Volume 2, Chapter 14 – That’s All It Took to Break You?

They were no longer simply Stella’s eyes.

Her left eye remained the blood-red crimson that symbolized the Valentine family, coldly beautiful and noble.

But her right eye… her right eye had already taken on an entirely different appearance.

The violet pupil had vanished, replaced by a black prismatic crystal that spun ceaselessly in its place. It was as deep as embers, yet radiated a pale halo.

And that was not all.

Katerina immediately noticed that black and crimson patterns were rapidly growing and spreading across Stella’s jade-white left hand and neck like living thorns.

She stood there.

One half was the tyrant of blood, the other half was pale nothingness.

“…”

Katerina was speechless. She had no idea what she should say to Stella, or even how she should say it.

Too similar.

No.

It was not merely similar.

It was as though that woman had crossed a hundred years of time and appeared alive before her once again.

That pale arrogance that looked down upon everything, that gaze which regarded all things as mere dust…

Katerina unconsciously rose to her feet.

In that instant, her chest trembled as though struck by an earthquake, and her mouth went dry as a desert filled with rustling sand.

The cutting lecture she had carefully prepared, the cold remarks she had deliberately intended to use to suppress the new student, all became lodged in her throat at this moment, turning into a trembling murmur.

“Vil… pana…?”

Stella did not hear Katerina’s murmur at all. She was too busy adapting to the strange division in her vision.

Using the Pale Power felt extremely unfamiliar to her.

Her left eye saw the office normally, while her right eye saw a bizarre world composed of countless lines of magical power.

Stella felt somewhat uneasy.

After all, this was the first time she had deliberately released this power. She was completely fumbling around based on instinct, so who knew whether she was doing it correctly.

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‘Could I have gotten it wrong?’

“Um… Professor Katerina?”

Stella blinked, and the pale ember within her eye rotated along with it, making her look eerie yet oddly adorable.

“May we continue?”

“…”

Katerina remained silent for a long time.

‘Using the position of Vice Principal as bait and deliberately making me witness the Pale Daughter, was this Gehenna’s plan?’

‘What a… thoroughly infuriating scheme.’

Katerina walked over to the specimen shelves, her fingers sliding across row after row of cold glass jars.

“…Very good.” Katerina suppressed and restrained herself, doing her best to act as though nothing had happened. “It appears Gehenna wasn’t lying. You truly have inherited her legacy perfectly.”

“If that’s the case, then don’t waste any more time.”

“Listen, Stella. Pale Power is different from ordinary elemental magic. It isn’t flowing wind, nor is it burning fire. It is… the dying sun.”

“The dying sun?”

Stella tilted her head.

“That’s right. It is the pillar that supports the world, the remnant left behind after all things fall into extinction.”

Katerina closed her eyes.

Although she did not possess Pale Power herself, she clearly understood it better than anyone else.

“Don’t try to control how it flows. Imagine.” Katerina turned around and extended a hand, tracing out a shape.

“Imagine your magical power as an extension of your body, as your bones, as your spine. Give physical form to the power of nothingness. Let it grow from your magical power and become an absolute domain that protects you.”

“Like this…” Katerina made a simple gesture with her fingers. “Construct it, then… reject everything.”

Stella nodded with only partial understanding.

‘Construct it?’

‘Bones?’

‘That sounds a little like the Church’s Holy Sanctuary, except the wall of light is replaced with a skeletal frame?’

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‘The underlying principle should be universal, right?’

‘Whether it is Holy Light or Pale Power, as long as it could block attacks, isn’t that enough?’

“I’ll give it a try.”

Stella slowly closed her eyes. Following Katerina’s description and drawing upon her memory of the Holy Art Holy Sanctuary, she sketched the shape of bones within her mind.

It did not need to flow.

It only needed to exist.

The next moment, Katerina’s pupils abruptly contracted.

The space around Stella began to distort.

Pale ash appeared out of thin air. Instead of scattering, it rapidly gathered around Stella.

Crack. Crack.

Under Katerina’s stunned gaze, one, two, three… pale ribs curved inward and closed together, sheltering Stella’s petite body within their center.

Only one attempt.

Her very first attempt.

“…It worked?”

Stella opened her eyes and looked at the pale ribs surrounding her. With a hint of novelty, she reached out and knocked against one.

Thump, thump.

It sounded very solid.

“Professor, is this right?”

Stella turned her head and looked at Katerina through the gaps between the ribs, a smile on her face that clearly begged for praise.

“It feels a little easier than I imagined.”

Too similar.

The curvature of the bones, the rhythm at which the pale flames burned, every single detail was identical to the first time that woman had demonstrated it before her all those years ago.

Katerina could no longer endure it.

Her indifference, her ignorance, her smile, her fall into corruption, all of it flashed through Katerina’s mind at this moment like scenes from a revolving lantern.

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And Stella, who clearly was not her, yet possessed eyes identical to hers…

The girl stood alone amid the cold silence.

Moonlight poured down from the skylight and draped itself over the hem of her clothes. The hazy night encroached upon her figure, leaving behind only a faint, pale silhouette, like the sole untouched blank within a world swallowed by darkness. The radiance of a dark star was reflected within her eyes, becoming the light of a silent world.

She was unquestionably the daughter of Vilpana and the Valentine Family Head, an illegitimate daughter born from desire and deception, a newborn succubus who had inherited the Pale Lord’s power, the product of the union between the one Katerina had once loved and the one who had taken her away.

Faced with such a Stella, Katerina quickly realized one thing.

No matter what, she could no longer treat Stella the way she had before.

She could not call it hatred.

She could not call it affection.

She could not ignore her.

In the end, only bewilderment remained.

“…Professor, are you alright?”

Stella could clearly tell that something was wrong with Professor Katerina. She dispersed the skeletal frame around herself and cautiously moved one step closer.

Perhaps it was an occupational habit. Whenever she saw a lost lamb, she could never stop herself from reaching out to comfort them.

No matter what, even if she had fallen into the Abyss, she could never forget that she was a Saintess.

Her actions might be disloyal to the Lord at every turn, but her heart remained utterly devoted to the Lord.

Otherwise, she really would become a heretic.

“You look like you need help?”

Stella extended a hand and gently rested it on the back of Katerina’s cold hand.

“Although I don’t know what kind of thorn is piercing your heart, please don’t chew upon this bitterness alone in the darkness.”

“Some words, if left to rot inside you, will become poison that eats into your bones. But if you speak them aloud, perhaps they can become like dust upon the wind. Even if they cannot disappear, they may at least finally settle.”

“If you’re willing…”

“I can be a very good listener.”

It was the first time Katerina had ever heard Vilpana speak to her in such a tone.

She was different from how she had been in the past. Now, Katerina could clearly hear which words concealed falsehood and clearly tell which comforting words were nothing more than insincere pleasantries.

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Yet from Stella’s words, she could detect none of that.

Within those few simple sentences, Katerina heard the concern that Vilpana had never once expressed throughout her entire life. She imagined she could savor those words for years, just as a cactus could survive for a very long time on only a sparse scattering of rain.

But…

‘How absurd.’

A century of obsession, a single word of concern she had yearned for but never received, had instead flowed so naturally from the mouth of the daughter that woman had borne with someone else.

Katerina felt as though she were sitting on needles, and her hand trembled faintly.

She was intensely afraid, afraid that behind that gaze as warm as the sun lurked some unfathomable scrutiny and calculation.

“Today’s lesson… is over,” she said softly. “Whether for your safety or to save us trouble, never recklessly use this sort of thing in front of outsiders.”

The next second.

Her black robe suddenly whipped outward, bringing with it a gust of icy wind.

Katerina did not even use the door. She smashed straight through the floor-to-ceiling window leading to the terrace, transformed into a black shadow, and fled in a disheveled panic into the depths of the night.

The sound of shattering glass was still echoing.

Cold wind poured into the room, tossing Stella’s silver hair into disarray.

She blinked blankly, staring at the black silhouette disappearing beneath the moonlight, then looked down at her now-empty palm.

‘…She ran away?’

The dignified Vice Principal herself.

‘I had only touched her hand once, and she… jumped out the window and ran away?’

Translator Note

Uh, oh… So… Vilpana really was Katerina’s lover? I thought it was just Stella’s misunderstanding…

And it seems the misunderstanding of Stella’s background is somehow turned to the Pale Lord’s and Valentine’s daughter literally as if they were a lover lol xD