The entire hall erupted in gasps and whispers. “Gods, she looked so innocent, but she’s a tramp!”
Seraphina sobbed, leaning into his embrace. “Alistair, that day, when I overheard you… I truly couldn’t bear it…”
He gently wiped her tears, but when he turned to me, only pure loathing remained. “Your kind of cheap manipulation disgusts me.” He seized my wrist, dragging me across the broken glass on the dais. “Do you think I don’t know? Every time, you always…” He abr-
uptly cut himself off.
My pupils constricted. i forced the words out. “Every time, what? Tell me! Go on, tell me everything you know!” But he merely relea-
sed my hand, letting me tumble down the marble steps. Blood gushed from my forehead, instantly staining my face crimson. He
stood above me, aloof as an ethereal deity. “Don’t waste your efforts trying to seduce me. I will forever despise a harlot like you.”
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The pain! The images of my nine deaths flashed before my eyes like a gruesome tapestry. The agony of being flayed alive in the
first lifetime, like fire licking at my skin. The torment of my ripped–open womb in the second, like my very heart torn out. The crush-
ing despair of my bones being pulverized in the third, like salt grinding into raw wounds,
The System seemed to be malfunctioning. The accumulated pain of all nine lifetimes crashed over me, a tidal wave of torment. And now, he was gently kissing Seraphina, without a backward glance. Guests swarmed around me, spitting curses. “Harlot! You
deserve this!”
Suddenly, a group of hotel security guards rushed forward. Under his command, they tore at my clothes, subjecting me to a brutal beating, leaving me a battered, broken mess. I heard him whisper low instructions: “When you’re done playing, make sure she can never bear a child again. Permanently. No loose ends.”
I lay there, utterly ruined, but a faint, bitter smile touched my lips. “Alistair Valerius, you play your part so well…”
He turned, his eyes cold and dangerous. “What did you say?”
I wiped the blood from my mouth. “I said, may you both find everlasting bliss.” And in my mind, I summoned the System. “I relinqui sh the quest
The System’s cold voice confirmed:
[Host confirms abandonment of mission. Departure from this world in fifteen days.]
It was a night of torrential rain. After the security guards were done with me, they dumped me out the hotel’s back entrance. My lower body was a mangled mess, bleeding profusely. My high heels were broken, forcing me to walk barefoot on the cold, grimy ground. I looked up and saw Alistair’s bodyguards lurking in the shadows, their phones aimed at me.
“Don’t block the shot. Mr. Valerius wants to watch the live feed.” The bodyguard sneered at me.
I forced myself to stand upright, dragging my injured leg towards a convenience store. Counting the few coins left in my pocket, I barely had enough for a roll of bandages. The cashier’s gaze fell upon my bruised face. “Isn’t that the harlot who drugged Mr. Valer- ius and tried to seduce him?” she sneered.
I lowered my head, desperate to leave. The store’s television was replaying news of the wedding scandal. “Shocking! Prominent Businessman Exposes Bride’s Devious Plot at Wedding!” The screen cut to a close–up of Seraphina weeping in Alistair’s arms.
The cashier suddenly raised her voice. “Look! The sacred relics on Miss Seraphina’s necklace are made from the High Acolyte’s consecrated finger bones. How precious!”
Relics…
I took the bandages. I remembered my fifth death, when I had been cremated, my bones supposedly yielding such sacred relics. The pain of my entire skeleton flared anew. I stumbled out of the convenience store, then realized I had nowhere to go. Alistair had seized all my assets, including my small apartment.
The rain intensified. I found shelter under an overpass, fashioning a temporary refuge from discarded cardboard boxes. My soaked body began to burn with fever. In a daze, I saw the Clara of my sixth lifetime, hemorrhaging on this very spot, her blood pooling on the ground. I saw the Clara of my third lifetime, pressed into this corner by vagrants, the sound of my clothes tearing still echoing
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in my ears. Every painful memory from every lifetime surged forward, a horrifying torrent.
