Raising the Princess to Overcome Death-Chapter 267: Engagement - Promise
266. Engagement - Promise
The Crimson Moon devoured the sun. Yet, even in the blood-drenched darkness, the twin siblings glowed brightly, as if they were one. They were wrapped in a sinister red light, smiling radiantly.
Leo was in a panic, just like everyone else in Toridom. The mages convulsed, shaking their heads like alarm bells, foaming at the mouth.
“O-Okrurk... Kanta Tigopheiac! Po, Pofrnon Bmyuekjekadinu!”
It was a warning—an urgent warning cry.
Their fits subsided rapidly as Lean and Lerialia sprinted lightly, yet with deadly speed, across the Asgard Plain toward Toridom.
‘W-What is...’
Why are they there? What on earth is happening...?
There was no time to think. Leo hurriedly tried to grab Lena and run, but his feet wouldn’t move. Paralyzed by fear, he could only watch the twins.
Lean and Lerialia had covered half the distance of the plain, drawing near to Toridom. Though still far away, it felt as if they were already upon them.
The twins smiled with satisfaction. They glanced at each other with their flaming golden eyes and kissed.
A blasphemous dance of tongues.
An incestuous bond defied human morality. Sweat and a flush covered their bodies as if performing some vital ritual, steam rising from their slender forms in the dead of winter.
The shapes reflected in the crimson light of the Blood Moon were enormous. The vast Asgard Plain appeared narrow, and the fortress of Toridom could easily be cradled in its grasp.
A round ram’s horn crowned its head.
Its vertically split golden eyes resembled a snake’s, but its face was human. A mane starting from its forehead ran down its back to a tail covered in fish scales. It stroked its neck with five fingers, tipped with the yellow talons of an eagle, and spoke in a cursed voice.
- Astro! My homeland! I have returned after millennia of waiting.
It was the voice of Astroth, the Grand Duke Astroth. Leo, holding the trembling Lena, stared in shock at the ancient being, descended from antiquity…
“H-Haaah!”
“O-Onii-san?”
Lean pulled away from his sister in a hurry. His genitals glistened with dew. Lerialia, staring at her pale brother, failed to recognize him at first.
Gone were his golden eyes and hair. The unfamiliar situation left her bewildered.
She remembered boarding a carriage at her brother’s urging to flee. “Why?” she had asked—that was the last moment she recalled.
“Onii-san... W-What is this...?”
Lerialia suddenly realized she was not wearing any clothes. Dumbfounded, she stared at her brother, who knelt naked before her, his broken eyes gazing up in despair.
His face, tinged with horror, was lifeless. Lean, with a vacant expression, stared at his equally colorless sister, letting out a strangled sob, “G-Gurrrgh...”
Astroth rolled his ‘golden’ eyes down, gazing at the siblings with a terrifying round stare. Smiling faintly, he spoke to the brother and sister he adored.
- What’s wrong? You loved each other, didn’t you? Ah, was it that ‘Baneca Rauno’ who drugged you back then? Hahaha! Whatever. I want all of you.
He had taken everything the twins were born with.
Though nothing useful remained, does love really need a purpose? Astroth grabbed the twins in one hand. Lerialia screamed, and Lean struggled desperately.
- Toddler Akiunen. You promised, didn’t you? When you awakened me hidden in your blood, you swore you would do anything if you could meet Reisia again. I kept my promise. Now it’s your turn. We’ll be together forever.
Astroth’s words carried a faint hint of reproach as he embedded Lean and Lerialia into his right shoulder. It swallowed them up as if it had been waiting for them, releasing a sweet terror from within.
Sssuuuck. Astroth inhaled deeply. Overwhelmed by exhilarating fulfillment, he set foot on the plain. The black moss he had sown ages ago wrapped around his hooves.
The panicked sacrifices.
Astroth moved toward the crowded Toridom but had no interest in it. He had feasted on humans aplenty in Orville. The army that had hastily retreated was also sacrificed to him, with ‘one’ unit’s efficiency.
Astroth began clawing at Mount Astro with his talons. The cliff crumbled, collapsing onto Toridom as he savored the moment.
Ah. Leonel had jumped off here. He fed me nuts and fear, bound to the rocks, and then released me.
Though the vile divine spirit took him from me, Leonel had summoned me again. With utmost affection, he swore on his blood.
He promised his {bloodline}. He allowed me to hide in the blood of his descendants and pledged to give me everything the day we met again.
It was a promise made with a vision reaching ten thousand years into the future. Yet, I accepted it gladly.
Because I love you.
You and your sister are the only living beings I love.
Astroth had waited for thousands of years, hidden in the blood of Reicia’s son, Leonel. He had followed the bloodline of the Arcaea Empire’s royal family, waiting for the day when Leonel would inevitably return...
- “Why! Why are you there?”
Two thousand five hundred years ago, Leonel appeared in a body that was not royal.
Azura.
He was a useless commoner, a priest serving the vile divine spirit, and again! He broke his promise, driving me, the Emperor of the Arcaea Empire, into a corner.
We fought with all our might, but Astroth was powerless against Azura, who wielded a simple wooden staff.
Magic did not work. Mana, which should have been free, was frozen solid under the divine spirit’s command, and Astroth fled—to this very place, Mount Astro.
But Azura, as if he had ‘known’ I would retreat here, pursued me relentlessly. Unable to withstand the relentless blows of his staff, Astroth abandoned the Emperor’s body and fled to the southern city of the Arcaea Empire, Badobona, where he hid in the blood of another royal who governed the region.
There, he thought, Azura wouldn’t find him.
Having begun anew, Astroth gradually took control of the mind of his new host—the emperor's younger brother. The body had low sustenance efficiency and had been set aside earlier. However, among the royals Astroth knew, this one was the most efficient after the emperor, even if it was only at about 0.008.
Still, damn it. Leonel broke the promise again. And if he’s reborn in a non-royal body… there’s nothing I can do.
Astroth brooded deeply.
Yet, a dozen years later, Azura found him again. Azura, who had scoured the entire continent, had grown far stronger. This time, he appeared with a mountain girl, a group of priests, and a new, unfamiliar type of knight called a “Templar.”
This time, Astroth did not hold back. In the name of the great empire and the royal family, he slaughtered the citizens of Badobona as he fought against the liar he loved.
But there was no winning. Azura was powerful, and his companions were formidable.
Astroth realized too late that he needed to flee, but by then, it was already over. This time, Azura raised a bronze goblet and covered the sky in a white dome.
He was going to die.
Azura’s white eyebrows fluttered. As Astroth’s shoulder was struck by Azura’s staff, Astroth, on the brink of annihilation, saw a flicker—a way out.
Inside the white dome, there was no escape. The fearless priests and templars offered no openings. But in the far corner, he sensed fear emanating from the mountain girl.
Elated, Astroth shouted.
- As long as there is fear in the hearts of humans! I will never disappear. I will inevitably return!
It was a promise (約束, a binding pact) mediated by the girl’s fear.
Astroth’s soul was extinguished.
Azura lamented that he had lost Astroth yet again. He sighed, contemplating whether to restart his efforts from the beginning, but that would have meant killing the mountain girl, Reina. Azura had no extra lives left.
Azura, unable to bring himself to kill the girl who had saved him time and again, prayed.
He acknowledged his own failures and implored for the power to fight against evil to be bestowed upon humanity. He offered everything he had, asking that he not have to kill the girl.
Then the heavens opened.
The goddess of noble sacrifice, Boar, wearing a crown of thorns, appeared with a radiant smile and shone a brilliant light upon the girl. Reina became a saint, and Azura knew that he would soon vanish.
Azura gathered up the fear that had emerged from Reina’s heart. He wound Astroth’s promise into the bronze goblet, flipped it upside down, and sealed it shut. He left, declaring that no one should ever set foot near Badobona’s ruins.
Thus, Astroth’s return was delayed for millennia. The Arcaea Empire, allied with the Holy Cross Church centered around the saint, hunted down all non-human races across the continent. Declaring the dawn of the “Age of Humanity,” the empire basked in a golden era, and as history often goes, it saw repeated cycles of decline and prosperity, eventually leading to the current era of the Seven Kingdoms.
Astroth might never have returned at all. Azura, now revered as the First Saint, had left a stern warning, and no one dared to approach the ruins of Badobona.
However, King Maunin and Queen Reti declared independence from the empire, and one day, an ignorant northern barbarian set foot in the ruins of Badobona, unaware of Azura’s teachings.
“What the heck is this?”
Boris Ainar—a young, hot-blooded man—picked up the bronze goblet and left the ruins of Badobona, oblivious to what he had unleashed.
*
A claw caught on something.
Lost in nostalgic memories of the distant past, Astroth snapped back to the present. He resumed digging into Mount Astro, eventually unearthing what had once bound him.
He gripped and pulled it out. With a grinding sound, it emerged from the mountain, tearing it apart—it was the shackle. Until Leonel had set him free, he had been chained to the rock by it.
Only Leonel could release me from my shackle. That’s why he’s special. But simply being freed wasn’t enough for Astroth.
The divine spirit cannot harm me directly—I’m freed from the shackle, after all.
However, as long as it existed, Astroth could not be completely free, so he tugged at the shackle. He bit into it and tried every method he could think of, but it showed no sign of breaking.
Am I still not strong enough? Astroth’s eyes turned toward Toridom.
The fortress, half-buried in the collapsed cliff, was filled with humans trembling in terror. Among them was one human who stood firm, addressing Astroth in a calm voice.
“Astroth. Let’s negotiate.”
It was not Leo.
The barbarian warrior with the crow tattoo stood, head held high, surrounded by a fierce red light, sharp and deadly like a wicked blade. Meanwhile, Leo Dexter, caught between paralyzing fear and tearing savagery, struggled to keep his wits about him.
Trying to steel his shaking legs, he held Lena and attempted to flee, but there was nowhere to run. The unexpected eclipse, the ominously glowing Crimson Moon, the earth draped in a deathly shroud, and Grand Duke Astroth looming above. In the darkness of the fortress, a red crow with steel wings flapped—Malpas.
No escape route was visible.
Leo, trembling and clutching the shivering Lena Ainar, could only take hesitant, staggering steps backward. Astroth burst into laughter, swallowing up all the air on the plain.
.
!
Chapter 267: Engagement - Promise
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