Chapter 38: You Have No Right to Touch Him

Alicia completely ignored him.

She spread her arms and tilted her head back, a sickly, satisfied smile playing on her lips.

“IN THE NAME OF GOD, I SHALL DESCEND DIVINE PUNISHMENT UPON THIS PLACE!”

*Boom — !*

The entire backstage area was swallowed by a sea of white light.

It wasn’t an explosion, yet it was more terrifying than one.

There was no thunderous roar, only a low, constant hum as everything was annihilated.

The first few guards who rushed forward, along with their armor, were instantly reduced to nothingness.

The students behind them let out desperate screams, but they couldn’t even manage to run before the white light caught up to them, sending them to the same fate as the guards.

‘This woman is insane!’

Lynn’s scalp tingled, and every hair on his body stood on end.

He wanted to run, but the speed at which that light expanded far exceeded the limits of human reaction!

Right then, another power erupted.

“You dare!”

Vivian’s roar sounded like an enraged lioness.

She didn’t look at Alicia, nor did she look at the innocent people being “purified.”

Her eyes were fixed solely on the wound on Lynn’s hand.

Alicia’s madness had ignited a different fire within her heart.

‘He’s hurt.’

‘Under my watch, right before my eyes, he was injured.’

‘This is a disgrace to my honor as a knight, proof of my incompetence as an Imperial Princess, and the most vicious provocation of my possessiveness!’

‘Why?’

‘Why should I bear this shame for the blood this man sheds for others?’

‘How can these useless creatures still stand here breathing after witnessing his injury?’

‘Unforgivable.’

‘Every last one of them is unforgivable!’

**[Vivian Augustus Blackening Value: 98%]**

**[Warning! Blackening Value has exceeded the threshold!]**

**[Blackening Value: 110% (Data Overflow)]**

*Clang — !*

Her longsword left its scabbard, carrying a sound like a dragon’s cry.

Vivian didn’t try to block Alicia’s Holy Light.

She did something far more insane.

“All existences that threaten his safety, all possibilities that put him in danger, all eyes that have seen his vulnerable side…”

Her voice was colder than the Siberian winds.

“All of you, disappear!”

Sword light exploded from her hands.

It wasn’t just one strike, but 100, 1,000!

Countless fine, sharp, and impossibly fast streaks of Sword Qi radiated outward from her in a perfect circle, firing indiscriminately in every direction!

If Alicia’s Holy Light was “purification,” then Vivian’s Sword Qi was pure “destruction.”

The walls were sliced into blocks like tofu.

The load-bearing pillars were shredded into gravel.

The backstage ceiling was turned into a sieve.

Holy Light annihilated everything while Sword Qi cut through it all.

Two completely different destructive forces collided and intertwined within the small backstage area, whipping up a storm of death.

The adjutant, who had just barely managed to block the first wave of Holy Light with his shield, didn’t even have time to catch his breath before over 100 streaks of Sword Qi pierced his body.

He was shredded into countless pieces, his remains scattering across the floor.

The remaining guards and students were even more defenseless.

They were like stalks of wheat in a hurricane, easily torn apart and crushed.

The screams lasted for only a few short seconds before disappearing entirely.

In their place was the thundering roar of the entire building structure collapsing!

Lynn stood at the heart of the storm, his brain failing to process the situation.

He stared at everything before him, watching people who had been alive just moments ago turn into dust and shredded meat.

He smelled the scorched stench left behind by the Holy Light and the metallic tang of blood from flesh sliced by Sword Qi.

The two scents mixed together, making his stomach churn.

‘I’m going to die,’ he thought.

‘This time, I’m really going to die.’

He couldn’t dodge the Holy Light, nor could he block the Sword Qi.

Just as Lynn closed his eyes to embrace death, a pair of small, cold hands covered them from behind.

A soft yet abyssal, chilly power wrapped around him.

It was Lilith.

“Brother, don’t look,” she said. Her voice was still soft and innocent, sounding completely out of place in this living hell.

“You’ll have nightmares.”

Lynn felt the Holy Light and Sword Qi — forces capable of destroying everything — eerily warp and curve away as they came within one meter of his body, as if they had encountered an invisible barrier.

He heard the roar of the outside world and felt the ground shaking beneath his feet, yet he remained perfectly unharmed.

He didn’t know how much time passed.

Perhaps it was one minute, perhaps one century.

Eventually, the storm of destruction outside finally subsided.

Lilith’s hands moved away from his eyes.

Lynn trembled as he opened them.

Then, he witnessed the most unforgettable scene of his life.

The backstage no longer existed.

In fact, the entire back half of the Grand Auditorium had been turned into a massive, smoldering ruin under the open sky.

Broken walls, scorched earth, and fragmented corpses mixed together to form an abstract painting of the apocalypse.

In the center of the ruins, Alicia and Vivian stood facing each other.

Alicia’s white dress was speckled with blood.

The holy brilliance flowing around her made her look like a goddess who had just delivered Divine Punishment.

Vivian’s knight uniform was torn in several places by the Sword Qi, but the hand holding her sword remained as steady as a rock.

Her gaze was cold enough to freeze one’s soul.

Their rage had temporarily subsided.

Not because of a sudden realization of conscience, but because…

Their gazes simultaneously fell upon Lynn, who had been kept perfectly safe by Lilith.

“Jealousy.”

A new, even more intense jealousy overwhelmed their previous fury.

“Release him,” Alicia said, her voice freezing as she watched Lilith’s protective stance over Lynn.

“You have no right to touch him,” Vivian said, the tip of her sword pointing directly at Lilith.

The two people who had just (unintentionally) teamed up to destroy the world were now turning their blades toward each other again — or rather, toward Lilith, who was closest to Lynn.

Lynn looked at the scene and suddenly felt like laughing.

He felt like a toy being pulled between two people; since neither of the two crazy children would let go, they had simply decided to wreck the entire toy store instead.

Now that they were done wrecking the shop, they were prepared to fight another round to decide who got to play with the toy first.

“Brother,” Lilith said, completely ignoring those two murderous glares.

She turned around and looked up at Lynn, her ink-black pupils filled with nothing but dependence.

“Let’s go home.”

“It’s too noisy here.”

“Go home?”

Lynn looked at the ruins around him and then at the two goddesses of death.

His heart felt bitter.

He couldn’t go back.

From the moment that drop of blood left his hand, there was no going back.

“No.”

Vivian spoke, her voice leaving no room for refusal.

“He isn’t going anywhere.”

She sheathed her sword and walked toward him through the ruins, step by step.

“From now on, he will receive the highest level of protection from the Imperial Family.”

Alicia also walked over, brushing the dust from her skirt.

That holy smile returned to her face.

“Her Highness the Imperial Princess is right. To ensure his soul isn’t tainted by any filth, the Church will also provide him with the most devout sanctuary.”

Once again, they surrounded Lynn from the left and right.

Only this time, the stage wasn’t a small backstage area.

It was a bloody ruin they had created with their own hands.

“Choose one,” Vivian said.

“God will guide you to the correct choice,” Alicia said.

Lynn looked at them.

He knew that this time, no amount of socks or trees could save him.

***