Chapter 192

Chapter 192

For the first time, the duality of Nix’s existence was acknowledged by none other than the one who had killed his former self. Even Roxana had brutally denied him that truth. No one had dared to call him by that name since his re-emergence. Yet at that very moment, even he had begun to forget who he was and felt compelled to wail like a child for the first time since becoming a puppet.

“It’s you who will die if you don’t move that hand.” The voice seemed to travel in crimson waves through the air again as it continued to mock him, but the man standing before him merely stared down in his direction with cold, red eyes. “Before you draw your final breath...”

A sudden chill swept over the hand he was using to hold the glass shard, then caused him to shiver as it permeated his bones. An inconceivably heartless force instructed his hand to take aim at Noel’s heart once more.

“...kill him.”

The devilish voice whispered to him as a reminder that the act was what he had truly desired all along. Tears began to roll down his cheeks as a smile spread across his face. He was overcome by an emotion that was neither joy nor despair. Then before he realized it, blood splashed up from beneath him in a vivid fountain the likes of which he had never seen before.

* * *

Roxana stopped once she arrived at the castle’s central passageway.

Whoosh.

Wind blew in from the side and ruffled her golden hair. Meanwhile, the pungent smell of blood clogged her nostrils. Jeremy was not with her at that moment as he was busy fighting off the puppets that had confronted them along the way.

Thanks to the butterfly she had attached to Nix, she at least knew where the other warrior dolls were taking him. Thus, she was able to reach him without much difficulty now that most of their adversaries had either been defeated or preoccupied.

Since she had seen glimpses of where he was being taken, she had already prepared herself for the worst. However, the actual sight of what had transpired before her arrival was far more gruesome than she had anticipated. Most of the windows along the central passageway had been shattered in the height of all the chaos, but the very floor of the glass corridor he was in was cracked dangerously. There was no telling what might happen if she rushed forward, so she was forced to halt in her tracks just as she reached the opening of the all-glass path.

Three people were positioned on the centermost remaining pane of glass, which was riddled with cracks.

Blood from Noel Vertium’s body had also spread across the floor in a wide arc. And hovering over him was the figure of Nix sobbing hopelessly while Deon stood next to him. As soon as had fully registered what she had seen upon her arrival, Deon reached past Nix and plucked a glass shard out of Noel’s chest.

She couldn’t think of anything to do other than stand rooted in place, which led to her half-brother discovering her presence. His expression retained its usual coolness, but the tranquil serenity that seemed to envelop him gave the man a completely foreign aura.

Did one of them kill Noel Vertium? But... which one?

Her connection to her butterfly had severed at some point along the way, so she hadn’t been sure of what to expect upon reaching the corridor. Never mind that one of the two would be the culprit behind the Gold Master’s murder. The puppet stopped crying long enough to turn his bloodshot eye in her direction as if he had finally sensed her presence as well. His pale face was filthy with an odd mix of blood and tears, and his lips trembled feverishly.

“Xa... Xana.”

The delicate voice pierced all the way through her heart. Back in Vertium, he had called her by the same name as white flower petals rained down on them as if they were out in a light snowstorm. At the time, he had said it with such conviction, yet she was certain he would have had no opportunity to hear anyone ever call her in such a fashion since being reanimated.

“I, uh... I...”

Tears continued to heavily fall to the floor from the blood-covered puppet as he began to weep yet again. For what or whom he was weeping, neither she nor Deon could be certain. She suddenly recalled a baby animal Lante had gifted to Achille when he was 13, despite his open dissatisfaction with his son. Since it had been the first gift their father had ever given to him, her brother had cherished the beast with the utmost care. But to his horror, he was ordered to dissect that very same animal with his own hands a year later.

Achille had wept bitterly as he was forced to cut into the same animal he had named, fed, and cared for tirelessly day and night. To add insult to injury, his father then ordered him to throw the creature’s remains into one of the demon monster hutches. The young boy returned to his room that day and cried in a similar fashion that his puppet was in front of his sister at present.

But why did that memory surface all of a sudden? Haaa... This puppet is as cunning as ever. Is he acting like Achille now that I’m here because he realizes he’s in a disadvantageous position?

But even as she harbored such thoughts, Roxana couldn’t bring herself to utter a single word. From the day she first laid eyes on him, he had always bothered her.

Achille had a variety of little fidgets and habits: always touching the bridge of his nose whenever he was nervous, always scratching his thumb with his other fingers while making a fist, always furrowing his left eyebrow when he found himself in sticky situations.

There was no way Nix could know of such things as Achille’s habits, yet he always managed to imitate her brother far too well. That was the main reason she acted more coldly toward him than his past transgressions may have called for. If she hadn’t, she might have repeatedly mistaken him for the real Achille as she had in that brief moment during their fight at the Gold Manor. She knew she could never forgive herself if she were to make that same mistake again.

But... why? Why is that thing in front of her crying just like Achille once did?

In that moment, Deon realized what he had to do as he watched his half-sister frozen in place as she stared at Nix’s quaking figure. It was as if she was nailed to the floor. A shimmering light shined down as the clouds shifted. With the glass corridor more illuminated, her red eyes caught sight of a blood-drenched hand moving behind the puppet.

“I do not regret killing Achille.”

She suddenly recalled the conversation she had with Deon in their father’s study on her last night in Agrece.

“And if I were made to relive that day, I would kill him again.”

Without a moment to lose, her own hand moved instinctively.

Thwack!

Clatter!

Her weapon destroyed the one her half-brother was holding in his hand, then flew past him to land meters away. Crimson droplets spattered through the air and onto the array of broken glass.

“The only difference is that I would have you watch as I severed his head from his body this time.”

“Stop!”

But without even hesitating, Deon retrieved the weapon that had just sailed past his face seconds prior.

“No, Deon! STOP!”

Roxana dashed ahead as quickly as her feet would carry her, but with every step she took, the cracks in the floor spread out like ripples on water.

Nix turned toward the dark shadow hanging over his head and watched through his teary eye as the grim reaper’s scythe slashed down from above. But before it was truly too late, his identically golden-haired protector managed to wrap her whip around his assailant’s wrist.

The puppet was just barely able to dodge the attack thanks to her ability to change its course ever so slightly. She swiftly approached him, then stood between the two. Her golden hair glimmered along with the sunlight in his eye. As his remaining blue orb began to well up with tears yet again, he peered through his blurred vision at the woman who had stepped forward to protect him.

Meanwhile, the grim man quickly tugged at the whip coiled around his wrist. Although Deon was unable to cut down the new obstacle standing before him right away, he pulled her toward himself, grabbed her waist, then flung her behind him instead.

Boom!

She choked back groans as the pain surging through her body from the impact of being thrown into the corridor’s thick glass wall like a ragdoll reverberated through her every muscle. Her half-brother ignored her silent agony as he proceeded toward the puppet once again. It had been four years since the two had spoken in the hallucination room as the image of Achille’s corpse lingered before her eyes.

“I will not allow Achille to die by your hand again, you bastard.”

But now, Achille had come back from the dead and thus provided his killer an opportunity to take his life for good this time. The moment he noticed her staring at the reanimated corpse with a frozen expression, Deon knew that he desired nothing more than to kill her brother right in front of her.

“Roxana!”

Cassis had come just in time to see her fly across from the passageway and slam into its wall. He sprinted forward to check on her without a second thought. To his relief, she appeared to be unharmed.

Although the blow had dislocated her right arm and broken her ankle, she was able to recover almost immediately thanks to the remnants of his healing powers within her body. He then turned his gaze in the direction she had just been sent flying from moments prior. The gold in his eyes appeared as if they were bubbling as soon as he had finished assessing the situation.

“Deon Agrece!”

The Pedelian bolted toward the man who was in the middle of launching yet another attack against Nix as if his own body had just been catapulted forward by a human-sized slingshot. Roxana grit her teeth as she rose from the floor.

Clang!

The Blue Heir retrieved a piece of scrap metal that appeared to be a remnant of a fallen puppet, then used it to clash with the red-eyed Agrece. Deon was forced to halt his torture in order to fend off his new opponent.

“Out of my way, Pedelian!”

Of course, the silver-haired man ignored his adversary’s unsettling roar and continued his barrage. It seemed the Agrece was intent on killing his late brother a second time, even if that meant hurting Roxana in the process. But she seemed equally intent on stopping him.

With that much understood, Cassis knew what he had to do.

“Don’t you dare come one step closer!”

Besides, even if his assessment was incorrect, the man before him had just thrown his beloved into a wall without an ounce of concern.