ICM Chapter 140

A sharp crack echoed through the dark space. The Empress Dowager, struck across the face, collapsed on the spot.

“Flee? You call it fleeing? Do you know what position that is, to throw it away and think of running!”

Every time the fierce voice poured down, Empress Dowager Ilerna flinched and trembled her shoulders.

“I, I was just going to leave the palace for a while.”

“Don’t you understand the current situation? Instead of rushing to the Emperor right now to grab and shake him, you’re first planning to run away!”

“I, I…”

Ilerna’s pupils shook violently at the fury the Marquis poured out.

“I felt like I was going crazy… If I stayed in the palace, I really felt like I’d lose my mind!”

Cornered, Ilerna screamed out loud. Her voice was completely hoarse, like metal scraping.

“Do you know how much time I wasted looking for you? Right now Talion’s army has declared territorial war. Do you even know what this means!”

At this crucial time, the only person who could lend support, Empress Dowager Ilerna, had left the palace of the capital. After hearing of her absence and waiting for days, the thought suddenly occurred that Ilerna might not return.

From that moment, the Marquis had searched frantically for her. A woman who had lived her entire life receiving the finest treatment in the palace couldn’t possibly survive properly outside the palace walls.

After combing through the capital and its outskirts like searching for lice, he finally learned that Ilerna was hiding in a villa that hadn’t been used for a long time. Having barely managed to chase her down, she was plotting to escape somehow.

“Father doesn’t know. How much I’ve suffered. I’ve been tormented for 40 years. Forty years!”

Father—at that address, the Marquis’s hand, raised in the air, hesitated.

An aged woman with a face more wrinkled than his own was calling him father. The Marquis suddenly remembered his own age that he had forgotten. Though he had the face of a middle-aged man, his actual age was nearly ninety.

“That woman has returned. My sister, Ibis… She won’t leave me alone!”

Ilerna was afraid. Of what Ibis, who now knew all the facts, might do.

Ibis, who had been hiding under the name Iben. The only legitimate daughter of the House of Arkpella. Now she too must know. That behind all this conspiracy were Ilerna and Marquis Maiheller.

She had been plagued by nightmares her entire life. The phantom of Ibis, pouring out curses filled with resentment, had tormented her tirelessly without rest. But now even the memories she had thought were nightmares had become suspicious. Could the woman’s figure that periodically appeared to choke her really have been just a dream?

She remembered a story the Grand Duke of Arkpella had told long ago. That a child of the Grand Duke’s house could never leave the Grand Duke’s castle. That a child who inherited divine power would possess unimaginable strength. That’s why the Emperor coveted the Grand Duke’s castle.

Like Marquis Maiheller, who strangely never aged, time had also stopped for Ibis. Remaining exactly as she was at her most beautiful and brilliantly radiant. And she had returned in exactly that same form to choke her breath.

Ilerna glared at her father with eyes dripping with resentment and venom.

“I regret it, meeting you.”

How wonderful it would be if she could turn back time. She truly regretted it. The decades of life she had lived. If she had known she would live such a life, she wouldn’t have taken the Marquis’s hand back then.

During her childhood growing up in the Grand Duke’s castle, Ilerna had known early on that she was different from her family.

Eyes of different colors that resembled no one. No one knew this fact except her mother. Watching her mother desperately trying to hide this fact, she sensed there was a problem.

And around age ten, she first met Marquis Maiheller.

That’s when she learned. That she wasn’t the child of the Grand Duke of Arkpella, but the Marquis’s biological child. Ilerna was a complete stranger, not sharing a drop of blood with Ibis, the legitimate daughter of the Grand Duke’s house.

Her mother had been Marquis Maiheller’s mistress. Pregnant with the Marquis’s child, she had approached the Grand Duke of Arkpella to secure the position of mistress.

At that time, the Grand Duke’s wife was already poisoned by poison sent by the Marquis and unable to rise from her bed. Eventually the Grand Duke’s wife died, and Ilerna’s mother stole her position.

Ilerna was terrified. The thought that if the truth were revealed, she would not only be expelled from the Grand Duke’s castle but would live her entire life branded as a bastard child.

The Marquis exploited Ilerna’s fear. At the same time, he lured her with sweet promises. If she kept the secret, he would make her the most noble woman in the Empire. Her fearful heart melted away like snow at the sweet temptation.

Ibis, who had amazed people since childhood with her mysterious beauty and exceptional talents. Ilerna couldn’t match anything about Ibis.

She hated her beautiful and outstanding sister and was jealous of the things she herself lacked. The Marquis promised that such an Ibis would become nothing.

So she fed poison to Ibis. Knowing that if she couldn’t bear children, she could become nothing. Not the Grand Duke’s heir, not the Crown Prince’s companion, not the future Empress. Having stolen everything and come this far, that life was never happy.

The Marquis mocked Ilerna’s regret.

“Did you think that secret would last a lifetime? You never belonged to the Grand Duke’s house anyway. I gave you the greatest opportunity.”

Ilerna sat collapsed on the floor, shaking her head.

“I, I… wasn’t happy…”

She had been plagued by nightmares from the day the House of Arkpella was destroyed. The night she opened the doors to the Emperor’s army and fled to the capital. The deaths she hadn’t witnessed were vividly recreated in her dreams.

The people who died because of her, the Grand Duke’s castle that became ruins because of her.

And Ibis. Ibis, who had cherished the Grand Duke’s castle and the people of the Grand Duke’s territory like her own life.

When she learned that she was alive, what she felt was terror. The bone-chilling terror that she would return at any time to choke her breath and drop her into the abyss. That’s why she had tried to end it with her own hands and thought she had succeeded.

What had allowed her to endure while suffering from nightmares for such a long time was believing that it was fear without substance. That Ibis had appeared again. In the form of a monster that wouldn’t die no matter how many times she was killed.

“Return to the Imperial Palace. What you need to do is persuade the Emperor to isolate Talion. That the Young Duchess Igraine is of Arkpella bloodline. That it’s traitorous blood. So bind them together and deal with them.”

Marquis Maiheller had lost his composure. This had happened while he was distracted looking for the missing Ilerna.

At the sinister killing intent the Marquis revealed, Ilerna’s face turned white. Though he was her father, he was a monster-like man she had feared her entire life.

“No, no. I hate it. I, I…”

Now that even reality had become a nightmare. Her limbs trembled with terror and her differently colored pupils flickered with an eerie light.

“My lord Marquis!”

The villa door burst open and a guard who had been watching outside rushed in.

“Please escape. Soldiers have surrounded the area.”

“Soldiers?”

The Marquis’s eyes bulged as if they would pop out. This was the outskirts of the capital. An area where nobles’ private soldiers couldn’t set foot.

“That can’t be. You must have seen wrong.”

It had already grown dark outside. In the dim light, it was difficult to distinguish the surroundings.

“There were knights too.”

“Hah…”

Knights leading soldiers moving near the capital. This was definitely ominous. A slight convulsion crossed the Marquis’s face.

“Return to the Imperial Palace. You’re the only one who can persuade the Emperor.”

His murky blue-green pupils revealed killing intent as he urged Ilerna.

“Hurry!”

The Marquis grabbed Ilerna’s arm, which wouldn’t budge, and forcibly lifted her.

“I hate it. I said I hate it now!”

Ilerna roughly shook off the Marquis’s hand and ran toward the door.

Anywhere was fine. As long as it was a place where she couldn’t see those chilling blue-violet pupils. As long as it was a place where Ibis wouldn’t chase her, anywhere was fine.

“Ilerna!”

The moment the door opened with a bang, the harsh winter wind poured inside. Ilerna ran out without looking ahead.

The Marquis hurried his steps, dragging his uncomfortable leg.

“Wait!”

The moment he stepped outside the door, sound came before sight. The clinking sound of armor colliding.

The Marquis stopped walking. Inside the villa’s fence, black human shadows filled the space densely. They were armed soldiers.

They had no interest in the woman hurriedly disappearing into the darkness. They were only pointing their blades toward the Marquis who had just rushed outside.

A mounted knight stepped forward. It was the Imperial Guard Captain in full dress uniform.

“Marquis Maiheller, by Imperial command, your marquis title is stripped from this moment and you are demoted to the status of a criminal.”

“Cra, crazy. How dare you…”

“The crime of plotting treason against the Imperial House of the Empire. This is His Majesty the Emperor’s stern command to make an example of you.”

It was a shock like being struck on the head. The Marquis opened his eyes wide and shouted.

“Treason! It’s a false accusation. Someone has slandered me!”

“If there are truths to be revealed, do so before His Majesty the Emperor.”

The Guard Captain’s answer was resolute. He showed not the slightest bit of cautious attitude.

There would be no trial. The Grand Duke’s castle of Arkpella had also been turned into a wasteland overnight, and afterward the charge of treason was proclaimed. The fact that the Emperor had sent the Imperial Guard meant he had essentially made up his mind. The meaning that he would cast aside Maiheller and support Talion and Igraine.

‘It’s already too late.’

Belatedly understanding the situation, the Marquis stepped backward.

“Take the criminal away.”

The soldiers who received orders stepped forward. When the Marquis tried to run away, the soldiers all rushed at him at once.

“The Empress Dowager won’t stay still. The Empress Dowager is of Maiheller blood. The Emperor is also of Maiheller bloodline!”

A sturdy soldier instantly grabbed the struggling Marquis’s arm. But the Marquis didn’t give up.

“My daughter is the Emperor’s mother! Even the Emperor can’t do anything to me!”

It was a cry like desperate struggling. Madness dripped from his murky blue-green pupils. The knights and soldiers thought Marquis Maiheller had finally gone insane.

“Ilerna won’t stay still. You will surely pay the price!”

“The criminal seems to have been shocked. His limbs must be preserved intact.”

When his struggling became severe, someone rushed over with rope. The Marquis didn’t stop resisting. At his ear-splitting screams, one soldier hurriedly took out a handkerchief and gagged his mouth.

Though he had a young body where time had stopped, he didn’t have the strength to fend off soldiers rushing in groups. Despite his fierce struggling, the Marquis was eventually tied up completely with rope and dragged away by the soldiers.

…..

Even while running desperately, her legs gave way several times.

“Huff, huff…“

But Ilerna ran. She stubbornly dragged her aged legs that had lost their strength, pushing through bushes as she ran. After running blindly without knowing direction, the hem of her dress that had been torn and scratched here and there finally ripped completely.

“Ahhh!”

Her body lost balance with the same force she had been running and was thrown to the ground.

“Huu, ugh.”

Where was this? How had she ended up in such a place? As if some part of her memory had been cut out, she couldn’t remember.

After her identity was exposed at the palace banquet, the head maid who had been with her for over twenty years disappeared. She was someone who had been with her like hands and feet from the palace, bringing her medicine every day.

Only then did she realize something was wrong. The nightmares that ravaged her mind every night and the hallucinations that seemed to shred her needle-sharp nerves.

No, those weren’t hallucinations.

The countless nights of nightmares she had consoled herself had become reality. The woman’s form that had clung to her sickeningly had finally pushed her into the pit of hell.

On the ground her hands touched as she fell, in the shadows cast under trees, in the bushes swaying in the breeze, she saw the chilling woman’s form.

“Ibis, Ibis, aaaahhh!”

Ilerna grabbed the pile of bushes under her feet and tore them apart mercilessly. As if by doing so, she could tear apart the woman’s form.