“Hurry, hurry!” Driven by the strength to survive, the trembling girl started running towards the temple at Ermeldirin’s urging.

Soon, the desperate cry from Felio reached their ears. “Your Majesty the Queen!”

However, even before Felio’s voice could get closer, mercenaries lurking in the vicinity drew their swords and approached Ermeldirin.

“No!”

Thinking that swords wouldn’t reach her, Felio summoned a blue flame from his hand, which flew towards the mercenaries.

Whoosh! Flames engulfed one of the mercenaries, causing them to panic. In the midst of their confusion, Felio managed to reach Ermeldirin’s side with difficulty.

“Your Majesty! Pull yourself together! Where’s Arbion? Where’s Arbion!”

Holding Ermeldirin in his arms, Felio desperately searched for Arbion.

“Stop calling for him.”

Although Arbion outwardly maintained a calm expression, he was quite tense. Despite his composed demeanor, his hand trembled as it reached out to Ermeldirin.

“Purify her! Purify the curse!” Felio shouted.

“Oh, okay!”

For a moment, a dazzling light filled the forest from Arbion’s body, but soon after, he directed the radiant light specifically towards Ermeldirin.

“Is it working? Why? Why won’t you open your eyes? Did I purify it correctly? Quickly, heal! You’re a priest! You’ll need your power!” Felio exclaimed.

In response to Felio’s cries, Arbion concentrated once again to activate his divine power. However, the mercenaries, still under the influence of the curse, didn’t give Arbion a chance to treat Ermeldirin’s physical wounds.

Drawing his sword to deal with the attackers, Felio said, “I’ll handle these guys. You focus on Her Majesty the Queen!” Despite Felio using magic against the mercenaries, they were still affected by the curse. Injured and rising again, they refused to be defeated.

“Damn! Do these crazy people even know who I am?”

Felio, his silver eyes gleaming, attached a blue flame to his sword. As he calmly swung the magic-imbued blade, he gradually regained his true nature.

One by one, flames caught on the bodies of the mercenaries, and limbs were severed.

Having successfully defeated all four attackers, Felio turned to look at Ermeldirin, who seemed more relaxed now.

Beside her, Arbion, dripping sweat like rain, indicated that the divine power had indeed worked.

“Thank goodness… Ugh!”

Suddenly, as an excruciating pain surged through her entire body, Felio sank to the ground.

While Felio searched the surroundings to find the cause of the pain, the clouds cleared, revealing Ermont’s figure, who had been standing in the darkness.

With a malicious smile on his elegant face, resembling Ermeldirin’s, he approached the magic circle slowly.

“Surprising, isn’t it? Batiastian Gongja and a priest helping a witch?”
He approached the magic circle slowly with a malicious smile on his face, elegantly resembling Ermeldirin’s graceful features.

“Surprising, isn’t it? Batiastian Gongja and a priest helping a witch?”

Felio, confirming Ermont’s presence, bit his lip and blamed his own incompetence. The few weeks spent secretly preparing traps to catch him, who had turned to the enemy, felt like a waste.

He regretted not securing at least the identities of Helen’s family, and his own negligence was frustrating.

At Ermont’s gesture, this time, the entire magic circle emitted a violet light.

Now, even the priest Arbion began to feel the pain.

“Protect the Queen.”

Felio, biting his teeth to endure the spreading agony throughout his body, rose.

“Ho? Can you withstand that?”

Ermont, watching Felio approach step by step, smirked and muttered something.

“Ugh!”

Although he thought it couldn’t get more painful than this, a more intense pain surged. Nevertheless, Felio endured desperately.

“Indeed, without a shield, it’s about this level. Compared to the curse of Duke François, it’s bearable.”

When the word “shield” came out of Felio’s mouth, the laughter disappeared from Ermont’s face.

“Pitiful. If you had a shield like Queen Hwanghu, I could have dealt with this kind of magic circle easily, even without it. But your shieldless curse is just about bearable.”

“Is that so? But what to do. The Queen Hwanghu lies unconscious over there.”

Ermont, who had been sneering at Felio, glanced slyly at Arbion, who was next to Ermeldirin.

“Why are you embracing Ermeldirin like this? Why are you protecting her?”

At Ermont’s question, Felio, without giving any answer, created a blue flame at the tip of his sword and sent it towards Ermont unexpectedly.

Not knowing that Ermont could use magic in that state, Felio took advantage of Ermont’s swaying and approached him.

“Ahh!”

However, Ermont’s curse was faster than Felio’s sword.

Felio felt a pain as if someone was squeezing his heart, as if someone would burst it open at any moment.

Despite desperately trying to suppress the scream so as not to disturb Arbion, the pain reached its peak, and a scream burst from his mouth.

“Uwaaaah!”

“What about Gongja?”

At Felio’s scream, Ermeldirin finally regained consciousness.

At her question, Arbion turned his sweaty head towards Felio, who was on the verge of the magic circle, hemorrhaging blood while convulsing.

“What is this?”

In Ermeldirin’s eyes, Felio, convulsing and spitting blood on the edge of the magic circle, looked like he was suffering intense pain.

“The magic circle is too powerful. How much blood has been spilled on the ground?” Arbion said, shaking his head as if disgusted.

“The magic circle? Just deal with that shining thing, right?”

“Exactly. But with your current condition, it’s going to be tough. Your injuries haven’t fully healed yet.”

“Now is not the time to worry about that! I’ll deal with that guy, so save Gongja!”

“It’s not possible now! If you forcefully use magic while your injuries haven’t fully healed, you might die!”

Arbion, thinking that Ermeldirin, who knew nothing about magic, was acting arrogantly, tried to stop her.

“Anyway, if he dies, I die too. So just save him first instead of talking nonsense!”

Due to the still unreleased vocal cords, Ermeldirin’s voice was mixed with the sound of metal. But her tone was too firm to call it arrogance.

Arbion wanted to stop her from doing something foolish, but he didn’t have the strength to hold her.

“He finally appeared. Oh, my! The priest is going to save a witch!”

Mocking, Ermont ridiculed Arbion, who was gasping for breath with half of his consciousness lost in the center of the magic circle.
“It’s a problem for the two of us to solve. Send the rest of the people away.”

“Yeah. I never dreamed that those two would come to rescue you. I never even thought of killing you in the first place.”

As Ermont casually snapped his fingers, Felio’s convulsions finally stopped.

With Ermeldirin’s gesture, Arbion crawled toward Felio.

“It’s really strange. What are you guys doing? Don’t you know who this woman is? She’s the empire’s top witch, a witch! The plague that took the lives of countless people started with this witch. Do you really not know this? All of you?”

Even in this situation, Ermont, while not leaving Ermeldirin’s side, frowned disapprovingly at the two men.

“Ugh!”

With the curse resuming, the clash of divine power and the curse inside his body caused Arbion to start vomiting blood once again.