Chapter 36: You Were Injured… To Protect Me?

She wanted to use Healing Magic.

However, the assassin did not give them any time to recover!

Seeing that his first strike had failed, he didn’t bother engaging with Vivian at all.

Instead, he turned around and rushed toward Alicia again at an even greater speed!

From the very beginning, his goal had only ever been the Saintess!

“You’re courting death!”

Vivian roared in fury, raising her sword to give chase.

But the assassin was too fast.

Vivian’s blade always missed him by a hair’s breadth.

The poison-tipped dagger was about to reach Alicia’s face once more.

“Brother, close your eyes.”

Lilith’s voice suddenly rang in Lynn’s ear.

Before Lynn could understand what she meant, he felt himself being pulled back by a massive force.

Lilith stepped in front of him.

Facing the charging assassin, she extended her uninjured hand.

“I won’t let you… come any closer.”

She spoke softly.

The assassin completely ignored her, viewing her as nothing more than a harmless little girl.

The dagger lunged forward.

Then, it stopped.

It halted less than one finger’s width away from the tip of Lilith’s nose.

It wasn’t because the assassin had stopped himself.

It was because his body had been firmly ensnared by countless invisible Black Silk Threads spreading out from Lilith.

Those black lines seemed like living creatures, emerging from the air to wrap around the assassin’s limbs, neck, and torso, rendering him unable to move.

The mask on the assassin’s face trembled violently from terror.

He tried to struggle, only to find the black lines tightening further, slicing into his flesh.

“I told you.”

Lilith walked toward the restrained assassin, one slow step at a time.

Her bleeding arm hung at her side.

The blackish-purple toxin had already spread up to her elbow.

But she seemed entirely oblivious to it.

There was only the assassin in her eyes.

“How should you die?”

She reached the assassin, extended a finger, and lightly tapped his mask.

*Crack.*

A fissure split across the mask.

“Why don’t I let you taste what the poison in your own body is like?”

The Black Silk Threads suddenly began to writhe.

Like venomous snakes, they bored into the assassin’s orifices and into the wounds carved by his own dagger.

“…”

The assassin let out a inhuman, wheezing sound as his body convulsed violently.

His skin began to blacken and rot at a speed visible to the naked eye, oozing foul-smelling pus.

Vivian stopped in her tracks.

As she watched this eerie scene, the hand gripping her sword began to tremble.

Alicia also forgot to cast her spell.

She covered her mouth, staring in horror at the girl who looked like a demon god descended upon the world.

Lynn was frozen stiff.

‘Is this… Lilith?’

‘Is this my innocent and cute little sister?’

On the System Panel, the string of question marks turned into two blood-red words that seemed to drip with gore.

**[Indescribable]**

The air backstage solidified, a mixture of blood, rot, and cheap perfume filling everyone’s nostrils.

The assassin’s corpse was dissolving and rotting in a way that defied all logic, slumping onto the floor like a pile of carrion doused in strong acid, emitting black smoke.

Vivian’s hand was shaking—not out of fear, but due to an incomprehensible shock.

She had seen more dead bodies than most people here had eaten meals, but she had never seen a death like this.

Alicia held her breath, her face pale as her gaze flickered between the pile of meat on the floor and Lilith.

For the first time, her mask of saintly purity showed a crack.

the screaming students in the background had fallen silent.

They huddled in the corners, looking at the petite girl whose arm was still leaking black blood as if they were looking at a devil crawling out of the abyss.

Meanwhile, Lynn stood at the center of the storm, his mind a total blank.

**[Indescribable]**

The two blood-red words provided by the System were seared into his vision like a branding iron.

He had watched Lilith reach out, watched the invisible black lines appear out of thin air, and watched a living person be tortured and melted away.

This wasn’t game data.

This wasn’t a setting he had casually rewritten.

This was a monster.

A living monster wearing the skin of his sister.

“Brother.”

Lilith turned around, the gloom on her face vanishing instantly.

It was replaced by a naive, innocent expression that practically begged for pity.

She held up her injured arm.

The blackish-purple toxin had already moved past her elbow, and her entire forearm had taken on a deathly hue.

“It hurts so much…”

Her voice carried a sob, and tears welled in her eyes.

“The blood… won’t stop.”

Lynn looked at her, his throat feeling as if it were blocked by something.

He wanted to step back, but his body wouldn’t move.

Just then, Alicia moved.

She didn’t look at Lilith, nor did she look at the disgusting remains on the floor.

She rushed to Lynn, grabbed his hand, and inspected it over and over.

“You’re hurt!”

Her voice was sharp and thin, laced with a hint of trembling.

Lynn blinked, looking down at his hand.

There was a fresh cut on the back of his hand.

It wasn’t deep, but small beads of blood were oozing out.

“When did that happen?”

“Oh, he remembered.”

When he pushed her away earlier, they had both fallen.

His hand must have scraped against a wooden splinter on a prop crate.

Just for such a small injury?

“You’re bleeding…”

Alicia’s fingertips lightly brushed over the wound as if she were touching a priceless treasure.

Her breathing became rapid, and her chest heaved violently.

“Was it for me?”

“You were injured… to protect me?”

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it struck Lynn’s ears like a thunderclap.

Lynn opened his mouth, wanting to say “no,” wanting to say “I’m just afraid of dying,” and wanting to say “that was an accident.”

But he couldn’t get a single word out.

Because the look in Alicia’s eyes had changed.

It was no longer that aloof, scrutinizing, and possessive gaze from before.

Instead, it was filled with something fanatical—a mixture of guilt and obsession.

**[Alicia Clemens Blackening Value: 85%]**

The value didn’t drop; it rose!

“Oh, God…”

Alicia murmured to herself.

She cradled Lynn’s hand and piously, gently kissed the wound.

“Thank you for sending such a brave and pure soul to my side.”

“Every drop of blood he sheds for me is the most sacred sacrifice!”

Lynn felt his scalp go numb.

What on earth was happening?

“What are you doing!”

Vivian finally snapped out of her shock.

She lunged forward and shoved Alicia aside.

“Guards! Royal Capital Guard! Where the hell are you!” she roared toward the exit of the backstage area, her voice filled with the authority and fury of the Knight Commander.

“Seal the Academy! Don’t let so much as a fly escape!”

After shouting her orders, she immediately turned to Lynn, her gaze as sharp as a blade.

She had also seen the injury on Lynn’s hand.

This man had made the correct judgment and acted before even she, the Shield of the Empire, could react.