the shackles of that power and the permanent subjugation, so they entrusted themselves to the Grand Duchy of Camingha, called paradise.

The Holy Knights made a covenant before the Grand Duke and broke it, finally freeing themselves from the dominion of Ether.

Some moved to the Grand Duchy with their families and lived there, while others lived leisurely lives farming with their pets.

There were also many wizards who had fled because they couldn’t endure the oppression of society.

“Your Grace, perhaps…”

“You’d better hurry.”

But in common, they all respected Judith Camingha as their patron.

The knights foresaw despair in the back of the Grand Duke, who had turned his back on them to the end.

“…Michael.”

At that moment.

“I told you to be careful.”

From Adriana’s mouth, something like a human voice emerged for the first time.

To be exact, it was a cracking, tearing voice, but it was still understandable.

The knights turned pale, as if they had seen a ghost at the sudden change.

Still, a pale light flowed from the Margrave’s eye sockets like incense smoke at a funeral.

There was no change in the fact that blood was dripping from her mouth and that the Ether of her whole body was emitting a glow, gathering in her heart.

Judith watched her quietly, holding his sword.

The Margrave’s gaze was blankly fixed on the air.

“A wandering priest belonging to the Papal States… to have an audience with the King…”

“…”

“Glory? That’s not glory. It’s called misfortune.”

Even though blood was flowing back from her throat, Adriana didn’t cough once.

She just kept saying something in a broken, boiling voice.

Her neck moved crookedly.

“If only I had been by your side.”

“…”

“If only I had stayed by your side… you would have lived.”

“…”

“Rather than dying miserably as the King’s mistress, as the Margrave’s friend, without a name…”

“Get out now.”

Judith ordered his subordinates sharply.

They licked their lips, engraving the back of the old lord in their eyes.

They couldn’t easily take their feet off the ground because they foresaw the events that would follow.

“…What does that mean?”

And as fate would have it, another voice rang out from the end of the alley.

Judith closed his eyes slowly.

“…I asked what the Margrave said means.”

“I ordered you to take the Crown Princess out now!”

“Yes, Your Grace!”

Beyond the shadows of the soldiers moving quickly as if struck by lightning, the figure of the Crown Princess, holding a golden spear and striding forward, was reflected.

Judith silently stared at the young man who was still young and had much to learn.

Elise, who had devoted her whole body to battle and slaughter, was already half out of her mind, but the Grand Duke still believed in half of her that was still intact.

‘The Divine Kingdom has so far achieved many achievements with great divine power.’

‘Even if you have lived in a cage all your life. How can you not even know the shape of your own cage?’

…As with everything in the world, the possibilities are not 50/50.

“Your Grace! Crown Princess! You must take shelter!”

“Who dares to touch my body? Can’t you let go of this!”

“No, you can’t! It’s for Your Highness’s safety, please forgive me!”

The Crown Princess’s disheveled blonde hair fluttered wildly in the whirlwind.

Her sapphire blue eyes were as cold and distant as the deep sea under the glacier.

Judith counted the hopes left on the battlefield.

“…Elise.”

*Crack.* Adriana’s head turned like a broken branch.

For a moment, the Grand Duke felt as if time had stopped.

“Your mother killed Michael.”

“…What?”

One of the Margrave’s eyeballs flowed down. The knights were horrified and wordlessly pulled at the Crown Princess.

The frightened attendants ran, covered in tears, holding the reins.

A hoarse voice, like a curse, dripped down.

“I warned you not to start if you couldn’t protect it…. I advised you not to hold on to a relationship that you would let go of in the first place.”

“You’d better speak clearly. If you want to reduce the pain of your cowardly annihilation even a little.”

“Can’t you drag her out―!”

*Crack! Rumble!* The dirt floor groaned painfully and cracked at the Cardinal’s stern order.

Now eight soldiers were clinging to Elise, struggling to overcome her overwhelming strength.

Adriana’s blood-stained lips opened wide like the round septum of a rafflesia.

“Yes, do you think your mother didn’t know the wickedness of Sneiderr? Do you think she was just an innocent lover!”

Judith took a deep breath, looking down at his faded weapon.

It was a tiresome time. We fought together so boringly all along.

“Christanar’s dirty greed killed Michael! You would have lived if you had just run away to the desert! He forcibly held on to someone who was as free as sand and threw him into the sea of the royal capital to die!”

“…What?”

“Do you think your mother couldn’t foresee Michael’s tragedy! Do you mean she couldn’t foresee the death of Prince Yeser! Haaaaack!”

Isn’t it a blessing to be able to end with an old friend?

“Hypocrite! Your mother had illicit relations over national letters and even killed her own son! Even with Sneiderr right in front of her, she didn’t prepare any countermeasures! Without giving him a title, without giving him a mansion in the territory, she sacrificed Michael as a living sacrifice…!”

[Suléviæ.]

Then, the old man’s poem-like call rang through the battlefield.

Elise stared at her with a blank face.

Only then did Judith slowly turn his eyes and look back at his relative.

“Ah…”

Under the eyepatch, a faint warmth shines.

[Come to take my soul.]

*Kwaaaaaaang!*

There was no sign, not even a slight tremor or shaking.

The translucent green energy that gushed out from deep within the earth rushed towards Adriana with a fierce momentum like the poison of early spring, like the thorn bushes of summer, like the herds of beasts in the autumn fields.

*Whoosh!* At the same time, the Margrave’s body began to split in earnest, spewing out a pure white light.

Elise, who had lost strength in her whole body and was being dragged out, almost had a seizure.

Some wizards hurriedly tied her hands and feet with magic.

They were all shedding desperate tears.

“Let go of this! Can’t you let go of it right now! I will surely cut you down and cut off your arms!”

“Your Highness! Please!”

“You must not go against the will of the Grand Duke today!”

“You guys are crazy! If you leave it like that, Your Highness will…!”

*Kwagwagwagwagwagwa!*

Before he could finish the sentence, the earth shook violently, and the scene in front of him turned completely white, shaking his brain and everything else.

Terrified screams and shouts shook the air as if to tear the eardrums.

Even in the midst of the chaos of heaven and earth turning upside down, Elise saw some illusions. From far away in the air…

‘…Elise.’

The forest fairies dancing in green with fluttering tails were holding the Grand Duke’s shoulders and arms and guarding his side.

Their petal-like hands overlapped on the back of the old lord’s hand holding the sword.

It was as if she was looking at an illustration from a fairy tale book she had read as a child.

Like a lie, their eyes meet.

‘Don’t forget the lives of the dead who have no names to leave behind.’

“…”

Tears did not flow. She couldn’t even dare to shout loudly.

The First Princess reached out her hand without giving a proper answer. At that moment―

*Kwakwakwakwakwa!*