Chapter 147: Marital Quarrel (2)
If one were to ask how Isaac managed to show up with such perfect timing,
He could only answer that it was absurdly simple.
From the beginning, the Transcendents favored strategies that shook their opponents—
Assassinating high-ranking figures or waging guerrilla warfare to drag the entire battlefield into chaos.
The reason was obvious: compared with humans, their numbers were too small.
Now, with several of their plots already foiled,
Isaac was certain they would double down on these tactics.
In his previous life, the assassination of Princess Adeline had been catastrophic;
This time, he was sure they would try again as soon as all eyes turned north.
So Isaac had judged, and—working with the Mage Tower—made his way here.
On any other day, the Tower’s mages would have listened to him with skepticism;
They tended to dismiss anyone who wasn’t also a mage.
But once the Tower Master learned of Isaac’s unique nature,
He could only lend Isaac his full trust and support.
That—precisely—was how Isaac managed to arrive in the nick of time.
***
Twin blades flashed into view.
Isaac’s unique, quick-draw style, twin wings—as light as a bird’s wing—fluttered in the air while he asked:
“Why did you abandon me like that?”
“……!”
CLAAANG!
The clash of steel echoed, but the shock that struck Rihanna ran deeper.
That cold, deliberate question dragged her buried guilt to the surface.
She swung her greatsword hard—yet even in that furious arc, there was hesitation,
As though answering him would be like putting a blade in her own mouth and cutting her tongue.
But the curse of vassalization would not allow Rihanna to stay silent.
“I—abandoned—”
CLAANG!
There was another long, ringing impact.
Matching the greatsword’s power was difficult,
Yet Isaac refused to retreat.
Determined to finish this conversation, he gritted his teeth and tightened his grip until the sword threatened to snap.
“You did abandon me.”
“……!”
“For the past four years you cast me aside, left me behind—and at the end of it, I shattered.”
Rage and sorrow twisted together, hardening the tip of his blade.
“The one who broke me the most… was you.”
In neither his past nor present life had he ever spoken so bluntly.
They had always been courteous, restrained—believing that was consideration for each other.
But no longer.
Today—he had to cast that restraint aside.
“I… was the one… who left you—”
Rihanna’s face went deathly pale.
The curse forced every thought in her head out through her trembling lips,
And even if their words seemed disjointed, the meaning was all too clear.
“Why did you do it?!” Isaac roared.
For an instant, his blade drove Rihanna’s greatsword back.
His face was contorted with fury—yet the only replies were ragged, choking sobs.
-Euhk!
-Euhk! Kkeueu!!
His demonic ki—the killing aura that clung to his blade—poured out as sobs and tears.
It crashed against Rihanna’s red aura, keening with a savage force that refused to be driven back—
As though the aura itself were speaking its heart.
“Mother tried to kill you…! If I stayed close, Lohengrin would only try harder to break you!”
CLAANG!
Isaac slid a step backward.
Rihanna looked at him, tears falling.
“Because you were… too precious to me—!”
Words she thought she must never say.
Yet her cruel tongue betrayed her and would not stop.
“You were my weakness!”
“To them, you must have looked so easy to shatter.”
“So I couldn’t let it show how important you were. I had to look like I regretted that reckless marriage. Only then—!”
THUD!
A single, heavy step forward.
“Only then would you be safe!”
This time Rihanna lunged, sweeping her greatsword toward Isaac.
Her red aura surged like wildfire riding a mountain wind.
As Isaac’s stance dipped and rose like turning blades of a windmill, his condensed demonic ki reversed the flow of her red aura—
The same counter he had used against Lohengrin at the Sword Festival.
“Rihanna,” he said, “the one who hurt me most… was you.”
“……!”
“Just you—moving away from me. That alone hurt so much I felt nothing else!”
He knew he should avoid a head-on clash, yet Isaac did not yield.
His demonic ki, now stained with red aura, collided with Rihanna’s force.
The impact shoved him backward, but he dug in with desperate footing and held.
“That was what hurt me the most.”
They were close—his voice a raw whisper within the weeping of his aura.
Rihanna’s emotions trembled.
“I’m sorry.”
Tears slid down her cheek.
“I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry, Isaac.”
“Why didn’t you stay with me?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I only ever needed you there.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That mansion… you were the only place I belonged—”
“Really… I’m sorry.”
Her voice, shaking so hard it reached the point of her sword.
“I was foolish.”
“…….”
“I thought I could never protect you forever. I thought… I had limits.”
Killing—or at least crippling—Isaac would have been absurdly easy.
Wait until he slept, then strike.
Slip poison into his food or the dishes at dinner—that alone would have done it.
“The harder I pulled you into my arms,” Rihanna said, voice shaking, “the harder they tried to tear you away. In that tug-of-war, I was sure you would break.”
“If I’d just died in your embrace—”
—it would have hurt less than this.
Isaac’s face twisted with fresh pain, and Rihanna recoiled, fear clouding her eyes.
She swung her greatsword, forcing distance between them.
“Please… don’t say things like that.”
“…….”
“I wanted you to live, no matter what.”
“Even that,” Isaac answered softly, “felt like wishful thinking.”
The weight of shock, guilt, and self-loathing pressed on Rihanna Helmut like a millstone.
“So that’s… how it was….”
“Yes. That’s how it was.”
He knew his words cut her open, yet they had to be said.
Here and now, he could no longer hide what he felt.
Through her tears Rihanna whispered, a confession at the altar of their ruin:
“Back then… I couldn’t choose anyone.”
“…….”
“Between my family and you… I knew I had to sever one—but I couldn’t raise my blade.”
Once, that had been true. Now she understood.
“I should have chosen.”
Her red aura churned—wild, confused, as tear-stained as she was.
“I agonized and agonized, but never reached a conclusion.”
Now she saw it clearly: love, for all its beauty, can become a shackle.
“Yes. It was my fault for refusing to choose.”
She bit down on the taste of regret, of self-reproach—of her own impotence.
“I had to do one or the other: abandon my family, or set you free.”
A bitter, aching smile crossed her lips as she raised the greatsword high.
The red aura that poured from her grip was anything but ordinary.
A life made of regrets.
No one lives without mistakes, but every debt must be paid by the one who owes it.
“Where did it all go wrong?”
Tears flew as her red hair whipped around her.
“Mother’s gentle words when I was a child, the stiff but constant family dinners, a father I idolized….”
Little pieces she’d never thought precious had woven into chains around her ankles.
“If even one of those had been missing—”
In the whirlwind of red aura, Rihanna accepted the ending rushing toward her, equal parts remorse and resignation.
“Would I have walked out of that mansion at your side?”
Regret piled atop regret.
Choice, judgment—now they crashed over her like a tide called Fate.
He was coming closer.
The greatsword, heavy with red aura, fell.
Red love—
The final arc of the sword she’d once swung across a river in a moment drenched with longing.
Rihanna Helmut’s everything, hurled forward.
“Everything is steeped in regret, and yet…”
Within sorrow and remorse, one thing she could never release:
“The day I met you—”
No, she would never call that a mistake.
She refused to regret that, even if she died here.
At some point Isaac’s demonic ki fell utterly silent.
As though all its tears were spent, it now coated his blade in a cold, razor frost.
Like silk sliced clean, the red aura split apart:
The river-cleaving Red love now divided in reverse, opening a path.
“If any god is watching—”
Rihanna closed her eyes and murmured,
“Thank you for letting me pay the price of my sins.”
The man she loved most was here to kill her.
For her, no end could be more cruel—so she gave thanks.
Her tears were gone; the rose had withered.
“My dear lilac,” she breathed,
May you bloom.
If, beyond every hardship you ever face,
Someone remembers me as the foolish woman of your past—
If only the memory remains,
That will be enough.
– – The End of The Chapter ––
[TL: The last poem is so beautiful.
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