Thud!
Lying on the bed in his room, Casus closed his eyes, overwhelmed by a torrent of emotions.
In front of the ailing Atia, he had maintained a calm exterior, but inwardly he was far from tranquil.
Anger tensed his jaw and clenched his teeth.
‘Why hadn’t she informed me even once about reaching such a state?’
Because she was the daughter of a rival family.
Because the Emperor had arranged a marriage of convenience to keep him in check.
Knowing she had been abused, he had doubted her.
Wasn’t he the one who had neglected his wife and let her fall ill?
Casus ran both hands down his face.
The image of his wife calmly recounting her painful past wouldn’t leave his mind.
The abuse she’d suffered within her family was far worse than he had imagined.
He was filled with remorse, thinking that he was no different from the Harad family in the end.
Just from the few clues, he could easily picture the life Atia had lived at the Harad mansion.
Days swept through Casus’s mind when he had even suspected her of being an unknown highranked demon beast or a man.
He couldn’t have guessed that living in such an oppressive environment had led her to change like this.
‘How hard must it have been for her?’
Thinking of Atia struggling to survive, Casus found it difficult to keep his composure.
He now understood why she had honed skills that most could not, and why she had been so obsessed with ‘body training.’
There was a reason for the subtly insane glint in her eyes.
She must have wanted to do and see so many things.
Having suppressed her desires and being imprisoned in such a place, it was more surprising she hadn’t gone mad.
But why were there symptoms when the cause was unknown?
“Could it be….”
Casus raised an eyebrow, considering another possibility for a moment.
‘It can’t be.’
Denying it didn’t help; when the thought reached him, he grew anxious.
If it was true, then he realized that he might never know when Atia would die.
If it was related to something that mankind should never touch.
At the same time, he felt a chilling sensation run down his spine.
It can’t be, it shouldn’t be.
If what he was thinking was ‘that,’ then they were truly not humans but beasts.
Speaking of which, he had also found the report from his knights this morning to be strange.
.
.
.
After the poisoned arrow had flown on the festival day, the knights had searched the entire area to find the culprit.
Various methods had been deployed, including using a Black Hound.
Since Kerberos, the highranked demon beast, could identify the culprit even by a faint scent.
Moreover, even though the Black Hound was a demon beast, it got along well with humans in the absence of Atia.
Especially since becoming a symbol of the ducal house, it had received much affection from the knights.
And the Black Hound had brought unexpected results.
While chasing those who had shot the poisoned arrow, it had stumbled upon an illegal slave market.
There, they found a man whose appearance matched the description given by an old man who had petitioned Atia and Casus.
It was the old man’s daughter.
The knights split into two groups; one safeguarded all the victims in the slave market and apprehended most of the culprits.
The other knights chased after those who had fired the poisoned arrow.
It seemed they had tried to escape using a remote mountain path.
As they reached the foot of the mountain, the Black Hound started barking furiously in one direction, as if to say, “They are there.”
They glimpsed a suspicious shadow in the distance.
But there was no one to be found at that spot.
Only discarded clothes remained.
“They vanished right before our eyes.”
“It’s like a ghost did it!”
“We searched the area thoroughly but found no trace. We honestly don’t know what to make of it.”
Those who had pursued them could only say they had vanished into thin air.
In that brief moment, changing clothes and disappearing was impossible.
If they had fled naked, they would have been even more noticeable.
They had truly vanished without a trace.
Even the black hound had stopped barking, as if it could no longer detect their scent.
.
.
.
“Hmm…”
All things considered, Casus couldn’t shake off the suspicion that dark magic might be involved.
If so, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Atia might also be related.
However, even the mention of dark magic was taboo in the Empire, considered impure.
Furthermore, using dark magic shortened one’s lifespan.
What could possibly be the reason to subject Atia to such dark magic, taking all these risks?
Nevertheless, Casus couldn’t reach a conclusion based solely on speculation.
Sitting at his desk wouldn’t solve the problem either.
To catch a tiger, one had to enter the tiger’s den.
Lost in thought, Casus called his aide despite the late hour.
The aide was puzzled about why he had been summoned.
It was rare for Casus to call someone at such a late hour.
“Did you call for me?”
The words that came out of Casus’s mouth were unexpected.
“Prepare to go to the capital within this week.”
My Arch-enemy Sealed My Memory and Said That He is My Husband
This is an incredibly captivating story that you absolutely shouldn’t miss! I’ll give a brief introduction here, and below you’ll find a detailed synopsis of the plot.
The female lead is a fierce and powerful demon king. The male lead is a once-in-a-millennium celestial lord, admired by the entire cultivation world.
They are equally matched, legendary rivals who have battled for centuries.
In the final duel, the female lead is gravely injured. The male lead saves her, seals her memories, and hides her true identity. He tells her that he is her fiancé. His entire life has been flawless—except for the one thing he never expected, never controlled, and never wanted to control: falling for his greatest enemy. She is his inner demon, his obsession.
When the female lead regains her memories, she is furious at his deception.
She makes his life a living hell.
And somehow, the male lead—possibly a total masochist—doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he’s happy she’s paying attention to him.
Yep, we’re back to my favorite trope: male lead suffering. If you love this kind of story, jump into the pit with me now!!!
Intro
Dong Xia lost her memory.
Her handsome and extremely powerful fiancé Li Qing comforted her: “It’s okay if you can’t remember. I’ll always be with you.”
Everyone thought Dong Xia’s ancestors must have burned incense to get such a perfect fiancé. He was the number one person in the immortal realm, yet he remained chaste and only loved her.
…
The day before marrying her fiancé, Dong Xia finally remembered everything.
She wasn’t suffering from memory loss at all.
Her arch-enemy had made her fake her death, destroyed her cultivation, replaced her memories, and pretended to be her deeply in love fiancé.
No wonder he said, “It’s okay if you can’t remember”!
Dong Xia laughed coldly as she pulled out her long knife: Li Qing, prepare to die 🙂
*
Li Qing, as the supreme being of the immortal realm, was the people’s shining beacon.
The only unknown stain in his life was his affection for Dong Xia, the ruler of the demon realm.
In the final battle of the war between immortals and demons, the sky collapsed and the earth shattered. The ruler of the demon realm was finally slain under the sword of the supreme being of the immortal realm, and everyone in the immortal realm applauded.
The cultivation world lost a ruler of the demon realm.
And in the back mountain of Li Qing’s cave dwelling, he secretly hid away a fiancée.
Notes:
1. The female lead is white on the outside, black on the inside, and the queen of flattery; the male lead repeatedly tests the edge of darkness, a VIP guest at the crematorium.
2. Fantasy cultivation world setting.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
