The Yellow-Haired Villain in Soaring Phoenix's Novels Also Desires Happiness Chapter 558: Deep Darkness

"Help... help..."

"Soone, save ..."

"Ah, monster, don’t co over..."

The night was still deep.

But the terrified shouts and the thick stench of blood had already broken the tranquil tone of this district.

Everywhere were burning flas, crowds screaming and fleeing, flowing blood, and... monsters roaming in the dark.

The monsters were ferocious and horrific, their eyes crimson and bloodthirsty. Who knew how many innocent people had already beco food in their mouths.

People had nowhere to flee and, in the end, could only instinctively flee toward that alluringly lit, peaceful, and quiet place on the other side of the river.

"Please, lower the bridge..."

"I still don’t want to die, I don’t want to die..."

"The monsters are coming, the monsters are coming! The bridge! Lower the great bridge, quickly."

The crowd at the bridgehead grew and grew, and naturally drew along more Beastkin in pursuit. The powerless people gathered here and humbly begged the guards on the far side of the great bridge.

Their answer, however, was a face turned slightly pale by fear yet still cold.

"The bridge cannot be lowered."

The man on horseback shouted to his subordinates:

"These are orders from above. We absolutely must not allow those monsters, and those rioters, to enter the Upper City!"

"But..."

One guard glanced at the other side of the bridge, hesitating to say sothing, but the sharp horsewhip had already fallen on him, leaving a clear bloody mark on his body at once.

"Do you want to disobey orders?"

The man roared:

"Or do you also want to beco one of those lowborn wretches?"

"I..."

The guard trembled and, in the end, lowered his head, not daring to say a single word.

Thus, the great bridge that symbolized hope still remained raised high and did not descend. Amid terror and curses, people gradually sank into despair.

The hungry Beastkin advanced with low growls. The cries grew ever more mournful, and so people were so afraid they hadn’t even the strength to cry anymore, collapsing limply to the ground, praying to the Goddess again and again in their hearts.

"Goddess above, I beg You... save , save my child..."

Prayer did not receive the Goddess’s response, but that woman who was cradling a swaddled infant suddenly felt a trace of chill on her cheek.

She opened her eyes and saw desolate snowflakes falling from the sky.

Snowing? In this season?

In a daze, she stretched out her hand and caught a few flakes.

Whether it was an illusion or not, as the snow lted in her palm, it actually made her feel very warm.

"Roar!"

The mindless Beastkin would not halt their steps because of a moving snowy scene. They finally could no longer suppress their craving for blood-food and, with howls, pounced toward the crowd.

It seed that a bloody feast was about to be reenacted here, that hell’s dire vista was about to unfold here...

But...

"Fall."

A cool voice instantly pressed down countless cries of terror.

The snowflakes rustled down. What they brought ordinary people was a reassuring warmth, but what they brought the Beastkin was... a terrifying extre cold.

Ka.

In an instant.

Frost froze.

Pale ri, in but a single mont, covered the entire street.

The crowd was still screaming in terror, but those dozens of ferocious Beastkin had already halted at a place only a hair’s breadth from them.

As if ti had stopped.

Only after a long while, when they did not feel death and pain descend, did the people open their eyes—and what they saw were lifelike ice sculptures, one after another.

The infant in the swaddling clothes flailed its hands and feet excitedly, revealing an innocent smile at this novel "magic trick."

"Th-this is..."

The still-shaken people looked around left and right and finally, on the other side of the bridge, saw a silver-white figure.

"What is going on?"

Celicia stepped down from the carriage. Her incomparably beautiful face was as overcast as snow as she glared at the man before her:

"Why didn’t you lower the great bridge? Why are you watching those citizens die miserably under the monsters’ fangs with your eyes wide open?"

"This..."

The man was long since no longer lofty as before. Wiping the sweat on his brow, he wore a fawning face:

"Your Highness, these are orders from above, ant to protect the stability and safety of the Upper City. It truly was a helpless asure. I am only following orders."

"Whose orders?"

"That..."

"I asked you whose orders." Celicia’s tone was icy.

"It—it was Count Charles, who is responsible for maintaining public order in the Upper City."

"Where is he?"

"He..."

The man still wanted to prevaricate a couple of lines, but under Celicia’s gaze that seed almost to freeze him, he didn’t even have the courage to lie and could only stamr out an answer:

"As per usual practice, at this ti he should be with one of his lovers..."

"In other words..."

Celicia cut him off:

"At a ti when sothing this great is happening in Belrand, that Count Charles is still trysting with his lover?"

"Please calm your anger, Your Highness. Lord Charles likely didn’t expect things would be so serious, and he has already, from the Upper City’s standpoint, made the best..."

"Three minutes."

"Eh? What?"

"I said, three minutes."

Fixing her gaze on the man, Celicia said, word by word, without any emotion:

"Three minutes from now, if that dutiful count doesn’t appear here in person with dicine, food, and personnel to maintain order... then I’ll throw him—along with you—into the river to feed the fish."

The man’s face changed, and he gave a forced smile: "Your Highness, this kind of joke isn’t very..."

"Do I look... like I’m joking?"

Celicia suddenly took a step forward. The fierce wind and snow swept in, freezing the man’s chattering teeth in an instant.

"You now have two minutes and fifty seconds."

"I—I’ll go right now!"

The man dared not hesitate further. He hurriedly vaulted onto his horse and disappeared down the wide streets of the Upper City.

Celicia turned her head again, her cold gaze fixing on those guards still standing dazed:

"What are you still in a daze for? Lower the bridge!"

"Y-yes!" the gatekeepers answered loudly, swiftly pushing down the chanism to lower the bridge deck.

Amid the thunder of chanical operation, this bridge connecting the Upper and Lower City finally closed and opened through once more.

The survivors, having escaped with their lives, stumbled as they hastened over from the far side of the bridge, as if walking in a dream. Terror and despair from just now still clung to their faces.

Only when they truly saw that silver-white young lady walk up to them did they suddenly awaken to the fact that they had survived.

But before they had ti to thank this universally known princess, imnse sorrow shrouded these people, because they could not help rembering that, in this upheaval, many others had not survived.

"Your Highness..."

"Your Highness Celicia..."

"Why—why must we go through this... did we do sothing wrong?"

"Uuu... my children turned into monsters. My wife died in a monster’s mouth protecting . Why, why did it beco like this?"

Celicia walked straight toward these people.

She looked at the pain, numbness, and sorrow on these people’s faces, looked at them kneeling before her, their bloodstained hands clutching the hem of her skirt and asking questions she too could not answer. Her slender fists gradually clenched, her nails sinking into flesh.

On her incomparably beautiful face, not the slightest change could be seen, like perfect ice that would not lt for a thousand years.

Yet hot blood dripped between her fingers, drop by drop, becoming blooming crystal flowers in midair.

"Sorry."

She could only speak thus in a low voice, because any words now would be extrely pale.

After passing them, Celicia looked again at those ice sculptures. On those ferocious faces one could still vaguely see traces belonging to humans.

Only, most of what related to humanity had been replaced by fearso Beastkin forms. Even the closest family mbers likely wouldn’t recognize how they looked at this mont.

"Beast Blood."

Celicia murmured softly.

Her sight shifted to the ss-ridden streets.

Tonight, who knew how many people had been hard. Though compared to the vast population of the entire Lower City it might not be worth ntioning, the number certainly wouldn’t be small.

"Inner Council."

Continuing forward, carriages and horses passed by her side. But because they were traveling too fast, the person in the carriage seed not to notice Celicia’s identity.

Celicia glanced from the corner of her eye and swept over that prominent family crest on the carriage.

"Old Nobility."

Very soon, she stood in a high place and looked into the incomparably deep night and darkness.

By her orders, and under the direction of several others who had co to their senses, the lost order was finally reestablished. The guard corps that had vanished for a whole night once again patrolled the streets. Yet even after she watched quietly for a long ti, she did not see among these people the one who most ought to appear.

If it was as she guessed, then as the victor, for him, at such a ti, wasn’t this the best mont to show himself?

Or else, after sweeping away obstacles, was it that, for him, such disguises were already beneath him?

"Albert... ‘Royal Brother.’"

"Your Highness."

At her side, Veil, with a face full of worry, delivered a letter:

"New information has arrived."

Celicia took the envelope, quickly skimd it, and then handed it back to Veil again.

"As expected—just as I anticipated."

"Anticipated..."

Up to now still baffled over many matters, Veil opened the letter, read it swiftly, and then her eyes suddenly widened:

"His Highness Andrew... is dead? Dead in a monster riot? His Highness Albert is also seriously injured? But happened to be saved by Marquis Angus? How could such a thing occur?"

Veil felt her brainpower was a bit insufficient. However, for such a thing to happen ant...

"It’s over, then."

She asked: "This struggle for the throne—over, right? President?"

"Over... is it?"

Celicia lowered her head and looked at her palm.

Under deliberate suppression, the wound in her palm still had not healed. Bright red blood was flowing out of it.

That blood was bright and looked no different from an ordinary person’s blood.

But as silver-white strands of hair drifted across her eyes, that blood seed, again, a little special.

Because what many had forgotten—or rather, what many had not cared about—was...

The blood in her body was the sa as that of the deceased Second Prince Andrew and that First Prince Albert, who was becoming the empire’s center overnight.

That was the purest Imperial Royal Blood.

"No."

Celicia clenched her hand sharply.

She lifted her head and stared straight into the deepest darkness before dawn. Scenes she had just witnessed flashed through her mind. Beneath the calm frozen lake, there was sothing like molten lava, surging in rage.

She murmured in a low voice:

"It isn’t over yet."