Her Unrequited Love

Chapter 4- He ran

Across her body stood a pretty girl in a torn black outfit, her messy appearance showing the evidence of fight and struggle which she had gone through. Her hand held a smoking pistol. Her eyes were wide open and filled with red capillaries, making her look like a crazed beast, ruining her pretty face and making her appearance terrifying.

“Hahaha… Finally this annoying b***h is dead. The Golden Vexillum is mine! Hahaha… I’m the Champion. The useless b***h, Nine, is finally gone!! It’s great that I secretly brought a gun to deal with this cockroach who can’t be killed with blades!!! Hahaha! I won!! Now Master will look at me. He will only look at me! How wonderful! Haha!”

Alice’s maniacal laughter echoed through the bloodstained chamber. It rang harsh and shrill, cutting through the silence that had fallen over the other battered participants still lingering at the edge of the arena. None of them dared step closer. Their eyes flickered between the smoking gun in her hand and the lifeless body of Nine sprawled in the dirt.

Disbelief, horror, and jealousy mixed in their gazes. Some gnashed their teeth — furious that Alice had broken the unspoken rules of the Champion Trial by smuggling in a firearm. Others lowered their heads in fear, unwilling to speak against her at this moment when madness blazed in her eyes.

Yet beneath their silence, a ripple of contempt spread. A champion who relied on a weapon forbidden in the trial? A victor drenched not in honor but in disgrace? Her shrill laughter only made her appear more deranged, more unstable, and in the eyes of many, less than human.

Still, Alice didn’t care. Her pretty face flushed red with exhilaration, tears streaming down her cheeks like a bride awaiting her groom. She imagined the cold, handsome man turning toward her at last, his distant gaze softening with approval. In her mind, she could already hear him calling her name, already feel the weight of his hand upon her shoulder.

Meanwhile, in the shadowed chamber of observation, the elders who had been arguing froze mid-sentence as the gunshot cracked across the hall. The screen showed Number Nine dropping the Golden Vexillum and collapsing, blood spreading across her chest.

For the first time in memory, silence devoured the council of elders.

Their eyes shifted, not to the screen, but to the regal figure seated above them.

The man in the silver-embroidered suit had always been a mountain — unshakable, cold, untouchable. He was the stillness in every storm, the eternal ice that no heat could melt.

But now—

His hand clenched so hard on the velvet armrest that the gilded wood creaked. His jaw tightened, a vein pulsing at his temple. For the briefest heartbeat, his carefully composed mask cracked, and through it leaked something dangerous, raw, and utterly human.

Then, without a word, he rose.

The oppressive aura he released froze every elder in place as he moved, not with his usual unhurried grace, but with a sudden, violent urgency. In a blur, his tall frame vanished from the chamber, the doors slamming open as he strode out.

The echoes of his departure hung in the air like thunder.

The elders were left stunned. Not a soul spoke for a long moment.

When had they ever seen their Master run?

In the clearing, wild laughter rose above the curses and frantic chatter of the disciples.

“Hahaha! The Golden Vexillum is mine! No one can take it away. This slutty orphan is not worthy to have it!” Alice’s frenzied voice cracked through the tense silence. Her laughter rang shrill and unhinged as she strode toward the collapsed body of Easther.

The other participants growled low in their throats, eyes glinting with hostility.

Alice, Number Two of the organization. Already second only to the champion, and now with a gun in her hand, she was like a tiger given fangs of steel. Her presence alone was suffocating. None of them dared to charge her. To fight recklessly was to be shot dead before even exchanging blows. But to give up here, after everything—they felt bitterly unwilling.

Their hands twitched toward their weapons, their hearts screamed with rage, but their bodies froze under the shadow of her firearm.

The Supervisors and Elders were absent. No one was here to impose punishment. Alice could do as she pleased.

Slowly, almost mockingly, she swayed her curvy hips as she sauntered to the tiny blood-soaked body. She bent forward, the gun gleaming in one hand while her other reached down, her hips tilting seductively as if mocking the others’ helplessness. A victorious smile lit her beautiful face.

The Golden Vexillum lay there, bloodied, drenched in tragedy.

Alice stretched her fingers toward it—

But before her hand touched the mast, the lifeless figure on the ground moved.

Easther’s eyes snapped open. With a sudden feral lunge, she drove the sharp mast of the Golden Vexillum upward, stabbing straight through Alice’s forehead. The metal sank deep—half the mast buried into bone.

Gasps and cries rang out, but disbelief drowned them all.

Alice’s gun clattered uselessly to the ground as her beautiful face twisted in horror.