The Evil Empress Adores Me - Chapter 156

“You’re really, really back, right?!”

Desperate eyes scanned Charlize up and down.

He examined me here and there to see if I was fine. 

He had a look of fear about him like she would disappear from his eyes again. 

“Don’t leave me.”

Charlize, who had been holding onto Damian’s hand for a long time, involuntarily let out a pained noise. 

“My head is ringing…”

“Oh, I’m sorry!”

Damian calmed down a bit. 

Taking a deep breath, Charlize tried pulling herself together. 

After a while.

She quietly raised her head.

And.

“D-Damian?!”

As if about to pass out, Charlize fell onto Damian, clinging to him. 

“Why are you so bloody?!”

“What?”

“Oh my God, how is it all over your body?”

She stumbled slightly as she picked herself up. 

Damian’s front and back were stained with blood. 

It was like he had coughed up blood over and over again. 

Charlize’s face turned pale. 

“Ah, did you get hurt somewhere…no, wait.”

In an instant, her lilac-colored eyes widened.

She finally realized the culprit behind the bizarre sense of incongruity she had felt before.

That’s right…

“…I can’t feel the power.”

The ‘power of the divine beast’ that had been imparted to the Winsor family had completely disappeared. 

Charlize asked an urgent question.

“What happened?!”

As soon as he heard that question, Damian was deeply troubled. 

He was positive that if he answered the question, Charlize would be furious. 

But it was impossible to lie.

In the end, Damian shut his eyes tightly and answered. 

“The divine beast’s power was extinguished.”

“Extinguished….you did that?”

Charlize listened, her mouth agape at the unexpected answer. 

“Okay. The power you left behind was meant for me to kill the divine beast, right?”

Damian feigned a calm exterior expression while, in truth, he was sweating cold sweats on the inside. 

Since it had already happened, he was going to unapologetically own up to it. 

“So, you destroyed it.”

“….yes.”

“So that not even traces of the divine beast herself remain in the world.” 

Charlize couldn’t hide her astonishment at that calm response.

The reason she left that power was to  ‘safely’ get rid of the divine beast. 

She didn’t intend for him to risk his life rescuing her. 

After a while.

Charlize gritted her teeth and asked Damian.

“Damian, are you…out of your mind?”

“I’d say I’m sane enough.”

“Would a sane person do what you did? You instinctively knew how dangerous it is to destroy the power!”

Unable to cope with his sarcastic retort, she involuntarily raised her voice. 

‘Why did I go back to the divine beast!’

It was all so that Damian could easily kill the divine beast.

After the ‘soul’ returned to the ‘body’, the resulting rejection was taken advantage of by Damian. 

But Damian made a choice she didn’t take into account. 

Using the resulting rejection that separated us, he then destroyed the divine beast’s power and body.  

To paraphrase, he separated two tangled threads and removed one of them. 

That must have been an enormous strain on Damian. 

But he did it.

Knowing how life-threatening it was, Charlize found it hard to control her ever-growing 

“Damian, if you made a mistake…..you could have been ruined forever.” 

It would not have been a mere ‘death,’ but he would have been erased from existence. 

But Damian only responded with a silent smile like usual. 

“I know.”

“Damian!”

“But the same went for you anyway.” 

He added in a composed manner. 

Just as the sun rises in the east and rain falls from the sky onto the earth. 

As if confessing an undeniable truth since time immemorial, Damian spoke resolutely. 

“A world without you has no meaning or reason to live in.” 

Charlize froze in place.

Damian’s smile grew slightly wider. 

“So I….I just had to.” 

Silence passed.

The scarlet eyes staring at Charlize said nothing but conveyed so much.

She got choked up at that. 

She knew the affection Damian had for her, and how painful it is to lose someone so dear to them. 

“You did know that I gave you the power? Why do something so risky, then?

Her voice reprimanded Damian once again, yet this time it was not as sharp as before. 

And to that, Damian answered.

“You did the same for me.” 

Charlize froze in place once more. 

Damian looked her straight in the eyes.

Her small frame trembled slightly as her lovely eyes conveyed a multitude of emotions. 

He loved how she affectionately called his name. 

He had almost lost her forever. 

If he hadn’t succeeded—if he hadn’t saved Charlize in the end….

“You were about to die in my arms.” 

For the first time since speaking, Damian’s voice showed resentment. 

“That you had to go through that…”

“So, you wanted to stay like that—not to come back?”

Charlize felt speechless.

How on earth should I answer that?

I had to keep the promise I made to Carpel a long time ago.

Only that promise could save humanity; no, no—-it was only that promise that would protect Damian. 

But she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth.

It felt like her lips were glued together. 

Damian reassured her.

“Just be honest.”

After hesitating for a while, Charlize closed her eyes tightly and answered.

“No….”

It was a trembling voice.

“I wanted to come back.”

“Charlize.”

“One way or another, I wanted to be with the people I cherished…” 

Charlize’s closed eyes trembled.

She cautiously began to confess her deepest feelings.

“Still, I thought it shouldn’t be that way.”

Charlize curled her small frame into a ball as if what she was about to say, shouldn’t be said. 

Her expression resembles that of an abandoned child—left in a strange place and feeling bad and sorry about herself. 

Damian pursed his lips and then proceeded to ask, “Why?”

“Well, since you’re the Crown Prince and I’ve made a promise to Carpel, so….” 

A promise to protect the Winsor family was the result of the love they had for each other.

Feeling indescribable guilt, Charlize swallowed in vain. 

If Aurelia had been killed, the Winsor empire would have remained safe. 

Charlize, no, ‘Lia’ made a magical barrier in the past by using herself as the conduit. 

“If you had killed me, my power would have returned to the magical barrier.” 

“Charlize.”

“But now that I’ve come back, the barriers protecting the empire will cease functioning…”

“Charlize!!”

Damian placed his hand on her shoulder as he called her name. 

Charlize, who had been muttering with a vacant face, suddenly snapped back to reality and looked at Damian. 

Damian had an unusually serious look about him. 

“What meaning is there in having an empire built on one person’s sacrifice?” 

Charlize found herself choking on her own words.

Damian’s voice strengthened.

“Until now, you’ve been protecting humanity by yourself.”

“…but still.”

“You can stop now.”

Damian held Charlize in his arms.

The arms that held her were trembling slightly.

Damian murmured softly, “In the past, I must have been the most selfish guy in the world.”

“Huh?’

“How could I dump everything on you, just so that I could feel better…”

Damian, whose anger was smoldering, strengthened both arms. 

“Going forward, don’t think that you have to handle everything on your own.”

Her wide, lilac-colored eyes trembled. 

“Because I’ll be by your side. So, please…” 

“Really?…. You will?”

After a while.

With an emotional voice, she asked Damian. 

“Will you truly stay by my side?”

“I will.”

“Truly?”

“Of course.”

Damian reached out and gently brushed Charlize’s stiff back.

The tension in her body slowly relaxed. 

“Damian.”

Charlize buried her head in Damian’s arms.

She missed all of it so much—this warmth, the arms that held her. 

“Then promise me, you will never leave me again…”

“I’ll promise.”

Damian replied in a firm voice.

Charlize smiled brightly with teary eyes.

After a long night, the dawn was finally breaking.