Volume 4, Chapter 4-3 – Thank You, Lavinia!

A whole string of question marks popped up in Stella’s head.

‘What is going on?’

She remembered the surname Darkfallen perfectly clearly. It had obviously been a damned fake name that the Inquisitor had casually fabricated for her after flipping through a few cheap street novels, all so she could successfully infiltrate Lilith School.

An undercover alias that couldn’t possibly be any faker had actually been judged by the Chalice of Sin as her true name?

Stella couldn’t make sense of it.

She remembered that Remedios had specifically gone through the Abyss’ registry of noble crests to investigate her background.

Back then, the Book Demon young lady had confidently told her that throughout the entire Abyss, there hadn’t been a single record of the Darkfallen family anywhere in the past five hundred years.

Of course there wouldn’t be. It would be a miracle if anyone could find records of some damned fake surname an Inquisitor had made up on the spot.

But…

Now, the Chalice of Sin had recognized Stella Darkfallen as her true name.

Could there really be a Darkfallen family somewhere in the Abyss?

Then what did that make her?

The heir of the Darkfallen family?

Or something even more ridiculous and bizarre?

Stella was completely baffled.

And she wasn’t the only one confused. Vivian Valentine was as well.

Vivian held a wineglass in one hand, her wine-red eyes narrowing slightly as she studied the flames gradually fading from the Chalice of Sin.

“Darkfallen…”

Vivian murmured to herself.

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Why had the surname displayed not been Valentine, but Darkfallen?

Had Stella taken it upon herself to deliberately erase the Valentine surname and write only Darkfallen?

But that didn’t make sense.

The Chalice of Sin couldn’t be deceived. It only recognized true names.

Besides, true names in the Abyss naturally traced back through bloodlines.

As Stella’s biological mother, Vivian had passed the blood of an Elector down to her. Logically, the Chalice of Sin should have displayed Valentine first.

Unless…

The Valentine bloodline within Stella had been completely overwhelmed by another, far older and more domineering bloodline.

Vivian narrowed her eyes.

There was obviously only one person whose bloodline could completely overpower Valentine’s, to the point that even the Chalice of Sin would acknowledge only its dominant status.

The person who had once used dishonorable means to force herself upon Vivian.

The Pale Lord, Vilpana.

Vivian began thinking seriously.

She had once specifically sent people to investigate the Darkfallen family, and naturally, they had found nothing.

There was absolutely no record of Darkfallen anywhere in the history of the Abyss, as though the name had simply sprung from a crack in a stone.

But if the Chalice of Sin recognized it, that meant Darkfallen wasn’t the fictitious surname she had suspected it to be, but a genuine Abyssal bloodline that truly existed.

‘Darkfallen…’

‘Could it be Vilpana’s true surname, one she had never revealed to the world?’

‘Vilpana Darkfallen?’

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Vivian looked Stella over once more.

Her long hair, intertwined silver and red, gleamed with a cold and glamorous luster beneath the firelight. She stood tall and unwavering, possessing a sharp and imposing beauty. Her gaze seemed fixed on some distant place, yet at the same time seemed to see nothing at all, carrying the air of someone who regarded no one around her as worthy of notice.

As expected of the Pale Lord’s daughter. Even the rebelliousness ingrained in her bones was practically identical.

In the Abyss, surnames possessed power.

Within the same bloodline, the more ancient the lineage represented by a surname, the greater its suppressive power over later generations.

If Darkfallen truly was Vilpana’s surname, then the purity of the Pale bloodline within Stella might far exceed anything Vivian had imagined.

But the problem now was that Stella had entered the tournament under the surname “Darkfallen”, and the Chalice of Sin had also recognized only “Darkfallen”.

In other words, she wasn’t currently representing the Valentine family, one of the Seven Electors, but the Darkfallen family.

Forcing her way into an Abyssal tournament dominated by the Seven Electors and held to compete for Regency Authority, all under the name of a private family?

‘Are you planning to win the tournament yourself and seize all the Regency Authority for yourself, Stella?’

What naked ambition.

Vivian drained the red wine in her glass in one gulp.

It seemed Stella had made up her mind to muddy these waters in her own way.

If Valentine wanted to secure any real leverage in this Abyss Supremacy Tournament, relying solely on a Stella who refused to acknowledge herself as a Valentine probably wouldn’t be enough.

‘Sigh… looks like I’ll have to call Cheryl over later.’

Vivian calculated silently.

“This should still count, right?”

Stella secretly wiped the sweat from her palm.

Although she had no idea how Darkfallen had passed the verification, looking at things now, she had technically managed to bluff her way through, right?

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As long as the human Saintess true name “Stella von Einzbern”, which practically screamed human brightly enough to blind a demon, wasn’t exposed in front of several Electors, the Chalice of Sin could call her whatever it wanted.

Forget Darkfallen. Even if it called her Potato, Stella wouldn’t care.

“Stella, should I praise you for your admirable courage?”

A familiar voice came from beside her, accompanied by a gentle round of applause.

Stella looked back.

She saw Remedios standing not far away, holding a thick book in her arms.

She wasn’t wearing her usual school uniform. Instead, she had changed into a dark blue evening gown, her platinum-blonde hair carefully pinned up. The only thing unchanged was the thick hardcover book she invariably carried in her hands.

“Remedios?” Stella instinctively blurted out.

This was an internal banquet for the Electors and the highest-ranking dignitaries of the Abyss. How had Remedios, an ordinary student from the House of Terror and Slaughter, managed to get in?

“Remedios, why are you here?” Stella pressed. “And what do you mean by admirable courage?”

Remedios walked over to Stella, closed the book in her hands, and looked toward the writing in midair that had yet to fully fade.

“I’ll explain why I said your courage was admirable first…” Remedios spoke with a trace of admiration in her voice. “The Abyss Supremacy Tournament has an ancient additional rule. Contestants must submit their true name as a member of an Elector family. This is used to verify their qualification to represent that family in the tournament.”

Remedios tilted her head and looked at Stella.

“But what you submitted wasn’t Valentine. It was Darkfallen.”

“So in this struggle for power among the Seven Electors, you’re the only contestant entering under the private name of ‘Darkfallen’. And somehow, you’ve even received the Chalice of Sin’s recognition as an independent contestant!”

Stella stared at her blankly.

Independent contestant?

What the hell was that supposed to mean?!

“Wait, Remedios, you mean…” Stella tried to straighten out her thoughts. “I’m not representing the Valentine family right now. I’m representing… the Darkfallen family?”

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“Precisely.” Remedios nodded. “Why else would I say your courage was admirable?”

Stella felt a little dizzy.

“As for why I absolutely had to appear here today…”

Remedios leisurely drew a sheet of parchment from a hidden pocket in her evening gown.

She stepped onto the stone platform and loosened her fingers, allowing the parchment to flutter lightly into the Chalice of Sin.

Boom.

The ghostly blue flames surged upward once again, swallowing the parchment. The flames swiftly reorganized themselves in midair, arranging into a brand-new line of characters.

【Remedios Faust】

Remedios looked back. Stella’s dumbfounded face was reflected in her deep blue eyes. She gave a modest smile, yet there was a trace of sorrow within it.

“Because I happen to be the heir of Faust, the Book Demon family.”

Stella remained frozen in place, her lips parting slightly.

“…Huh?”

Translator Note

Not so unexpected plot twist~!

So Remedios Bledia is a fake name too.