TDATD

LXXXl

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ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 81

Judith’s greatest fears were the possibility that her brother might be Hannibal and that Derrick might disappear from her side. Hannibal knew this very well.

While the first was uncertain, Derrick could provoke the second.

Reflecting deeply on his conversation with Lucas, Derrick soon recalled that there was another way to break the curse besides simply dispelling the spell: eliminating the caster.

The existence of a demon is tricky and hard to extinguish, but upon reflection, Hannibal, like himself, was also trapped in a human body. Thus, perhaps it was a more certain solution than struggling to dispel the spell.

So the only thing left was to lure him.

If Derrick deliberately intensified Judith’s fear to the extreme, Hannibal, thinking Derrick had disappeared, would come to him on his own. Then, by eliminating him, the demon and the curse harming her could be resolved at once.

“Isn’t this too much of a gamble? What if Hannibal doesn’t come looking for that human woman?”

Lucas, hearing the plan, had a doubtful expression.

“If he had been hiding and observing me, he would have realized early on that Judith is important to me. So, even if it’s a gamble, there’s no reason not to take that chance.”

That night, Derrick stared at the sleeping Judith through the crack in the door for a long time.

“If you were about to lose one of two cards, what would you do?”

“……”

“You would make sure to secure the remaining card.”

And, as expected, the moment Hannibal confirmed Judith’s escalating fear, he appeared before her, pretending to be her brother to further destabilize her mind.

“Ugh…!”

Derrick groaned heavily as Hannibal, on top of him, grabbed the handle of the sword lodged in his chest, twisting it to deepen the wound. Fighting while trapped in a physical body was not easy. It felt as if his body was encased in heavy armor.

“So you came on your own accord.”

Hannibal chuckled darkly, thrusting the sword even deeper. His potent magic infiltrated Derrick’s veins, causing intense pain in all his senses.

“You must have been very fond of her, right?”

“If you wanted to rebel, you could have just targeted me. What did she ever do?”

Hannibal laughed mockingly at Derrick’s reference to Judith.

“Every time I see her, I feel like you’ve fallen for that human woman.”

An astute Hannibal wouldn’t have missed what Lucas had noticed.

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

“Then I’ll have to cut off that human woman’s head.”

At Hannibal’s murderous tone, Derrick’s face twisted with unfiltered anger.

Hannibal scoffed at Derrick, finding it absurd that he seemed genuinely concerned about a human.

Suddenly, Hannibal twisted the sword lodged in Derrick’s chest and brought up a sensitive topic.

“Aren’t you curious how I cast the spell on that woman?”

The hypnosis spell that had tormented Judith and even troubled Derrick. Hannibal’s eerie smile deepened as Derrick’s gaze turned predatory.