An Aura Farmer's Guide to Another World
Chapter 56: The Turning Point

Chapter 56: The Turning Point

Joseph is dead; I have killed him.

I flicked my sword to the side, shaking off his dirty blood.

The Bishop, Joseph’s father, observed as Joseph’s head spun through the air, landed some distance away, and then tumbled off the altar’s edge.

Annelise, the sole surviving bride, fell onto her rear, with Joseph’s dark blood splattered across her dress, resembling ink spilled on white paper.

Glancing up, Cupcake’s sword had stabbed into Joséphine’s neck, with Evelyn’s chain looped around her, pinning Joséphine in position.

Joséphine attempted a knee strike to Lady Beatrice’s abdomen, but Lucy snapped her fingers just in time.

"Blood Art Technique: Inferno."

Orange flames consumed Joséphine’s body, reducing her to charcoal in mere seconds.

From the podium, I saw Lady Beatrice falter and quickly rushed to steady her by the shoulders.

Her knees buckled, and her head snapped back, eyes wide and unblinking, fixed on the scene. She clutched at my arms, her fingers digging in, and a faint, sickly pallor spread across her skin, replacing her usual vibrant color.

Joseph signed the marriage contract with Joséphine to gain control over her body, but had her push him away to create the illusion of her independence.

What a vile man, commanding Joséphine to kill Lady Beatrice, leaving us no choice but to eliminate Joséphine to protect Beatrice.

"It’s all over." Lady Beatrice said.

I looked at her as she lay in my arms, but her gaze avoided mine, her dilated pupils locked on the lofty ceiling. "They all died so I could survive, but my fate was sealed when I read the letter Joseph left on my bed that night."

As Cupcake approached, I gently lowered Lady Beatrice to the ground, her body growing weaker by the moment.

Cupcake formed a protective barrier around the five of us, as we stood guard over Beatrice, who lay on the floor.

"Don’t you dare die on me," Cupcake said, grasping Lady Beatrice’s hand to check her pulse.

Using the sickle tip of her kusarigama, Evelyn pierced her thumb and raised Lady Beatrice’s head, allowing one drop of blood to drip into her mouth.

"No reaction, that’s unusual," Evelyn murmured, carefully lowering Lady Beatrice’s head back to the floor.

"It’s no use; healing won’t work on me because I’m completely fine," Lady Beatrice said.

I kept my eyes on her, helpless, as she deteriorated second by second; Joséphine hadn’t struck her, and Joseph was already dead.

Why did her body suddenly start breaking down, only after Joseph died?

’Cough-cough.’

Lady Beatrice clutched my forearm, pressing it desperately against her chest. Her breath hitched, ragged and shallow. "Joseph and I signed an engagement contract," she gasped, her voice thinning.

"Now that I think about it, that’s when he most likely activated his skill on me. In the letter he left... he wrote: I am going to kill myself. He set that instruction to trigger in my brain at the time of his death. Now that he is dead," her words became a wheeze, "my lungs are slowly shutting down, which will ultimately result in my death."

"No... that can’t be." I leaned in, pressing my ear to her chest. Her lungs still moved, barely. "They’re... slowing with every breath."

I stepped back, eyes on Evelyn. "Please kiss her. Maybe it’ll work like it always did for me."

Evelyn looked away, her gaze drifting to the watching crowd. "She’s not wounded, there’s nothing physically wrong. Her lungs are choosing not to breathe."

Evelyn’s eyes turned to Lady Beatrice. "I wish I could do something but I can’t."

I took Lady Beatrice’s hand in mine. It was already growing cold, the warmth leaching from her fingers. "I’m scared," she whispered, her voice barely a breath against the sudden silence of the chamber.

Her grip, once firm, was now frail as she pleaded, "I don’t want to die."

She wasn’t a threat, just a frightened soul clinging to life. Yet still, the system offered 50 million berries for her life. Why, when her fate had already been decided before we ever reached Silver Bell?

Lady Beatrice was weak; I don’t think she could harm even a fly. Why was so much death and sorrow visited on her?

Fantasy stories are supposed to have happy endings, aren’t they? The kind where a prince rescues a princess from a tower.

Yet in this merciless world I was reborn into, the system demands her death, the very princess in the tower I should’ve saved.

To make matters more cruel, a snake shares her prison, and all I can do is stand by as the poison takes hold and she fades away.

"H..e...l....p........."

Lady Beatrice’s hand fell like lifeless wood, slamming against the floor.

We stood in silence, watching the lifeless body of the woman we were decreed to protect. The Night Squad’s debut had ended in tragedy.

I was angry, my blood boiling like molten magma ready to erupt. I was sick of taking one loss after another.

’HUMMMM...’

The sound of a high-voltage wire forcefully grabbed our attention, drawing it toward the Podium.

We all watched as Joseph’s heart burst from his ribcage, hovering a meter above his corpse.

Black blood began to flow from the heart like an endless river, spilling over the altar’s edge and onto the ground.

"Damn it! I should’ve seen this coming!" Cupcake snapped, gnawing at her nails.

"That bastard burned through all his mana to trigger the curse he left on Beatrice," Lucy said, stepping forward, her brows drawn in sharp frustration.

Joseph’s heart pulsed with unnatural life, sprouting fresh muscle and tissue as it expanded, contracted, and spun on its axis in a rhythmic spiral.

"What the hell is this?" I growled, pointing my sword at the swirling, grotesque mass of blood before us.

"Mana Reversion," Evelyn answered.

Cupcake moved to the barrier’s edge, her expression tense. "When a person awakens a core, their mana reserves are finite. If they use it all up, if every drop is drained, they undergo mana Reversion. That’s how these monsters came to be. They were once human until their mana was stolen."

As new tissue wrapped around Joseph’s heart, an inky fluid leaked out, pooling until a grotesque bubble of blood emerged.

’POP!’

With a wet pop, the bubble burst open, birthing a monstrous toad—its reptilian eyes cold and sharp. It hit the altar hard, then shook itself, spraying blood across the sacred platform.

I glared at the huge frog the size of a small shipping container, its bulk settling onto the altar like a living, malformed boulder.

That thing took forty lives last night, and today, it made me freeze and watch as it killed eleven more ladies. Each of them died calling for help.

Right now, my Aura is at -∞. I’m no different than a pussy drenched in cum. Unless I kill that thing, I can’t ever look myself in the eye again.