Novel Full Chapter 360: The Truth
Chapter 360: The Truth
[Don’t worry, host… it’s nothing harmful. She’s fine don’t forget, she’s a vampire now. It might be harmful for humans, but it’s nothing serious for a vampire. Though she’ll definitely be in pain, since all of this is happening because she’s trying to resist the blood command. Honestly… that’s very commendable. She must have an incredibly strong will; otherwise, it would be impossible to resist it. But don’t worry.. she can’t stop it. Just keep pushing. She’ll become incapable in some time. It’s just that you haven’t fully learned how to use your blood command yet] Villey said inside Razeal’s head, as if worried that, if he didn’t, Razeal might stop here and not push any further.
Razeal frowned slightly as he listened understanding very well what the system was really trying to say.
“Not that I wouldn’t have..” he replied coldly.
“I don’t care. I was just… confused by what she said. Nothing more. Like she’s not lying? Right? After all.. how could that man possibly be relevant here anyways? And didn’t she kill him herself?”
[She can’t lie to you, Host. Not when you’ve given her a command. And… sure. Whatever you say, I totally believe it -_- ] Villey responded somewhat sarcastic at end.
Razeal’s eyes narrowed further, a trace of confusion surfacing. Even after the system confirmed she wasn’t lying, he still couldn’t understand how that man had anything to do with this. As for the last part of Villey’s words, he ignored it.
His focus snapped back to Merisa. She was still fighting.
Her body trembled violently now, muscles locked in place while her will strained against the command suffocating her from the inside. Blood ran freely from her ears, streaking down her jaw, dripping into the darkness below. Her eyes were red.. too red tears and blood mingling together as her breathing came in broken, shallow gasps.
Razeal watched it all with a face carved from stone.
Only his fingers betrayed him, twitching faintly at his side.
But still
“Your husband,” he said suddenly, his voice flat and precise. “Why?”
The question was direct. No emotion or any hesitation.
Merisa’s eyes widened in raw panic.
Her lips parted, then clamped shut again as if she were biting down on the words themselves. Her entire body convulsed, shoulders jerking as she tried.. desperately to resist.
“Arghhh!” A strangled sound tore from her throat.
Her face twisted in agony.
“Because…” she tried to say, but the word broke apart into a sob.
Blood spilled faster now, dark and thick, staining her chin, her collarbone, her trembling hands as she instinctively raised one to cover her mouth.
Razeal face tightened at this scene.. But still he..
“Why,” he repeated, not louder, not harsher..just final.
The authority pressed down again, heavier than before.
Merisa gasped, her eyes suddenly hollowing, pupils shrinking as if her mind were retreating inward to escape what was being forced out. Her jaw locked again, teeth grinding audibly as she tried to stop herself.. But she couldn’t
“…Because your father..Was a Rapist.”
The words barely made it out. and as they did..Her eyes suddenly went empty hollow, like something inside her had collapsed. She clamped her mouth shut, as if trying to swallow the words back down…But sadly it was too late.
“Rapist…?” Razeal frowned slightly at the word. He didn’t know this. He never had.
A deep crease appeared on his face as he tried to process it. Honestly, he didn’t know much about that man at all. The man had been dead before Razeal was even born. So how could he know? Even in the novel he had read, there was barely anything mentioned.. except that the man was killed by her because he was her brother. Other than that, there was nothing.
But… a rapist? Razeal frowned, unable to understand. Countless assumptions were already spiraling through his mind, each one more disturbing than the last. He forced them down. Guessing would only confuse him further. If there was an answer, he would hear it from her directly.
“No.. no.. Donttt!” She tried to stop herself again, her mouth sealing shut with visible effort, jaw trembling as blood spilled past her clenched teeth.
Razeal’s brow furrowed even more.
“Go on,” he said, looking at her.
Assumptions were already spiraling through his mind, each one more disturbing than the last. He forced them down. Guessing would only confuse him further. If there was an answer, he would hear it from her directly.
“I was raped by him,” Merisa said suddenly.
The words were torn from her lips, as if dragged out against her will. The moment she spoke, her body rejected it.
Blood spilled from her mouth.
She gagged violently, bending forward as she vomited, dark red splattering against her trembling hand. It was a grotesque proof of how long she had tried to suppress the truth, how fiercely she had resisted letting it surface. Her body convulsed again, coughing hard, blood staining her fingers as tears streamed down her face.
She had never wanted anyone to know.
Razeal stood frozen before her.
For a moment, his heart stopped.
Her words echoed in his mind, hollow and unreal. His gaze locked onto her blood-soaked hand, her shaking shoulders, the silent agony carved into her expression. Instinctively, he reached out, steadying her, covering her mouth as she continued to cough, his own hand quickly slick with her blood.
My mother… raped?
The words hung in his head, paralyzing him. For a brief, disorienting instant, even the hatred he had carried for her all his life vanished.
For several seconds, he just simply stood there..
And then-
suddenly
A terrifying bloodlust surged through him, raw and overwhelming. Murderous intent bled into the air, so dense it felt like it could crush bone. The urge to kill -no, to annihilate-threatened to burst free.. A bloodlust so dense it distorted the very space around him.
For that brief instant, the shadows inside the cocoon stirred violently, reacting to the sudden, overwhelming hatred that flared within him.
But just at same instant..
Razeal suddenly ..closed his eyes.
The killing intent collapsed inward, swallowed as if it had never existed. Disappearing in a single breath..Just gone.
Finally after some seconds He opened his eyes again..
When he opened his eyes again, they were calm. Empty. His face betrayed nothing-no rage, no shock, no trace of the storm that had nearly consumed him.
As if he hadn’t almost lost control.
As if something deep inside him hadn’t just fractured beyond repair.
As though his heart hadn’t just stopped for a moment.
“Continue.” Razeal still said.. his voice still not riseing.. It was still calm.. too calm. Flat, even. As if he were asking her to continue reciting a report rather than peeling open the deepest wound of her life.
Merisa froze mid-cough.
The sound caught in her throat, half breath, half choke, as the word reached her. Something in that voice.. quiet, measured, utterly devoid of reaction sent a chill straight through her body. She instinctively looked up at him, eyes wide, chest tight, and for reasons she couldn’t explain the temperature inside the shadow sphere seemed to drop.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
She could feel it.
The absence of expression on his face was worse than rage would have been. Worse than shouting. Worse than cruelty. He stood there without anger, without pity, without visible disgust.. just watching her.
She though. had not missed it. That brief instant earlier.. the spike of killing intent so dense it had made the shadows tremble. She knew she hadn’t imagined it. She understood what it meant.. Afterall she was still his mother.. She knows
She understood that what stood before her isn’t indifference… It was restraint. He was holding himself back.. Not trying to show that he doesn’t care. When Obiously he does.. Just trying to look strong.
But that still somehow hurted her.. more.
Her fingers trembled as she wiped the blood from her lips with the back of her hand. It smeared dark across her skin before dissolving into the water. Her breathing slowly steadied, not because the pain lessened, but because something inside her gave way.
She had already crossed the line she had guarded her entire life.
What was left to protect now?
The thing she had hidden from everyone.. from the world, from her family, from herself was already exposed. The shame, the fear, the memory she had never allowed to fully surface had finally been dragged into the open.
There was nothing left to lose.
She wiped her tears with shaking fingers.
A sound escaped her lips.
A short, broken chuckle.
It surprised even her.
“Hah…” She chuckled.. The low and hollow.. stripped of humor, vibrating faintly with disbelief.
“You know,” she said quietly, eyes unfocused now, “there is a rule in the family. Blood purity. Lineage. That the family must remain… clean and pure.”
Her gaze drifted away from Razeal, staring at nothing inside the darkness.
“They said its.. necessary. That the bloodline had to remain intact. That I have to marry him. Have children with him. Preserve the family. it was about responsibility.” Her lips pressed together briefly. “I hated that rule.”
She swallowed.
“I even resisted it,” she admitted. “For a very long time.”
Her voice was steady now.. not because it didn’t hurt, but because she had passed the point of collapse.
“But i got to know that.. you cant stop it.. Family will make sure that happens. Whatver you want it or not.” she continued softly,
Her fingers curled slowly.
“I also realised it that day… when i.. woke up in his bed,” she said. “I was drugged.. I don’t even remember how I got there? Or what happened in between nor does i want to know.. I just woke up the next day… and It had happened.”
Her throat tightened, but she didn’t stop.
“I didn’t scream. I didn’t fight. I didn’t even cry then. I don’t know..” Her mouth twitched faintly. “Its Funny you know..? The high and mighty Merisa Virelan.. The ultimate genius? Uable to save herself.”
Her eyes dimmed.
“That was the first time I realized how fragile I actually was.”
She drew in a slow breath.
“Later that day,” she went on, “I was broken. Weak. I didn’t know .. I didn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t.” Her jaw clenched.
“Then the elders forced the marriage.”
“I don’t even remember agreeing. One moment I was being told what had to happen… and the next, I was his wife.” She shook her head slowly. “I thought.. maybe he was forced too. Maybe he didn’t have a choice either. That it wasn’t really him.”
Her eyes closed briefly.
“So I accepted it,” she whispered. “For the family.. I don’t know why.. I really don’t.. Even now.. everything just happened to fast.”
Silence stretched.
“I told myself he maybe didn’t had a choice either? That maybe he was just another victim of those rules too like me? That hating him wouldn’t change anything. So I… endured.. I don’t know.. We never had a good relationship.. But it somehow just kept going..”
“And then,” she said after a moment, “decade later… I had Nova.”
“And life just… continued.”
Her gaze flickered briefly toward Razeal, then away again, as if it hurt too much to hold.
“I never found the answer,” she whispered. “Never figured out whether I spared him because I was compassionate… or because I was weak.”
She let out a shaky breath.
“Maybe both.”
She didn’t look at Razeal when she finished.
Inside the shadow sphere, Razeal stood motionless.
His head had lowered without him realizing it.
He stared at the space near his feet, unable.. unwilling to lift his gaze. His hands hung at his sides, fingers twitching faintly, as if reacting to something his mind had not yet caught up with.
His body trembled.
Not violently.
Not visibly.
But enough.
The anger rising inside him was unlike anything he had ever felt before. It wasn’t the sharp, explosive rage he’d known during punishment or humiliation. It wasn’t the cold resentment he carried toward the family.
This was different the that.. he doesn’t know just very different and weirder then that.
It crawled under his skin, coiled around his spine, pressed against his ribs until it hurt to breathe. It made his blood feel heavy, poisonous, like it wanted to burn its way out of him.
He couldn’t understand it?
Not fully or even little?
But still.. He doesn’t know
He suddenly inhaled deeply, sharply, then threw his head back with a harsh exhale, fingers raking through his hair. His neck cracked as he tilted it, a habit born of restraint rather than relaxation.
He understood human psychology well enough to see it now.
Trauma didn’t fade. It metastasized. It twisted judgment, warped reactions, poisoned instincts. People didn’t respond to the present.. they responded to echoes of the past.
And suddenly, too many things made sense.
The obsession with control?
The fear of disgrace?
The absolute intolerance for anything that even resembled that man?
Her cruelty?
Her rigidity?
Her inability to step back when it mattered most?
He seems to have gotten answer to his question. He been carrying all these years.
For a brief moment.. Even a weird thought surfaced.. absurd, unwanted, instinctive.
I should hug her.
The idea startled him.
It rose from somewhere deep and unguarded, a reflex older than hatred. The urge to reach out. To tell her it was over. That it didn’t matter now.
He crushed it instantly.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t soften.
Didn’t allow it.. As he just changed his focus.
“So…” he murmured at last, voice rougher than before, “that’s the real reason you killed him.”
He lifted his eyes now.
Merisa looked at him.
Her face was tired. Older than it had ever seemed. Sadness etched deep into her expression, not dramatic, not desperate.. Just there.
“No,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “It wasn’t.”
Razeal frowned.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “After that… I thought maybe he didn’t have a choice either. Even though we never had a good relationship.” Her lips trembled faintly. “I forced myself to live with it.. Like what could we do.. And maybe for nova? I didn’t wanted her to loose her father?”
She looked down.
“I told myself it wasn’t his fault. That we were both trapped.” Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “I couldn’t bring myself to kill him.”
She just shook her head.
“I don’t know why. I really don’t.” A weak breath escaped her. “Maybe I was just… weak back then.”
Razeal just.. stared at her.
Something twisted painfully in his chest.
He could feel it.. sadness, heavy and deep, pressing in from every side. It surprised him how strong it was. How suddenly it filled him.
For a moment, he couldn’t tell whose sadness it was.
Hers.
Or his.
He clenched his jaw.
Forced himself to stay still.
Forced himself not to reach out.
“So that was the fear,” he said slowly. “That’s what led you to make those mistake”
His tone was quiet, not accusing.. but not forgiving either.
“To let everything happen?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never been in that position.”
His eyes darkened.
“But hearing it… doesn’t make it any easier to.. I don’t know.”
“No… that’s not it.” Merisa forced a smile onto her face as she looked at Razeal. It was the kind of smile that didn’t reach the eyes.. one stretched thin by will alone, trembling at the edges, as if it might shatter the moment she stopped holding it in place.
“I forgave him,” she said quietly. “At least… I thought I did.”
Her gaze drifted, unfocused, as though she were looking through Razeal rather than at him. “I told myself it was a mistake. That it happened once, under circumstances I didn’t understand. From every other angle, he actually wasn’t a bad man. He played his role perfectly.” A hollow breath escaped her. “And I was just naïve enough to believe that maybe… he had been forced too.”
She shook her head slowly, as if trying to dislodge the memory.
“I even trusted him later. His conduct, his reputation.. everything he showed to the world was flawless. A model husband. A respectable man even.” Her lips twitched, the smile collapsing into something brittle. “I wanted to believe that version of him too.”
Her hands clenched unconsciously at her sides.
“But when I was pregnant with you…” Her voice faltered for the first time. “And then someone accused him of rape.”
She said suddenly.. The room temperature suddenly going down
Words hung between them, heavy and oppressive.
“That time, I didn’t believe it.. I didn’t beleive he would ever..” Merisa continued, her voice lower now. “Not even for a moment. Every investigation, every testimony.. everything pointed to him. Even the Empress herself passed judgment. He was brought down publicly.”
Her fingers trembled.
“And still,” she whispered, “I didn’t want to accept it.. I just thought he cant be.. I don’t know.”
She swallowed hard, throat working as if the words themselves were choking her.
“And the woman who accused him… she asked me to read her memories.” Merisa’s body stiffened, as though bracing against an invisible blow. “And I did.”
Her breath hitched violently.
“And.. I watched.”
Her composure finally cracked. Her shoulders drew inward, arms folding around herself in a protective reflex, as if she were trying to make herself smaller.
“Thats why.. I just… I couldn’t,” she said, shaking her head over and over. “I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t look into your memories, because I never wanted to see something like that again. That fear.. I.. just.. i.. i.. I don’t know.. I.. Just..” Her voice broke. “That horror… it..It stays with you. It doesn’t fade..”
She hugged herself tighter, fingers digging into her own arms.
Razeal watched her in silence.
He let out a slow breath, one that seemed to carry more weight than it should have. The pieces were falling into place now, not neatly, not cleanly, but with a dull, aching sense of inevitability.
He now also understood.
Not in a way that excused her. Not in a way that erased what had been done to him. But he understood the shape of her fear now.. the way trauma coils around decisions, distorting them until avoidance feels like survival.
She hadn’t searched for the truth.
She had run from it.
Not because she didn’t care, but because she cared too much about what she might see.. She was scared as she said..
Razeal’s chest felt weird.. an unfamiliar heaviness settling there. Sadness crept in quietly, without permission. It irritated him more than rage ever had.
“Do you know who that woman was?” Merisa suddenly asked, lifting her head to look at him.
Razeal didn’t answer immediately. His thoughts were tangled, circling around her past, her fear, and the consequences that had crushed him beneath their weight.
He raised his eyes to meet hers. “Does it matter..?” he began.
“It was Selena’s mother,” Merisa said abruptly. “Your father raped her with his friend.”
The words landed like a blunt strike.
Razeal stopped mid words.
For several seconds, he simply stared at her. Connections snapped into place all at once, sharp and unavoidable. Why her unwavering support to selena. The strange mixture of pity and resentment he had never fully understood.
Understanding bloomed.. cold and bitter.
Threads connected in his mind with sudden, brutal clarity.. As why selena’s family, their hatred, their insistence, Merisa’s unwavering support of her, the way everything had aligned so perfectly against him.
Understanding came in waves.
Slow, Heavy and Unforgiving.
He didn’t speak at first. Just stood there, absorbing it, his expression unreadable.
Then, finally, he nodded once.
“I see,” he said quietly. His voice was softer than before, stripped of edge. The pieces fit now.. why Merisa had stood so firmly beside Selena back then, why she had been so absolute, so unyielding.
He nodded once again… That explained far more than he wanted it to.
Merisa lowered her head again, shoulders trembling. “I just… I.. i..” Her voice failed her entirely this time. She said nothing more. She just spreaded her arms.. As no word.. seems to leave her lips.
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Sorry guys got little late.. Sighh
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