Peaceful Life System: I only need to live peacefully-Chapter 156: Sherry’s Past (3)

"Mother! Father!" Sherry screamed, trying to run forward, but a Legionnaire’s iron grip held her fast.

Her parents looked up. Their fine robes were torn and stained. Their faces were bruised, their bodies trembling with exhaustion and suppressed magic. But their eyes, when they saw Sherry, were filled with a love so fierce it was painful to watch.

"Sherry!" her mother, Sorina, cried out, her voice cracking. "Oh, my dear child. We are so sorry!"

"Silence, traitor," the Justicar snapped, his voice echoing in the vast hall.

The Emperor raised a single hand. The hall fell into absolute silence. His voice, when he spoke, was not a shout, but a whisper that seemed to creep into the very bones of all present.

"Kael and Sorina of the Obsidian Covenant," the Emperor began, his words slow and deliberate. "You were entrusted with the Genesis Project. You were given resources beyond measure. Your task was to unlock the secrets of primordial creation, to forge a power that would ensure the absolute dominance of this empire for millennia."

He leaned forward slightly, the two purple points of light that were his eyes fixing on the kneeling researchers.

"Instead, you failed. Your research yielded nothing but instability and chaos. Your last experiment created a resonance cascade that ended in a complete failure, destroying the reputation of this seat. You have wasted my time. You have wasted my resources. And you have failed your Emperor."

"My Lord," Kael pleaded, his head bowed. "We were so close! The theory was sound! We only needed more time!"

"Time is a luxury I no longer afford you," the Emperor said coldly. "Your incompetence has sealed your fate."

He turned his gaze upon Sherry. She felt the weight of his attention like a physical blow, a pressure that stole the air from her lungs.

"However," the Emperor continued, "a debt remains. The resources you consumed were immense. A price must be paid." His gaze was chilling. "Your line will pay it."

He gestured to the Justicar. "The sentence. Read it."

The Justicar stepped forward, his voice ringing with grim finality. "Kael and Sorina, for the crime of treason through constant failure, you are hereby sentenced to an eternity of servitude in the Soul-Forge, your magical essence to be used as fuel for the empire’s war machines."

Sorina let out a choked sob. Kael slumped, the last of his hope extinguished. It was a fate worse than death.

"For the child, Sherry," the Justicar continued, his gaze falling upon her, "the Emperor, in his... mercy... has decreed exile. She, and her keeper," he glanced dismissively at Sebastian, "will be cast through a portal of random translocation. Where they end up is a matter for fate, not the empire."

He rolled up the scroll. "But the debt is not fully paid. A final price is required. An echo of her parents’ failure, a reminder of their crime, that she will carry for the rest of her short, miserable life."

A robed figure, a curse-weaver, stepped from the shadows. He held a small, twisted doll made of black thread and bone. He began to chant in a low, guttural language, and the doll began to glow with a sickly, green light.

"No!" Sherry screamed, as the curse-weaver pointed the doll at her.

"Please! Don’t!" Kael and Sorina could only watch helplessly as their dear daughter was cursed by the weaver.

The curse-weaver’s chant ended. The doll pulsed with a final, sickly green light.

Pain lanced through Sherry’s chest. It was not a physical wound. It was a soul-deep cold, a spiritual ice that began to extinguish her from the inside out. Her vision swam. The grand, terrifying hall blurred into indistinct shapes.

"No!" she heard her mother scream.

"My daughter!" her father roared in defiance.

Their voices were the last things she heard from her old life. The world faded to black.

She awoke to a sharp, jarring sensation. The cold stone floor of a different chamber pressed against her cheek. The air smelled of ozone and churning magic.

Sebastian was kneeling beside her, his hand on her shoulder. "Lady Sherry, wake up. We must move."

She pushed herself up groggily. They were in a circular room, the walls covered in glowing teleportation runes. In the center, a portal swirled—a chaotic vortex of shimmering, unstable energy. It did not look like a stable gateway. It looked like a wound torn in the fabric of reality.

Two Legionnaires stood guard, their energized halberds humming. "The Emperor’s judgment awaits," one of them grunted, shoving Sebastian toward the portal. "Move."

Sebastian didn’t resist. He took Sherry’s hand, his grip the only firm, steady thing in her collapsing world. "Do not be afraid, my lady," he whispered, his voice calm despite the circumstances. "I am with you."

He pulled her forward, and together, they stepped into the swirling chaos.

The world dissolved. She felt a violent tearing, a sensation of being pulled apart and reassembled incorrectly. There was a moment of absolute, soundless void, and then—

Light.

Blinding, painful sunlight assaulted her eyes. She fell to her knees, gasping, on soft, green grass. The air was warm and humid, thick with the scent of wildflowers and damp earth. It was completely alien.

Sebastian knelt beside her, his own face pale as he looked around at the unfamiliar, sun-drenched forest. "Where... are we?"

Sherry didn’t answer. The icy curse in her soul pulsed, and a wave of weakness washed over her. She slumped against him, her breathing shallow.

"Sebastian... I’m so... tired."

A single, hot tear escaped her eye, tracing a path through the grime on her cheek.

"My parents, they gave everything to the kingdom," she whispered, her voice brittle with a despair that went deeper than physical exhaustion. "Their entire lives, dedicated to its grand projects."

"And in the end, it treated them like criminals. Like... like refuse."

She clenched her small fists. "What’s the point of living anymore, Sebastian? What’s the point if loyalty is rewarded with betrayal and love with exile?"

This chapter is updat𝙚d by f(r)eew𝒆bn(o)vel.com