The Son-In-Law Of A Prestigious Household Wants A Divorce-Chapter 118: Failing Grade

“……?!”

It was a sight that made Isaac’s eyes fly open.

Though his life had almost been snuffed out in an instant, embarrassment loomed larger than the relief of still breathing.

The fact that a Transcendent had vanished was every bit as sudden—and thick with implications.

“What in the world just—”

The moment Marlin voiced her doubt, the other Transcendents lunged in, giving them no time to think—almost as if they meant to stop them from analyzing what had happened.

Screams, groans, and tears burst forth beneath the unbroken assault.

Ironically, the battle line soon settled into a single, brutal rhythm.

If they swung first, they would only show an opening and get stabbed for it.

So instead they braced themselves, enduring or slowing the Transcendent’s strike in a purely defensive stance.

Whenever a Transcendent attacked someone, everyone else pounced on the gap it left.

On paper it sounds like an ordinary, defense‑oriented tactic—waiting for an opening—but what met Isaac’s eyes was something entirely different.

“Ugh!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Shi‑ii‑ii‑it!”

It was waiting—waiting for a comrade to die.

They sacrificed a comrade’s life to wound a Transcendent.

The source of this c𝓸ntent is frёeweɓηovel.coɱ.

One by one, they fought as though offering their friends to an evil god.

Such was the war between Transcendents and humankind.

There was no victory without blood, and even after victory came only tears and regret—not cheers.

For that reason the Transcendents were nightmare and terror incarnate to humans.

“Grrr…”

“All that useless thrashing.”

There was, however, one thing—both strength and weakness: they possessed intelligence equal to or greater than humans.

The instant they grasped how they fought, hesitation crept in.

Even a Transcendent cannot help but feel fear or revulsion at a style that trades life for life.

They had gathered naturally into a knot: humans bunched together, forever ready to thrust swords and spears over a comrade’s corpse, while the Transcendents drew back, unsure how to counter.

Another foul wind blew.

Space twisted—and yet another Transcendent disappeared.

“…….”

Panting, Isaac kept turning over in his mind the phenomenon he’d just witnessed, but lack of air cut his thoughts short.

“Damn it! Don’t you fall back!”

“Stand here and we’re finished!”

Moments ago they were the frantic ones. But after watching their fellows vanish one by one, the Transcendents now rushed them in desperation.

“Hold the line! Even if I don’t kill it, my comrade will!”

At Leivice’s roar, everyone answered with a shout, raising swords and spears like a porcupine’s quills.

A person falls—then a Transcendent falls.

While that rhythm continued, at last the thunder of hooves rolled across the field.

“They’re here! Reinforcements!”

“The red banner—it’s Helmut! Helmut has come!”

Only on the battlefield can one feel the true weight and meaning of the name “Helmut.” In that moment, Isaac understood why, in his past life, soldiers praised and revered Helmut as something sacred.

‘Finally…’

With Marlin propping him up, Isaac let out a ragged breath. Leivice lay half‑buried among corpses, still twitching—so at least he wasn’t dead.

“She has arrived,” Marlin whispered—her own way of urging him to hold on. Isaac wiped away thick drops of blood and steadied his breathing.

“Dammit…”

Growl!

“We should fall ba—”

The name Helmut shook not only allies but enemies as well. Isaac watched the Transcendents backpedal when they saw the crimson great‑sword surging forward like a wave.

“Arandel is already dead! All that’s left is that hollow shell you call Helmut—!”

The goat‑horned Transcendent’s final words never found breath—

A crimson greatsword streaked in like a mage’s bullet and lopped its head clean in two.

Blood‑Rose.

Remembering the meaning of that name, one could hardly call it a pleasant epithet:

A rose steeped in blood—

Beautiful, yes, but all the more cruel, bristling with thorns.

Rihanna Helmut stood motionless, fist around the greatsword’s hilt.

Her scarlet eyes swept the battered left flank; the instant they found Isaac still upright in the front rank, she released a breath so faint no one noticed.

Haa—

Silently she raised Ragnabel and strode toward the Transcendents.

“Damn it—! Rihanna! Quit charging off alone! My blade is every bit as—!”

Lohengrin spurred his horse in pursuit, then vaulted from the saddle; the mount toppled and rolled, but the madman—madman—landed, falling in behind Rihanna.

That set the right‑flank troops surging after them: Helmut knights in full mail.

Among them, Isaac spotted Sharen and even Jonathan, who’d joined the fray despite his wounds.

Helmut’s arrival swung the battle hard in their favor.

Those who moments ago had stood atop their comrades’ corpses now wept and laughed at once.

“We… we lived.”

“Oh—Goddess…!”

“Helmut! Ah, Helmut!”

“Kkhf… Daren! My friend Daren!”

Death spared neither high nor low; common soldiers, knights, even nobles of the Pure Flow Association closed their eyes alike.

“Brother…”

At Isaac’s shove, Marlin hurried off. Shoving two bodies aside, she uncovered Leivice, breathing by a thread.

“Th‑thought I’d be trampled dead,” Rayahn rasped, then bumped his fist to Isaac’s.

“Those who live—are the strong.”

Isaac offered no reply, only watched Rihanna meet the Transcendents.

Her red‑lit greatsword carved a flawless arc.

Perhaps fury over her meager showing against the Heukgyeon still burned; she radiated an overwhelming force that harkened back to Arandel Helmut himself.

Claang!

The blade split nothing but air—the Transcendents were being sucked, one by one, into swirling pockets of space.

Few bodies fell, yet the fight itself was ebbing out.

“They wield the strangest magic… or did they call it rituals?”

“It’s… off. Something’s off.”

Rayahn spat a double string of curses. “Those crazy bastards—”

“……!”

Space warped again; new Transcendents burst out in every direction.

A grotesque spectacle: appearing from nowhere, vanishing just as fast—

And, stranger still, they clearly couldn’t control it. They blinked in confused, fought confused, blinked out confused.

Sometimes it helped them, sometimes it doomed them.

‘Something here just doesn’t line up…’

The hints were starting to click when—

Claaang!

A thunderous blast ripped the air. Isaac bolted, questions shackling his mind but time offering none.

“Master—!”

Blood‑shot eyes, full sprint.

“Isaac?!”

“You wretch—where are you running?!”

“I‑Isaac—!”

The Helmut siblings shouted after Isaac as he tore past, but he was already running full‑tilt, legs screaming with every stride.

‘Please—please!’

The Grandmaster had single‑handedly faced the very source of the Helmut line and its disciples.

That alone could be called the greatest deed of this battle—but only if she still lived.

“Master—!”

Life is what gives those deeds meaning—how bitterly ironic, Isaac thought, urging soldiers toward death yet praying his own teacher would survive.

To him, the Grandmaster was irreplaceable.

And now she lay on the ground: clothes ragged, blood pouring out in dark sheets.

Her limp body held not a shred of strength; her eyes were gently closed—

And a massive saber was buried deep in her chest.

“M‑Master…”

The Primitive Helmut standing nearby grinned when he spotted Isaac.

“So you’ve come? Ah, what could we do? Traitors merit only death. Believe me, we wished to show mercy of some sort.”

Number Two narrowed her eyes at the twin sabers in Isaac’s hands, as if measuring something.

But Isaac had no room to care.

“M‑Master…”

His voice trembled like a child’s sob.

Going closer terrified him—yet not going closer was impossible.

Staggering, he knelt beside her.

Only a breath—thin as a spider’s thread—answered him.

‘Not yet.’

She was still alive.

“Yes, indeed. Still alive,” the man said, reading Isaac’s thoughts, shrugging with a crooked smile.

“I’ve never fished myself, but they say you bait a hook with living worms, yes? Ah… once we conquer this land, fishing is the very first hobby I shall try. Picturesque, isn’t it?”

Isaac glared, tightening his grip on the blades.

With leisurely scorn, the man jabbed the staff slung over his shoulder into the earth—

Claang!

A whirlwind of blazing red aura poured forth, shaping itself into a gigantic greatsword.

Even compared to Arandel Helmut, the amount of power was overwhelming—vast enough to blot out the sky.

“Do you call a worm on a hook alive? Its fate is the same as the fish that swallows it.”

A taunt: whether Grandmaster or Isaac, the end would be no different.

Isaac drew a slow breath and faced him. “There were… so many questions.”

“If that’s a last testament, I’m afraid I—”

“Too proud to admit you were copying, are you?”

Slowly—very slowly—the man’s smile slid away.

Scarlet eyes flooded with hostility fixed on Isaac; the mask of composure cracked.

“‘Primitive Helmut,’ huh? Dressed it up in fine words. You figured with Arandel gone no one would notice.”

Perhaps he was right. Even Rihanna might not have realized—

Because his appearance does fit the name: the child surpassing the parent, the disciple overthrowing the master—roles reversed.

The way one accepts that reversal differs.

The Grandmaster would have beamed at a disciple who surpassed her, would have praised and embraced them.

But he—he was different.

“You must have seen it in Arandel and understood,” Isaac said.

The progenitor of Helmut—it was undeniably true that the man stood at the fountainhead of the line.

Yet—

“You knew you could never defeat him.”

The moment he realized raw power alone could not outstrip Arandel, the “parent” began to envy, deny, and ultimately imitate the child.

So he delayed invasion again and again—until Arandel disappeared.

“You thought no one would ever find out.”

But here stands the man who has admired Helmut more than anyone, who has studied them inside and out.

Beyond even Arandel, there is the one called the Shadow‑Blade.

“All that mixing and matching in your so‑called imitation—what a mess.”

The man’s face twisted, frozen in fury.

Toward him, Isaac delivered the verdict, cold and razor‑sharp:

“From the way you hold your sword, you’ve failed. Second‑rate.”

It was a failing grade—.

– – The End of The Chapter ––

[TL: Join Patreon to support the translation and to read up to 5 chapters ahead of the release: /readingpia

Join our Discord server for regular updates and have fun with other community members: invite/SqWtJpPtm9 ]