#61

Even though I had eaten quite a bit, it wasn’t as if I’d ever been so careless as to act inappropriately at such an event.

“It’s true, you know? The truth is…!”

I was about to continue when I suddenly blinked. Just a moment ago, Zakari had been chuckling softly, but now he was suddenly swaying on his feet.

“Mr. Zakari?”

It was strange to see someone of his size leaning against a pillar, panting heavily. As I stepped closer, he urgently shouted.

“Stop!”

“Huh?”

“Ugh, this is not the time. Go call Duke Orban.. Quick!”

Zakari couldn’t finish his sentence before collapsing onto the floor. At the same time, a dark, ominous aura began to slither around him.

His golden eyes, which today appeared particularly bloodshot.

The dark tendrils crawling over his pale skin were undoubtedly strange.

It was clear something was very wrong. While I stood frozen in place, Zakari’s eyes gleamed fiercely as he shouted.

“Hurry!”

His shout snapped me out of my daze, and I immediately turned and ran.

How far had I run? When I suddenly bumped into Zerakiel, who seemed to have been looking for me, a sense of relief washed over me.

“Zerakiel!”

“What? I was wondering where you’d gone, but here you are…”

“It’s—it’s an emergency! Zakari’s eyes suddenly turned red, and he said to call the Duke, the Duke!”

My voice trembled, and I couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. At that moment, Zerakiel’s gaze sharpened.

“His eyes turned what color?”

“R-red… they turned red…”

Zerakiel’s terrifying expression made me stutter unintentionally.

“Damn it!”

Without waiting for me to finish, Zerakiel started running back in the direction I came from.

KWA-BOOM―!

A massive explosion came from the place where Zakari had been, and a dark pillar shot into the sky.

The black pillar surrounded the entire Jabis estate, as if enclosing it.

“W-what is this…?”

The air around us suddenly felt dry and sharp.

“It’s already begun…”

Zerakiel muttered with a dazed expression before he began running again.

“Zerakiel!”

I followed right behind him. My heart was pounding. This sight—it was my first time seeing something like this, but it didn’t feel unfamiliar.

Something was definitely wrong.

That thought filled my mind entirely. And when we returned to where Zakari had been, I couldn’t help but scream.

“Zakari!”

It looked as though black liquid was pouring from Zakari’s entire body. The dark energy radiating from him seemed to devour all life around him.

A sharp, pungent pheromone filled the air, signaling danger.

The moment I inhaled that scent, a memory suddenly surfaced in my mind. More specifically, it was a scene from The Kingdom of Ella sequel.

 

[Zerakiel recalled the time when he first reached his mature form. It was a decision he was forced to make while standing at the crossroads of life and death.

For a direct descendant of Jabis, it was inevitable. He had never regretted his choice back then. If he hadn’t forced himself to mature, he wouldn’t have been able to stop his father’s rampage, which threatened to kill everyone.

It had been an unexpected outbreak of the head’s rampage, much like during the Great Chaos. Herman, the aide who first discovered Zakari Abron Jabis, was the first to die, followed by the family physician, Duke Orban, who had tried to stop the rampage.

Zakari, whose eyes had turned a reddish-gold, killed the servants he had just been laughing with the day before. He also began hunting down his heir, seeing him as a threat.

Black vines grew over his entire body like tattoos, and the darker those markings became, the more he lost his sanity.

When he finally appeared in front of him, Zerakiel willingly threw himself into this cursed fate.

The side effect was an early maturation, but it was far better than letting another Great Chaos break out.

Since that day, Zerakiel hadn’t opened his heart to anyone.

And he began planning to wipe the Jabis family off the face of the earth. For these cursed souls, death was the only salvation.]

* * *

‘No!’

I screamed internally as I recalled the twisted past of Zerakiel. Why this particular scene came to mind at this moment, I had no idea.

Moreover, I had no memory of reading the sequel to *The Kingdom of Ella*. How could there even be a sequel to a novel that was discontinued?

“Ah.”

The flood of information made my head throb as if it would split. Without realizing it, a groan escaped my lips.

I had always thought it was strange. In the original story, despite Zerakiel kidnapping Ella, he never imprinted on her or asked her to heal him.

The healing pheromones were related to the cure for the madness that the Jabis family had been searching for through generations. Those pheromones could stop the seizures and rampages of other beastmen.

Yet, in the original story, Zerakiel had Ella, who possessed healing pheromones, but he never actively used them. On the contrary, he kept her at a distance, only receiving as much help as absolutely necessary. He didn’t even realize that Ella misunderstood his cold attitude.

‘He wanted to die. He wanted to wipe out the Jabis family entirely.’

Ironically, the power of the Jabis family was so strong that no poison could deliver a fatal blow. The seductive pheromones they possessed prevented the poison from spreading throughout their bodies.

Of course, if the poison was administered regularly, the situation might change, but who in their right mind would dare try to poison the Jabis family when the risk of getting caught was so high?

In the end, the only way for a Jabis to die was either by murder or suicide.

Now, I understood why Zerakiel had been so eager to instigate wars in the original story. He intended to use the war as a pretext to destroy the Jabis family. And, as a bonus, he intended to throw away his own life.

“You fool!”

I cursed at the stupidity of the Zerakiel from the original story. If Zakari were to rampage now and Zerakiel were to mature prematurely, saving him might become impossible.

In the original story, Zerakiel was cold and ruthless. Even Ivan, who always joked around, kept his mouth shut in front of Zerakiel.

The Jabis estate in the original story was desolate, a place ruled by a powerful lord who trusted no one.

‘The Zerakiel from the original story isn’t the Zerakiel I know.’

The Zerakiel I know would never cause harm, even when Ivan spouted nonsense. He wasn’t the tyrant from the original.

“Wait here. If it seems like the barrier is going to break, don’t hesitate. Run. Go as far away from Jabis Castle as you can.”

Zerakiel covered me in a protective pheromone barrier as he spoke. It seemed he was prepared to kill Zakari.

That was the fate of the Jabis heir.

Even in this situation, he was protecting me, and I couldn’t imagine the brutal side of him that might come after.

With his back to me, Zerakiel drew his sword. The pheromones of Jabis, fully unleashed, were far more overwhelming than anything I’d ever felt before.

I could feel a similar kind of pheromone coming from Zakari, who was slumped on the ground across from him. The only difference was that Zakari’s pheromones were darker and more dangerous.

‘Maybe I can stop this?’

I had healing pheromones within me. If it wasn’t too late, I might be able to stop Zakari’s rampage.

It was an overly optimistic thought, one that others would likely laugh at, but it completely took over my mind. At the same time, my body began to move instinctively.

“Cersia?”

Zerakiel noticed my movement too late and his eyes widened.

“What are you doing?!”

Just as he was about to move to block me—

SWOOSH―!

I felt a hand grab me, and my whole body was squeezed as if it would shatter.

“Chichi, no!”

Zerakiel shouted in despair, but it was already too late.