“Trying to slay a god? What a stupid move. Failure was inevitable.” Kantesius mocked as he looked at the fainted Isatia.

“You’re seriously not dead yet??” Vinny couldn’t believe it. Inside the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] there had been that many invincible, over-spec Imperial Knights left behind by successive Heads of House Lanteville—undying, tireless, relentless—and they still hadn’t beaten this bastard to death??

So you’re the king of damage sponges, huh??

But Vinny could tell that Isatia’s [Perennial Imperial Diadem] hadn’t been defeated by Kantesius; it just happened to hit the moment the hub clock tower’s durability ran out and collapsed, grinding Isatia down to nothing.

“Damn it, what the hell?” Vinny had no idea what exactly happened just now, or by what method Kantesius had managed to wear Isatia down.

Right.

He remembered: when the two of them were hacking at each other earlier, Kantesius never used a Spirit Soul from start to finish!

Could it be that Kantesius’s Spirit Soul was… extremely special??

“Cough…” While Vinny was thinking, the weak cough in his arms drew his attention.

“Classmate Isatia, are you… okay?” Vinny felt like he’d asked that for nothing.

Okay or not—you could tell at a glance.

The Isatia who usually spoke with a full, steady breath had never sounded this weak. It showed her state had fallen to rock bottom.

“No.” Even so, Isatia still gave Vinny an answer.

“Seems like… there’s no way… to take you back,” she added a moment later. “Most of the critical function-buildings in the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] have aged to uselessness.”

“So this is the mess you’ve been facing?” Vinny let out a long sigh. “What you said before was—way too simplified.”

“Once you used that gem, whether you won or lost, you were overdrawing the clock tower’s last scraps of durability. Either way, you’d die, right?”

“I gave you my word, didn’t I?” Isatia’s eyes stayed calm, as if death didn’t frighten her. “Besides, telling you all this is pointless.”

“Vinny, you can’t help me.” The words were exactly what she’d told him before entering the secret realm, when he’d sold her potions.

Back then, Vinny thought Isatia was looking down on him, writing him off. Now, it seemed—

What Isatia meant was that anyone who stood with her had to shoulder the same duty and obligation: to protect the people, protect the weak, protect the nation.

He didn’t have the ability to stand with her. If he insisted on standing with her, he would absolutely lose his life.

Just like she had today—sacrificing herself for duty and for the protection of the weak.

“Isatia, you really are…” Vinny pressed his lips together. This time he didn’t tack on “classmate,” just like she didn’t when she spoke to him before. “So, what are you going to do now?”

“Are you two done? Have you forgotten your king?” Kantesius swaggered up.

“Fat hog, who said it was your turn to talk? Shut the hell up!” Vinny hurled the magic scrolls Aesphyra had given him.

A few Fireball scrolls, a few Ice-Spear scrolls—he flung them out and slammed them against that flowing white-bone armor—[Grandlord of Enslaved Souls].

In an instant, several more souls were blasted free.

“Damn—so that’s it.” Vinny finally understood how Kantesius had managed to grind Isatia down; and watching those wailing souls scatter and perish, he roughly grasped the mechanism.

“Calling you a beast is an insult to beasts. I’ve got an eight a.m.!”

“Heh. Boy, if you were half as good with your hands as you are with your mouth, you wouldn’t be like this—reduced to hiding behind a woman’s protection,” Kantesius said with contempt.

“Now we’re back in my domain. My undying body is back. Even without a Spirit Soul, you can’t kill me.”

“So what? From now on you can stand guard over this imperial mausoleum where only you remain, and torture yourself,” Vinny said coldly.

“Only me? No. That black-haired foreign queen will be mine as well. Guess what I’ll do to her? Hahaha!” Kantesius laughed.

“Vinny, kill me.” Isatia’s dark brows knit; she spoke as cleanly as a blade.

“I’ll kill your head!” At this point, Vinny dropped all courtesy and snapped, angry. “It’s not the last minute yet. I’m not giving up—so the hell are you doing giving up!?”

“Do you think falling down means you’ve lost? Am I not a person to you or what?” he said, thoroughly exasperated.

Isatia fell silent for a while, then quietly explained. “No.”

“Oh, it’s ‘no,’ is it? Looks like ‘yes’ to me!” Vinny had come a long way: one day he was terrified of his nominal fiancée, the First Princess of Tyrel; now he was daring to rip into her face-to-face.

Maybe—like with Aesphyra—once you truly understood someone’s nature, you knew they wouldn’t do that kind of thing.

“Want to die? Little beauty, once you’re in my hands, death won’t come so easy.” Kantesius let out a foul laugh.

“Hey! Fat hog! You really think I’ve got no way to deal with you? Open those beady eyes and watch. Here—catch!” Vinny deliberately drew Kantesius’s attention and tossed a magic scroll toward him.

“More of those paper slips with magic? Useless. I cannot be—” Before Kantesius finished, a violent flash exploded across his vision, burning him blind and deaf.

When he finally recovered and opened his eyes again, the two were gone.

“Interesting. So you want to keep playing cat-and-mouse. Fine. Your king has nothing but patience.” Kantesius sneered and strode out of the arena.

“Hah… hah…!” Using the time Kantesius was blinded, Vinny fled the arena with Isatia in his arms, found an unfamiliar room, and hid. He let out a breath and set Isatia down.

He had no strength left either.

Every magic scroll and alchemy potion Aesphyra had given him was now spent.

Credit where it was due: even outside the secret realm, she was still hard-carrying—the tools she’d handed over had all pulled their weight, helping Vinny and Isatia more than once.

But they were probably at their limit.

Vinny looked at Isatia lying beside him, her eyes flickering on and off.

Her Sea of Mind was burned dry; the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] had collapsed; her life force was nearly overdrawn.

“Don’t sleep—don’t sleep! Look at me.” Vinny tossed etiquette aside, patting her cheek and waving a hand before her eyes.

“…,” Isatia’s gaze regained a shard of clarity.

“You are stubborn as hell,” Vinny said, shaking his head. “You’re the type who’s never asked anyone for help, right? In your eyes, no one else is qualified, no one has the power to help you.”

“A king’s duty cannot be shouldered by others,” Isatia answered.

“Looks like we’ve got a big disagreement there. If it were me, I’d choose to protect everyone too. But if someone wants to help me, I’d also give them a matching share of responsibility—because that’s the most basic form of respect.”

“That’s irresponsible with their lives. You’ll get them killed,” Isatia said.

“Then if you take everything on yourself and decide no one can help you—what about those Imperial Knights?” Vinny asked.

“Even in the moment the [Perennial Imperial Diadem] collapsed, they were fighting their damnedest to help you.”

“…,” Isatia said nothing. After ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) a long pause: “But you are an ordinary person.”

“An ordinary person who needs protecting.”

“Okay. If that’s what you think, I can’t help it. You can’t persuade me, and I can’t persuade you.”

“BOOM! BOOM!” Right then, the door was smashed open by a giant spiked mace. A hulking figure stepped through.

“Brats, the cat-and-mouse game is over.”

As expected, they’d been found even sooner than he’d hoped.

Vinny knew hiding inside the man’s own palace was basically impossible.

Isatia still seemed to want to stand, but she couldn’t. With death breathing down her neck, she couldn’t even move a finger.

They had nowhere left to retreat.

“In that case—Isatia, want to make a bet?” Vinny rose and walked toward Kantesius with steps that were tired and lead-heavy.

“You want to prove your view is correct?” Isatia watched his back and asked.

“Pfft. Having to prove who’s right or wrong—that’s too serious,” Vinny said, for some reason smiling.

“Let’s just bet on this: whether the two of us can make it back to Carillian Academy together, safe and sound.”

As Vinny walked, white feathers began to drift from his body one after another.

Isatia didn’t know why the tone of his last words had turned playful—until those spotless white feathers floated to her eyes and burst into countless pure white motes on her cheeks. Only then did her eyes widen bit by bit, locking on Vinny’s back.

“Oh?” Kantesius reacted the same way. Beneath the mask, his broad face filled with surprise and strangeness.

Very soon, a sacred, warm, rosy light washed over them, and a pair of angelic wings wrapped the blue-haired youth.

“Healing light. Pure white feathers.” Isatia stared in stunned disbelief, terrified of missing a single frame.

When the holy plumage and radiance scattered, cherry-pink strands fluttered like falling blossoms. The girl with cherry hair opened those dazzling peach-heart eyes. Angelic wings unfurled. She stepped on air, dancing upward.

The mithril warhammer in her hand blazed and came down hard on the crown of Kantesius’s skull. The blow blasted his bewildered body away, smashing him through several walls before he finally stopped.

[Stored-Light Smite]

After the home-run swing, Vanessa landed with elegance on white high-heeled boots and lightly brushed aside the silk-soft fringe at her brow.

“You…?” Even Isatia had never seen a scene like this. Part of it was bone-deep exhaustion; the rest was sheer shock. She couldn’t find her voice.

After sending Kantesius flying, Vanessa strode quickly to Isatia, set a hand against her, and released a blossom-pink holy light.

It was holy light.

Isatia stared, unable to believe it.

Vinny Facilis—her nominal fiancé—he…

No. She.

For the first time, Isatia felt she had never truly understood her—had never seen through her.

Not just her. Her father the Emperor, the courtiers of the Tyrel palace, nobles great and small across the Empire—none of them had ever truly understood the woman before her, the descendant of a goddess who had borne countless slanders.

From this moment, those rumors could all be judged irresponsible lies.

Isatia knew those rumors were mostly hot air, but she also believed the Facilis blood in Vinny had died and was basically impossible to revive.

So that’s how it is… all of it—ways she used to protect herself??

Thinking of what the Dawn Church had been doing lately—thinking it all through—Isatia quickly understood.

With the holy light’s healing, Isatia’s condition stopped plummeting.

Holy light couldn’t heal her collapsed Sea of Mind or [Saint’s Favor]—after all, [Saint’s Favor] was tied to a divine authority.

But holy light was still holy light. Even if it couldn’t restore, it could ease; at least it could keep the last breath tethered.

Isatia felt much better, enough that it gave her the illusion of a final flare before death.

“Don’t move around, okay~ Classmate Isatia.” Before she could try to stand, she felt herself gathered into a soft, fragrant breeze.

White Camellia and lavender—the scent made Isatia’s heart flutter and haze.

“My holy light only stabilized your collapse. It can’t completely cure it.”

“Sadly, I don’t have a way to cure you right now. I can only temporarily seal your shattered Sea of Mind.” With that, Vanessa added a line that left Isatia puzzled by its meaning:

“You Carillian people—are you all fated to clash with me? One wants my blood, one wants my life.” The words carried a teasing lilt.

Carillian people—her??

Isatia’s dark brows lifted.

So… besides House Lanteville, there were others with Carillian blood around her?

And Vinny had even used her own blood to save someone’s life…?

If Vinny’s bloodline hadn’t died, that meant her blood was the bona fide Blessing Angel’s Essence.

For the first time, Isatia—who had never felt curiosity about anyone—felt something slip in her heart.

She was curious. Very curious. Who was the one Vanessa had been willing to save with Blessing Angel’s Essence?

Before she could think further, Vanessa gathered her up and took to the air.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep