Transmigrated as the Villainess Princess - Chapter 231

Chapter 231: Consumed by Darkness (3)

The sky was washed in a pale hue of gray, with clouds trailing lazily over the blood-kissed horizon. Rohzivaan stood in the middle of the open field, the wind teasing the long strands of his dark hair as his eyes remained fixed ahead, motionless, unblinking, and soaked in cold determination.

The grass beneath their feet was still wet from last night’s storm, and the scent of damp soil clung stubbornly to the air. Richmond, a few steps behind his brother, kept glancing between the solemn landscape and Rohzivaan’s rigid figure, unsure whether to speak or walk away. But he couldn’t ignore the tension vibrating off his brother like an invisible scream.

“What now, Rohzivaan?” Richmond finally broke the silence, voice tight with concern. “You’ve been coming here every day. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep. What are you planning?”

Rohzivaan didn’t answer at first. He tilted his chin upward as if drawing strength from the overcast sky. Then, with a voice carved from unwavering conviction, he said, “I want to be so strong that I could defeat the remaining demon gods and save Ahcehera from having problems in the future.”

The statement hung in the air like a thunderclap. Richmond stared at him, eyes wide. “Have you gone mad?” he snapped, stepping closer. “Defeating a demon is no ordinary matter! You couldn’t even match up with our mother! Just take a look at how strong her power is! You can’t possibly surpass her, not in years, not even in a century!”

Rohzivaan turned his head slowly, his gaze meeting Richmond’s with a fire that made the younger man’s stomach churn. “I will,” he said, softly but fiercely. “I must. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. I will die for Ahcehera if I must.”

“Brother, you have gone mad!” Richmond shouted, his voice cracking from frustration. “You’re not thinking clearly! You’re still bleeding inside, and now you want to fight gods?”

But Rohzivaan didn’t flinch. His eyes were hollow, but his stance was firm. Madness, maybe. But it was a madness anchored to purpose. Richmond stared at him, waiting, hoping, for a sign that it was all just grief speaking, that his brother would blink out of the haze of suffering and come back to him.

But he saw none. Just a void that burned with obsession. Without another word, Richmond turned and walked away. As he did, he glanced back one last time and caught it, just a flicker in Rohzivaan’s eyes, like a soul screaming behind glass. And it scared him. It chilled him more than their mother’s wrath ever could.

Rohzivaan was no longer walking the edge of madness. He had already jumped. Alone again, Rohzivaan exhaled and let his head drop forward. The bond was gone, severed like a guillotine through the soul, but her presence haunted him worse than any shadow. He had not healed. He hadn’t even begun to.

But grief had no room in the life he was building now. It was a weapon, and he would sharpen it until it could cut through anything. With every sleepless night and every breathless hour under cursed training, he carved himself into a being meant for war. And it wasn’t just training.

He had begun constructing something, something that terrified even him. Deep in the forge room beneath the palace, where molten veins of the earth met demonic energy, he had started assembling a war mecha unlike anything seen before. He didn’t have blueprints. He didn’t need them.

The designs lived in his head, twisted and precise, born from sleepless obsessions. Metal limbs stretched across the chamber like skeletal wings. He infused each joint with sigils burned in blood. He melded armor plates together with the heat of a fallen star. He didn’t ask for help.

No one could be trusted. No one could understand. This mecha wasn’t just a machine. It was an extension of his will, a puppet that could harness demon power if he succeeded. A vessel that could destroy what his mortal hands could not.

His fingertips were raw from carving ancient runes. His voice was hoarse from whispering forbidden enchantments. The power he tried to channel into the mech was unstable, wild, and dangerously sentient. More than once, it had rejected him, nearly tearing the shell apart. But Rohzivaan persisted, welding the cracks, repairing the failures, refusing to yield.

It wasn’t about perfection. It was about obsession. His hands trembled constantly now, not from weakness but from the strain of constantly suppressing the fury bubbling within him. Demonic energy was a cruel master, and it demanded more each time he reached for it.

His body had grown leaner, his skin paler, his veins glowing faintly beneath the surface, as if something unnatural now pulsed inside him. He didn’t care. Let it consume him. Let it burn every human part left in him.

If it brought him closer to power, closer to protecting Ahcehera’s future, then he welcomed it. Even if she would never know. Even if she never saw him again. Every clang of metal in the forge was a scream he could not voice. Every bolt he drove into place was a promise he would not break.

He had lost her once. He would never let the world touch her again. He didn’t know if she was safe now. He didn’t know if the severance had left her whole. He tried not to think about it, but in the rare moments when his mind drifted, he could almost feel her scent again, her warmth, her laughter. And it ripped him apart.

So, he forced himself back to the forge. Back to the pain. Back to the madness. Because madness was the only thing that made sense anymore. He kept pushing, kept building, even when his body screamed for rest, even when his vision blurred. He drew power from ancient wells, channeled it through circuits designed from cursed algorithms, hoping, praying, it would obey him. And sometimes it did.

Sometimes, the puppet moved. Just a twitch. A blink. A sound like a breath. But it was enough. It meant progress. It meant that he was not entirely broken. Not yet. His room had become a battlefield of components and shattered mirrors. There was no bed anymore. No softness. Only blades, wires, and blueprints written in blood.

Richmond had stopped coming to check on him. Maybe it was better that way. Rohzivaan no longer spoke much, not even to himself. He grunted when something burned him, chuckled dryly when a test failed spectacularly. But he never cried. He couldn’t.

Crying was for those who had hope. All he had was purpose. And pain. And the relentless, choking silence that followed him like a second shadow. If Richmond saw him now, he would say again that he had gone mad. And maybe he had.

But it was a madness with a name. Ahcehera. And if madness was what it took to forge a new future, then so be it. He would wield it like a sword. He would stare the gods in the eye and carve his vengeance across the stars. Not for glory. Not for peace. However, because his love had been severed, the only thing left was war.