CHAPTER 199: WELL-FED HYPOCRISY AND HUNGRY GOODNESS (3)

Isabella smiled as she looked at Damian, who had stepped out from behind Paolo.

“You must be... Mr. Damian Salvatore.” She kept her emotions tightly controlled, naturally speaking as if nothing had happened. “It’s an honor to meet you. I’ve heard many heroic tales about the Sword of Justice.”

She gracefully lifted the hem of her dress and bowed elegantly. Her movements held a noble grace that didn’t match the grotesque label of a witch.

Damian scoffed as if dumbfounded and glared at her. “Ha. So you’ve been deceiving people all this time with that shameless act?”

“It seems there’s been a misunderstanding,” Isabella said.

“A misunderstanding? You call this a misunderstanding?” Damian’s face twisted with fury. “Can you still call it that even in front of your father, who raised you?”

He glanced at Paolo and took a step back.

Paolo nodded slightly and stepped forward. “We’ve already gathered all the evidence.”

Isabella cocked her head innocently. “Evidence? Father, I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

“You’ll know exactly what I mean after seeing this.”

Paolo pulled out a remote from his coat with a wicked smile. He pressed a button, and a projector beamed a video onto the wall.

“Krrrk!”

“Kheeee!”

The footage showed Isabella covered in a blood-red aura, massacring tens of thousands of monsters swarming toward her.

Isabella's gaze went cold as she stared at the video. Her expression shifted. Now she understood who was behind the monster incident in San Fruttuoso.

She clenched her trembling fists and glared at Paolo.

“This was your doing, Father?”

“Hmm? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Paolo shrugged with exaggerated innocence. The look on his face mirrored Isabella’s when she was bluffing.

“All I know is that my dear princess, known as the Saintess of Rome, isn’t even an Awakener of Aries but of Leech. The kind that feeds on human blood.”

Isabella bit her lip.

No one who saw the video would still believe she possessed the Stigma of Aries.

“And we also caught the little tail you attached to Mr. Damian.”

Paolo signaled with his eyes. Damian nodded and dragged someone forward.

“Mmmph! Mmph!”

The gray-haired old man’s butler uniform was stained with blood. Roberto writhed in Damian’s grip. The Stigma of Leech visibly glowed through his torn uniform.

Damian removed the gag from Roberto’s mouth.

“Pwah!”

“Do you know this woman?” Damian asked.

Roberto calmly shook his head.

“I’ve never seen her before.”

“Is that so?”

Damian reached for the sword at his waist with a cold glint in his eyes.

“That’s right. I’m not an Awakener of Aries, but an Awakener of Leech.”

“Lady Isabella!” Roberto gasped in shock as Isabella nodded in acknowledgment.

A gleam of triumph lit Paolo’s eyes.

“But so what?” Isabella said.

“What?” Paolo said.

“Watch the video again. What does not being an Awakener of Aries have to do with being a witch? Are you saying I was wrong to kill monsters and protect people?” Isabella questioned them confidently and straightened her back.

Paolo frowned. “An Awakened of Leech must regularly drink human blood. If that doesn’t make you a witch, what does?”

“Ha. Do you think we’re like vampires from a movie? The blood pack you just poured out on the ground is more than enough to sustain me.”

In truth, she had never killed anyone for blood. Even during her earlier more unstable years, she had never killed anyone from the bloodlust. She had attacked people and drank from them, but never to the point where they died.

“If needing someone else’s blood to live makes you a witch, then leukemia patients must be witches too.”

Of course, Awakeners of Leech were different since their Stigma induced a much stronger bloodlust. Isabella tactfully left that part out.

Paolo narrowed his eyes and glared at her.

Her poise was so unwavering that even he briefly almost believed her logic, but this wasn’t a courtroom. It was a place of judgment.

He had prepared something in advance and already expected her to react like this.

“This video isn't the only piece of evidence.” Paolo snapped his fingers lightly.

A group of people draped in luxury brands marched forward. They were the heads of branch families that Isabella had personally subdued after taking control of the family’s power.

“This is a report showing that a fixed amount of blood goes missing every month from the shelter that witch runs!”

“She only runs that shelter to embezzle blood!”

“Who knows? She might even be capturing people and forcing them to give blood! No, she must be!”

“Seeing what the Black Star Society did in Korea and Japan, it’s obvious what she’s capable of too!"

The family heads shouted with veins bulging in their necks.

Most of their claims were just malicious speculation without any real evidence. At this point, what did it matter? They only wanted to paint Isabella as an evil witch by any means necessary.

Isabella hollowly laughed at the hateful accusations. “Ha.”

From the start... you never had any intentions of listening to anything I had to say.

Logic wouldn’t prevail here.

“Don’t spout nonsense! Lady Isabella has never—”

“Silence.”

Smack!

Damian swung his fist and knocked out Roberto.

“Can you still say you're not a witch?” Damian asked.

Isabella tightly shut her lips.

What was the point of denying it now? Would anything change even if she said it wasn't her doing?

They got me.

She had already lost the moment Paolo found out that she was an Awakener of Leech.

“I was utterly shocked when I first learned the truth. I couldn’t believe that my beloved daughter was a vampire who killed humans and drank their blood...” Paolo’s eyes glistened with tears. “How... how could you do this to your father? How could you deceive me like this?”

He grew more emotional as tears trickled down his cheeks.

“Say something. Anything!”

“You want me to explain?” Isabella smiled weakly. “Would you even listen if I did?”

“Ah... I still can’t believe it. My sweet girl, just why...” Paolo grimaced in agony. “This is all my fault, isn’t it?”

He deeply sighed and turned to Damian.

“Mr. Damian. Please... please save my daughter from the evil that has consumed her.”

“Yes.”

Damian nodded and unsheathed the sword at his waist. The scales of justice hanging from the sword’s cross-shaped guard jingled with a clear chime.

Clink.

Isabella looked at Paolo with sorrowful eyes.

How did it come to this?

How had things fallen apart so completely?

All I ever wanted was for things to go back to the way they were.

She thought of the photo she secretly kept in her drawer. The one with her father, mother, and sister all smiling together.

She only ever wanted to return to that happiest moment of her nearly forgotten childhood. Was that truly so wrong?

Perhaps convinced of victory at the sight of Damian holding his sword, the family heads shouted and pointed at Isabella.

“Kill that witch!”

“Kill her! That evil witch must die!”

“You filthy bitch!”

Their hatred rang throughout the crumbling mansion.

The heads of the branch families, stripped of all their power and privileges after Isabella took control, finally vomited all their long-suppressed resentment.

“Kill the witch!”

“The Sword of Justice will punish you!”

“Vampire scum!”

“You wicked witch!”

“Do you know what you’ve done to us?”

“This is all your fault!”

“You devil!”

“You cold-blooded witch!”

“This is your karma!”

“Make the witch pay for her sins!”

“Disgusting bitch!”

“Die!”

“We’d be better off without you!”

“Kill the witch!”

They directed their malice, hidden under the umbrella of righteousness, at Isabella. They howled for the witch’s death as if they were righteous judges punishing sin.

Isabella slumped down in place as if all strength had left her. She clutched her chest and curled into a ball.

It hurts.

Was it because of the curse, or was it because the hope she had so desperately longed for had been utterly shattered?

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Her chest ached as if a sharp blade was stabbing her relentlessly.

Mr. Oh-Jin.

Suddenly, she wondered what he was doing right now. He had gone sightseeing with Ha-Eun yesterday. Maybe they had gone out early to do the same thing again today. The fact that he hadn’t shown up, even with the mansion crumbling around them, likely meant he wasn’t inside.

That’s a relief.

At the very least, she didn’t want him to find out that she was a vampire who lived by drinking human blood. That she was a filthy, wicked witch.

“It seems you have no intention of denying it anymore,” Damian said.

Damian stepped toward her and slowly raised his sword. There was still a fair distance between him and Isabella, but that distance meant nothing to someone who wielded the power of light with the Stigma of Libra.

His raised sword blazed with a radiant light.

Woong!

“I’m aware that you’ve cared for countless people. Those with nowhere to go, the starving, and the abandoned...”

She had operated dozens of shelters that probably saved tens of thousands.

“However...”

If all that kindness came from a secret desire to harvest their blood instead of genuine goodwill...

“Then you’re nothing but a filthy hypocrite.”

Like a guillotine blade falling, Damian’s sword slashed through the air. The dazzling light from the blade surged toward Isabella.

A thunderous roar shook the air.

Boom!

The ground in the mansion cracked violently from the impact.

“Huh?”

Isabella definitely heard a deafening sound, but didn’t feel a single thing. Still curled on the floor, she slowly lifted her head. In front of her stood a pitch-black spear crackling with blue lightning.

Crackle, crackle!

She recognized it instantly.

A young man landed on top of the rubble.

“What a load of absolute bullshit.”

He stepped in front of Isabella as if protecting her.

“Even hypocrisy can be a kind of goodness, you dumbass. You’ve probably never given so much as a dime to anyone in your life, but here you are acting all high and mighty.”

Kwon Oh-Jin spat out a thick wad of phlegm and flipped Damian off.