Chapter 71: Is There Salvation Even for the Murderous Girl? (4)
Chapter 71: Is There Salvation Even for the Murderous Girl? (4)
Caron stared blankly at the sight unfolding before him.
A girl with blue hair, smiling with a twisted grin, yet sobbing sorrowfully at the same time.
She was walking toward him now.
Holding a blood-stained sword.
But what shocked Caron wasn’t the sight of the blood-soaked girl.
It was his own body, transformed and twisted from mimicking a pact with the devil, which allowed him to see things that would have been invisible to him otherwise.
He could see the soul behind the girl.
The filthy residue that inevitably arises in the process of extracting divine power.
In other words, the souls of children.Souls that had been carefully bound together and sealed to prevent them from causing harm, filled with deep resentment and curses toward the Holy Church.
And somehow, that very soul was now residing within this girl.
‘Why… on earth…?’
His mind couldn’t keep up with the situation.
Who was this girl? And why had the discarded residue of those souls fused with her?
He couldn’t understand a thing.
But whether Caron understood the situation or not, what was happening before him remained unchanged.
Sin, quite literally, had come for Caron.
The result of all the things he had done, now seeking to end his life.
“Did you think we wouldn’t find you just because you changed your form?”
Hundreds—no, thousands—of voices overlapped with the voice of the blue-haired girl.
Cold sweat trickled down Caron’s back.
He could feel it, the overwhelming gap between them.
His divine power, his stigmata, almost all the strength he once had was now gone. The chances of him defeating this monster were slim.
But the monster didn’t care about Caron’s circumstances. The blue-haired girl kept walking toward him.
Slowly.
Step by step.
Each of her footsteps felt like the tolling of a bell signaling the end.
As if telling him that his life was over now, that a second chance wasn’t meant for someone like him.
That it was time to say goodbye to this world.
‘No…’
He couldn’t accept that.
He would survive.
No matter what it took, Caron had resolved to survive.
Nothing else mattered anymore.
Just staying alive would be enough.
He didn’t hope for success or glory. All he desperately wanted was to regain a normal life.
Yet, even as he pleaded silently within his heart, the girl kept coming closer, without fail.
He could see the souls behind her, sneering at him.
As if they were saying:
The survival you so desperately wish for—was what ‘we’ once wanted too.
And when we cried out for our lives to be spared, do you remember how you responded?
Did you really think we would listen to your pathetic begging for mercy now?
“St-stay away! I said stay away!”
Caron’s body trembled uncontrollably with fear.
In a panic, he hurled curses wildly in every direction.
But… it was useless.
Even though his body had transformed into something resembling a demon, he had only absorbed a single life.
In the end, the curses Caron cast were pitifully weak.
The blue-haired girl didn’t even feel the need to avoid them, calmly receiving the curses as she continued her approach toward Caron.
And then…
The moment he had desperately wanted to avoid, no matter the cost, had finally arrived.
That monstrous girl stood right in front of him.
The overwhelming presence of her murderous intent.
The curses and resentment that radiated from her.
Crushed beneath all of that, Caron collapsed onto the floor in a pathetic heap. He didn’t even have the strength left to crawl backward.
The girl gazed down at him and grasped her sword.
In a blink, faster than Caron could even register, her blade slashed.
Caron’s face twisted in agony.
Blood gushed from his abdomen. The pain was so excruciating that he felt as if he might lose consciousness at any moment.
But the girl didn’t care about his suffering. With a smile on her face, she continued to tear through his insides.
Caron’s mind began to fade.
His vision grew dim until everything in front of him was just a blur.
It seemed that Caron’s life had come to a pitiful end. That should have been the conclusion.
But…
Caron’s consciousness didn’t fade. He was still alive.
His shattered body began to swell and soon returned to its original form. In the blink of an eye, Caron was back to how he had been.
However, there was no look of joy or relief on Caron’s face.
He knew.
This wasn’t some miracle born out of good fortune.
“This makes one soul’s worth,” the girl said with a smile.
Tears streamed down her face as she smiled.
A smile twisted with madness and despair.
What stood before Caron wasn’t just a vengeful spirit—it was something he himself had created.
A revenge demon, born from his own sins.
“Aah…”
The weight of his transgressions crushed him.
All the sins Caron had accumulated over time were staring him down.
This was the punishment he had been dealt.
*****
Her mind was hazy.
Ever since she immersed herself in the black liquid, her consciousness had felt as if it were drifting in a dreamlike state.
The only thing she could hear were voices.
Voices filled with curses and resentment, echoing endlessly.
And so, Lucy moved according to those voices. As they guided her, she exacted vengeance.
The once-glorious cathedral.
A place that had exuded majesty and divine reverence now bore no resemblance to its former self.
Blood splattered across every surface, chunks of flesh scattered about. Corpses littered the entire hall.
And… standing before the girl was an old man.
The last remaining figure of the Holy Church.
So broken, he could no longer speak. Not even capable of begging for death.
Lucy stared at him for a moment… and then twisted his neck.
This time, she did not revive him.
The children’s revenge had already been fulfilled.
And with that… the old man’s life was snuffed out.
A man who had coldly sacrificed countless lives for his own gain, in the end, met his death at the hands of those very lives he had stolen.
Now, only Lucy remained in that blood-soaked cathedral.
The voices of the souls had vanished.
She had braced herself for this moment.
She had feared that perhaps one of the thirty children might not have been satisfied.
That one of them could still linger, remaining in this world to seek revenge on her.
But… the children didn’t harm Lucy.
Once they confirmed that she hadn’t cooperated with the Holy Church in orchestrating their abduction, they chose not to kill her.
Instead, all they asked was to borrow her body, as an act of atonement.
However…
That made it even more unbearable.
Had they resented her, had they blamed her and cursed her for everything—
It wouldn’t have hurt so much.
She wouldn’t have been crushed by this overwhelming guilt.
The children, who didn’t seek revenge, who didn’t curse her, only increased her torment.
She had stolen the future that those kind-hearted children deserved.
It was by her own hand that they were deprived of the lives they should have lived.
Lucy stood there, dazed, and slowly drew her sword from its sheath. There were no more enemies left. No one to defeat, no one to fight.
Tears rolled down Lucy’s cheeks.
But a single tear couldn’t wash away the blood that covered her.
Nor could it cleanse the sins she had committed.
Of course, it couldn’t.
Ignorance can never be an excuse.
The thirty children Lucy had unknowingly led to the Holy Church—her ignorance had cast those thirty children into hell.
That was a sin no amount of apologies or repentance could ever erase.
No matter how deeply she regretted it, no matter how she atoned, the children who had already passed would never return.
‘There’s still someone who must pay for this.’
Tears continued to stream down Lucy’s face.
But no matter how much she cried, the blood on her hands wouldn’t be washed away.
She had lived with pride in her actions until now.
She had stripped others of their lives, completely, without hesitation. Yet she had shamelessly believed that she was carrying out justice.
Someone like her had no right to live.
She shouldn’t live.
And so…
There was only one thing left for her to do.
It wasn’t even a difficult task.
All she had to do was what she had always done.
She would simply rid the world of one more murderous monster.
Lucy closed her eyes.
She brought the blood-stained sword to her neck.
The sharp blade grazed her skin, and she could feel a small trickle of blood run down her neck.
But nothing changed.
After all, her body had already been soaked in blood for a long time.
It was the tainted, filthy body of a murderer.
Lucy was about to place the final period on her life.
…No.
She tried to.
But in an instant, the sensation of the sword vanished from her hands. Someone had taken it away.
“…Lucy Valierre.”
A voice reached her ears.
A voice she had heard once before.
She opened her eyes and looked at the person who had called her name.
A boy with white hair, draped in a black robe.
His deep blue eyes stared straight into hers.
The leader of the Black Fangs stood before her.
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