Holy Night: My Husband is Definitely a Paladin - Chapter 261

Cecilia stumbled backward, her face drained of color. Then she tripped over a pile of gold coins and fell.

The things she had valued most were now useless in protecting her.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

That loud pounding continued. A normal person would have stopped out of sheer exhaustion, but outside, Michael kept hammering at the door.

It rattled her mind, like it would go on until the end of the world.

Cecilia curled in on herself, hugging her arms.

Just hold on a little longer. Once this uproar is widely known, once the knights stationed outside the palace return, once everyone realizes something is wrong and they all attack Michael…

Her teeth, chattering in terror, clacked dully.

It shouldn’t take that long. Or even if it does, surely it won’t be more than two days.

She’d be trapped in here with nothing to eat, but if it meant staying alive, she could endure that, right…?

“…?”

Suddenly, the banging on the iron door stopped.

For a moment, she wondered if he was taking a break, but even after a considerable silence, there was no further sound.

‘Did he give up?’

Perhaps he thought she’d escaped elsewhere and retreated. Or maybe the knights outside had forced their way in and he’d fled.

Of course, he could also be feigning departure, waiting for her to come out.

But if he really had gone…

Then this might be her last chance to escape.

Cecilia trembled uncontrollably, at a loss.

If Michael were still out there, waiting… then she’d be trapped inside, eventually starving to death. Alone.

The mere thought made the fear of death surge even stronger.

No. She couldn’t die like that.

She was born with purification abilities said to be unmatched.

Everyone had bowed their heads to her. Even those arrogant people of the fortress had acknowledged and praised her.

She’d amassed a fortune from dungeons with her abilities, and now only a life of splendor and happiness should have awaited her.

She couldn’t believe that everything had collapsed because of that wretched woman.

‘No. If I can just get out of this predicament…’

She could seek help from another kingdom. Or, considering what he’d done, he was now the continent’s enemy.

No matter how strong he was, he couldn’t survive with the whole world against him. Just kill him, and—

Creeeeak.

As Cecilia schemed about how to kill Michael no matter what, the iron door gave a loud groan and began to open slowly.

Through the gradually widening gap, Cecilia saw a face she recognized all too well.

It was her father—the king of Visconti.

“Father…!”

The moment she realized it was him, she nearly burst into tears.

Michael wasn’t out there after all. Her father was here, which surely meant Michael had already been subdued. So she just needed to get out and—

But as Cecilia moved closer to him, she sensed something off.

Her father wasn’t standing.

His feet were floating about a hand’s span above the floor.

That wasn’t the only odd thing.

The king wasn’t blinking at all. His gaze was fixed on nowhere.

Moreover, this so-called king had let his tongue loll out, hanging from his gaping mouth, without a shred of dignity.

His face, once so flushed from years of feasting and drinking, had turned paper-white.

“Fa…ther…?”

There was no response. Instead, the king’s body slumped forward with a quiet thud, and Cecilia failed to catch him.

Thump.

As his body hit the floor, the arm that had been inside his thick coat rolled free.

Cecilia stared at her father’s dismembered body. Slowly, she lifted her head.

Standing at the entrance was a man in red.

He was drenched in so much blood that you couldn’t even tell the color of his clothes, his hair, or his eyes.

And so Cecilia knew at once who it was.

Michael.

“Hiiiek…!”

Uttering a wretched noise, she toppled to the ground.

Blood from the king’s corpse seeped into her clothes and palms, but she was too terrified to notice.

“As I thought—of course the king could open it.”

So saying, Michael stepped into the vault.

He had guessed that the princess might flee here, so he’d come straight to this place.

He had killed anyone who tried to block him on the way, as well as everyone who had been at the fortress with the princess.

Many had fled, too. But he could hunt them down later—for now, the immediate matter came first.

Yet the vault where Cecilia hid was locked tight and would not open.

He might have eventually forced it open by continuing to hammer on it, but Michael wanted to kill the princess sooner.

So he returned to the banquet hall to retrieve the king’s corpse.

He had hacked the body to pieces so thoroughly that putting it back together would have required a basket. Luckily, the king’s coat was lying around, and Michael stuffed the mangled remains into it, piece by piece.

And the moment he brought the king’s corpse back to the vault, it opened.

Sure enough, an artifact’s power allowed only certain members of the royal family to unlock it.

Michael kicked the king’s corpse away from his feet and strode toward Cecilia.

“S-Spare me… please…”

Cecilia, by this point, wasn’t even capable of thinking about what to do.

No—she simply couldn’t.

Because Death itself was striding toward her.

She recalled what had been said about that bracelet on her wrist—about having ‘one last chance’.

Run away.

Until Death comes for you again.

She had to flee.

Far, far away, never looking back.

No matter how grueling or how hungry she might get, she had to keep running from this death that pursued her.

But… she couldn’t do it.

Michael raised his sword slowly.

“Ah… ah…”

Cecilia, tears streaming down her face, collapsed before him, pressing her palms together in silent pleading. She didn’t even dare to beg for her life.

All she could do was implore the mercy of the Holy Knight Michael—the man who had once been so kind and helpful to everyone.