Chapter 194

Chapter 194

I Proposed While Drunk and Now the Princesses are Obsessed.

Episode 194: Steeplechasing, Double-dealing, And Unfair Trade (16)

The next Tower Master of the Purple Tower, Herta.

She said she at least wanted to save the Purple Tower.

It didn’t mean she wanted the Tower’s magicians spared.

It meant she hoped that one day, a Purple Tower that purely pursued the element of lightning would be built.

The woman’s actions were extraordinary.

She had appeared by personally beheading her own brother and entered the duel to the death.

Every action she took after that was filled with her utmost effort.

Even knowing she wasn’t a match for Jaekiel, she calmly gave it her all.

In short.

She wasn’t afraid to shine like brilliant lightning.

Perhaps because of that.

Now that the duel to the death had just ended.

The Purple Tower began to purify itself naturally.

“The Purple Tower, you bastards! Committing all those crimes while neglecting a magician like that?”

“The rest of you aren’t even worth living! That was true lightning! You all are fakes!”

“No need for a duel! You trash!”

Those moved by Herta’s golden lightning weren’t just the magicians of the Purple Tower.

The resonance it stirred in magicians from other towers was even greater.

Even though lightning wasn’t their specialty, they couldn’t deny it.

It had been that noble and brilliant.

“Die! Die, you trash…!”

“I’ll kill you as painfully as possible!”

In the end, some couldn’t hold back and started private punishments.

Spells started flying from the stands like thrown stones, and the Purple Tower magicians, realizing their shame, didn’t resist.

The entire scene entered Jaekiel’s sight.

The Imperial Tower’s Auditor thought that this too was a way for judgment and purification to happen at the same time.

Ppaak! Ppaak!

“Creatures with no shame at all…!”

“Just being alive is a sin for you!”

Some were so enraged that they didn’t even use magic—they beat the Purple Tower magicians with their bare hands.

Jaekiel didn’t stop them.

It wasn’t something he could stop anyway.

At this moment, all the sorrow for Herta had turned into resentment toward the Purple Tower.

‘She chose rebirth, not annihilation.’

That was Herta’s final wish and plea.

Today, they would cut out all the rot of the Purple Tower, but the tower itself would not disappear.

Not annihilation, but purification.

Coincidentally, what Herta wanted was similar to what Jaekiel wanted.

“Ghak… Gahk!”

“Urgh…!”

Blood-soaked Purple Tower magicians were thrown one by one to the center of the training ground.

There was no saving them now.

They too were part of the rot of the Purple Tower.

And finally.

“Urgh…!”

The elder of the Purple Tower, Gendiz, was thrown at Jaekiel’s feet.

His entire body had been so severely beaten that he was drenched in blood.

The furious crowd finally fell silent.

It wasn’t because their anger had cooled.

They were waiting for the Auditor to personally carry out judgment.

“…”

Gendiz said nothing.

His expression carried a look of resignation.

After all, this old man was also a magician.

It meant he could still be struck by revelation when witnessing magic of tremendous caliber.

His expression was full of regret.

Was it because he had been moved by Herta’s golden lightning?

Or because he now fully understood all the sins he had committed?

Probably both.

With two of the tower’s elite dead, Gendiz was now the highest-ranking member of the Purple Tower.

He laboriously lifted his head and looked up at Jaekiel.

“Auditor.”

The old man said quietly.

“Kill me.”

“…”

Jaekiel remained silent for a moment.

“Only now do you realize your sins?”

“…Yes.”

Gendiz answered in a feeble voice.

His once-proudly grown white beard was now soaked in blood.

“Feeling the rage of all the magicians… it’s truly overwhelming.”

“The Purple Tower has truly walked a wrong path.”

Jaekiel calmly listened to Gendiz’s words.

He wasn’t listening out of respect.

He was merely curious about what he would say.

“It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I created the current Purple Tower. Thanks to my status as elder, everything went my way.”

“What fault is there in the elite siblings and ordinary magicians?”

“It’s all my sin.”

Uniquely, the Purple Tower did not appoint a Tower Master—instead, the elders decided their actions by council.

Even Herta, the successor, never rose to the position of Tower Master.

Effectively, Gendiz had been acting as the Tower Master all along.

“My greed… My greed made everything turn out this way.”

“But seeing Herta’s lightning moved me deeply. It was truly pure lightning. Even though the lightning I handled had become so turbid…”

“If she had lived, she would have been a great Tower Master.”

“Yes, I didn’t want to relinquish my seat as Elder Chief, so I never raised Herta to Tower Lord. That too was my greed…”

Gendiz’s sunken eyes turned to Jaekiel.

“I am not even worthy of standing in a life-or-death duel. I am the very one who let the Purple Tower rot. Kill me.”

After saying that, the old man closed his eyes.

As if calmly accepting death.

Jaekiel didn’t say much either.

But as an Auditor, he released cold energy.

Toward the old man lying on the training ground, eyes closed, awaiting death.

Sssssssss.

The tips of Gendiz’s fingers froze ever so slightly.

And in the next moment.

Crush!

The frozen joints of his fingertips were stomped on by Jaekiel and shattered spectacularly.

“!”

Gendiz’s eyes snapped open immediately.

The pain was so intense he couldn’t possibly maintain composure.

“You make me sick.”

Jaekiel muttered, looking down at the old man.

Even the way he calmly awaited death was disgusting.

The old man was thoroughly deluded.

He believed that by doing this, he had repented enough.

That he would have a death comparable to Herta’s.

But Jaekiel wasn’t confused.

Herta’s death and Gendiz’s death could never be the same.

Ssssssss!

Jaekiel froze the next knuckle of Gendiz’s fingers.

And once again, he lifted his foot.

To inflict the greatest pain he could.

Crush!

“Kkeuuugh…!”

The old man’s eyes widened uncontrollably in agony.

His expression faintly showed confusion.

“Wh-why…?!”

“Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re like Herta.”

Jaekiel answered calmly.

“I made sure Herta passed peacefully. Because from the beginning, she had accepted death, and her heart was filled with a noble cause.”

Srrrrk.

Jaekiel’s cold energy shaped itself into dense, fine needles.

And the next moment, they all stabbed under Gendiz’s fingernails with a dull sound.

“Kk-Kkyaaaaah!”

“But you? Not only did you rot the Purple Tower, but you also committed countless sins, and dragged even the elites into it to cover your deeds. And you think death is enough to atone?”

“W-wait… just a moment… let’s talk…!”

“Understand this clearly. Your death is so worthless it won’t repay anything. Living and suffering to the utmost is the only penance you’re allowed.”

Crush! Crush!

Jaekiel froze the next knuckle of Gendiz’s fingers and shattered it.

Then froze the next and shattered it again.

“Kkeuuuugh… Kkeuaaaah…!”

Gendiz thrashed about in overwhelming agony.

His once sunken eyes now bulged as if they might pop out at any moment.

Only around then did the silence in the stands begin to break.

The reaction toward the punishment came immediately.

“The bastard who rotted an entire magic tower…!”

“Don’t let him die peacefully! After committing all those sins, now he acts detached? Disgusting!”

“If not for that bastard’s filthy greed, that woman would have become the Tower Master by now…!”

Voices cursing the Purple Tower overwhelmed the air.

Even objectively, it was inevitable.

It was too late to undo anything or repent.

Granting him a peaceful death? Out of the question.

Crush!

Jaekiel shattered another part of Gendiz’s body and spoke.

By now, heaps of shattered debris like Anes’s cubes surrounded Gendiz.

“Listen carefully to every word. This is the judgment of the life you’ve lived. Even after death, no one will speak well of you.”

“Kkuh… Kkueegh…”

“You’ll be entirely denigrated, entirely cursed. There won’t even be a grave left for you, and those who remember you will feel nothing but disgust. That’s how you’ll be remembered.”

“A-Aaaaaaah…!”

Only then did belated regret finally cross Gendiz’s face.

It was the expression Jaekiel had wanted to see.

The expression of a disgusting old man who pretended to be calm, now clinging desperately to life.

A face full of pure regret.

“Regret it. Not that it’ll do you any good.”

Jaekiel muttered as he continued the torture.

Crush!

“Kkeaaaaaaaah─!”

Tears welled up in the old man’s eyes.

It wasn’t just the pain.

The realization that he would be hated by the entire world, cursed even after death, was what truly terrified him.

Jaekiel thought.

‘Pathetic. Only now, after all this, this trash realizes it.’

Crush!

It took a full 14 hours to completely pulverize Gendiz’s entire body.

Jaekiel drove ice needles under his fingernails and toenails, and slowly shattered his limbs starting from the ends.

“Kkugh, kkughh…! Please, please, please…!”

Crush!

Finally, when he shattered Gendiz’s skull.

15 hours.

Amazingly, not a single spectator left.

They all bore witness to the Purple Tower elder’s ugly demise.

It was the inevitable end brought about by the Purple Tower’s accumulated sins.

A fitting end indeed.

On the way back to the Imperial Palace.

“Did you handle the Purple Tower magicians properly?”

“Yes, Auditor.”

Anes nodded.

“We severed their limbs and threw them into a forest teeming with insects. They’ll die slowly and painfully.”

“We completely demolished the Purple Tower building too.”

Seina, who was beside her, added.

“Just as Master instructed, we only spared the very young children. The ones who are still dreaming of mastering the lightning element at the academy.”

“That’s enough.”

The Purple Tower was destroyed, but not annihilated.

Not destruction—a restart.

It would take a very long time.

But the children who remembered Herta’s golden lightning would grow and rebuild the tower.

It would be something to watch over for a long time.

Anes opened her mouth again.

“We plan to move all the Purple Tower’s emergency rescue magic and sacred artifacts to the Imperial Palace.”

“Good.”

Speaking of the Purple Tower’s sacred artifacts, Jaekiel was already carrying one.

It was the Revitalizing Water—as its name implied, an elixir that could forcibly revive someone of demonic origin once.

“Good work, everyone. Finish your respective tasks. We’ll meet again soon.”

Immediately upon arriving at the Imperial Palace.

Jaekiel quickly sent Seina and Anes away.

There was somewhere he urgently needed to visit.

Step, step.

His urgent footsteps finally brought him to the deepest part of the infirmary.

On the bed lay the woman Jaekiel had desperately fought to save.

The Demon Goddess, Akne.

Her condition was extremely critical.

A massive hole pierced her upper body, and she hadn’t been able to heal herself at all.

“I’m back.”

With a brief greeting, Jaekiel carefully poured the Revitalizing Water over Akne’s heart.

The response was immediate.

Thump!

Akne’s heart began to beat strongly.