The Son-In-Law Of A Prestigious Household Wants A Divorce-Chapter 133: Chasing the Stars

Dust billowed upward, riding the tall spire like smoke from a beacon.

The scene unfolding before their eyes was so far beyond anyone’s expectations that confusion ruled the moment.

“What are you waiting for!?”

Sharen, running with a greatsword slung over her shoulder, shouted to the party.

Her question was simple—why stand around when she had already blasted a clear path?

Prompted by her bark, everyone broke into a sprint.

Thanks to the passage Nureumdol had punched through, they reached the tower in a heartbeat.

The guards who had been protecting it became pursuers instead,

And the Danseongdae scrambled after them in a frantic bid to block their way.

“Ahhh—haaaa—?!”

Nureumdol, eyes spinning and limbs wobbling, was half-embedded in the tower wall, upside down.

Sharen smacked his massive frame a couple of times and yelled,

“Hey! Up you get! We’re moving!”

“I-I can’t… move…”

“What are you talking about!? You’re coming with me! You planning to die here!?”

“I said I’m not doing that—”

With sheer brute strength, Sharen hauled Nureumdol upright.

Despite his bulk, the inner staircase was surprisingly wide—no doubt designed to ferry beast-monsters meant as ritual sacrifices.

Isaac reached the entrance first.

Right on time, Rihanna arrived as well, a blood-spattered greatsword telling how many transcendents she had already cut down.

“……”

She clearly hadn’t grasped all the details, but one thing was obvious:

The tower’s main gate lay in splinters, leaving an opening large enough to charge through.

“Transcendents in the town are in an uproar. Those fanatics, drunk on their creed… they’re more blindly devoted than I imagined.”

Rihanna offered the shortest possible briefing—and a muted impression of how deeply the doomsday zealots’ willingness to die had struck her.

It did buy them time, though, delaying any outside reinforcements.

Now their only task was to scale the tower before the primitive transcendents arrived.

As they climbed, the only sound was each other’s ragged breathing.

Their feet raced for an answer none could yet see, and anxiety clung to them like sweat.

“Issac, are we really—”

Silverna started to speak but fell silent.

If they reached the top… could they cross into the human realm?

Nameless had sworn it: reach the source of the ritual, and passage would open.

And this tower was that very place.

What chased them now was not a host of transcendents but raw unease.

There was no turning back; the instant this had begun, running here became inevitable.

Choosing to flee would have erased every future.

Lingering outside the city would only have drawn suspicion from the condemned, and they’d never have set foot on this soil at all.

‘This is the best gamble we have.’

Trusting that belief, they pressed on.

With every floor, hope and dread grew together, stacking like unstable stones.

Chattering teeth soon found no words left to utter.

Every so often they cut down what looked like spell caster transcendents barring the stair.

Inside, the tower felt first and foremost like a laboratory.

Even as sweat dripped, the air reeked of cold, metallic blood.

Dotted candles at each landing cast a faint glow that somehow deepened the darkness between.

Amid revulsion and horror, Isaac felt a chilling presence sweep overhead.

“……!”

Rihanna and Uldiran jerked their heads up first—too late.

The creature already dangled two soldiers’ severed heads, swinging them idly in one hand.

Eyes black as pitch.

Fanged teeth.

Bat-like wings draped across her back like a cloak.

Tales had long whispered of human-shaped beings that drank human blood.

Now, seeing her, one could be sure such rumors were no idle gossip; someone, long ago, had met this woman.

“So sweet… Human blood is so sweet.”

Hanging upside down from the ceiling, she licked the raw neck stumps to wet her throat.

The smear of crimson round her lips doubled the horror. In that sick dread, Isaac muttered a man’s name without thinking.

“Jonathan…?”

“Hmm?”

“……”

Sharen and Silverna both reacted, peering closely at the woman—

And their eyes widened.

“It—It’s real! She does look like Jonathan! His older sister? Or his mother?!”

“That’s almost exactly how he looked when he went berserk…”

Yet the woman offered no reply. Not indifference, but the sense she had no idea Jonathan even existed.

From the aura she radiated, her overwhelming presence, it was undeniable: a primitive transcendent.

The thought that Jonathan might be of primitive mixed blood was staggering, but there was no room to dwell on it now.

Tossing his name at her wouldn’t spare them, and that was that.

She hadn’t followed in from outside; she’d been waiting within.

Given her bat-like form, she probably haunted the night and had sheltered here till dusk.

Tension spiked, yet the bat-woman remained astonishingly calm—cold, even.

“……”

She fled.

Even for a primitive transcendent, fighting both Uldiran and Rihanna head-on would have been folly.

Yet the ease with which she simply took what she wanted and left—

It was more galling than expected.

Thud!

There was, however, one woman here who could not abide a comrade’s death.

Swish!

Silverna’s spear sliced past the woman’s flank.

Scowling, the bat-woman twisted away, clinging once more to the ceiling, eyes fixed on Silverna.

“Hey, you think it ends just because you turn your back?”

In a flash, two allies who had climbed with them lay dead.

No matter how many deaths she had seen, they had never become familiar, never lost their sting— fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

And Silverna was least of all the type to swallow it.

“……”

The bat-woman’s eyes, blackened until no pupil showed, locked on Silverna.

There was no rage or hate, merely a predator assessing its prey, brow twitching in hunger.

Seeeeeek!

The woman twisted away and fled once more—swift, icy-clear judgment untouched by a flare of rage.

“Hey!”

Silverna called after her, but Isaac threw an arm around Silverna’s waist and pulled her forward.

“Silverna! Get your head back in the fight!”

Silverna bit down hard.

She’d been here before—

losing herself in fury after comrades died, unable to think straight.

Pollu’s death at the battle with the Yeti…

And she was no fool to make the same mistake twice.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

Ripping her throat with a ragged howl, Silverna pounded up the stairs again.

She had witnessed her friends die right in front of her, yet had no choice but to keep moving—for those still beside her.

They fought their way forward, striking down transcendents that remained inside:

Beasts loosed on purpose, casters mid-ritual, the Danseongdae squad charging up behind.

All the while, a sticky dread pressed hard at the nape of Isaac’s neck.

‘Why haven’t the primitive transcendents shown themselves?’

The question lingered, but their feet could not stop.

At last they reached the tower’s summit.

A harsh wind tore past.

From below it had been hidden, but the top of the tower was wide open to the sky.

Under an unusually brilliant silver star stood a stone altar.

Black stains soaked deep into the slab—instantly recognizable as blood gone hard and crusted.

And there—

In place of the long-awaited gate between worlds—

Stood Hellic, the one who had so casually claimed to be Helmut’s forebear.

Beside Hellic, Nameless lowered her head, letting the brim of her conical hat hide a troubled face.

“What you came seeking… is so obvious it’s almost tear-worthy.”

A sneer hovered on Hellic’s lips; his tone was closer to a hum than speech.

A bead of crimson force gathered on the staff in Hellic’s hand, once again taking aim at the party.

“Thinking of crossing into the human realm?”

“……”

“And you believed it would be so easy?”

Anxious guesses hardened into reality.

Had Nameless betrayed them?

No—surely not.

If betrayal were her plan, she would have killed them the moment they met.

More likely even she had never understood how things truly worked here.

“After I received word Uldiran survived the Malidan Barrier, I shut this place at once—couldn’t risk him finding his way here.”

From the stairs below came the rising clamor of transcendents,

A thick, scorching hostility that only primitive beings could radiate.

This was the end of the line.

A gamble for life itself—

And they’d known the odds of surviving were slim from the start.

Everyone had known.

They simply never said it aloud, because surrendering that hope would have broken them before they began.

“……”

Warmth touched Isaac’s hand.

Glancing sideways, he saw Silverna clasping it.

“Hey.”

Hiding the tears that threatened to spill, Silverna squeezed Isaac’s hand, lips stretching into a crooked smile.

“I love you.”

“……!”

The confession slipped out, no louder than a breath.

“I—I—”

“Don’t answer.”

Silverna loosened her grip, then wrapped both hands tight around her spear.

“If you said yes, I’d only regret it later.”

Her fingers trembled, but Isaac couldn’t reach for her again.

Thumb. Thumb. Thumb—

Heavy footfalls, heavy with sorrow.

Stepping forward to shield her master, Nameless fixed Isaac with a flat stare.

“I didn’t expect you to arrive so soon.”

“Nor did we.”

“Nothing ever goes according to plan, does it?”

Bitterness tinged her voice—true, regretful sorrow. She laid one hand on the massive blade at her hip.

In the instant that Nameless’s flash-quick draw was about to signal battle—

“Leave that one alive.”

Nameless froze, turning her head.

Hellic pointed straight at Isaac.

“I’ve thought long and hard about this.”

“……”

“You dealt me a grave insult—calling me, firstborn of the primitive line, a second-rate imitation.”

Hellic’s opinion hadn’t changed.

To him, Isaac’s swordsmanship was an imperfect imitation, built on shaky fundamentals.

“At first I was disgusted—lost sleep night after night wanting to kill you.”

“Felt a little shame, did you?” Isaac tossed back.

A sly smile curled Hellic’s lips.

“Yes. Shame—deep, wounding shame, as though you’d exposed a cancer inside me.”

But this was not the look of a man still ashamed; it was the look of one who had conquered that shame.

“Yet each passing day let me see you differently. Even Helmut’s’s direct heirs never pierced the lie of my sword the way you did.”

“……”

“If I claim you, won’t my blade at last be complete?”

KWA-A-A-ANG!

Hellic’s staff smashed against the floor.

At once a crimson magic circle flared, and the altar began to shift.

His voice rang out with operatic resonance.

“Isaac! Ah—Isaac Logan!”

In this moment that felt like a grand stage play, the protagonist’s eyes were fixed only on Isaac.

“So alluring you are, O man of wisdom! All the knowledge you have amassed through your life—!”

The ritual roared to life. Scarlet light shot out, racing straight for Isaac.

“Offer it unto me!”

Kwon-sok-hwa—the spell that turns humans into the caster’s thrall.

The instant it lunged for Isaac—

High in the black sky,

The solitary silver star blazed even brighter,

As though welcoming the child who had chased it all this way.

– – The End of The Chapter ––

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