Transmigrated as the Villainess Princess - Chapter 245

Chapter 245: A New Direction (9)

Liliana stood quietly on the balcony of her room, her gaze cast over the city of Sirius below. It was nearing midnight, but the capital never truly slept. Lights sparkled gently from the central towers, and the distant hum of hovercrafts drifted through the cool night air. The stars were especially bright tonight, scattered like divine runes across the velvet sky.

A soft flutter drew her attention, and she extended her hand without looking. A red sparrow landed gently on her fingertips. From afar, it looked as if she were merely admiring a peculiar bird in the moonlight. But those who knew her, truly knew her, understood that Liliana Bloodstone never entertained idle hobbies.

The sparrow chirped once, then twice. Liliana tilted her head slightly as the encrypted transmission reached her ears through a spell laced into the bird’s heartbeat. She closed her eyes and listened, her expression unreadable.

Another failed assassination attempt. Interesting!

The report was brief but clear. The first demon god had deployed a high-ranking assassin to infiltrate the Mors Dukedom. She didn’t make it out alive. Riezekiel had dealt with the threat personally, again. The fifth attempt this month.

Liliana exhaled slowly, dismissing the sparrow with a flick of her fingers. It took flight with a small trill, vanishing into the night like a sliver of living flame. Her pale fingers tightened around the balcony railing, the cool marble pressing into her skin as if to anchor her thoughts.

When she first entered the Sirius Kingdom, no one had expected much of her. She was the adopted daughter of Ahcehera, the only princess of her generation, but even that title came with questions.

Her mother was a warrior, a strategist, a legend who had fought in the Western Campaign and returned stripped of her magic. People spoke of her in whispers, sometimes in awe, sometimes with fear, and sometimes with thinly veiled pity.

Liliana had no intention of becoming a decorative heir.

She had watched her mother closely since the day she stepped into Sirius. Watched how Ahcehera held herself with effortless grace, how her eyes sometimes looked too far away, as though chasing something, or someone, lost to time.

Liliana learned to read the subtle flickers of pain behind her mother’s smiles. And one day, in the silence of Ahcehera’s private study, she found it. The truth. Her mother had lost her mate, not in battle, not to betrayal, but to fate. The bond had been severed.

Liliana spent months piecing together names, history, and bloodlines. She traced the records, hacked into old archives, and searched through nearly a century of royal and military data. It was all scattered and deliberately buried.

Whoever had erased Ahcehera’s past had done so much work. But they hadn’t accounted for Liliana’s intellect… or her stubbornness.

She found the name first.

Riezekiel Mors.

And then, the stories. The war records. The list of awards. The eulogy from the Agartha’s Academy, proclaiming him dead nearly ten years ago. A hero. Her mother’s childhood best friend.

Until now.

He wasn’t dead.

He was alive.

And he was the only person living in the Mors Dukedom, the forgotten ruin on the edge of Sirius territory, a place whispered to be cursed and crawling with shadows. The place her mother used to visit in her childhood.

Liliana narrowed her eyes. She trusted her instincts, and something about Riezekiel didn’t sit right. She dug deeper. Days turned to weeks. And the deeper she went, the darker the truth became.

He wasn’t just a hero. He wasn’t just someone who’d gone missing. He was born in the demon realm.

There were signs of corrupted magic signatures, marks on his early academy transcripts that were redacted after graduation, and one hauntingly old surveillance record from the Black Star Archives, a place no human or celestial had touched in over two hundred years.

How was he even alive at that time? This is confusing, but someone looked just like him, yet his birth here in Sirius is different. He’s not even 30 years old.

It showed a younger version of Riezekiel entering a realm gate… a gate that led directly to the First Ring of the Abyss.

No one survived that place.

Except for him.

Liliana felt a chill as she recalled the last part of her research, the part that haunted her even now. The assassins weren’t random mercenaries or rogue enemies. They were coming from the inner circle of the demon realm. Directed by the First Demon God himself.

Each assassin carried a sigil only found in the deepest layers of the Abyss. Each of them had one mission. Eliminate Riezekiel Mors.

That made no sense. Why would the demon god target one of their own?

Unless…

Unless Riezekiel was something far more dangerous.

A traitor to the abyss. Or worse, a vessel of something sealed. Something the demon realm feared.

Liliana closed her eyes, her hand still resting on the cold stone railing.

“I will protect you, Mother,” she whispered into the night.

She had made her choice the moment she learned the truth. She would not allow her mother to be hurt again. She had watched Ahcehera carry too much, fighting wars, leading soldiers, and pretending to be whole when the bond that should’ve kept her grounded had been cut by unknown forces.

Liliana would not let her suffer more loss. If Riezekiel was truly dangerous… if he was part of the reason her mother had lost everything…

She would stop him.

Even if he had once been her mother’s best friend. Even if, deep inside her, something strange stirred every time she looked at his records, like a forgotten song she couldn’t name.

A knock echoed from the doorway behind her. She turned to find Eros standing at the threshold, his silver armor gleaming faintly in the moonlight.

“You’ve been out here a while,” he said quietly. “Are you thinking about her again?”

Liliana gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m always thinking about her.”

Eros walked closer, his gaze drifting to the stars. “The capital feels… different tonight.”

“It’s because the balance has shifted,” Liliana replied. “There’s too much energy moving behind the curtain. Too many old players waking up.”

“Riezekiel?”

“Yes,” she answered, her voice hard as steel. “But not just him.”

She stepped away from the balcony, her cloak fluttering behind her like midnight smoke.

“Send word to the Black Heralds,” she ordered. “And recall my hidden unit from the Third Ring.”

Eros blinked. “You’re mobilizing them? But that division is sealed by…”

“I’m unsealing it,” Liliana said sharply. “I’ll take full responsibility.”

Eros nodded after a pause, recognizing the glint in her eyes. “Understood.”

Liliana walked past him without another word. Her next move had already been decided. If the demon god was moving his pieces, then so would she. But unlike the rest of them… she wasn’t just a player.

She was the daughter of Ahcehera.

And she would rewrite the game.