Chapter 52
Chapter 52
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: The Dream is Shattering
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The dream was shattering.
The pillar of fire created by Kyle and Astal bloomed to the ends of the sky, melting the ceiling that had looked like the heavens.
As if it were a signal flare, everything visible began to waver, and the Demon King's army, an illusion, was disappearing into halos of light.
"This is unbelievable. The things I planned are crumbling this easily...?"
Bellamora stared blankly at the hole punched through the sky above, letting out a hollow laugh. Decades had passed in forging this domain.
p>To lead an eternal life in a dream happier than reality.
Since life inherently contained nothing but suffering, Bellamora believed she could make all beings happy using her abilities.
But what exactly had gone wrong?
"Astal, are you throwing away the chance to see your parents again with your own hands? I cannot understand. All it would have taken was to swallow a little pride!"
Based on the man Astal's memories, she had succeeded in perfectly recreating his parents.
She had already tested the results on other people.
They possessed their own emotions and memories just like living people, so he shouldn't have felt any physiological aversion.
"Why are you doing this? Don't tell me you're doing this because you genuinely like that vulgar woman Victoria with her huge breasts? Even that much, I can use magic to..."
From Bellamora's perspective, she couldn't understand Astal and contorted her expression.
All he had to do was say he'd abandon that saint Victoria and become her lover. Could that have been so distasteful to him?
"...A dream is just a dream in the end, Bellamora. My parents wouldn't have wanted to be used by a demon either."
Astal exhaled a rough breath and took up an offensive stance. He believed what Bellamora had done now was no different from digging up a dead body and mutilating it.
He knew his parents, who had left him a final will to survive, were no longer in this world.
"Oh my, is that so? Then, will you think the same even if I do this?"
Seeing the look in Astal's eyes, Bellamora drew a thick arc at the corner of her mouth. She was specialized in reading the deep desires within a person's heart.
She knew better than anyone that Astal harbored guilt and trauma regarding his parents and the villagers.
She wanted to see him make a despairing expression.
She wanted to see his ironclad resolve and desire for vengeance crumble, to see him cling to her, weeping and wailing.
A love so destructive it could break everything, a selfish love that didn't consider the other's feelings. That was the form of love Bellamora practiced.
"...How is it? I'll show you this scene over and over, hundreds of times. I hope you endlessly recall the scene of your parents dying, unable to do anything."
With a laugh, Bellamora snapped her fingers, plunging Astal once more into an illusionary dream.
A dream within a dream. She didn't have the power to plunge this entire domain into an illusion again, but she had enough strength left to target one man.
Screech, thud, crunch.
Along with chilling sounds, the sticky ripples of blood soaking the ground began to appear before Astal's eyes.
Using threads connected to the Dullahan, Bellamora committed atrocities like pulling out or cutting off his parents' necks exactly as in history.
"......!!!"
Victoria's face turned pale, unable to stop the action in time. Due to Bellamora's relentless attacks, she was incredibly exhausted.
Even using the Saint's miracles couldn't resolve physical or mental fatigue.
"Ah, aah..."
And in that moment, despair filled Astal's pupils.
Like an endlessly repeating video, the illusion of his parents dying before his eyes unfolded countless times.
Seeing the spectacle, Astal could only open his mouth and let out a sigh. Nothing changed even if he tried to do something, using magic or swinging his fists in resistance.
Even in the blink of an eye for Victoria, it felt like dozens of hours were passing for Astal.
"And on top of that... I'll add a special extra trauma. If your parents came back to life like zombies and asked you why you killed them, it would be an even more horrifying memory, right?"
Using threads made of blood, Bellamora was moving his parents' corpses like puppets. The severed heads made clacking sounds as they spoke.
"Astal... Why didn't you save Mom...?"
"Our son... It's too cold and painful here..."
Reaching out towards Astal, the two headless corpses shed bloody tears. Seeing this, Astal was losing the light in his eyes as he recalled past memories.
Astal bit his tongue hard, reminding himself that this was an illusion, not reality, but his mental state, which had regressed to his childhood along with his body, and his parents' screams, which felt more vivid than reality, were tormenting him.
"......"
Astal was firing magic wildly around him, swinging his fists, trying to wake from the dream. Caught by the "dream within a dream," a countermeasure he hadn't even considered, he was suffering terrible agony.
"Lord Astal, hold on just a little longer...!"
To protect Astal, who was sweating cold sweat in his sleep, Victoria was clearing out the demons around them.
Even as the dream was shattering, the hands trying to violate her on Bellamora's orders still hadn't disappeared.
The strength was gradually draining from her hammer-wielding hand, and the muscles all over her body were screaming, proving that Victoria's stamina had reached its limit.
"Why don't you just give up now? Even if the power source is destroyed and everyone wakes from the dream, there's no guarantee Lord Astal will be in his right mind!"
Bellamora sneered at such a Victoria. As a member of the Demon King's Four Heavenly Kings, she was someone who would find another way even if all her schemes were ruined.
Before the illusion based on Astal's memories shattered, all she had to do was completely break his mind and make him hers.
Moreover, there was a reason for Bellamora's confidence.
Even if all the people in the domain woke from the dream, the spectators who had abandoned reality, already intoxicated by the illusion, wouldn't raise a blade against her.
The happy dream, more vivid than reality, had long since become the driving force that kept people living in this domain.
In the back alleys, there were already plenty of people who would sell their own families or cut out and sell others' organs.
'...There might be some temporary noise, but if I release the shadows and crush them all, we can return to how it was before.'
Imagining the future, Bellamora showed a soft smile.
Astal, mimicking a lover in her embrace.
Right beside them, that vulgar Saint, her limbs turned to stone, howling like a beast as she's violated by monsters.
Finally, the Hero and Astal's other comrades, all brainwashed to guard this domain as if their lives depended on it.
'I am a woman who absolutely seizes what she wants.'
Just imagining it made Bellamora so happy she laughed. She swung scissors and threads made of blood, gradually pressuring Victoria.
If she pushed just a little further, she could simultaneously sever both of that detestable Saint's arms, rendering her unable to use miracles.
But at that moment, an anomaly occurred.
"Huh...? How on earth...?"
His magic, which should have been wandering in the dream, pierced Bellamora's body precisely, creating a large hole where her heart should be, making her back visible.
Coughing up blood, Bellamora looked at Astal, who was now standing on both legs. He had returned to his original state, not his childhood form.
"Im... impossible..."
She couldn't believe her eyes.
The number of people who had ever escaped from the illusions she cast could almost be counted on one hand.
Moreover, what was cast on Astal was a dream within a dream. Since the original dream was already collapsing, she had cast a double illusion to make it absolutely impossible to escape.
How on earth?
This wasn't a matter of willpower or a sense of incongruity.
The repetition of trauma based on real memories would have broken even someone with the strongest mental fortitude.
"Haa... Huhk..."
Astal's body trembled as he exhaled a ragged breath, and he reached a hand out towards Victoria in front of him.
'...Thank you. And I'm sorry.'
Too exhausted for his voice to work, but with that gesture, Astal expressed his gratitude to Victoria.
What momentarily awakened Astal's spirit, which had been repeating frustration and sorrow countless times in the dream, was the deep kiss Victoria had given him and their contract relationship.
'You... Because you became my girlfriend... I could easily tell it was a dream within a dream...'
Because unlike the present, in the originally gloomy past, there was no person named Victoria Everhart.
Thus, Astal repeatedly committed suicide countless times in Bellamora's dream, striving to emerge outside to where she was.
Squeezing out his last bit of strength to protect Victoria, Astal then closed his eyes and lost his balance, falling.
"Lord Astal......!!"
To catch the collapsing Astal, Victoria began to run, even dropping her hammer.