Raising the Princess to Overcome Death-Chapter 216: The Beggar Siblings - Sacrifice
216: The Beggar Siblings - Sacrifice
“Oh, brother. What is...”
“Stay still.”
Leo held his sister tightly, dressed in a gown with a plunging neckline and adorned with jewels gifted by the nobles.
Lena, shocked by the tearing screams and the eerie dread enveloping the palace, trembled like a chick pushed out of the nest.
Despite her drastic transformation from a fresh-faced girl to a sorrowful figure, Leo held her head to prevent her from looking up. He patted her waist and small head, just like when he tried to soothe her to sleep in their wretched home in the back alleys.
Lena gradually calmed down, remembering her brother's comforting touch, but then...
Drip-
Pus and blood fell.
“O-Oh, brother?”
“I'm fine, just stay still...”
Lena twisted her body. Pus and blood were flowing down her brother's chin.
Yet her brother continued to hold her tightly, never ceasing to look upward. Occasionally, he would lift her and step aside, dodging something that splashed down. Lena screamed.
She couldn’t tell if it was blood or filth. She didn’t know whose it was, but something strange was happening in the viscous puddle on the floor.
Monsters.
Though she couldn’t see them clearly, being held by her brother, they were undoubtedly monsters. Creatures with grotesque, bulging veins, vaguely resembling cows, were rising from the blood pools.
“Don’t worry. Just keep your eyes closed. I’ll handle this.”
In her fear and worry, the only thing she could trust was her brother’s calm whisper. She followed Leo’s lead, stumbling through the chaos of shouts and clashing swords. Her brother, sometimes cradling her, would swing his sword.
Even with her eyes tightly shut as Leo instructed, Lena knew the grand banquet hall was in shambles.
Terrifying roars of monsters, the sound of flesh and blood falling. Something hot splashed on her cheek.
It was hell. Yet, from somewhere, a holy choir could be heard.
“Here are the sons and daughters of the Holy God! Grant us trials! We will overcome them and become your pride, proving our lives. So, God! Watch us fight!”
“Jenia Zachary! Come over here if you’re awake!”
“Prince! Are you alright?”
“Take my sister. No matter what happens, do not leave her side.”
Finally, Lena opened her eyes. Her guardian knight, Jenia Zachary, supported her. She saw knights fighting the monstrous beings that would haunt her dreams, priests singing in chorus, and nobles and maids running in terror.
“Don’t look.”
But her gaze was soon covered by Rev’s palm. He stood beside her brother, both drenched in blood. Lena realized that these two had been protecting her all this time.
Rev patted her head and spoke.
“Stay safe for a while. We’ll be back soon.”
...Strange man. He acts as if I’m his sister.
Despite knowing she was a princess, he never changed his attitude. Even her brother accepted this.
A few times, Lena had tried to throw a tantrum when her brother wasn’t around, but Rev would just make a puzzled face and step back. Later, he would return as if nothing had happened, lingering around, which irked her.
A filthy man. Even though I showed interest, he ignored me. It irritated her so much that eventually, she pretended not to notice him.
Led by Jenia’s hand, Lena left the blood-soaked banquet hall. In the adjacent ballroom, priests were waiting to tend to those who had fled.
It was then that she noticed the faces of the fleeing maids and nobles covered in pus-filled marks.
Circular, resembling brands, all were partially formed, with each having a different shape. Combining the shapes from various faces, it seemed to resemble a cow's hoof.
Lena was the only one who emerged from the banquet hall with an unblemished face.
“Princess! Are you alright?”
At that moment, her waiting attendant, Santian Rauno, ran up to her.
He was anxious, extremely worried about the princess's well-being, but Lena only gave a quick nod and turned her attention to Jenia.
“Jenia. Are you okay? Your face...”
Jenia Zachary’s face also bore a grotesque brand. She touched her face where the pus had burst and replied calmly.
“I’m fine.”
“Hurry and get treated. A woman’s face must not be scared. Priest, please treat her too.”
Fortunately, the brand on Jenia’s face quickly faded with treatment. With her face clean once more, Lena felt relieved and began to organize the chaotic ballroom. She instructed the arriving knights and guards to head to the banquet hall and inquired after the well-being of the nobles she knew.
The nobles, who had been murmuring in confusion, gradually regained their composure. Among them, one noble spoke up.
“I’ve smelled this rotten stench before. Surely, you all have too.”
The nobles around him nodded unanimously.
It was the smell that came from the ailing king. Without needing to share their thoughts, they all identified the same culprit.
Prince Eric de Yeriel.
Could he have been using magic?
Though the method was unclear, there was no doubt that Prince Eric was the cause of this catastrophe. The nobles, grinding their teeth, were furious. They would not forgive the prince who had inflicted such disgrace upon them.
The angry nobles expressed their gratitude to Princess Lena de Yeriel.
They promised loyalty, saying that if the princess and prince hadn’t returned, it would have been disastrous. Even the nobles who had sided with Prince Eric vowed to change allegiance. Nobles who had previously helped exile the siblings sought forgiveness with excuses.
As Lena was surrounded by nobles pledging their loyalty...
“Duke Rupert Tertan! Get back! How dare you approach the princess!”
A tall old man, Duke Rupert Tertan, approached. He was hunched over and looked somewhat dazed. The duke staggered for a moment before raising his head with suddenly clear eyes. With a pale face, he urgently warned...
“P-Princess, run...!!”
Thud!
The old man’s eyeball popped out. As everyone stood frozen, staring at the rolling eyeball, a dark red mist poured from his empty socket, enveloping the duke.
*
Leo and Rev turned back after safely escorting Lena.
The banquet hall was a sea of blood.
Everywhere, knights were fighting monstrous creatures with cow heads. The enormous hand of a minotaur swung through the air, smashing a guard into the wall with a single blow.
Yet Leo and Rev assessed the situation with a surprising amount of optimism.
It wasn’t just because they had become desensitized to blood and carnage after experiencing numerous horrendous incidents and battlefields. The actual situation wasn’t bad.
“Indeed... It’s right that Cardinal Verke is here.”
When the 'cow eyes' appear, we lose.
But unlike the previous encounter with Oriax’s eyes, this time, people weren’t recklessly charging at the monsters in a cursed frenzy.
At that time, they had thought they could gain an advantage in numbers. But Prince Eric de Yeriel kept replenishing and healing the monsters by sacrificing the dead, leading to a vicious cycle of more deaths and more sacrifices.
In contrast, now,
“Soldiers, don’t get too close! Use your spears! We’ll target the legs, and when it falls, charge in!”
The knights were in their right minds. Non-combatants had fled, and the knights directed the guards in systematically dealing with the rampaging monsters.
This was all thanks to Cardinal Verke. Leo and Rev looked up at the cardinal in the center of the banquet hall, performing a sword dance, with a holy presence above him.
A giant white figure wielding a sword and shield. The upper body of 'Latzar,' the god of light, was raising a shield to block the hole in the ceiling. Blood poured from the hole, flowing along the shield, because Latzar had pierced Oriax, who was peering through the hole.
The rotten blood-filled eye had burst from the sword's strike.
At that moment, those who had lost their sanity regained their senses. Though their faces bore the marks of the curse, they were incomplete.
“Let’s go. Time to end this.”
- Squish, squish.
Rev and Leo crossed the blood-soaked banquet hall again, now sticky with the blood of Oriax. Amid the chaotic melee, near the stairs, Prince Eric was frantically searching for corpses to offer as sacrifices to turn the tide.
“You damned brat! What the hell have you done!”
There was no reason to talk.
Rev gave Leo a slight nod and charged at the prince. Just as he was about to strike Eric’s neck,
“Rov qab los!”
At Eric's shout, Rev was thrown back.
Trying to regain his balance as if he had anticipated it, Rev slipped on the blood-slicked floor and fell hard on his backside.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. Now it’s your turn.”
Eric’s magic, which repelled those around him, couldn’t be used consecutively.
Leo de Yeriel, appreciating his friend's consideration in not showing him in an ungraceful light, stepped forward.
“Damn it!”
Eric gritted his teeth. He looked around for any monsters to protect him from his calmly approaching brother, but the creatures were tied up with the knights.
“Look at me!”
- Flash
Eric’s eyes glowed red, casting the illusion of a cow’s head. He had tried to charm Leo, but it didn’t work. Leo merely gagged at the fleeting vision and readied his sword.
“Wh-what...? Who... who are you?!”
I understand your feelings. It must be as bewildering for you as when I first met you.
Leo swung his sword lightly but with enough force to decapitate Prince Eric. The sword struck a reddish sphere.
It was the protective barrier bestowed upon him by Oriax.
Previously, there had been no way to deal with it, but that wasn’t the case now. Eric, who had been slightly relieved and smiled, was now horrified.
[Achievement: Swordmaster]
Leo's sword blazed white.
Perhaps in response, the protective barrier around Prince Eric glowed even redder. Leo stepped forward with his left foot and took a thrusting stance. Exhaling sharply, he drove his sword fiercely into the barrier.
- Clang!
It was blocked.
The aura blade, thrust so forcefully it might have damaged the sword, couldn’t penetrate the barrier.
But while the barrier cracked, the sword remained unscathed. If once isn’t enough, a hundred thrusts would do.
- Crack!
“Stop! Let’s negotiate. What do you want?”
- Crack!
After four strikes, the barrier shattered. With a pale face, Eric clutched a dagger. Leo, wary of any tricks, struck down the prince’s arm.
“Argh!!”
He had no intention of leaving any room for mercy. As soon as the dagger and the arm fell, he drove his sword into Eric’s heart.
“Guh...”
How could it end so futilely?
Eric de Yeriel looked down at his chest. In his darkening vision, he saw the blazing white sword and his mother’s necklace.
Mother.
Mother was a proud and good woman. She raised her voice to bolster the spirit of a son pushed out of the line of succession, and she comforted him with a smile when he tried to hide his sense of defeat. On their way to the Tertan duchy, practically exiled, she had said, “Let’s think together about how we’ll live from now on.”
She was a woman of great self-respect. He realized then that she had bent her will for the sake of her soft-hearted son. Feeling guilty for that... he accepted the offer.
= Become my apostle. Help me become king. In return, I will take what is most precious to you.
Oriax’s words were difficult to understand. Now, although not learned, he could somehow mimic the deity’s words and magic, but back then, he couldn’t.
“Yes. I accept.”
Holding the dazzling red jewel, he made the pact. Although he refused to reveal his name, once the contract was made, he was uplifted by a violent urge welling up inside him and went to find his mother.
However, she was nowhere to be found. When he realized he had sacrificed his mother...
He wasn’t sad. Only angry, he vowed revenge against the one who had brought him to this point.
Leo de Yeriel.
Yes. I killed your mother.
Had the queen not borne you, none of this would have happened. He had cursed the queen in her final stages of pregnancy, causing her to die in childbirth. The princess, trapped in the womb, had been born by cutting open the dead queen’s belly.
One more confession.
I tried to kill you, too.
But you were immune to my curse. Oriax said you and your sister were children born under the god’s favor, making it difficult.
Ha!
You were born with everything I didn’t have. Blue-gold hair and golden eyes. But now I see...
“You were a sacrifice.”
Then there’s a way.
Eric de Yeriel, with his remaining left arm, grasped the sword embedded in his chest. Sacrificing his rapidly fading life, he squeezed out his words.
“Oh, Oriax, receive the sacrifice offered by the sacrifice of a god!”
My final gift to you, damned brother.
“Wh-what?!”
Leo stepped back in shock.
Even though the light had faded from Eric’s eyes, the kill count for slaying a royal hadn’t gone up. From the prince’s pierced chest, a dark red mass exploded outward, throwing Leo back, making him drop his sword.
Silence.
The half-human, half-beast creatures with bull heads knelt. Regardless of the soldiers thrusting spears into their waists, they bowed their heads deeply.
The knights and soldiers, who had been gaining the upper hand, were shocked and turned to see whom the monsters were bowing to. Cardinal Verke, who had been continuously performing the sword dance to block the ceiling hole, was the same. The hole had since vanished.
A lump of flesh swarming with maggots.
A half-melted bull’s head with seventeen randomly sprouting horns, standing on four legs. A giant rotting carcass with the form of a bull. It looked down at humans with dark, soulless eyes, devoid of pupils.
Oriax.
The advent of one of the most violent deities in history, born from the carnage and madness of the minotaurs.
Chapter 216: The Beggar Siblings - Sacrifice
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