CHAPTER 74: OVERSIGHT

Gasps from the audience filled the room. The crowd was stunned into utter disbelief as soon as those words escaped Axerion’s lips.

Vedis walked up to the altar and began arguing with Axerion and the servants. This did not only paint the image of the Venilons in a bad light but the whole empire’s as well.

Soon, it was all chaos. No one understood anything anymore.

But Dhein instantly knew something was wrong. It wasn’t that she had impure intentions for their marriage.

’I need to get to the bottom of this...’

Impure intentions in marriage, as defined by their religion, referred to marrying someone for ulterior motives. And Dhein didn’t have a trace of doubt that Shina wasn’t that kind of person. He was sure something shady was going on.

He glanced at her, and he saw through the veil her worried expression.

Shina turned to him as well, her eyes full of fear.

She removed her veil, revealing her face with intricate make-up on, and then spoke.

"It’s not that I doubt our gods, but I’m absolutely certain that what your father said is wrong. I do not have impure intentions in marrying you."

He nodded and then calmly replied.

"I believe you. I know something went wrong."

"But..." she mumbled.

"What could have possibly..."

And before she could finish her sentence, her face suddenly became deathly pale.

The glint in her eyes disappeared and then suddenly, she collapsed to her knees.

With widened eyes, Dhein watched in terror as Shina tried her hardest to suppress her screams. She clutched her head as though she was in intense, unbearable pain.

He immediately crouched down to her level and gently held her shoulders. Meanwhile, the servants frantically moved to call the medics and the crowd began to panic.

"Shina! Shina, what’s wrong?!" he yelled.

Fiorelle jumped in and, with a worried expression, began using her powers on Shina.

When Dhein saw this, the dots seemingly connected by themselves.

Fiorelle had unrequited feelings for him.

Something went wrong with the wedding ritual for an unknown reason.

And now, Shina was just suddenly in pain.

’So that’s how it is.’

He almost didn’t want to believe it, but there was no other way to look at it. Fiorelle had meddled with the holy grail and used her powers to cause pain in Shina’s head, stopping the wedding.

Instinctively, Dhein pushed Fiorelle away from Shina, making the girl fall to the floor.

The child of spirits stared at him with widening eyes. Her face was full of shock and questions.

As much as it saddened Dhein, this was the only explanation he could think of. If anyone were to pull something like this off, it would be a witch like her.

"D—Dhein... why did you push me?" Fiorelle asked.

Everything was still a mess. Shina was suffering and the crowd was disorganized.

Vedis and Axerion’s argument was growing worse. At this rate, this could cause a feud between the two families.

Perhaps, it all got into Dhein’s head and that was why he was able to say what he was about to.

"You know the answer to that, Fiorelle."

She still wore a confused expression.

"What?" she muttered.

"I heard your conversation with Zarria yesterday."

He saw the blood draining from her face as her eyes opened wide, her pupils dilating.

"You even promised not to cause problems. Why did you do this?"

As he said that, everyone looked at Fiorelle with questioning eyes. Gossips about her quickly spread across the hall.

"So she’s behind this?" a noble whispered.

"Apparently, she’s also in love with the scion of divinity."

"It makes sense now!"

The murmurings continued to grow until the whole crowd was talking about her. And the worse part is everyone now thinks she’s a homewrecker.

Dhein looked around and saw the results of his carelessness.

Fiorelle was visibly hurt.

When he was about to take back his words and say that he didn’t have concrete proof for this, Shina suddenly quieted down.

She was still gasping for air, but it seemed like her pain had subsided.

Dhein forgot about everything and looked at her. He helped the princess stand up and everyone waited for the events to unfold.

"Are you okay now? What happened to you?" he asked nervously.

After catching her breath, Shina responded with trembling voice.

"Memo...ries"

"Memories..."

"Memories that... aren’t... mine."

Dhein furrowed his eyebrows, trying to understand what she meant.

The next events prevented him from being able to process everything that had happened.

Suddenly, they heard a sharp, deafening explosion from the beach. Soon, the guards in the venue were alerted and told everyone to evacuate.

A battle against a powerful demon seemed to have begun.

But before anyone could even move, bright pillars of light appeared and encased everyone.

It was no ordinary light. Like an energy caused by dark magic, these mysterious pillars contained every person in the room individually.

Shina’s light pillar was looking particularly bright and almost abnormally dark in the middle.

It took a while, but Dhein recognized what this was.

It was from a book he’d read a long, long time ago. When the ancient spell "Teleportation" was being cast, a bright pillar of light would consume the targeted area. Any human touched by the light in that volume of space would then be teleported.

The consistent lights were lower level teleportations. The target could be moved within a few hundred meter radius.

The contrasting pillar of light was the most advanced. It could take the target anywhere the caster wanted in this world.

And Dhein was certain that the caster was a demon.

They still hadn’t given up on abducting the princess.

He didn’t even ask why. Dhein felt his heart almost skipping a beat. With less than a second to react, he used every ounce of willpower within him to push Shina out of range of the pillar of light.

As a result, he ended up being the one encased by the pillar.

These pillars of light glowed intensely and produced a ringing hum. There was no more time, the inevitable came.

Before she knew it, Shina was standing all alone in the venue, and everyone vanished without a trace.