Chapter 417
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 417
Chapter Title: Bad Brother, I Tell You.
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Sword Master.
An existence promised immortality.
Having lived through long ages, Rimon had met countless people.
And in every era, the Silver Dragon Princess had always been exceptionally skilled at getting on his nerves.
But even among all the Silver Dragon Princesses he'd encountered throughout that long life, none had provoked him as brazenly as Yekaterina.
That was why.
The reason Rimon's voice had sunk low.
"I didn't bring down the Soviet Union."
"Even so, it's a fact that the Soviet Union vanished because of you, right? If the Sword Empress had lived, the Soviet Union would still be around."
"......"
"Of course, that Soviet Union probably would've been nothing like what the revolutionaries imagine."
A giggle escaped her.
Yekaterina laughed.
She met Rimon's cold gaze head-on and continued innocently.
"You hate the revolutionaries for that reason too, don't you, big brother?"
"I don't know what you're misunderstanding, but I don't particularly hate the revolutionaries."
"Even so, it's true you'll never help them, no matter what."
When he'd said he'd throw the revolutionaries into the Gulag, he'd only objected to harming the innocent.
He hadn't stopped their arrests outright.
And after meeting them, he'd kept even greater distance from the revolutionaries than Aynsha had.
Watching him reject Sergei’s overtures without a hint of hesitation, Yekaterina smiled faintly.
"If you helped the revolutionaries now, the Sword Empress's death would lose all meaning."
In that instant.
Yekaterina saw it.
Rimon, who never lost his composure no matter what she said, twitching his brow.
His always serene golden eyes growing heavy.
A subtle shift, hard to even notice.
Yet that very reaction—unlike his usual indifference—stood out so sharply.
As unfamiliar.
And as thrilling.
The silver-haired girl unwittingly curved her lips into a crescent moon and leaned in.
"On that note, big brother, there's something I've always been curious about."
Standing on the railing.
Leaning her upper body forward gently.
Pressing her lips to Rimon's ear.
With a sadistic smile like a child tearing a butterfly's wings.
Yekaterina whispered secretively.
"How did it feel to strike down the Sword Empress to save people you'd never even met?"
"......"
"Were you sad? In pain? Or did you enjoy it? I bet it was exhilarating."
"......"
"Because the Sword Empress was your disciple, right?"
"......"
"And not just any disciple......"
Thwack!
Her voice cut off abruptly.
Her lips moved, but no sound came.
Her tongue stirred in vain.
In the flash of an eye.
A hand gripped her slender neck, silencing her completely.
"Eek......!"
"Silver Dragon Princess."
She could laugh off a hydraulic press.
But those fingers were harder than steel.
The grip was overwhelmingly strong.
Tightening further.
"B-big... bro... can't... breathe......"
"I know exactly what your clan is capable of. So this once, I'll overlook your slip of the tongue."
Her heart thrashed wildly, as if about to burst.
Her mouth gasped for air.
Her neck bones creaked, on the verge of snapping.
"But remember this."
"Hngh... guk."
"If you provoke me again just to satisfy some base urge by mentioning my disciple......"
Her dangling feet twitched in spasms.
Her delicate nails clawed at his arm.
Her flushed face paled, then turned ashen.
Finally, as strength drained from her hands and her pupils began to split.
"Next time, it won't end with a warning."
Thud!
He flung the girl away like trash.
Then Rimon vanished through space.
"Cough, coughcough! Haah, haaah......"
Thump.
She gulped down the blocked air in greedy heaves.
Collapsed face-down, coughing violently for a long while.
Yekaterina lay spread-eagled on the snow-covered rooftop.
Her legs had gone limp; she couldn't stand even if she wanted to.
But in this moment.
What etched on the girl's face wasn't fear or pain.
If anything, the opposite.
"Hee, heeheehee."
Even as Rimon choked her, her lips had stayed curved.
Now, thin laughter leaked between them.
With a sticky smile blending ecstasy, rapture, and satisfaction.
Yekaterina murmured in a thrilled voice.
"Wow, even Aynsha never handled me that roughly. First time a guy's treated me like this."
To assault, threaten, and discard the Silver Dragon Princess—Russia's Great Khan—like garbage.
It exceeded her expectations.
That let her confirm two things.
One, she'd touched Rimon's reverse scale.
And the other......
"Anyway, this seals it."
She recalled the glint in those golden eyes glaring at her.
A fleeting chill no one else would've caught.
Only she could sense it—that eerie, spine-tingling fragment of emotion.
Yekaterina laughed.
"What an entertaining man the Last Sword Master turned out to be."
She'd only vaguely suspected.
Couldn't be sure.
Even seeing him crush the Liberation Brigade without killing them.
She'd let preventable hands reach her, rejected nothing she could've shrugged off, even staked her life to test.
Only then confirmed.
As long as she didn't cross the line.
Rimon wouldn't kill her.
Obvious, trivial info to anyone else.
But priceless to her.
Reaffirming that vital fact, Yekaterina whispered softly.
"And more ruthless than me, too."
He knew full well what handing over the Liberation Brigade's roster meant.
Yet executed it mercilessly.
A stark contradiction that stood out all the more.
It felt like gazing at a demon blade that slayed hundreds without a drop of blood staining it.
A shiver ran through her.
"Yeah, I get it now. How Li Chingwei conquered that man."
That explained how the Black Dragon Clan's princess—who'd clashed most fiercely with him among the Seven Dragons—could've become engaged to him.
At the same time, it baffled her.
A weakness only she should've understood.
How did Li Chingwei know it?
And why did that utterly untrustworthy girl believe without a shred of doubt that it would work on him alone?
But that wonder faded quickly.
A smile tugged at her lips instead.
"......I'm curious."
She touched the vivid handprint on her throat; a stinging pain followed.
Too unfamiliar for a princess.
All the more electrifying.
Her breath quickened unwittingly.
"What kind of eyes he'd make if he truly meant to kill me."
That already chilling gaze of Rimon's—how much colder with real killing intent?
Conversely, how would it feel to defile that lofty swordsman, corrupt him, make him fall for her?
And if she stole him away, what faces would Aynsha and the other princesses make?
Imagining it idly.
Yekaterina suddenly realized.
Oh no, I'm done for.
Everything else shoved aside, her mind full of nothing but Rimon.
The smile blooming at the mere thought of him.
Above all, the pulse deep in her chest told her one truth.
"Sorry, Aynsha."
She raised one hand slowly.
Placed it over her heart.
Felt her frozen heart thudding again.
Yekaterina murmured.
"That man... I have to have him."
Aynsha would've shot back instantly: "No way. Says who?"
But she was alone here, and even if not, she wouldn't care.
The moment those golden eyes gripped her throat.
Emitted that chilling aura.
No more games. Couldn't end it as one.
"Hmm...... First, time to rack up some points?"
She smiled faintly at the sky dumping snowflakes.
Still lying down, she lifted both legs, then sprang up like a snap.
As she channeled her psyonic and her eyes turned silver.
The change began.
Snap.
The blowing wind slowed.
Falling snow halted.
All sounds dulled.
Not just the rooftop or hospital—Moscow, Russia, even beyond the sky.
Everything but her seemed frozen in the world.
She strolled leisurely alone.
Opened the rooftop door.
Descended the stairs.
Entered the ward.
Slashed Lef—frozen mid-smile—with the grotesque dagger from her bosom.
Slice.
"Apples and pears were blooming."
His carotid split, a red line blooming on his neck.
Leaving Lef grinning obliviously in death, Yekaterina walked on.
"Mists flowed over the river."
Like a casual stroll.
Humming lightly.
"Katyusha set out onto the bank."
Passed the giant with bandaged wrists.
The man clutching a smartphone.
One by one.
"To the steep riverbank so high."
Circling the beds, slashing with her dagger, completing the loop.
Yekaterina halted abruptly.
Among the Liberation Brigade members—all throats freshly lined red—she spun like a dancer.
Snapped her fingers.
Spurt!
"G-gahk!"
"Grk!?"
"Cough!"
Time resumed its flow.
Blood fountained from Lef and his men's savagely torn necks.
Clutching throats in shock, terror, confusion, they flailed to stem the bleeding, call for help.
Futile.
The barbed, jagged dagger blade.
Deliberately rough cuts wrenched their blood amid excruciating agony.
Thud!
Men with bulging eyes sprawled across beds.
Yekaterina wandered the blood-soaked room, admiring their faces twisted in pain and despair, and giggled.
"Refusing to dirty his own hands, dumping this on his little sister? What a bad brother."
Lick.
"......Makes him even cooler, though."
Hospital food left untouched, perhaps.
She picked up a chunk of cheese rolling by the bed, slit the wrapper with her dagger, swallowed it.
Then channeled her psyonic again.
"No helping it. Sin of falling for a bad brother—good little sister gets blood on her hands instead."
Snap.
The Seven Dragon Society's swiftest princess.
Surpassing even Sword Masters in speed alone.
Heir to the Silver Dragon Princess who'd briefly matched the Sword Empress.
Wielding Clock Up—the most mysterious of the seven psyonics, manipulating time.
She vanished from the ward, transcending time.
To exterminate even the worms.
Exactly ten minutes.
The moment 645 revolutionaries from the revolutionary government—who'd committed every atrocity—were annihilated.
......The moment the revolutionary government leading the Soviet Union plunged into even deeper chaos.