Chapter 147. A Dreamy Night (2) (2/2)
[…Grandpa?]
Flone asked, half in doubt, and the black figure flinched.
[Oh… oooh….]
As if someone pressed down hard on a piano keyboard, a resounding ringing spread out.
[Um… it’s Flone. Your granddaughter, Flonecia Lusignan La Rothschear.]
[Oooooh….]
[Grandpa… is it really you?]
[Ooooooooh…!]
A sobbing voice and a voice of disbelief mixed together in harmony.
[How… how…!]
[Grandpa!]
Flone flew forward. When the black figure’s arm gently wrapped around Flone, Seol Jihu felt the tension strangling him loosen up.
He felt blood rushing to his brain as if he had been miraculously saved before death.
‘Can I call this… good fortune?’
He already knew the villa had ghosts from the era of the deceased emperor. But still.
‘Flone’s grandfather really was here…?’
Soon, Seol Jihu put his spear down and stared at the grandfather and granddaughter duo. He still felt dazed by the whole thing.
It would be a touching reunion if they were both alive. However, they were spirits that were close to being evil spirits. As a result, what should have been a touching scene seemed a bit strange.
But it seemed the two of them didn’t mind this as they were holding hands and talking incessantly.
Well, hundreds of years had passed, so it was understandable that they thought both sides were dead.
[That… bastard…!]
[Yes, so I….]
Seol Jihu could only hear what they were saying intermittently. Seeing as how Flone continued to nod her head, they seemed to be exchanging words quickly through their minds.
Thinking of how life was full of surprises, Seol Jihu looked down at Phi Sora whom he had neglected until now.
Her eyes were rolled back, revealing only the whites of her eyes, and she was foaming from her mouth to her neck. From the way she was breathing faintly, she seemed to be on the verge of death.
In other words, she was still alive.
Looking at the moaning Phi Sora, Seol Jihu suddenly thought about the Choice of Destiny.
‘Did it change?’
It was Phi Sora’s destiny to die here by hanging. Seol Jihu had witnessed her death in the vision shown by the Choice of Destiny.
But because he entered this villa with Flone, he had ended up saving her.
In that case, could he say that Phi Sora had now met a different destiny?
‘This easily?’
Deep in thought, Seol Jihu nodded his head.
Before he noticed, Blackie, or rather Flone’s grandfather had approached him.
Perhaps happy to have found her family after hundreds of years, Flone stuck next to him, smiling brightly with tears of blood glistening around her eyes.
[Grandpa, this is him. If it weren’t for him, I….]
Seol Jihu followed his instincts and took on a respectful posture.
…Rather than frightening, he now found the situation complicated.
[Is….]
“H, Hello….”
[Is what Flone said… true…?]
“Y-Yes, it is.”
Although Seol Jihu had no clue what Flone and her grandfather talked about, he decided to affirm the question first.
A fixed gaze scanned him from top to bottom.
[Thank you… so much….]
“?”
[Please… necklace… oath… change….]
When the word ‘change’ was heard, the pendant released a faint light. However, the light quickly disappeared, and because Seol Jihu was focused on what was in front of him he didn’t notice the light.
But he still heard the words ‘necklace’ and ‘oath’.
“Um… what is this necklace?”
When he asked as respectfully as he could, the black figure fell silent for a moment.
[Necklace….]
It wasn’t until a minute later that the hoarse voice rang out again.
[Promise with the Seven Virtue’s Temperance… in other words… on par with the Imperial Oath….]
It was then…
The intermittent voice suddenly stopped completely, as if someone had struck down with a sword.
Flone’s grandfather turned around in a hurry.
[Grandpa? What’s wrong?]
At the same time, Flone tilted her head…
[Coming….]
Seol Jihu felt murmuring noises abruptly filling his ears.
It sounded like dozens of wasps buzzing around flapping their wings, but also like hundreds of people whispering.
[He… why…?]
There was no forewarning or any sign.
But one thing that was sure was that a terrifying aura, clear enough for even Seol Jihu to feel, was rushing towards them. The malice behind this aura was so evil that even Flone’s resentment seemed like child play.
[Go….]
The black figure pushed Flone away.
[Grandpa?]
Flone made a flustered expression.
[It might not be… too late….]
[W, What happened? Just what happened in this place…!?]
[Hurry…!]
The black figure looked to be in a great hurry.
At that moment, the absent-minded Seol Jihu recalled the words he had heard in Stage 3.
[The movement of this star rea~lly doesn’t change easily. No matter how much it is disturbed, it continues to advance toward its predetermined fate.]
[In exchange for Lara Wolff surviving, someone else died. That is the result of a Star of Fate that has broken away from its course trying to return to its original path. This is the reason that the future can’t be changed so easily.]
Just like Ira said, a Star of Fate that has broken away from its course would struggle to return to its original path. In that case….
‘Could it be?’
The thing that was coming to this room might be the counterreaction to saving Phi Sora.
Once his thoughts reached this far, Seol Jihu stopped thinking and moved into action.
As he had escaped from the clutches of death several times, his body moved naturally.
But when he saw the unconscious Phi Sora, he hesitated. In that split second, all sorts of thoughts brushed past this head. He was suddenly put at the crossroads of choice.
He remembered how affectionate she was to Jang Maldong and how the dead Priest in the hallway pleaded earnestly.
“God damn it.”
In the end, he held Phi Sora in his embrace.
Pang, pang, pang!
And he activated the Festina Earring three times.
Seeing that Flone was also hesitating, the black figure billowed in size.
[Hurry… and leave…!]
“Flone! Let’s go!”
When Seol Jihu’s urgent shouting followed the black figure’s thunderous roar, Flone finally moved.
[Go, go…!]
After leaving the room and racing mindlessly through the hallway, he suddenly felt his body float up. When he raised his head, he saw Flone biting down on her lip.
As soon as he covered the distance of the entire hallway, he saw a cluster of light rushing toward him from the front.
‘Golden light?’
Seol Jihu raised his spear with Phi Sora underneath his arm, but when the golden light came near, he realized that it was the Priest he had seen before in the hallway.
To his surprise, the Priest brushed past him.
[Please…!]
‘What?’
Seol Jihu turned around after hearing the fleeting voice, and his expression turned bitter.
He saw a black figure that was likely Flone’s grandfather stopping an encroaching darkness with all his strength.
But he alone seemed inadequate as he was being pushed back constantly. However, out of the blue, over a dozen corpses, including that of the Priest that just brushed past him, began to help the black figure.
There were several incomplete corpses, like ones missing their heads or missing their lower bodies, but Seol Jihu could tell they were all fighting against the darkness desperately.
Soon, with a sinking sensation, Seol Jihu’s field of vision changed.
And just like that, as he fell from the fourth floor all the way to the first, then escaped through the entrance of the villa…
—KUOOOOOOOO!
A ghastly cry filled with deathly resentment echoed out from inside of the villa.