Depraved Noble: Forced To Live The Debaucherous Life Of An Evil Noble!-Chapter 654: Coughing Up Blood

Aqua’s head was spinning.

The information just kept coming, wave after wave, each revelation more impossible than the last.

Her brilliant mind—the same mind that had mastered Archmage-level magic at nineteen, that could calculate complex spell arrays in seconds, that had absorbed entire libraries of knowledge—simply could not process what she had just learned.

She felt dizzy.

She needed to sit down. Needed a moment to let all of this settle, to rearrange her understanding of the world, to accept that her brother was apparently some kind of supernatural being capable of impossible things.

Maria, meanwhile, wore a smug smile of victory.

She had clearly won this round of gossip supremacy, and she was enjoying every moment of it.

But before either of them could speak—

"JOY!"

The voice cut through the evening air like a knife.

Panicked. Desperate. Completely unlike anything either of them had ever heard from that particular source.

And the scariest part was that it was Carmela’s voice.

Carmela, the woman who would remain calm even when surrounded by a hundred attackers.

The woman who could walk through a battlefield without flinching.

And she of all people was screaming which made it obvious it was something really bad, so they spun around at full speed.

And the sight that greeted them made both of their hearts stop.

Carmela was clutching Joy, who had collapsed against her.

The assassin’s usually impassive face was contorted with raw concern, her eyes shimmering with something Aqua had never seen in them before—genuine fear.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was the blood.

It was dripping from Joy’s mouth, staining her lips and chin a dark, terrifying red.

Her face had also gone pale and her eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, as if she had lost all connection to the world around her.

She looked like she had just seen something that destroyed her from the inside out.

Seeing this, Aqua and Maria rushed over immediately.

Maria dropped to her side, gently wiping the blood from Joy’s mouth with her sleeve, her hands trembling.

"Joy! Joy, what’s wrong?" Her voice cracked with maternal panic. "Baby, what happened? Why are you bleeding? Who did this to you?"

Joy didn’t respond.

Her eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing, lost in a world of her own.

Carmela answered instead, her voice unsteady—a rare crack in her armor.

"I don’t know. She was standing right here, completely normal one second. And then suddenly—"

She swallowed hard.

"Suddenly she just coughed up blood. Her face went weak. She couldn’t stand anymore. I caught her just in time."

She looked around with sharp gaze before looking baffled as she said,

"There was no attack. No one touched her. It was almost as if..." She hesitated. "Almost as if she caused this herself."

Of course Aqua couldn’t accept that.

"What? How is that possible?" She looked between Carmela and Joy frantically. "Why would she—how could she cause a wound that makes her cough blood without someone else attacking her?"

She quickly cast a detection spell, a shimmering field expanding around them to check for any hidden threats.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

"Joy!" She then called out, kneeling beside her. "Joy, tell us what’s wrong! What happened? Did anyone attack you?! Do we have to be alert?!"

But Joy remained silent.

Lost in her own world.

Trapped in her own mind.

Because just moments ago, Joy had been standing there, listening to everything Maria said.

And she had heard.

She had heard that Cassius had won Diana’s heart.

Not just any woman.

Diana.

The Holy Healer.

The greatest doctor in the entire human kingdom.

The woman who had saved countless lives, whose good karma was so immense it practically radiated from her soul, making it brighter and purer every time they met.

But she was actually much more then that to Joy.

After all, Diana was the one who had helped her mother.

In Maria’s darkest days—after the rescue, when she was broken and hollow and barely functioning—Diana had been there.

She had seen past the smiles, past the brave face, past the act.

She had pulled Maria back from the edge of despair.

Had given her purpose. Had become her anchor, her confidante, her best friend.

Joy owed Diana everything.

She would have sold her soul for that woman.

Would have given her life without hesitation.

Because Diana wasn’t just a healer of bodies—she was a healer of souls.

She had saved Maria when no one else could.

And Joy respected her.

No, not just respected.

Revered.

So when she heard that Cassius—the man she had hunted, the demon she had sworn to expose, the devil she had built her entire recent identity around opposing—had won Diana’s heart?

It was like a dagger through her stomach.

Twisting.

Again and again.

But somehow—somehow, she had managed to push through it.

Because she was starting to understand.

Starting to see that Cassius wasn’t the demon everyone claimed.

Starting to accept that he might actually be...good.

After all, everything Joy had witnessed since arriving at the estate—his kindness, his patience, his genuine care for everyone around him—it all pointed to the same conclusion.

Cassius was not what she thought.

He was something else entirely.

A decent person.

No—more than decent.

A saint, perhaps.

With all the deeds he had done, all the lives he had touched, all the good he had spread...there was nothing truly bad about him.

Nothing except his shameless flirtatious nature, which she could almost forgive.

So when she heard that Diana had fallen for him, she could accept it.

It made a strange kind of sense.

Diana deserved someone good. Someone who would cherish her.

And if Cassius was genuinely good—if he truly was the person everyone now claimed—then maybe...maybe it was okay.

She had managed to handle that.

But then—

Then Maria had said more.

And those words had broken her completely.

Joy had known about Diana’s medical revolution long before it became public knowledge.

She knew because her own subordinates had been part of the logistical operations—transporting those precious creations to hospitals with limited facilities, to remote regions that could never afford such advancements on their own.

She had personally overseen missions to deliver these gifts to those in need.

And every time, her heart swelled with admiration for Diana.

Because Diana could have kept everything for herself.

She could have monopolized these discoveries, created a medical empire, held the entire world hostage with the promise of health and healing.

With such power, she could have shaped nations, bent rulers to her will, accumulated wealth beyond measure.

But she didn’t.

She gave it all away. Freely. Selflessly. Without asking for anything in return.

To Joy, that was the act of a true saint. An angel walking among mortals.

She had prayed to the Goddess countless times—begged her to keep Diana safe, to protect such a pure soul from the cruelties of the world.

She had spoken to her subordinates about Diana constantly, holding her up as the ultimate role model, the standard they should all aspire to reach.

"This is who we should become." Joy would tell them. "This is what true goodness looks like."

Diana was her ideal. Her benchmark for virtue.

And now—

Now she had learned that none of it was Diana’s doing.

It was Cassius.

The demon she had come to destroy.

The man she had sworn to expose.

He was the one behind it all.

The one who had created those devices.

The one who had formulated those treatments.

The one who had chosen to give everything away without asking for anything in return.

Every prayer she had whispered for Diana’s protection.

Every moment of gratitude she had felt.

Every ounce of respect she had poured out—

All of it belonged to Cassius.

Her world crumbled.

The foundation upon which she had built her recent understanding of things—that Diana was the saint, that Cassius was the demon—shattered into a thousand pieces.

The demon was the saint.

The saint was simply the vessel for his goodness.

And she had been hunting him.

She had been part of a mission to destroy the very person who had done more good for humanity than anyone she had ever known.

The sheer impossibility of it, the cosmic irony, the complete inversion of everything she believed—it was too much.

Her body reacted before her mind could catch up.

The mana flowing through her channels—already unstable from her previous injuries—suddenly reversed.

Energy that should have flowed smoothly in one direction crashed backward, slamming into her internal pathways with brutal force.

Pain exploded in her chest.

Blood surged up her throat.

She coughed, and it spilled from her lips.

And then darkness began to creep at the edges of her vision.

"—oy! Joy!"

The voices came from far away, muffled, distorted.

"Someone get help!"

"What’s wrong with her?"

"Joy, please, answer me!"

She could hear them. Maria’s desperate cries. Aqua’s panicked shouts. Carmela’s rare, terrified murmurs.

But she couldn’t respond.

Couldn’t move.

Couldn’t do anything but float in the chaos of her own shattered mind.

What was she supposed to believe now?

Everything she had built her recent understanding on was gone.

The demon was an angel.

The angel was just...just someone who loved him.

Who was she in this new world?

What was her purpose?

If Cassius wasn’t evil—if he was actually good—then what had she been doing with her life?

What had she been chasing?

What had she been fighting for?

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know anything anymore.