Chapter 344
"Regarding what happened back then… it might be better if we… we…"
Buuuk!
However, right after those words of greeting or inquiry about her condition slipped from Ilux's mouth, a reaction was finally triggered.
Without any pause for prolonged thought, without the logical considerations that usually preceded her every action, Aldraya moved her head.
The flat expression she usually wore, one that never reflected the storm within, was now mechanically repositioned to face Ilux.
The movement was sharp and precise, yet utterly devoid of any readable emotion.
Her crystal-like eyes captured Ilux's image across from her, yet it was as if she were looking straight through him, piercing past his existence toward something only Aldraya herself could see.
Then, she began to move.
The foot that had been planted on the corridor floor lifted and stepped forward.
Her first step resonated loudly within the sudden silence that formed around her.
She did not walk quickly, nor slowly, but at a measured, threatening pace, like a pendulum beginning its swing.
Yet, more terrifying than her steps was what followed behind them.
The dense dark aura that had previously gathered and churned behind her body now surged forward, closely following Aldraya's every movement.
It was no longer a static backdrop, but a living entity fused with her motion.
The darkness flowed like an invisible yet tangible cloak, forming small vortices and bursts around her feet and the hems of her uniform.
With every step Aldraya took closer to Ilux, the dark aura advanced as well, as if expanding its domain of influence, swallowing light and sound around it, making the once brightly lit corridor suddenly feel narrow, stifling, and filled with unspoken threat.
'If I apologize again, she'll definitely think I'm just trying to save myself.But if I stay silent or try to justify myself, she'll only grow angrier. Is there a middle ground?'
Inside his mind, Ilux's thoughts spun wildly, like grinding wheels trying to crush solid panic into fragments of executable plans.
He thought, and kept thinking, carefully weighing every possibility under the time pressure imposed by each of Aldraya's approaching steps.
An instinctive calculation took place in his head, balancing every remaining option.
He knew, with piercing certainty, that no sweet words he could weave, no matter how elegant the apology, would ever be able to change the harsh and disgraceful fact of what he had done that night.
That fact was a permanent stain, a sin embedded between them, and words were nothing more than wind incapable of erasing it.
Yet on the other end of his spectrum of choices lay an option that seemed more honest but just as dangerous.
Admitting that he had faltered, expressing regret, might sound like a step toward atonement.
But to Ilux, such an act was not a solution.
It was a form of social, and possibly physical, suicide.
To confess his wrongdoing before Aldraya in a situation like this was tantamount to voluntarily handing the sharp hilt of a knife to the former angel.
He would be offering his own neck, allowing Aldraya to hold the tool to slaughter him, whether metaphorically by destroying his reputation or literally through the dark power now clearly following her.
That was not a choice befitting a survivor like him.
Thus, he was trapped between two chasms.
"I will not kill you, neither now nor later. I will even continue to watch over this former student of mine."
Hhhh!
"However, never forget this one thing. The only reason I restrain myself is Theo's prohibition, which binds my hands from harming you.
But if one day I find your hands once again staining another woman, your head will be hung as my final trophy."
Fuuuuh!
"No scream of Theo's will be able to stop me."
Now, while those reveries and complex calculations still raged within his mind, Ilux failed to realize that the distance between them had completely closed.
When he finally shifted his focus away from his internal thoughts, what he saw was no longer a distant figure, but an academy uniform and white hair already standing at an intensely intimate distance before him.
Yet, contrary to all the anticipation of physical violence looming in his mind, Aldraya did not slap him, did not swing a fist to shatter his skull, nor launch any attack at all.
Instead, with calm and fluid movements, she chose to step forward.
The feet still clad in low-heeled shoes took two more steps, then stopped, placing her body extremely close to Ilux.
With almost terrifying precision, Aldraya tilted her body, bringing her flat, pale face close to Ilux's right ear.
The atmosphere fell utterly silent for a moment, as if every sound in the corridor had been sucked into the darkness surrounding them.
Then, Aldraya's voice finally broke through, delivering a few cold, clear words directly into Ilux's eardrum.
Her message was concise, yet heavily laden.
At its core, Aldraya conveyed that Ilux did not need to worry.
She would not kill him, ever, even in the farthest future imaginable.
More than that, Aldraya promised to continue safeguarding Ilux's status as her former student, a statement that sounded paradoxical yet carried the binding meaning of protection.
However, the next sentence whispered into his ear was a line that must never be crossed.
Aldraya clearly underlined that the primary reason behind this restraint was a direct instruction from Theo, who strictly forbade her from causing harm, let alone death, to Ilux Rediona.
Yet the clause was sharp and lethal.
If Aldraya were to discover, for a second time, that Ilux intended or committed any indecent act toward any woman again, then all promises would vanish.
Aldraya would not hesitate.
Ilux's head would be taken as a trophy, a horrific warning to anyone harboring similar intentions.
The threat was spoken in a tone so flat and certain that it felt far more terrifying than a scream of rage.
And she emphasized that when that moment came, no scream of Theo's, no matter how loud, would be able to stop her.
After those final words settled into the air, Aldraya pulled her body back.
Without giving him a chance to respond, without a parting glance or even a nod, she turned and left.
Her steps this time were swift and resolute, leaving Ilux frozen in place, with the whispers of threat and promise still echoing in his ears, while the remnants of the dark aura accompanying Aldraya slowly evaporated, leaving the corridor brightly lit yet feeling utterly different for the protagonist who had just received the most harrowing conditional pardon of his life.
'Cold, dark, and sadistic. Exactly like that bastard Theo.'
At first, Ilux stood motionless.
His entire body and consciousness froze, rooted in place as if he had become part of the corridor's landscape, which had just been struck by a storm of silence.
He observed a moment of stillness, or more precisely, he was paralyzed by the shock of that brief yet harrowing encounter.
His thoughts and senses refused to function, granting his trembling nervous system a pause to settle.
He let that state persist, waiting until the physical threat he had felt was truly gone.
However, only after the measured sound of Aldraya's footsteps no longer echoed off the marble walls, and the dense dark aura that had made every hair on his body stand on end had completely vanished from the area, was Ilux finally able to move.
He let out a long breath, a deep, trembling exhale, releasing all the pressure trapped within his chest.
To be continued…