Deneosor’s voice started to get agitated again.
“To get that brat in my hands, I even gave up on you…! How can this be an opportunity, and that foolish youngster readily throws it away? A guy who’s not even worth my stepfather!”

“So, Hades wants to live, huh?”

I interrupted Deneosor’s words.

“There is one way.”

“…There is.”

Deneosor snorted.

“A way where you become the sacrifice.”

“No.”

I responded gloomily.

“You are the one to be sacrificed.”

As expected, Deneosor vehemently resisted.

“What nonsense is this…!”

“Think about it.”

I took a step closer to Deneosor.

“You know it too. You are more suitable as a sacrifice than me, who lacks divine power.”

Deneosor wasn’t an ordinary demon sword or a holy sword. He had a soul, thinking and acting like a living being. He satisfied the conditions for being a sacrifice.

“Do you think I’d agree to that? Even if that brat disappears, I’ll just wait for the next human!”

“The next human?”

I chuckled.

“Who? Me?”

Deneosor glared at me with a disdainful look.

“Where do you think you’ll live your whole life? And do you think you won’t succumb to my temptation your whole life? Right now, you might feel confident, but…”

“Listen well, Deneosor.”

I gently interrupted his words.

“When Hades dies, I will take you to the volcano.”

The expression that appeared on Deneosor’s face was worth seeing. He clenched his fist tightly, and a strange sound, akin to choking, escaped his throat.

“I won’t… let it be like that!”

I laughed bitterly.

“How? If Hades disappears, you won’t even be able to maintain your current form.”

While Deneosor stood there in a daze, I drove the final nail.

“I became your owner by dying for Hades. If Hades dies… who will be your owner?”

“No one should remain at home! Everyone, evacuate. It’s an apocalypse!”

The voices of knights helping with evacuation echoed from various places. Elysia buried her face in her hands. Although everyone as part of the Hwangga knew that such a day would come…

‘But I didn’t expect it to come in my generation.’

In fact, it didn’t matter if you stayed at home.

Whether at home or in an underground shelter, the result would be the same.

Death.

“Your Highness, we need to hurry.”

Even with the knight’s words, Elysia’s footsteps didn’t quicken.

“It’s useless.”

She shook her head.

“The end will come soon.”

“What are you talking about! For hundreds of years, our knights have been preparing for this moment…”

“And for hundreds of years, the Hwangga knew.”

Elysia closed her eyes.

“That when that day comes, there is nothing we can do.”

“I… gaaah!”

The knight who was hastening his steps was entangled in a sudden red beam rising from the ground. The knight, with a contorted face in pain, barely continued his words.
“Now, immediately… Evacuate…!”

Elysia did not heed the knight’s words. After watching the knight’s life fade away, she gently closed his eyes.

“Poor thing.”

If there is a next life, may he be born in a different world.

Elysia stood upright, staring ahead. Painful screams filled the air from all directions. Some people ran wildly, colliding with carriages or causing severe injuries by bumping into others.

‘…If I had known, I wouldn’t have bothered with such useless matters.’

Hades Croixtner and the Donovan Grand Duchy.

Compared to the events unfolding before her, his atrocities that swept through the imperial city were nothing.

Elysia laughed bitterly.

Thinking of a person as your lifelong love when death is imminent seems to be wrong. She never truly loved that man.

“If there is a next life, I…”

A red beam entangled Elysia’s ankles. A burning pain surged, but she gritted her teeth. Even in the moment of death, she had to be the princess and the sole heir to the throne.

And then, nothing happened.

‘…?’

Elysia touched her ankles. The red beam had disappeared. Come to think of it, the screams seemed to have abruptly stopped.

She looked up at the sky.

The sky was so clear and blue that it stung her eyes.