Roxana
Chapter 68
Chapter 68
How to Protect the
Female Lead’s Older Brother
Chapter 68
* * *
Lant and Deon attacked each other simultaneously.
As a result, Deon’s sword pierced diagonally into Lant’s chest, while Lant’s dagger slashed open Deon’s throat.
It was only possible because Deon’s movements had inexplicably slowed for a fraction of a second the moment he caught sight of the women appearing from the side.
Immediately after, Deon wrenched his sword from Lant’s chest and pulled back.
It had all unfolded in the span of a single breath.
“Kh, ugh…….”
Lant clutched his bleeding chest and let out a pained groan.
Deon, on the other hand, stepped back in silence to put distance between himself and Lant.
Yet in the next moment, he gripped his spurting throat and collapsed.
Sierra gasped at the sight of the two men. She covered her mouth with trembling hands.
She had no way of knowing what on earth had transpired between them before this.
Still, seeing Lant and Deon battered and drenched in blood like this was an utter shock—she had never witnessed either of them in such a state.
Her wildly racing heart refused to calm down.
Lant in particular looked hideous, as though he had not only suffered countless tortures but had also been mauled and torn apart by some beast across his entire body.
Even so, from the clash just now, it seemed Deon had taken a more fatal blow to a vital point.
Unlike Lant, who somehow forced his upper body upright with bloodshot eyes, Deon could not easily rise.
Even amidst such agony, the way he kept his posture rigid by leaning on his sword was quintessential Deon.
“You, you cursed bastard…….”
Lant glared fiercely at Deon as if ready to tear him apart with his teeth, spitting out curses.
It was Deon who had intercepted Lant as he escaped the dungeon and crept toward the secret passage.
Without a word on who struck first, both had lunged at each other. The bond of father and son had already been severed.
As if they were mortal nemeses destined to destroy one another, Lant and Deon clashed with greater ferocity than ever before to take the other’s life.
And this was the outcome.
“Sierra……!”
Sierra flinched upon meeting Lant’s bloodshot, crimson glare.
“Quickly, kh, come here and support me.”
He commanded as though her arrival were an opportune blessing.
“Hurry, I must finish choking the life out of that bastard…….”
With bloodshot eyes, Lant fumbled inside his robes, produced a handful of pills mixed with stimulants and painkillers, and crunched them down raw.
A few pills slipped through his fingers and scattered across the floor.
This was how he had managed to fight Deon despite his ruined body.
Lant intended to kill Deon without delay while the boy was incapacitated.
Deon had once been the child Lant trusted and favored the most, but now he was a nemesis more dangerous than anyone else.
To eliminate future troubles, he had to kill him right this instant.
When Deon tracked him down and attacked, he had been dead serious. He had been truly hell-bent on slaughtering his own father.
Had Deon not hesitated for that fleeting second moments ago, the one sprawled on the ground dying right now would surely have been Lant.
Thus, Sierra’s appearance before his eyes was an immense stroke of luck for Lant.
“Damn it…… To use the secret passage, I need to reach my office at least…….”
His current situation was dire, but it seemed fate would not let him die just yet.
Perhaps the mother was meant to pay for the sins of her wretched daughter.
Had he received assistance earlier, escaping the dungeon would have been far easier.
Yet Lant could trust no one.
Had he not been betrayed by Deon and Roxana, the very children he trusted and treasured the most?
Furthermore, the spell circle drawn in the Room of Judgment was undoubtedly the handiwork of his eldest daughter, Griselda.
How many of them had turned over to those traitors? Ungrateful little wretches!
Once suspicion took root, not a single one of his offspring could be trusted. In that sense, Sierra was far more reliable.
She was a meek woman who had never once defied his word in all her life.
“What are you standing there gaping at? Come here this instant and help me up!”
Sierra slowly released the breath she had been holding.
Though confusion had initially frozen her mind and body, she soon had no trouble grasping the situation unfolding before her.
“Madam, detouring around would take too long, so we shall proceed straight ahead.”
At that moment, Emily stepped forward.
Lant, who had not even realized she was there, flared his eyes with even greater fury at her presence.
“Aren’t you Roxana’s bitch? Why are you here? Stop spouting nonsense and get the hell out of my sight!”
His body, pushed nearly past its limits, struggled even with the exertion of speaking.
With each harsh, ragged wheeze, the stench of blood welled up thick in his mouth with every word.
“Sierra, do you want to die? Get over here right now!”
Feeling the urgency gnawing at him, Lant pressed Sierra once more.
Emily saw the necessity of dealing with Lant, but before she could act, Sierra’s voice preceded her.
“……Why should I?”
“What?”
Lant questioned, doubting his own ears.
From behind Sierra, Bess called out softly, “Madam…” She, too, looked visibly stunned.
Sierra, however, wore a composed expression.
Lant, who had been barking orders while bleeding out in tatters, let his jaw drop in disbelief.
Sierra’s fingers clutching her hem and her bitten lip trembled faintly.
Her chest, which had begun to churn the moment she saw Lant, was now pounding harder than ever.
Yet she did not stop; she pressed on.
“Why should I help you, when you killed my son and brought nothing but misery to my daughter?”
The look on Lant’s face was a sight to behold.
He was utterly appalled by this defiance from Sierra—something he had never once imagined in his life.
“What reason is there for you to live?”
She had lived her entire life like a beautiful doll.
Sierra had always been submissive to Lant, quietly obeying his will without exception. And yet…… and yet…….
“Why should a man who murdered my child get to live?”
What had she dared to say to him just now?
Sierra was looking down at Lant with eyes brimming with a resolve he had never seen before.
The moment he met that gaze, the image of Roxana—who, along with Deon, had plunged a blade into his back—overlapped in his vision.
Like mother, like daughter after all!
“You damned wench……! You think I’ll let you or that wretched daughter of yours off? I’ll sever all your limbs, rip out your entrails, and slaughter you both!”
Eyes rolling back, vomiting blood, Lant spewed venomous curses in a frenzied rage.
Sierra took the brunt of it with a pale, bloodless face.
Yet she did not waver for a single moment, nor did she close her eyes against Lant’s glare.
“I, will…….”
At that moment, Deon, still clutching his throat as blood welled out like a fountain and fighting to catch his breath, pushed himself up from the ground.
“I, must be the one to kill…….”
Yet before he could take even a single step, his knees buckled and gave out once more.
Even so, Deon’s obsessive gaze remained pinned entirely on Lant.
Seeing Deon like that, Lant coughed up blood-laced phlegm and ground his teeth.
“So this is where you were, Lant Agriche.”
It was precisely then that an unfamiliar voice pierced through the air.
Lant froze, catching his breath as he snapped his head toward the source of the voice.
“Y-You…….”
Cassis Pedelian, who had appeared like a phantom on the final day of the Harmony Conference, stood before him once again.
Golden eyes, devoid of all emotion and utterly chilling, swept once over the surrounding scene.
The moment his gaze locked with the blood-drenched Deon, Cassis parted his lips slowly.
“I heard you pursued Lant from the dungeon, so I intended to give you a chance, but it seems you fell short.”
At those words, the embers slumbering within Deon’s eyes began to flicker quietly once more.
A stubborn tenacity and obsession akin to madness blazed vividly within them—a refusal, above all else, to surrender his prey to the man before him.
Yet his body was already past the point of obeying his will.
“Then it is my turn.”
Cassis turned his gaze away without a shred of hesitation.
“Madam, let us go.”
Emily seized the moment and spoke to Sierra.
Cassis’s gaze brushed briefly against Sierra’s face. Yet he said nothing and turned away.
Sierra looked between Lant, who was still glaring at her murderously, and Deon, who had collapsed unconscious without anyone noticing.
Immediately after, she bit her lip.