Turning-Chapter 926

The hand inside the gauntlet finally revealed itself.

Yuder had wondered if everything might disappear like a mirage or an illusion the moment he stripped it away — but it didn’t. He pressed his lips tightly together and looked down at the hand, grotesquely covered in dark red marks.

It was a wound he had never seen before in his life.

On the back of the hand, there was one glaring wound, so black and rotten that it seemed like a hole had been bored into it, and radiating out from it, the entire skin was chaotically covered in blotchy marks like earthworms. They looked like veins, or like burn scars, yet matched neither perfectly — a bizarre wound unlike anything else. From it, Yuder felt the same cold, bloody stench that had lingered before.

There were, though in small areas, patches of smooth skin untouched by scars. But even those were so discolored it was difficult to tell they belonged to human flesh at all.

Even though it looked like it could crumble away at any moment, the hand somehow maintained its original form without rotting.

Especially, the fingernails that hadn't fallen off and the outlines of bones raised beneath the skin were almost no different from the intact hand of a man Yuder already knew. And it was precisely that point that made it all the more eerie to behold.

Anyone who saw this hand would immediately realize — those were not ordinary wounds.

There was no such wound anywhere in the world.

A weak-hearted person might have screamed at the instinctive revulsion and fear it evoked at first sight.

Yuder stared at the hand for a long time before flipping it over.

The palm looked much the same as the back.

The location of the core wound was nearly identical, but the palm side was even more grotesque and the range was broader.

The word penetration flashed across his mind.

“......”

Slowly, Yuder let go of the hand.

He then carefully pulled off the glove he himself had been wearing.

Revealed beneath was a hand covered in the familiar dark red veins.

It was not exactly a pleasant sight either, yet it was both similar to and different from the hand before him.

It shared the same peculiarity — a wound unlike any ever seen.

And it too spread outward wildly from a central point.

However, unlike the man's hand that was utterly ruined, Yuder’s hand merely held a dark red something within the veins, and otherwise appeared intact.

The condition of the skin, the sensation to the touch, none of it had changed much from before.

Similar wounds meant the cause was the same.

Yet the results were completely different.

The reason was simple and clear.

Yuder had succeeded in recovering after accepting the power from the Red Stone, but the other had not.

Strength drained from his hand.

Yuder let his hand fall limp and exhaled deeply.

His heart thumped so violently it felt like it was pounding in his head.

A memory of something Inon had said long ago faintly surfaced.

The power inherent in the Red Stone was the very source of all Awakeners' powers.

Because it was such a densely condensed, potent essence, Inon had once compared it to poison.

Yuder’s body had succeeded in accepting that poison, managing to coexist with it and mix it into his own power.

He remembered Inon describing it as Yuder having "good material."

But he had also said that such a thing would likely have been possible for Yuder alone — anyone else would have failed to absorb it properly and died.

Yuder had agreed with him.

Kishiar la Orr’s body was undoubtedly powerful.

It had survived without dying despite harboring tremendous strength and talent rarely seen in the world — solely because his body and vessel were that remarkable.

If his innate qualities hadn’t been so good, how could he have endured the extreme training while carrying dangerous powers that most others could hardly bear?

However, even a single person’s vessel had its limits.

Yuder had examined Kishiar’s internal state many times and knew well how precariously balanced his powers always were.

Though the tangled mass of powers had become much more stable than before, maintaining that balance, even with his far greater vessel compared to others, any further influx of power or any excessive disturbance of that balance would have been exceedingly difficult.

It was only because Kishiar’s skill was extraordinary that he could manage to live while handling those powers; had he been even slightly less capable, those powers would have been nothing but empty treasures, forever unusable. freēwēbnovel.com

He had lived his whole life constantly adjusting the balance of his own powers, and would have to continue doing so.

If such intense poison as had entered Yuder’s body had suddenly been injected into Kishiar's...

It would have been no different from the advent of a calamity shattering the world of a single human body.

After all, Kishiar differed from Yuder — who had always possessed the powers born of the Red Stone, who had a body closest to and most familiar with that force.

No one could have saved him.

The hand before him was the fragment of a man, broken so tragically.

“......”

He had expected it, more or less.

He had even encountered the information through dreams.

And yet, seeing it before his eyes — why did it feel so vastly different?

The breath that escaped between his parted lips dispersed so vainly.

No matter how much he inhaled and exhaled, it didn’t feel like he was breathing at all.

Yuder could not grasp the identity of the emotions he was feeling now.

It was the hand of the man he had killed.

And yet, it was also the hand of the man he loved.

Until now, he had believed only the present remained, so he hadn't felt the need to separate or distinguish between the two.

But at this moment, everything was so confused he couldn't make sense of it.

In the boiling silence, Yuder recalled the memories of the man who had never once taken off his gloves.

Even after countless nights spent together, the man had never properly spoken, and his touch, under those pale leather gloves, had always delivered only a cold sensation before departing.

In darkness so deep that even outlines were impossible to make out, Yuder had always had to look at the white-gloved hand gripping his wrist or resting upon his arm, his body pinned down with his hips raised.

Of course, looking back while being pressed down like that was impossible.

That hand, except when restraining Yuder’s movements, had never once properly stroked his face or his skin.

A hand that would silently withdraw as if even accidental eye contact was too much.

Back then, Yuder had wondered if the man wore gloves because he didn’t want to touch a commoner like him.

After all, it wasn’t uncommon for nobles to keep their clothes and gloves on when mingling with commoner mistresses, only exposing the necessary parts to consummate affairs.

And even though the man must have known Yuder harbored such suspicions, he had never offered any explanation — making Yuder believe that it must be true.

The brief, deep sense of misery he had felt during those fleeting nights.

The clumsy, unrecognized expectations that grew uncontrollably with every physical pleasure he experienced.

The nameless, repeated wounds to his pride every time that fragile hope was crushed.

The days when, despite the misery, he realized that the only chest he could lean on was the man’s back.

And the withering sprout of feelings that shriveled each time.

At the same time, he recalled the memories he ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) had newly learned in this life.

The Emperor Keillusa, whose vessel had cracked and whose death was looming, had for years avoided any close contact with his Empress.

It had been years since he had sent only the Empress to official events, and eventually, they had rarely even been seen together.

There came a point when they didn’t even share a carriage.

On the day when everyone risked their lives to repair his vessel, the Emperor, believing he might die, had coldly instructed that the Empress be sent away from his side first.

What a cold attitude for a husband.

If one did not know that a member of the Imperial family with a damaged vessel could, unknowingly, harm or kill anything — people, animals, objects — he touched, no one would have seen any warmth in those words.

If one did not know how deeply Keillusa la Orr had loved his wife.

If one had not felt how desperately his instincts had writhed to see, hear, and touch his wife even once more.

If one had not realized that it was precisely because he treasured and worried for her so deeply that he had to act even colder and more ruthlessly.

Yuder would never have been able to understand him.

And now, Yuder felt pain — an agony infinitely similar to, yet even greater than, that of that day.