CH 234

My hands trembled. But now, these were my tremors and not the diary’s. When I heard her last words, something in my heart which felt as if it had been sewn shut burst open. But my hands could not stop shaking. Hiding my hands in the darkness, I faced Auresia head-on. She spoke coldly.

“The emperor had everyone Castor loved taken away from him. He then killed him to start the curse.”

“W-Why?”

“The emperor wanted to strengthen his powers through the cycle of deaths before finally sacrificing the strongest version of Castor to the crystal.”

I whipped my head to my feet. A large magic circle of unknown origins took up the floor of the huge chamber. That was when I realised. The bizarre magic circle on the ground seemed to have been overdrawn recently. The dark red marks. I could tell what it was from repeating death countless times. This was blood. 

A sign of sacrifices made without consent and a sign of repression. 

This was then I recalled the sight of myself dying over and over again, dozens of times. The sight looked unreal. All my maids were dead, their bodies strewn all over the ground dotted with puddles of blood. 

“In the end, the emperor failed. The emperor has no idea how many times Castor had gone through deaths. He had been overconfident in his powers but Castor’s powers were stronger than he could have ever imagined. He finally resorted to trying to attack his mentality.”

I slowly spoke.

“With the Power of the Lords?”

When I first met Castor, I had been unwillingly bewitched and adored him. My emotions had been a result of Castor’s powers and not my will. The Power of the Lords also had the ability to bewitch and erode minds. 

“Yes, in other words, he had failed to control Castor’s mind as well. But he hadn’t failed completely. The emperor poured all his strength into making Castor compliant to his every command. Until the day the emperor dies, Castor cannot kill him or refuse his commands.”

“Then, why can’t the emperor sacrifice him to the crystal?”

“In order to be sacrificed to the crystal, one’s heart must be removed first. However, there was no one who was strong enough to kill Castor when his powers were so strong. The emperor might be able to overpower him but he was not strong enough to kill him.”

“So, even though the emperor overpowers him, Castor’s powers can still protect him?”

“Yes, his powers are so strong, no one can get past it. Just to get Castor dancing on the palm of his hand, the emperor had lost all his divinity. He only had as much divinity as a high templar left. It’s horrible.”

The emperor and his successor held an incomparable amount of divinity as compared to any other Head Templar. I could see how much weaker the emperor had become. 

“Castor had become the personification of the Lord of the Gods.”

I slowly stepped back. Auresia, the crystal and the spells made from blood. I tried to capture as much of the big picture as possible while keeping Castor’s character from the original story in mind. As I processed all of this in my mind, I blinked my eyes. 

“Castor. He is a monster born from this Empire’s and the emperor’s greed and ambitions.”

I spoke slowly. 

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Auresia caressed the crystal slowly before leaning towards the crystal. The crystal seemed to glow brighter and I noticed her eyes turning even more purplish. 

“When the child from the prophecy was born, the emperor recognised the powers the Crown Prince held from first glance. The emperor started getting nervous. He first sacrificed his first daughter, a girl who also held the Power of the Lords as weak as it was.”

Just then, the crystal started glowing red ominously. The red light pulsated within the crystal in waves. 

“The emperor gained some divinity as a result but it was still lacking. So, his gaze shifted as he searched for different powers. Unfortunately, the man who returned to the Empire as the descendant of the previous emperor became the catalyst. And that man was your father.”

The red light swirled around in the crystal before darkening and that happened a few more times on repeat. The red light looked a lot like blood. I stared at the crystal that consumed my sister, an Imperial Princess, and the man who was my biological father. The diary in my hand was getting hotter. 

“Your father told me that the baby I was carrying in my womb would have the Power of the Lords.”

My father must have known in advance because he could see the future. With her husband dead and a child still in her womb, Auresia calmly confessed that she became obsessed with the emperor. Dyed red, Auresia’s face looked even paler. She looked so tired from life. But she showed no weakness. 

“I didn’t want to give birth to you.”

She spoke firmly. With her eyes strangely clouded over, she stared at me but it looked like she was looking at something else. 

“Because I can tell the fate you’ll have to suffer through.”

Auresia closed her eyes for a long while before opening her eyes again with her expression now contorted. I watched as she approached. Auresia raised her hand to rest it on my cheek. 

“Funnily enough, as soon as you were born, you had gasped for breath as if you were going to die. You couldn’t open your eyes as if your organs were failing you. That’s why I brought you to the Land of Beasts as soon as you were born to find your Companion. I thought you’d be able to live longer if I shared some of my powers with you. I asked a young beast for his help to transfer my powers to you.”

Her index finger brushed across my cheek. As if she was tracing the scar on my cheek. 

“That was how you received your first scar.”

She was clearly referring to Hernan when she talked about the young beast. The experiment Hernan was talking about as he stared at me must have been referring to Aureisa transferring their powers into me. 

“But when I saved you, the emperor took note of your presence. Another successor to the Power of the Lords. If you had continued growing up like that, you would have only become another sacrifice to the crystal.”

Speaking, Auresia suddenly looked at me. The crystal was still glowing mysteriously behind her. The light it was giving off was fluctuating like a pulse. I slowly shifted my gaze to the crystal that I could have been sacrificed to. 

“That was when I thought it would be better if I killed you instead. If you can’t live without dying once then–”

She drew another line atop of the scar she was just tracing. The scar she was drawing thus took the shape of a cross, mimicking the shape of the scar on my cheek.

“That was how you received your second scar.”

Neither smiling or frowning, Auresia continued to stare at me. But the face illuminated by the sinister light the crystal was giving off seemed to be laughing and crying at the same time. 

“Child. I have lost myself for so long I have forgotten when exactly I started losing myself. I am a doll that can only feel hate and resentment.”

Auresia blinked slowly. 

“The one I loved died, the princess I was close to disappeared, I have nowhere to return to since the temple I had been residing in had collapsed and all my relatives had been killed. What else could I have done?”

I had no idea about my birth mother’s life. She had just been a villainess from the <Light of Rusbella> who held the emperor in the palm of her hands, wrecked state affairs and ruined the lives of the men around her. And I had been reincarnated as her daughter, the one she had heartlessly abandoned when I was only a newborn. I never resented her. I never even missed her. Because, to me, she had just been a character from a story and a stranger to me. 

“I couldn’t love you.”

Auresia spoke calmly. 

“I couldn’t bring you misfortune because I loved you.”

She continued to stare at me without bothering to brush back the hair that had cascaded past her shoulders. 

“I didn’t care if the Empire was going to collapse and abandoned you. I thought it would be nice if this Empire which had taken everything from you would be destroyed. I thought it would be nicer if I could move the collapse forward. So, I tried to seduce the emperor to ruin everything.”

“Auresia.”

“For whatever reason, six years after you were born, I was compelled to see you.”

Just then, I heard footsteps approaching from afar. The footsteps might have been soft but since the chamber was so empty, the sounds echoed and amplified. I quickly glanced at Auresia but it didn’t seem like she heard the footsteps as her expression remained clear. 

“That was when you told me.”

Aureisa held my hand before smiling softly. 

“Just because I was your birth mother, I had no obligation to love you.”

Just then, her eyes that had been devoid of life filled with blue light. I tried to falter backwards but because her hand grabbed mine, I could only take one step back. 

“For some reason, I felt saved by those words.”

Was it because she was also a templar? She grabbed me with the same strength as an adult man. At the same time, the footsteps that sounded faint at first were now growing louder. 

“Like I had been possessed by something, I returned and brainstormed a way for you to live. I moved the 6th Queen’s residence so that you can stay close to the 6th Prince. At least Vulcanus can protect you until you become an adult.”

“Auresia! Someone’s coming!”

It was only then did Auresia glance at the ceiling. Meanwhile, the footsteps were getting closer. This was the chamber holding the crystal supporting the entire Empire. The only people who could come here were the emperor and the Crown Prince. Perhaps because I knew who was coming, the heavy footsteps sounded familiar. 

“Another way? Is there any other way out?”

“No, There’s only the way we came in.”

As I lowered my gaze to stare at my trembling hands, my diary began heating up and glowing faintly. Was it too warning me? 

Step step.

The footsteps were getting close. Even considering the amplifying echoes, he was clearly getting closer. I bit my lips before grabbing my diary. Auresia’s hand rose to my wrist. 

“Don’t worry.”

With one hand grabbing mine, Auresia used the other to fish out a long pendant from her chest. The colour of the gemstone embedded in the pendant looked strangely bright. 

“Hold on tight.”

A warm breeze appeared out of nowhere and wrapped around Auresia and my body felt like it was floating. I knew this feeling. This was the same feeling I had when I first used the God of Wind’s stele. I shut my eyes tightly as the winds ripped around me before I opened my eyes again. 

Our surroundings were now quiet. I could hear the cries of crickets and before I noticed, a blue moon was hanging in the sky above us. We had teleported outdoors. I jumped up and scanned our surroundings. We seemed to have landed in the garden where Auresia and I met earlier this afternoon. The trees and the fountains looked similar. 

“What the hell was that?”

“An artefact a Templar of the Winds had gifted me. She was an old friend of mine.”

After taking a deep breath, Auresia looked up. 

“You knew her too. She was once a princess but now she’s just a duchess. The 1st Imperial Princess might have ended up as a sacrifice to the crystal but the 2nd Princess who spoke up for herself had her authority stripped away by the emperor.”

I was reminded of the two duchesses Amor had brought me a long time ago. Auresia seemed to be referring to the duchess who was not Rebecca’s mother. She must have been the 2nd Princess. Now I understood why Amor only used honorifics with her. 

“Get up now.”

I reached out to Auresia who remained sitting down. Auresia stared at the outstretched hand before lowering her head and smiling. Instead of taking my hand, she stood up without any help. She moved so elegantly I could barely compare. 

“We won’t ever get into that chamber again.”

“What do you mean again?”

“The emperor had fallen asleep early and the Crown Prince had left the palace for a while. A night like this could only come once.”

I had never been this close to Auresia before but she soon retreated from me back into the shadows. She later turned around and stared at me. 

“The moment you awaken, the divinity I had transferred you will be released. You will then be transformed to your fully grown self and no longer have the child-like appearance you’re spouting now.”

“How do I awaken?”

“You will, in the future, when you want to. I guess it will be happening sooner than you think.” 

When I really want to? I had been praying and hoping for more strength for countless hours. Had I not been desperate for it then? That couldn’t be true. I bit my lips before looking up. 

“So, you never wanted me to be unhappy after all?”