Volume 3, Chapter 11-3 – How Did It Get to Me?!

Stella only needed to stay where she was and wait for rescue.

She was so smart. She would definitely find a way back.

Aetlana only needed to… hold on a little longer.

Even if it was only for a little while.

Aetlana gritted her teeth and forced herself back onto her feet.

Thick fog rolled all around her, turning the entire sky white. Her consciousness had already become so muddled that she could no longer distinguish one direction from another. But she did not need to know the direction. She only needed to stand up. She only needed to let the Chastisement spirits see her.

Aetlana took a deep breath and prepared to release the last of her magical power.

Then she froze.

Stella took a step forward and stood in front of her, very close.

‘Young Mistress…’

‘What is Young Mistress doing?’

Aetlana saw Stella standing amid the holy fire covering the ground, her back turned toward her. Her long silver-red hair swayed slightly within the white halo, and one corner of her dark school uniform skirt lifted in the wind.

On her half-turned face, her lips gently opened and closed.

Aetlana could not hear what she was saying, but the Chastisement spirits surged forward like a white storm.

The foremost Chastisement spirit glided up in front of Stella. Its pure white hood lowered, and the highly concentrated Holy Light capable of purifying an Abyssal creature into nothingness was about to touch the hem of the Young Mistress’s clothes.

Aetlana wanted to rush over, wanted to push the Young Mistress away, wanted to…

Then she saw it.

The moment the foremost Chastisement spirit touched Stella, it stopped.

Immediately afterward, the space around the Chastisement spirit began to distort.

A sacred halo poured out from within the Chastisement spirit like countless tiny rivers, gradually flowing toward Stella.

The outline of the Chastisement spirit also began to dim. Its spiritual body started to collapse, finally turning completely into countless tiny motes of light that merged into Stella’s body.

Aetlana’s eyes widened slightly.

The second one…

The third…

The fourth…

Her white nightmares, those white hounds that had never allowed her to sleep peacefully, vanished, melted, and were devoured one after another before Stella like moths flying into a flame.

Aetlana stood where she was.

She did not understand.

She truly did not understand.

‘How has the Young Mistress done it?’

If helping her defeat Lavinia and the two dragon attendants could be explained by the Young Mistress’ extraordinary talent, the awakening of her Pale bloodline, and the gift of the Valentine bloodline.

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But what Stella was facing now were Chastisement spirits.

Holy Light.

The Holy See’s hounds.

Aetlana remembered the instant Stella’s lips had moved just now.

Was it because Stella had said something?

An incantation?

Some kind of ancient forbidden art?

Or perhaps…

Aetlana could not figure it out. Her thoughts began to blur.

Her vision dimmed together with the figures of the Chastisement spirits, while Stella’s back seemed to grow farther and farther away.

She felt as though her entire body were falling from a great height into a dark abyss, pain and dizziness accompanied by a sense of relief.

Strangely, Stella’s figure kept appearing within her fading consciousness.

The hazy night swallowed her silhouette, leaving behind only the faintest pale trace, like a world covered entirely in darkness.

Its only blank space.

—————

The final Chastisement spirit dissolved into tiny motes of light that drifted through the dark forest like fireflies.

Stella stood where she was, still holding her right hand raised.

Silence.

So quiet that she could hear the wind passing through the treetops.

Stella lowered her eyes and examined her palm. There was not a single mark left on it.

A high-ranking guard officially under the Holy See, a ruthless jailer of the White Tower, had just been effortlessly sucked dry by her as easily as eating jelly.

She had not even burped once.

“…Finished eating.”

Stella muttered to herself.

She lowered her hand back beside the skirt of her school uniform.

Chastisement spirits, dragon demons, even the essence dropped by the Lord of Blood. She had accepted all of them without exception.

Great.

Now she ate both black and white.

Stella thought about it carefully and decided it did not really matter anymore.

She had already secretly eaten the Lord’s offerings more times than she could count. What did eating another dozen or so mindless Chastisement spirits amount to?

Once you owed enough debts, one more made no difference.

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Besides, if this counted as self-defense, the Lord would forgive her.

And if she did not plunder the Chastisement spirits’ pure power, who knew what bizarre mutation the blood shadow beneath her feet would cause once it finished digesting Lavinia’s essence?

At that point, it might not be something as simple as laying eggs anymore.

Maybe she would turn into some blood-shadow-succubus-dragon-species stitched-together monster or something.

Way too bizarre.

She did not dare imagine it. She absolutely did not dare.

To preserve the last shred of dignity she had as a human Saintess, eating a few colleagues was a necessary sacrifice.

Stella closed her eyes and briefly sensed the condition inside her body.

The Primordial Doctrine had not fooled her.

Holy Radiance Extraction worked even better than she had imagined. Chastisement spirits truly lived up to their reputation as highly purified aggregates of Holy Light.

The purity of her Holy Light had indeed risen by a huge amount.

But… it was still not enough.

Stella frowned slightly.

There was still one final gap in the balance between Sanctity and the Abyss.

It was like the two sides of a scale. The Abyssal side was already piled high with Mia’s essence, the Valentine bloodline, the Laxia rules, dragon essence, and a heap of things she could not even name.

As for the Holy Light side…

Although she had just given it a major recharge, it was still missing just a tiny bit.

But how was she supposed to make up that final gap?

Stella looked around.

The dark forest was barren. Aside from broken tree trunks and the devastation covering the ground, there was nothing.

The White Tower jailers drawn here by the Chastisement Brand had already been completely cleaned out by her like dishes at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

There definitely would not be any new Chastisement spirits crossing dimensions and teleporting here anytime soon.

In that case…

‘Where am I supposed to find another Holy Light super-supplement?’

A faint glimmer in her field of vision caught Stella’s attention.

It was Aetlana, lying in the mud.

More precisely, it came from Aetlana’s back, between her shoulder blades.

The Chastisement Brand.

The source that had summoned the Chastisement spirits, the curse that had kept Aetlana from ever sleeping peacefully, was now quietly embedded in her skin, emitting a faint white halo.

Even though all the Chastisement spirits had been erased, the mark carved between her shoulder blades continued operating like a beacon.

Stella froze for a moment.

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‘The Chastisement Brand…’

‘Didn’t it also contain quite a lot of blessed power meant for punishing demons?’

Stella stared intently at the glowing mark.

A bold idea emerged in her mind.

What would happen if she used Holy Radiance Extraction and directly absorbed the Chastisement Brand?

The Primordial Doctrine said Chastisement spirits could be absorbed, but it never mentioned whether the Chastisement Brand could be absorbed, right?

Stella thought it over. The principle should be about the same.

The essence of the brand was highly compressed Holy Light from the Holy See.

It might even be purer than the Chastisement spirits themselves, since it needed to embed itself deep inside a demon’s body and remain there for hundreds of years without fading.

She had already eaten the Chastisement spirits. What was the big deal about eating one more mark?

What could possibly happen?

She was only eating a brand. It was not like she could somehow eat every Chastisement spirit in the White Tower.

It would perfectly fill the final gap in her Holy Light.

Besides, once she absorbed the brand, Aetlana would no longer have to spend every day being hunted by those white ghosts.

Two birds with one stone.

No sooner said than done.

She crouched beside Aetlana and pulled the torn remnants of Aetlana’s clothes apart to either side.

The fabric slipped down.

Her fair nape and upper back were exposed.

At the exact center between her shoulder blades, intricate white incantation markings were engraved into Aetlana’s skin, gleaming brightly.

Stella’s cheeks grew a little warm.

Stripping someone else’s clothes off in the middle of nowhere was still kind of strange.

She shook her head, cast aside the unnecessary thoughts, then pressed her left palm flat against the glowing brand.

Aetlana’s skin was as cold as ice, but the area around the brand was scorching hot, as though it were burning.

“All light returns to one, grace flows back.”

Holy Radiance Extraction activated once more.

It really worked.

The white light upon the Chastisement Brand began to flow like a stream pulled by an invisible force, pouring through Stella’s palm and into her body.

The final gap was being filled.

Aetlana’s brand grew fainter and fainter until it finally disappeared completely.

In the end, the Chastisement Brand that had clung to the Bone Dragon for more than a decade like a festering sore completely dimmed and vanished.

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Not even a scar remained.

Aetlana’s tightly furrowed brows relaxed, and her breathing became steady.

She had fallen asleep, a smile on her face as she slept deeply.

Stella breathed a sigh of relief.

It was exactly as she had imagined. Holy Radiance Extraction had completely taken in all the divine energy contained within the Chastisement Brand.

The purity of her Holy Light had finally reached the perfect critical point. Sanctity and the Abyss had once again achieved their bizarre peace.

‘Mission accomplished.’

Stella moved her hand away and wiped the sweat from her brow.

For some reason, there was a strange sensation in her palm. Warm, scorching, as though something had stuck to her skin and refused to fade.

Stella instinctively glanced at her left hand.

Then she froze.

Something new had appeared around the Sanctity.

Intricate white incantation markings.

Whether in shape or pattern, they were exactly identical to the ones that had just been engraved on Aetlana’s back.

Stella blinked.

First, she looked at Aetlana’s now-smooth back. Then she looked at the freshly appeared white markings on her own hand.

Finally, Stella raised her left hand, turned it over, then turned it back again.

There was no mistake.

It was the Chastisement Brand.

Silence.

A long silence.

“Eh…?”

“How did it get to me?!”

Translator Note

That moment when you became greedy HAHAHA XD

A Saintess branded as an evil fugitive xD

But looking at it from another view, doesn’t that mean she finally gets an unlimited supply of Holy Light? she just need to sleep and the Holy Light will pour in xD