Chapter 114

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Episode 25 - Angel Marionetists [4]

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When we arrived at the destroyed cabin.

In my vision, the white lines slowly traced the surroundings. The remains of wood, the disturbed earth, the metallic smell of blood mixing with the wind.

Then I noticed something near the tree.

"....?"

My expression did not change, but I slowly walked toward it.

Every step felt strangely heavy.

I lowered my head while, in my vision, the white lines drew the scene before me in greater and greater detail.

Isabella’s eyes were half-open as she looked at me.

She was still breathing slowly, weakly and unevenly, as if every breath might be her last.

Blood flowed from her small mouth.

Her eyes were slowly losing their light.

Her body was split into two parts from the waist down.

Her legs were lying a step away.

For a moment, the entire world fell silent.

Even the wind no longer seemed to exist.

Isabella weakly shifted her gaze and looked at me.

There was no pain in her expression.

There was no fear.

There was no despair.

She did not even seem to be seeking help.

She simply wore a calm expression, and slowly, a small smile began to form on her face.

A smile so gentle... that it hurt to look at.

I crouched down, falling to my knees in front of her as Isabella finished smiling.

I felt strange.

In a way I could not remember ever experiencing before.

And while I "looked" at Isabella, I felt something slipping from my eyes and slowly running beneath the bandages.

But my expression had not changed.

I raised my hand to my cheek, where small drops, probably transparent, were slowly falling.

’I’m... crying.’

It felt strange.

Strange in an indescribable way.

As if my body were reacting before my own mind could.

As if something inside me had broken through a barrier I never even knew existed.

But then I realized something.

’Ah... right.’

’My emotions exceeded the containment capacity of my Trait.’

Isabella barely raised her hand while it trembled weakly in the air.

Her body was slowly growing cold.

A silent sign that she was dying.

I lowered my hand, ignoring my tears as I "looked" at Isabella.

Her smile never disappeared.

It was a smile filled with emotion.

It was a farewell smile.

It was a peaceful smile.

It was a smile without pain.

And that only made my chest ache even more.

Because even while dying... she seemed calmer than I was.

My tears would not stop falling.

Small, silent drops striking the ground.

I did not even understand why I felt this way.

This was a false world.

Just a fragment of Luminus’s life.

Nothing more than memories recorded inside a Memory Gate.

And yet...

Even knowing that...

I could not stop feeling that intense pain tightening around my chest.

Isabella’s small hand slowly patted my head, as if trying to tell me that everything was alright.

Her smile remained there.

Even while dying, Isabella never stopped looking at me.

To me, she was just a little girl around Astrid’s age.

I had only known her for eight days.

Eight miserable days.

But it was enough for me to grow attached to her, even knowing she was fake.

Maybe it was because, aside from my own emotions, I was also feeling Luminus’s emotions.

Or maybe it was simply me.

Maybe I had always been like this.

I clenched my teeth.

I said nothing.

In truth, I couldn’t even do that.

My throat felt heavy.

Isabella was slowly choking on her own blood, yet she still kept looking at me with that small smile.

As if she were more worried about me than herself.

Then she lightly pressed her lips together, and her voice barely managed to come out.

"It’s okay..."

She smiled, showing her teeth as her eyes slowly closed.

The faint sound of the wind reached my ears.

Her heartbeat had stopped at some point.

As if time itself had frozen.

Her breathing disappeared.

And her small hand resting on my head slowly fell to the ground.

Isabella had died.

I clenched my teeth as the tears kept falling without stopping.

I didn’t really understand why I was crying.

Why I felt this way.

I have no memory of ever crying before.

Not in my past life.

Nor at any moment I could remember.

"Hey, Adel..."

I slightly raised my hand and slowly stroked Isabella’s head.

I had felt the urge to do it.

Somehow, Isabella reminded me of Astrid.

And also of myself.

I ignored Charlotte’s call, keeping all my attention on the little girl in front of me.

At some point, I felt a sense of déjà vu.

As if something similar had happened in one of my past lives.

I wondered...

Could it be that my weakness for children existed because I lost one in a past life?

Because I watched a child die... and couldn’t do anything?

And that was why I felt this way now.

As if my body remembered even though my mind could not.

As if a memory buried deep inside me were reacting on instinct.

Like a scar that still existed even after I had forgotten how I got it.

And perhaps...

Perhaps this was not the first time I had watched someone die while I simply arrived too late.

’Ha, ha... This bothers me.’

The thought crossed my mind, but I immediately erased it.

Who the hell am I to laugh internally at the death of a little girl?

I wanted to hit myself for thinking that.

But I couldn’t do it.

I kept stroking her small head.

At some point, I realized the system screen had appeared in my mind.

But I ignored it.

I simply stayed there "looking" at the cold, lifeless body, where the last traces of warmth were disappearing with every second.

The silence felt heavy.

So heavy that it seemed to slowly crush my chest.

"Hey, Adel... calm down... just stay calm, okay?"

Charlotte’s words went in one ear and out the other.

I knew she was right.

But my thoughts kept wandering.

"We shouldn’t have left her here."

"Maybe taking her to the festival would’ve been better."

"Not even the Fallen Maiden did anything about it."

"Isabella probably would’ve died in an even worse way if Luminus had tried to save her."

I didn’t know why I said that.

I hadn’t "seen" Isabella being cut in half.

But looking at the mana threads around me...

The scene slowly began to recreate itself in my mind.

The leader of the Church of the Black Dawn.

Before Luminus could even notice his presence...

This entire place had already been covered with those strange threads.

He had probably wrapped Isabella’s waist the instant he appeared here.

Then Luminus came out of the cabin.

And that was when the leader moved the threads.

Cutting through everything in their path before Luminus could react.

The scene slowly continued reconstructing itself inside my head.

And I understood how it had happened.

It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

’In a way... I understand how Charlotte feels about her master.’

’Even knowing this world is fake.’

This was a Memory Gate.

A place that was literally fake.

Every life here had once existed in the past, but all of them had died centuries ago.

And that also included the girl whose head I continued stroking.

Little by little, seconds turned into minutes.

But for me, time felt much longer.

My emotions continued overflowing.

But remembering Isabella’s final words...

I knew she didn’t want to see me like this.

For the first time, I actively suppressed my emotions using my Trait, Without Emotions.

Shortly afterward, I stopped stroking Isabella’s small head.

Her body had already gone completely cold.

She had lost all the warmth she once had.

I slowly rose from the ground.

I inhaled and exhaled slowly.

"Let’s go."

Without waiting for a response, I began moving.

Toward the place where the battle between Luminus and the leader of the Church of the Black Dawn had probably ended.

I didn’t focus on Isabella’s body again.

Because if I did...

I would cry again.

Not because I could truly control myself.

But because the tears would come out unconsciously, even if I tried to stop them.

"Come on..."

***

Inside a deep crater, two figures remained at the center of the area.

The surroundings, which had once been a forest surrounded by mountains, had disappeared at some point, as if they had never existed.

Long cracks, similar to canyons formed over thousands of years, ran across the earth.

Deep craters were carved throughout the surface.

But in the middle of the largest one of all, Luminus breathed heavily.

She looked at her chest, where an energy she had never seen before was slowly spreading.

The bandages around her chest turned black and gradually began covering her body.

Luminus used mana and suppressed that strange energy. At that moment, she understood what the energy did.

"Ha, ha, ha... it will be impossible to remove it. My lord gave me a blessing, sharing part of his power with me."

"In this world, there is no way to eliminate my lord’s power. Your life will slowly come to an end. No matter how much effort you make, you will never recover, unless my lord wishes it..."

The Angel Marionettist’s head continued speaking even though it no longer had a body.

Luminus’ eyes were dim and exhausted as her body trembled.

The truth was that she hadn’t expected killing the leader of the Church of the Black Dawn to be so difficult.

She looked at her body once more.

Aside from the strange energy invading her body, she had lost an arm and was covered in thin cuts caused by the transparent threads.

Even the Divine Eye and her senses were incapable of perceiving or seeing those threads.

"Heh, your lifespan has also been shortened. Even if you reach a power never seen before, even if you surpass the heavens themselves, you will only live for ten years, filled with pain and endless agony... you will never be able to..."

Luminus raised her foot and crushed the Angel Marionettist’s head. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

The words of that bastard who had taken everything from her irritated her.

’My family, Kyle, Isabella, and even myself... I’ve lost everything.’

Luminus let go of her sword while looking at the black sky.

She frowned and made a movement with her hand.

Mana surged in the form of a thin blade that rose toward the sky.

The sky split in two as the portal covering the entire heavens began to open.

Then, for the first time, Luminus saw the blue sky.

Four years had passed since she reached 10 Stars.

But she had decided not to see the blue sky again until her purpose had been fulfilled.

Her dream had been fulfilled, her objective had been fulfilled, and her purpose would never end until the day of her death.

But endless sadness crossed her face.

’I’m sorry... I was so close to you, and I still couldn’t save you... I’m sorry, Isabella.’