Chapter 130: You Made My Husband Suffer!
Gwen gripped her Silver Blade and moved at a brisk pace, leaving behind a trail of shallow imprints across the snow.
Looking at the Northern Frontier's fortress before her—identical to the one in her mory—she felt no particular stir of emotion.
The Knights, seeing Gwen after so long, stood to attention in 2 solemn rows and bowed deeply.
"Miss Gwen, welco back."
The Knights held great respect for Gwen—not simply because she was the youngest daughter of the Delin Family.
More than that, it was her inspiring story of a resilient woman who had risen to beco Grand Knight Commander that filled them with boundless admiration.
But the Miss Gwen who would always return their courtesies in kind was, at this mont, completely ignoring them.
She drifted past them carrying nothing but an air of utter coldness.
This left countless Knights thoroughly bewildered.
What had happened to Miss Gwen?
Was she angry?
Nobody knew.
All around, the cold steel structures of the fortress rose within the castle walls, flickering with a silver sheen.
The familiar wooden cabin was already gone without a trace—nothing remained but a pile of rubble and blackened marks, buried beneath a thin veil of white snow.
All the way through, Gwen passed those familiar steel structures and stepped into a secluded stone fort.
The blue-tinted castle emanated wave after wave of bitter cold, and the desolate chill that seeped from within had always unsettled young Gwen as a child.
But now, she walked toward its entrance without the slightest hesitation.
The Family Knights standing guard before the castle recognized Gwen.
From a distance, they bowed to her and pulled open the large creaking wooden doors.
Gwen returned to this place for the first ti in a long while. Compared to her mories of it, it felt even more desolate than before.
Kavra was not here.
These past days, she had been running herself ragged, doing everything she could to deal with the Family's wanted notice on Viktor.
But she was not a Knight, after all. Her authority was lacking.
The words Kavra spoke were not enough to convince those Knights.
Gwen walked into a room and turned her gaze toward the corner.
Her father, Angus, still wore the sa vacant expression.
He was kneeling on the floor, eyes dim and lifeless, staring blankly up at the sky.
He had been like this for many days now.
Not eating. Not drinking.
Had it not been for Angus's extraordinarily powerful physical constitution sustaining him, he would have long since starved to death on the floor.
Jaxiu, likewise, lay paralyzed in bed—there was not a single place on his body that did not ache.
He lay there with blank eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The burns covering his body would not be recovering any ti soon.
Viktor's magical flas seed to carry a particularly peculiar effect.
No amount of recovery Magic could properly nd the injuries on his body.
It was as though sothing was resisting the Magic Power of any healing spell at its very source.
He could only rely on his body's own natural recovery to slowly heal.
Jaxiu lay there in the room when he heard soone enter.
"Who is it?"
He strained to lift his head and saw a silver-haired woman in silver armor slowly approaching.
She was looking at him with cold, detached eyes.
Jaxiu's entire body was swathed in white bandages, leaving only his eyes and mouth exposed as he lay feebly on the bed. A servant had been feeding him; when Jaxiu saw Gwen enter, he forced out words through a ragged, parched voice:
"Leave us."
That he could even speak at all, after being engulfed in those flas, was sothing to be grateful for.
Once the servant had swiftly gathered everything and left the room, only Gwen and Jaxiu remained.
Gwen looked at Jaxiu with cold eyes, her voice flat and distant:
"The people of the Northern Frontier…"
"I'm the one who had Father do it. So what?"
Jaxiu looked back at Gwen just as calmly, forcing out words through his ruined throat in an even, unhurried tone.
Gwen detected no particular emotion in how he spoke.
No urgency. No anger. Just an excessive, unnerving calm.
As though he were describing sothing entirely ordinary.
A flash of cold light—the longsword at Gwen's side was pressed against Jaxiu's throat.
"I could kill you at any mont."
Not a trace of feeling showed in her eyes.
When Kavra had held her dagger near Jaxiu's throat, Jaxiu had known she could never go through with it.
Because Kavra couldn't.
Kavra placed enormous importance on family ties and the bonds of the Delin Family.
But Gwen was different.
Even if the person before her was her own half-brother.
For the sake of upholding the justice in her heart, Gwen was capable of striking the killing blow.
She knew exactly how ruthless the man before her was.
If one word could describe Jaxiu, it would be this: a "savage beast" who would resort to any ans necessary to achieve his ends.
His humanity had already been extinguished.
Jaxiu looked at her without the slightest trace of fear.
"Gwen, I envy you."
"You are so free—you can even fight for your own dreams, your own convictions."
"That is why we are different."
Once you stood in a certain position, so things were simply no longer within your control.
Jaxiu's gaze still held a faint smile as he spoke slowly.
"From the mont I was born, my worth had already been decided."
"Inherit the Family. Defend the North."
"But you have never stopped to consider—the North spans such an enormous territory, and our periter cannot cover everyone…"
"And so you ignore their cries for help, letting the Savage Beasts pillage freely across the North, leaving your own people with shattered hos and broken families."
The cold blade pressed against Jaxiu's throat. Gwen's face was reflected in the steel—a faint glimr of icy light.
Living in the Northern Frontier, the more she saw, the more furious Gwen beca—the more deeply she felt the boundless, unforgivable sins her brother and father carried in their cold indifference.
All the honeyed words in the world could not wash away the countless lives on their hands.
"Ha…"
Jaxiu narrowed his eyes, slumped on the bed.
"Then do it."
He looked as though her actually going through with it would co as no surprise to him whatsoever.
As though he had long since prepared himself—offering his neck willingly to the blade.
But ti dragged on, and still, the sword in Gwen's hand did not fall.
It wasn't because of family bonds.
It wasn't because Gwen wanted to place her trust in Jaxiu one more ti.
She simply gave her sword a cold flick, then slid it back into its sheath.
Frigid words followed—cutting like permafrost.
"You will receive the punishnt you deserve, Jaxiu."
"But it is not for to pass judgnt on you."
Jaxiu froze at what Gwen said.
"…Why?"
Jaxiu stared blankly at Gwen. The single pair of eyes left exposed by the bandages glimred faintly with confusion.
Those who carried true justice in their eyes could not abide even a grain of sand. Before Father had beco this way, he had operated by exactly that principle.
Once evil took root, justice would annihilate it without rcy.
If that kind of justice truly lived inside Gwen, she would have let the sword fall.
And so Jaxiu had already made his peace with death.
But the Gwen standing before him now was nothing like what he and his father had envisioned.
She shouldn't have had emotions like these—thoughts like these.
Gwen seed to have changed sohow.
Yet this change was not what he had hoped for.
The feeling that Gwen gave him now—
The woman she was now felt more like… a person?
Gwen's eyes carried an utter coldness. She gave Jaxiu one last indifferent glance, then walked toward the door.
She paid no mind to the dazed look on her older brother's face as she turned away.
She walked out through the door and stood on the threshold.
The mildly warm sunlight fell upon her Cold-Iron Armor, casting a faint shimr.
Gwen drew in a long, slow breath—like soone finally released from a burden.
Taking in the unmistakably crisp bite of the cold around her, she simply waited in silence.
At last, after so ti had passed, a voice rang out loudly from beyond the castle walls.
"Viktor is at the city gates!"
The words had barely fallen before countless Knights assembled, ford up in full order.
The clanging of armor and the grating noise of tal on tal rang out noisily from outside.
Gwen, too, made her move.
She tightened her grip on the sword at her side and stepped unhurriedly toward the city gates.
***
At this mont,
Viktor rode atop the Giant White Bird, hovering high in the sky above.
Fierce winds raged all around him, whipping the accumulated snow up in surging waves several ters high.
The Knights were lined up before the fortress like a solid silver wall.
Viktor looked down at them from his elevated position, his expression cold.
Countless Knights wore faces of grave solemnity, tilting their heads back to stare up at Viktor as though facing a mighty enemy.
Weapons in hand, waves of shock rippled through the assembled crowd.
"What's going on? Why is Viktor in the sky?"
"What is that Giant Bird?!"
Atop the silver wall of soldiers, 1 Knight pointed up at Viktor and shouted in a trembling voice:
"Viktor! How—how dare you co back!"
Viktor's terrifying strength had long since spread across the entire Northern Frontier.
Yet even among these stubborn northern Knights, there were always those too reckless to fear death.
They had never stopped believing that Viktor's cris were unforgivable.
In the Northern Frontier, who didn't know what the Delin Family's presence ant?
They were the rulers of this desolate land.
Strike the Delin Family?
Wasn't that the sa as slapping the face of every Knight in the Northern Frontier?
But Viktor was suspended high in the sky—even if the Knights wanted to seize him, there was essentially nothing they could do.
Before long, however, a silver figure erged from within the ranks of Knights and stepped slowly out through the castle gates.
Viktor narrowed his eyes, bringing the newcor into focus.
It was Gwen.
She wore an expression like frosted ice as she tilted her head back, looking up at Viktor with a cold and detached gaze.
The mont the Knights saw Gwen appear, it was as though they had found their anchor.
Faint smiles broke out on their faces imdiately—as if glimpsing hope—and even their postures seed to straighten noticeably.
"It's Miss Gwen!"
"With Miss Gwen here, we'll definitely be able to bring Viktor down!"
The Knights grew animated. Their eyes were practically shining.
At last, Gwen slowly drew her Silver Blade.
The Knights followed suit, pulling the swords from their belts in kind.
At the mont when everyone expected Gwen to move against Viktor and subdue him—
Gwen turned around.
She faced the assembled Northern Frontier Knights directly.
In the wind and snow, her silver hair scattered into the air, shielding Viktor behind her.
Sword in one hand, Gwen's face held no expression—if anything, it carried a note of glacial indifference.
"In the na of Gwen Delin, I hereby revoke the wanted notice on Viktor Clavena."
"Anyone who objects—step forward."
As countless Knights stood frozen in blank confusion, Gwen planted her Silver Blade before her and drove it hard into the snow-covered earth.
She faced thousands of Knights without flinching.
Like a pure and indomitable goddess standing firm against the howling cold.
The wild wind swept through with a torrent of ice and snow, engulfing all eyes.
That single flash of silver-white—it left them all in a daze.
In this mont, the one standing before them was the true Knight of Justice.
She who speaks for the weak and the wronged.
Where injustice exists in this world, let the sword be what ends it.
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