CH 205

The truth he had handed me was like a poisoned holy grail. He was putting me through an experience as horrible as death without actually killing me.

“Ah. You must really hate me. I must have left quite an impact on your life.”

I could not take my eyes off him. As if I had wanted to engrave the sight of him smiling as he leaned towards me with a twisted expression in my mind. Just then, my world turned upside down. It happened in the blink of an eye. He walked towards me languidly with the sword still in his hand. He didn’t seem to be moving like a human being. I guess he lived up to his name of being the strongest templar in the Empire. 

“You’ll have to hear me out till the end, Ashley.”

“Shut up, I don’t want to hear anything.”

Castor’s fingertips felt as cold as ice. His dark hair fluttered as our hair continued to mix and tangle, flowing along the strong gusts of wind. Even though he wasn’t holding me with much strength, I couldn’t manage to shake him off. 

“You say you have no need for any of the truths I give you but what if I can provide a way for you to escape the time loops?”

At his words, my arm froze. I stared at him. What was he talking about? Everything that had been  bugging me were wiped off my mind and now all that filled it were the words he had just uttered. There was a way to stop the regressions? Did that mean I didn’t have to suffer from the deaths anymore? That sounded terribly tantalising. The resolution I had just hardened was now shaking. 

“Y-you’re saying that you know how?”

Castor smiled instead of answering. 

“Yes. I do.”

For a long time, all I could do was stare at him because his elegant, beautiful face did not look real to me. 

“… Tell me.”

Clang. 

The dagger in my hand fell out of my grip. At some point, I had opted to grab onto the hem of his fluttering clothes instead.

“Tell me. Tell me! Are you saying that I don’t have to die anymore? Are you saying I don’t have to see my future deaths anymore? Is that what you’re saying!”

I probably didn’t have a chance to take a pause to hide my desperation. I grabbed onto him and spouted things I could now no longer remember. As his response, Castor slowly tilted his head before whispering. 

“Well.”

Actually, I hated everything. The diary, living after my multiple deaths and the deaths themselves that weighed me down. Every entry in the diary had always ended with an [I died]. That was all I could think about when I saw those letters. My deaths were piling atop each other. How could that have not been painful!

I could never sleep on the nights I had suffered from the nightmares. The more I thought about how it all started from the diary I had encountered by chance, the more tortured I became. I couldn’t go back? Why? The diary had always been something I had obsessed over getting rid of. But now he was saying that I could make all of it disappear? It was too sweet of a proposal for me to refuse. It was so sweet I had to cling onto the man I hated so much just to plead with him.

“Tell me!”

I exclaimed desperately. He stared at my skinny fingers grabbing onto him as if they were fallen flower petals. Ashley. The goosebump-inducing way he called my name almost melted my ears away. 

“I know the conditions you need to meet to stop the regressions. I had managed to escape the regressions myself after discovering the said conditions.”

“What are those conditions…?”

“I remember every regression you had gone through.”

I stared at him soullessly. I was not going to miss a single word he said. Watching my desperate self, Castor raised the corners of his lips. 

“But, Ashley, if I tell you, you’d leave me. Won’t you?”

Castor slowly held my hand before raising it and interlocking our fingers. Eventually, with a satisfied expression on his face, Castor smiled. Just then, I could sense something bad was going to happen. No. Stop. I was shaking my head, but judging from his response, it seemed he didn’t manage to pick up on my despair. 

“I know the method but I won’t tell you. So that you can never escape me.”

Boom. As my heart filled with hope fell, laughter burst out of me. I could feel something flowing down my cheek. 

“Ha… ha. Haha. Hahaha.”

I had no idea whether the reason why I was crying was because I was disappointed, upset or just sad. Or was it out of the hatred I felt for the man smiling so enchantingly in front of me?

“You always cry when you look at me.”

Tears dropped like shards of glass. He soullessly wiped the tears falling down my cheeks. Then, while he continued to stare at me, he raised the same hand before brushing it against his lips. 

“That’s strange. I thought you’d be incapable of crying at anything now.”

The eyes pointed at me curled up purposefully. Though there were no more fireworks in the sky, only this spot seemed to be illuminated. All I could see in his abyssal deep golden eyes that also reflected gold were endless nightmares. 

“Ashley, you and I are cursed beings who were brought to this world through fate. I knew. Only I could have known from the moment I saw you.”

Castor’s voice sounded even sweeter than before. Even though I knew everything about his cruelty, his mesmerising voice was making my heart flutter unknowingly. That made me grab his hand subconsciously. 

“Aren’t you tired of it? Ashley, I’ve regressed hundreds and thousands of times now. Everything seemed so useless back then. At least that was what I felt. No one else could understand that pain.  Do you know the god that forced me to go through those regressions?”

The man who stretched his sword towards me smiled languidly. 

“… a god?”

“Yes, a god.”

The hand I had been grabbing could not stop trembling. 

“The future will only arrive when we change the conditions that were set. If you fail, you die. Which was why you had to go through countless tries to reach the future, didn’t you?’

I heard a cough. When I glanced away from him, I noticed the soldier staggering away whilst coughing violently into his trembling hands. 

Boom!

The sound of the door slamming shut echoed in the empty space. Castor willingly let the soldier run away before saying.

“The ability to regress and go through time loops. That’s a [curse] only the Heirs to the Lord of the Gods have.”

His irises began glowing in a dark gold colour. The light that he was faintly giving off always appeared whenever he used his powers. 

“Additionally, even amongst the ones with the ‘Power of the Lord’, this is a curse only those who had been gifted with specially potent abilities have. In this world, only you and I have been cursed.”

As if finding me somewhat lovely, he nonchalantly stared at me sweetly though his expressions did not look real at all. Grinning, he brushed through the hair cascading down my back. As he captured me in his possessive gaze, a cold eerie feeling blossomed in my heart. 

“That’s enough of a reason for me to covet you.”

He looked happy as he announced my despair. It felt as if I was standing on the edge of a cliff that was about to collapse at his command. No, rather than a cliff, it felt like the ground around me was crumbling away and I had nowhere to move. I held his hand that was holding the sword before smiling. 

“Castor.”

I could feel the hand holding the sword twitch. Unexpectedly, he relaxed his hand before stiffening his expression. 

“Kill me.”

I could feel the tears falling on the back of my hand. Just then, he held my hand tightly. I couldn’t bring the sword to my neck because he wouldn’t loosen his grip on the sword but I was sure he could feel my determination. I was not going to be swayed by him anymore and I will find a way out myself. Even if I end up dying. With a distorted expression, he tilted his head and laughed. 

“No matter what you do, I won’t seek you out with my own two feet.”

I smiled as I concisely spat out every word.

“I’m going to die so that I can escape your grip.”

On the rooftop filled with gold, something was blooming like a flower. Whatever the purple light was, it was consuming Castor’s gold. The light was hazy and thin but none of the light that surrounded me dissipated at all. 

“Just kill me.”

“You.”

Just then, the door swung open once again and someone entered the scene whilst panting heavily. The moment I turned my head around,  I spotted the fluttering strands of hair. 

“Ha… haa.”

The man who stormed through the door looked up as he wiped his sweat. 

Then, our eyes met. On a dark, pitch-black night, only the loud music from the square filled my ears. But when the songs subsided soon after, the moment I opened my eyes again, I noticed a fresh glint in his eyes. His glare wasn’t pointed at me but it felt like I was getting stabbed. 

“Princess.”

He felt a little distant. Castor was trapped but his nonchalant gaze did not turn away from the panting man. 

“Hernan.”

His white hair fluttered as wildly as the silence on the rooftop. The rough gusts of wind messed up his soft hair. Castor’s clothes, which reminded me of a black tent flapped so wildly that I thought they would cover his eyes. As the sound of music gradually distanced, all that filled the space now was the man’s heavy pants.

“Let go of her.”

Hernan raised his head up. Drops of sweat dripped from the tip of his chin. 

“… Castor.”

Startled, I looked up at Castor. He slowly turned to face the one who called his name before curling his eyes purposefully. The moment that cold gaze turned away from me, it felt as if I was being lifted away from the sheer cliff face.

“… Why are you here?”

It was faint but I could see it clearly. How could I have not noticed? I could faintly hear the anger in Castor’s voice. 

After being killed by him dozens of times, I had learned what every wink and breath my murderer took meant. It was only then did I realise that Hernan’s arrival was something Castor had not planned.  If it had been within his expectations, Castor would definitely have been smiling brightly right now. Why? Why did Hernan’s presence here anger him so much? What did I not know? 

I didn’t have a single clue so all I could do was take turns glancing at the two men. I was confused but I needed to know. Why was Hernan searching for this place? Why was Hernan staring at Castor as if he intended to kill him? 

I was so close to knowing the truth as I protected myself with my desperation but at the same time, the answer felt so far away. I squeezed my trembling fingers before clenching my fist tightly. It felt like I was about to take a test that I knew nothing about. But…

Tap.

I couldn’t do anything. I gripped my hand tightly before taking a step back. I could rarely control this staggering body of mine, however, my desperate gestures seemed to have achieved something. 

“Princess!”

Hernan was about to take a step closer to me but was blocked by some golden light and was forced to kneel on one knee. 

Crack.

I thought I heard electricity until I heard Hernan groaning. 

“What did you do?’

Hernan’s usual soft voice was drenched in anger. 

“What did you do, Castor!”

Castor, who had paralysed Hernan, stared back at him nonchalantly. 

“I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s what you always say. I don’t believe you.”

Just then, a bright light pierced through the darkness. Then, a roar exploded into the soundscape. The golden light shattered like glass before disappearing into the air. As I watched Hernan stomp through the dark, I couldn’t stop my eyes from widening nor my jaw from dropping. 

“I said that if you lay another finger on the princess, I would not stay still.”

His hand? When I looked down, his hand looked too strange to be considered humane. Something that looked more like a beast’s arm hung from his shoulders as a puddle of red blossomed on the ground underneath it. The puddle was dark red. It was blood. 

“Ah.”

Castor glanced at my collapsed figure before smiling. He clenched before stretching his bare hand. Then, after glancing at me, he turned towards Hernan. 

“Did you just use the beast’s powers? You can’t beat me. And it’s already too late for you to turn back now, Hernan.”

Castor muttered languidly. At his words, a burst of red light erupted from Hernan’s neck. The curse that glowed red in the dark looked more like a leash. 

The man that was gradually morphing into a beast groaned in pain. This was something I had never seen before. The gag placed by Castor. He did tell me that it had been a secret…

“If you want to stop here, it’s already too late.”