Chapter 162  

Drilling the core literally meant making a hole physically.

It was completely different from creating a path naturally through training. It was like piercing a part of the body with a sword.

‘Young Madam can’t stand it.’

Carlin knew from the beginning.

‘However…….’

He remembered everything Aria said four years ago. Without missing a single word.

‘Back when she was young, it wasn’t something she said because she didn’t know how to do it.’

And the way he remembered her words until now and tried to take responsibility, he couldn’t turn away.

“Shit!”

Carlin grabbed Aria’s hands tightly.

Closing his eyes tightly, Carlin let his magic flow into her body.

Perhaps because she had already experienced it once, she absorbed the magical powers into her body more easily than he could have imagined.

“Please, be safe.”

Carlin pushed the magic that he had sent through Aria’s body into her core.

And,

He pierced it at once.

“…!”

Her vision flickered white.

Even Aria, who was accustomed to pain, was shocked that her head went blank for a moment.

‘Ah.’

Pain like a sword had pierced her body.

It wasn’t just that. If her core was pierced, she felt like she would almost certainly die.

The reason was that the energy filled in the core was pouring out of control through the hole drilled.

The vast magical energy in Aria’s body began to burst out like an explosion.

“…what are you doing!”

Tristan belatedly figured out what they had done. He shouted, wrinkling her face fiercely.

“Are you crazy because you want to die?”

He was talking about Carlin.

Aria grabbed her stomach and sat down on the floor.

“Aria!”

“Cough, kugh…!”

She coughed up blood. Her arm resting on the floor trembled as if to indicate her limit.

Tristan exclaimed, his eyes flashing.

“Stop it now!”

“It’s no use.”

Carlin was frightened and trembling at Tristan’s words, but this time, he reacted calmly. Because he had already accepted her resolve in his heart.

He said, staring at Aria in pain with a gaze mixed with desperation.

“It’s out of my hands. Now it’s all up to Young Madam.”

Aria bit her lip. And swallowed the blood.

‘I’d rather be in a lot of pain.’

Because she didn’t pass out and was able to endure it.

If she passes out here, her energy will be drained and she will die.

“Hoo…….”

Aria caught her breath and tried to catch the energy that was fading away.

And slowly, she got up. Her staggering body was so pathetic that people wanted to run right away and help her.

“Stop…….”

Tristan reflexively grabbed her wrist. But he soon let her go without strength.

It’s because their eyes met.

Even though her body was in a mess, her eyes were trembling with a stronger will than ever before.

She didn’t have to look like Valentine for that.

“Heal your beautiful eyes, ugh, heal your heart and soul…”

Aria sang a groaning song, then grabbed her neck again. As she continued to sing, her vocal cords seemed to be torn.

For a moment, that thought ran through her head.

‘I could really lose my voice.’Well then, what’s the deal?

It was better than losing everyone forever. It would have been cheaper than if Lloyd died.

Aria eventually freed all of the magic that she had held at the minimum in order to survive.

And she took her step towards Lloyd and sang the song with everything.

“Stop your sigh, now rest.”

Rather, as she went against her survival instincts, it was much easier for her to sing. The pain gradually faded and her mind became strangely clear as her mind was relaxed.

‘It must have been like this before I died…….’

This song, written by Aria about her own life, is the ‘Song of Salvation’.

She no longer trembled with anxiety.

“Sweet hope comforts our hearts. There is nothing to fear in the hope of happiness.”

The sound of singing mixed with the energy flowing out of her core relentlessly echoed in the space more intensely than ever before.

It rained like a storm and wet the eardrums.

‘Hope.’

Most of Lloyd’s feelings for her were blatant malice for the extinction of humans.

But it remained nonetheless. The hope engraved on his heart.

She only hoped that God’s only goodwill, hope, would calm the wrath of malice.

“I’ll tell you that you shine more than any god in the world.”

Aria smiled unconsciously at the lyrics. It’s like an untimely confession to Lloyd.

She staggered away, and she placed her hand on the sword pointed at her.

“I would say that you are the most beautiful of the golden stars.”

And she pushed the sword to the side. Behind the easily pushed sword, his silver-gray eyes fluttered with confusion.

Like he had peeked at God’s bare face.

“Those who seek love and virtue, who are courageous and valiant, fear no destruction.”

Aria did, and Valentine did.

No matter how much God hates humans, even if God hates and torments them, and wishes for the end to come.

They will never be broken.

They will protect their people till the end.

“Even if we fall, we do not die. We will have eternal glory, victory and honor.”

Aria sang the last verse and reached out to Lloyd’s face.

And she embraced it gently.

Lloyd’s hand moved swiftly and approached her like he was going to grab her neck.

However,

“……Aria?”

Before that, Lloyd’s mind was awakened first.

“Your face…”

Lloyd hurriedly groped her blood-stained lips.

Aria, who confirmed that his eyes were focused correctly, collapsed.

It was in the middle of the night.

“Kugh!”

Lloyd woke up with pain beyond his imagination. The God’s malice in his body was trying to break through his body. It was throbbing.

It felt like his limbs were being torn apart.

‘I’ve definitely felt this way before.’

Feeling dazed, he traced his memory.

‘Maybe in a dream…….’

It was a dream as vivid as reality.

After casting the self-sacrifice spell, he ran rampant, and after that, the Grand Duke’s castle was empty as if all vitality had been sucked out.

‘But why the rampage now!’He could not immediately determine the cause of the rampage. Because he never cast the self-sacrifice spell.

But then he realized it.

Not by reason, but by instinct.

‘The other half went crazy…….’

Because God’s feelings, which were originally one, were divided into good and evil.

When good runs rampant, so does malice.

The moment he realized that was his last memory.

When he suddenly came to his senses, he was standing in the middle of the banquet hall.

And in front of him, Aria slowly collapsed.

“Aria!”

Lloyd looked around him as she fell, holding her in his arms.

All around him was the smell of blood stinging his nose and people who had fallen unconscious.

“Ugh!”

He touched his throbbing head.

Belatedly, what happened during his rampage unfolded like a panorama.

Lloyd was dumbfounded.

The nightmare in the dream that made him cry unfolded before his eyes.

‘Aria.’

Cold hands. Stiff body in his arms.

For a moment, reality and nightmare overlapped, he couldn’t make a rational decision. All sorts of emotions were intertwined in his mind.

‘If you die, I…….’

I…….

I might become the devil and chase you to hell.

Lloyd, whose eyes glistened with madness, came to his senses belatedly.

Aria’s condition, held in his arms, looked as critical as it had never been before.

“Call the doctor!”

He shouted, locking her in his arms.

Carlin, who had been watching the sight with an anxious look the whole time, ran quickly to check Aria’s condition.

And he muttered unknowingly.

“It’s absurd. The magic power has stopped pouring out of her body…”

It was one of two things.

Suffocated or awakened.

But Aria didn’t die. It was faint, but clearly, she was breathing faintly.

Awakened. It meant that even though the core was pierced, she overcame it and grew more.

“It seems like I should cancel what I said back then…”

Carlin muttered.

Did he say that it was something that someone with no brains would do?

He thought there was nothing more ignorant than coveting talents beyond one’s abilities and risking even life.

But Aria’s courage saved everyone’s life, so he was ashamed of himself for dismissing it as childish arrogance.

‘Maybe really…….’

She said that she would completely defy the fate of the world and change Valentine’s fate. He had that thought for the first time.

– Look, I said I was fine.

It was then. Aria said with a message.

“Aria!”

She slowly lifted her eyelids, trembling from the pain.

– Lloyd.

Aria, who looked at him with a faint smile, asked.

It was something that did not suit their current situation at all.

– You’ve been avoiding me, right?

Why the heck is that important now? Lloyd looked nervously towards the door, waiting for the doctor to come.

– Answer.

But Aria urged an answer.

“……yes.”

He finally had to open his mouth.

– Why?

Why. Aria asked.

She wanted to hear what she already vaguely knew from his own mouth.

Lloyd looked down at Aria blankly, and clenched his lips.

“…because I like you.”

Song quote: From Vivaldi’s opera Orlando Finto Pazzo, ‘Rasserena i vaghirai’ ‘Dird allor, di te, che sei’, ‘Non paventagiammai le cadute’.