Villain Hiring: Help! Author Wants Me Dead-Chapter 225: Redemption

-----------------

The courtyard road of the Romero estate shone with the sunlight just above us, and usually this would make our place look like a shrine.

...but tonight this place only felt more like a graveyard than the home I had sworn to protect.

Each stone beneath my feet felt stained with the blood of my family, as if it knows the sins I've buried deep inside it.

And my grandson?

Noah staggered across the stoned roads, sucking at the air, screaming on something about his powers to nothingness.

It almost looked like he had gone crazy.

His body continued trembling, voice cracking as if something had hit his throat with a lethal weapon.

And his eyes?

Those hazel stones that lately had finally started to look peaceful were now only filled with one thing.

Betrayal.

And the one to do that was none other than me.

Just looking at the boy mad eme feel empty in ways I never thought myself because able to after Dragneel's death.

For all my speeches about sacrifice, for all my decisions hidden under the guise of "duty," the truth now scratched at me with teeth sharper than any monster's.

I was the villain in his story.

I chose to be.

And yet, as I watced

him fall to his knees, stripped of everything that started making him happy, I can no longer tell myself the lie that it was only for the greater good.

Because right now, it feels like it was only cruelty.

I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat refuses to move. My heart ached in a way that even centuries of war never managed to stir.

"I only did what I had to," I whispered under my breath.

"I had no choice."

But the words sounded like a lie.

Because there is always a choice.

I could have told him the truth.

I could have lifted the burden, even just a little, from his shoulders. I could have been his grandfather instead of his executioner.

But I didn't.

And why?

Because of the truth I alone carried. Because I knew what humanity had done... Because I knew that the real Invaders were never the Kalki's to begin with— 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

It was never the Kalki.

No.

The real invaders were us...the humans.

All those decades ago, when we had found the existence of another race, it was us who had decided to venture in the space and try to contact with the otherworlders.

We stole, we conquered, we drove them to extinction, and when the truth became too unbearable, we painted ourselves as the victims, the righteous, the chosen.

I lived through that history. I watched it unfold with my own eyes, and I've carried its shadow in my chest ever since.

If only I had let Pixie tell the truth to Noah beforehand...maybe then we would never be in this situation to begin with—

The sound of stone cracking pulled me back to the present.

My eyes snaped toward the source, and there the creature stood: the Kalki.

The creature looked like a nightmare made in flesh.

Jagged horns tore out from its skull, curling upward like cruel spears. Its eyes burn a deep red, wide with fury, yet shadowed with fear as it looked down at Pixie's fallen form with nothing but reverence.

The black bodysuit armor clinged to its frame, more than six feet of muscle and menace, obsidian sword scraping sparks from the courtyard floor.

His voice tore the night apart:

"How dare you lay a hand on my princess!?"

The words carry the weight of another age, sharp and venomous, ringing like bells of doom.

He stared at all of us with hatred so deep, I could almost feel it searing into my skin.

Noah pushes himself forward, stumbling towards the beast, his fists clenched.

I don't know what happened, but it almost looked like he had somehow lost his powers.

Unfortunately, for a being such as the Kalki, it threw him aside like a rag doll.

The boy coughed blood, his body skidding across the stones, and I...

I almost felt my heart break.

My legs trembled as I saw the monster holding my grandson in the air with it's hand on his neck.

And in that instant, what I saw wasn't Noah but Dragneel...

My son.

The scene made my mind reel all those years back when I had been in this same situation once.

When I'd been too damn helpless to help my son.

Something clicked inside my mind as I finally came to a conclusion.

I won't let history repeat itself.

Even if the world burns for it.

Steeling my jaw, I stepped forward.

My voice remained low, but it carried a sense of echoing in the stillness of the courtyard. "Don't you dare touch him!"

The Kalki tilted his head towards me as I glided towards him with my dagger in hand, my shadow body activating in full thrust.

For so long, I convinced myself that all I did, all I sacrificed, was for humanity.

That my sins would one day balance out in the scales of history.

But tonight, here on these cold stone paths, I finally understood.

I wasn't saving humanity.

I wasn't saving the world.

I was only trying to save him...

My grandson.

***

A/N: Please support me with power stones, golden tickets and specially gifts.

Also do note that this volume is about to end soon.

I'll be mass uploading a massive amount of chapters from now until the end of this month!!

Do read all you want and have a happy reading.

The more coins you spend on this book the faster I upload!!!

That would help me motivating myself into writing more enthusiastically for y'all!!

500 coins worth gift = 1 bonus Chapter

1500 coins worth gift = 2 bonus Chapters

3000 coins worth gift = 5 bonus Chapters

Magic Castle = 7 Bonus Chapters!!

I hope you can help me make this world of Noah's a better place—

Yours truly,

Bearateme_