The moment Kelly opened her eyes, she realized she was trapped in what could only be described as a prison. The air was foul, heavy with a stench so revolting it clawed at her throat and nearly forced her to retch. The floor was slick and sticky, the walls scarred with stains and smears that told too many ugly stories.
Her wrists and ankles ached, shackled by cold cuffs chained to the stone. The clothes she wore weren't hers—just ragged scraps that clung loosely to her body, reeking like they'd been stolen from the dead. And next to her, bound just as tightly, was a man she didn't know.
Not at first.
Then the memories came crashing back.
"No," Kelly whispered, her voice cracking as the weight of it hit her. "Not again."
The man beside her lifted his head, dark eyes glinting with a strange sort of humor. Ren Vardrok. Her brother.
The same brother who, just like her, had been framed for their parents' murder.
"Did you say something?" Ren's voice carried a mocking lilt, as if the situation amused him. "Don't tell me you're mumbling about food again, little foodie. Some things never change."
Kelly didn't answer. Panic clawed at her insides, twisting tighter with every passing breath. She could already tell what Arvon was doing—this was another game, another cruel imitation of the trial. Only this time, it wasn't about guilt or justice. It was about breaking her… forcing her to watch someone she cared for suffer.
But even as the memories filled her, it wasn't the same. Unlike the trial, where every emotion had been branded directly onto her soul, this illusion felt thinner, hollower. The love and fear weren't raw, weren't alive—they were stitched together from memory, echoes of what she once felt.
But that didn't mean this was going to be easy. If anything, it was worse—because unlike the trial, this spell had only one purpose: to tear her apart.
The rusty dungeon door groaned open, scraping against the stone floor like nails across her nerves. A woman stepped inside, and Kelly knew her instantly. The memories gave her name shape. Ferylia. Ren's fiancée—the woman he had been hopelessly, foolishly smitten with.
Her skin gleamed like polished bronze, catching the dim light with every subtle movement. Her eyes were a startling violet, pupils stretched a little too wide, making them look predatory. And her hair—if it could even be called that—shifted as if alive, strands slithering with a will of their own.
Unlike the humans of Gervia, Ferylia's kind carried the marks of their bloodline—altered, reshaped, perfected through generations. Not unlike the draconians Kelly had encountered on Zathron.
Helia, the body Kelly now wore, had always been wary of her. Suspicious of the way Ferylia lingered around Ren, of how easily she bent him with just a smile. But suspicion had never been enough to break the spell she had over him.
Ferylia glided forward, crouching beside Ren where he sat chained to the floor. She leaned in close, ignoring the grime, the sweat, the stink of the dungeon. Her arms wrapped around him like molten metal, clinging, smearing herself against his skin as if she wanted to melt into him entirely.
"Ren, sweetie," she purred, her voice low and velvet, dripping with a seduction so sharp it was almost mocking. "I've missed you." Her hands roamed shamelessly over his chest, possessive, hungry.
Ren, in his maddening innocence, only smiled. He patted her back with what little freedom his bound wrists allowed, the gesture almost paternal, almost absurd. "Don't worry," he said softly. "If nothing unexpected happens, Helia and I will be out of here in less than a week. By then… I'll ask for your hand in marriage, my sweet little angel."
But Ferylia's smile shifted. It was subtle—her tone dropping into something darker, sharper, edged with danger. "But…" she whispered, her voice now coiling like smoke. "If you survive… things could get complicated."
Ren froze. His eyes widened, shock washing over him like ice. He stared at her, his lips trembling as if the words he wanted to form had suddenly turned foreign.
"I… I don't under—"
He never finished the sentence.
A hot spray of blood hit Kelly's face, warm and metallic, blinding her for a heartbeat. Ren's body jerked. Ferylia stood before him, her lips curved in a smile as her hand twisted the dagger deep into his stomach. She wrenched it cruelly, grinding and tearing, squelching sounds filling the dungeon as if she were rummaging through him like meat.
At first, Ren didn't scream. Maybe shock numbed him, maybe adrenaline held his voice hostage. But when the pain finally caught up, it ripped out of him in a ragged, animal howl that tore through Kelly's skull. She whimpered, shuffling back, fighting the tears that stung her eyes.
Ferylia only leaned closer. She kissed his trembling lips, soft and sweet, even as he writhed beneath her. Then, with one fluid swipe, the dagger sliced clean through his neck. His scream was silenced in an instant.
The dungeon fell still.
Then Ferylia bent, picked up Ren's severed head, and tossed it at Kelly. It rolled across the floor until his lifeless eyes locked on hers. And though she knew it wasn't real, the grief hit her like a blade to the gut. She broke. The tears spilled.
"Don't worry, sweetie," Ferylia purred, her voice honeyed, playful. "Unlike him, you won't get such an easy death." Her grin widened. "That's because I like you more."
Kelly's whole body shook. "No. Get away from me—"
A dagger cut off her plea, punching into her thigh. Pain exploded, white-hot, and Kelly shrieked as Ferylia slowly dragged the blade sideways, ripping flesh apart. Blood spilled freely, splattering across the filthy floor.
Kelly's cries echoed off the walls, but they only seemed to feed Ferylia's delight. "Oh, darling," she cooed, licking blood from the blade. "I haven't even gotten started. Save that beautiful music for when it really counts."
Then the torture began.
A stab to the chest—not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to burn. A dozen plunges into her shoulders until they were nothing but shredded lumps of torn muscle. Her leg was pierced again and again, and when Ferylia pressed her weight onto Kelly's knee, the bone gave way with a sickening crack.
Kelly screamed. She cried. She whimpered. And when death finally reached for her, she didn't resist—it wasn't something to fear anymore. She ran to it, desperate, embracing its cold arms with a haunting finality.
That was how she died. Tortured until there was nothing left of her.
***
When Kelly opened her eyes again, she was someone else. A child, waiting by the window for her Dad to return from war. And when he finally came home, he wasn't her father anymore. His eyes burned with madness, his smile twisted with cruelty.
He didn't just kill her. No—he lowered her into a bath of boiling acid, inch by inch, forcing her to endure every second as her flesh hissed and melted from her bones. Kelly's screams clawed at the air until her throat tore open. And then, she died again.
***
The next time, she was a bride standing at the altar. A smile trembled on her lips, vows ready to spill. But before she could speak, her groom slaughtered her family before her eyes. Their bodies collapsed in heaps of blood, a grotesque offering at her feet.
He leaned close, lips brushing her ear as he whispered, "The dowry I've always wanted is your heart."
Then he stabbed her. Again and again, until he split her chest wide open, holding her heart aloft with a smile as she choked on her last breath.
And she died. Again.
***
It didn't stop there.
Death followed her into every role, every memory, every twisted illusion Arvon conjured. Over and over, she was torn apart, burned alive, drowned, gutted—her screams echoing through countless lives that weren't her own.
By the hundredth death, Kelly no longer screamed. No longer fought. No longer cared.
The agony dulled into something distant, her emotions hollowed out until she was nothing but a shadow inside herself. She simply watched now, a bystander to her own destruction, as if her soul had grown tired of suffering.
And still… the deaths kept coming.
It was as if the last scraps of humanity she had clung to were finally ripped away, shredded by endless betrayals and tortures. What stood in their place was something new. The trial hadn't broken her—at least, not in the way Arvon had planned. Instead, he had forged something far more dangerous, a being carved out of blood, agony, and relentless death.
It was during the hundred and seventh trial that everything changed.
This time she was a little girl, clutching a doll as her village burned. Screams filled the air, flames swallowed homes, and blades cut down everyone she had ever known. Her mother's voice broke through the chaos, crying for her to run. Then an arrow flew—straight through the woman's mouth. Kelly stood there, unmoving, watching as her mother choked on blood before crumpling lifelessly to the ground.
But Kelly felt nothing.
And then the sky itself shifted. Darkness warped overhead, the very fabric of space rippling as if reality was beginning to unravel. A suction force gripped her, pulling her away from the massacre.
She didn't resist. She didn't even look back. She let herself be taken.
***
When she opened her eyes again, Duke Arvon stood before her. Three concentric Cosmic circles spun in front of him, blazing with red and orange light, their glow licking the office walls.
She was back in Ritrea's body.
But something was different now.
The fear was gone. In its place was a cold stillness, eyes as sharp and hollow as winter steel. They regarded him with quiet inevitability, as though his death wasn't a possibility—it was simply a matter of time.
That gaze carried no fire, no rage, no mercy. Only indifference. The indifference of doom.
A shiver ran down Arvon's spine. His confidence cracked as his face twisted into a grimace. "How… how is this possible? How are you still sane?"
Something streaked toward Kelly, tearing through the air and leaving faint ion trails in its wake. It didn't just strike her body—it sank straight into her soul. Warmth flooded her, wrapping around her essence, lifting her into a strange, weightless calm.
A blue panel flickered to life before her eyes, glowing brightly in the dim room.
The Duke's eyes went wide—so wide Kelly thought they might burst from their sockets. "The Eternis Sphere—no! Give it back, you worm!"
Notifications flooded the panel, cascading across its luminous surface. Kelly's cold indifference wavered for the first time, uncertainty flickering in her gaze.
But Arvon, consumed by fury, thrust his hand toward her, summoning power.
And then it happened.
A blinding beam of frost-blue energy erupted from her, ripping through the chamber with the force of a thunderclap. It struck Arvon before he could even blink, detonating against him with the violence of a world-ending catastrophe.
The office froze in an instant. Walls crystallized, groaned, and then shattered into glittering shards. A cold mist swirled outward, sweeping across the land until everything for miles was sheathed in ice.
Then the sky opened.
Snow didn't drift—it came crashing down, wild and unrelenting, until the world itself seemed caught in a howling blizzard born of her awakening.
The blue energy wrapped around Kelly like a second skin — snug, warm, and impossibly right. Then, with the force of a sonic blast, it hurled her out of that falling hell of ice.
She hit the frozen ground a few kilometres away. When she looked back, the manor sat trapped inside an icy cage: turrets and roofs sheathed in crystal, walls cleaved into glittering ruin. Here and there the snow was stained red, as if the place had been painted with blood.
Kelly tipped her head and watched. A fight had started — the royals would move now; the blast had handed them the perfect opening, and they wouldn't be fools to ignore it.
"He's still alive, isn't he?" she asked, half to the system, half to herself.
Dead: 30%>
She turned away from the massacre. With Duke Arvon wounded, the Prin dukedom was all but finished. Where before those scenes would have tugged at her chest and driven her toward Lixy, now there was only flat indifference — as if whatever remained of her humanity had been scraped away. Or maybe her body was finally refusing attachments that were never hers to give.
"I want to know more about you," Kelly said, curious. "But not now—too dangerous. I need to kill myself first. You'll come along, right?"
She raised her hand. Cosmic dust swirled and braided itself into a glistening purple blade that hummed in her palm. Kelly hesitated—uncertain if stabbing herself here would send her back to her true body or simply kill her outright. The giant lizard hadn't been keen on explaining rules.
The system answered her pause.
Kelly's eyebrow twitched. "You know, I didn't actually ask for the last part. You volunteered that."
A massive explosion tore up from the manor. Flames speared into the sky; heat washed over her even from kilometers away. The Prin household went up like a torch. The royals had already boarded their spaceships—probably watching with indifferent efficiency as they cleansed the rot that threatened their power.
With a small, sad sigh, Kelly lifted the purple blade and drove it into her own heart. Pain flared, bright and immediate, but her face stayed flat as blood burst out of her chest like a geyser.
Her body convulsed. She slumped to the frozen ground.
And she died.