I was reborn into a fantastical saga, tasked with a singular, chilling quest: to conquer the heart of Alistair Valerius, the Cold–Heart- ed High Acolyte. He was cruel, indifferent, utterly devoid of warmth, and utterly unapproachable. He killed me nine times.
The first time, he flayed me alive, my skin meticulously stitched into a grotesque patchwork cloak for his own twisted rituals.
The second, he ripped open my womb, fashioning my unformed child’s tiny skull into a chalice for his dark rites.
The third, he carved my living flesh into a twisted, pulsating relic, then crushed every one of my two hundred and six bones to dust, scattering them across the Savage Steppes for the vultures to pick clean.
Each death, a brutal reset. The quest progress, wiped clean, forcing me to begin anew.
I had knelt until my knees were raw, offering prayers for his enlightenment. I suffered dozens of agonizing miscarriages, my body perpetually broken. A single word of displeasure from him meant I had to consume filth for three years, a brutal penance he called
“purification.”
But he always killed me.
By the ninth quest attempt, my soul was threadbare, my spirit utterly shattered. Alistair Valerius truly had no heart! I wept, begging
the System to end the mission, but it was undergoing an upgrade and couldn’t respond. This, however, also caused a crucial delay
in the usual reset.
I hovered, a disembodied spirit, and then I saw it: Alistair, tenderly caressing a portrait of Seraphina, his betrothed. His eyes held a heartbreaking tenderness I had never once witnessed.
“My sweet Seraphina, just a little longer. One more death for that wretch, and I can return to the moment before you took your life.”
“If she hadn’t poisoned me, you would never have stumbled upon me and her in such a compromising position!”
“That should have been our wedding, but it became your funeral.”
A cold dread pierced my ethereal form. He remembered. He remembered everything. The countless cycles, the resets, the deaths -he was untouched by them! And Seraphina… he wasn’t an unfeeling stone. He had simply despised me, utterly and completely, ever since Seraphina’s death!
!
The quest, from its very inception, had been a cruel, elaborate failure.
My spectral form trailed Alistair as he drifted towards a heavy wooden door, adorned with intricate, sacred carvings. What lay bey- ond startled me.
The chamber was filled with chillingly accurate effigies of Seraphina, arranged with a disturbing reverence. Alistair Valerius, the Cold–Hearted High Acolyte, who had spurned me through nine lifetimes, now cradled one of these likenesses, pressing fervent, almost devout kisses to its lifeless features. His devotion, in this moment, surpassed even his spiritual practices.
When the kiss ended, he tore off his robes, his eyes rolling back in a grotesque parody of ecstasy, enacting a twisted ritual of perv- erse devotion before the effigy! I watched, suffocated by shock. For nine lifetimes I had strived to conquer Alistair. Except for the first, when I had resorted to a love potion to be with him, he had adamantly refused to be sullied by any woman. In the fourth lifet- ime, when I, overwhelmed by emotion, had dared to kiss him, he had felt so defiled that he had doused himself repeatedly with scalding hot oil, scorching his own flesh. That was the only time the System had forcibly reset the world due to the target’s death, From then on, I never dared to touch him again.
But now, what was he doing?! His eyes rolled back, a low groan escaping his lips, sweat beading on his brow as he performed this twisted ritual before Seraphina’s effigy! I watched his perverted ecstasy, then looked at my own hands, pale and wrinkled from hou
Is spent in rubber gloves, tending to his endless “purifications.” A wave of profound irony washed over me. What piety? He thought she was defiled, not himself.
11:2
Just then, the System finally came online.
“Detecting host deatn. Initiating reboot.”
In a dizzying flash, I stood at the center of a grand wedding hall. Alistair was placing a ring on my finger. This reset had occurred
even earlier than anticipated!
Seraphina burst onto the dais, tears streaming down her face, a glinting dagger clutched in her hand. “Alistair, are you truly going to
marry her?!”
Alistair’s eyes darkened. He reacted swiftly, shoving me away with brutal force. I crashed heavily into a champagne tower, glass shattering around me, shards embedding themselves in my flesh. Alcohol seeped into the wounds. Every breath was agony. Yet Alistair didn’t even glance at me. He rushed to Seraphina, tears welling in his eyes as he wrestled the dagger from her grasp. “My
sweet Seraphina, don’t do anything foolish!”
He… wept?
Through nine lifetimes, each reset wiped the slate clean of previous emotional connections. I had grown accustomed to his tender devotion one moment, his utter cruelty the next. I had endured every humiliation, every torment, all for the sake of his healing, for the success of my qu
quest. If the System hadn’t delayed its reboot, I would never have known he remembered everything from all
nine lifetimes! He wasn’t without tears; they simply weren’t for me.
“The wedding is canceled.” He held Seraphina close, his voice chillingly definitive.
I stumbled to my feet. “What?”
His face contorted in a sneer. “Clara Hawthorne, did you truly believe that by poisoning me, by crawling into my bed like a common
alley cat, you could force me to marry you?”
