THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT

CHAPTER 6 : SECOND STEP - THE INNER CIRCLE

It had been a month since Cera entered this world — a month of endless training, bruises, and silence.

Every trainee under sixteen was preparing for the next step, though no one knew what it truly meant.

Only one rule was repeated every day — Survive, even if you have to burn for it.

That morning, Marquis stood before them in the training yard, his cold eyes scanning the line of young faces.

“Your next step,” he said, voice echoing through the hall, “is not about strength. It’s about will. You will fight men who have betrayed this family — traitors. Kill them, and you live. Hesitate, and you die.”

The words hit harder than the winter air.

By evening, the trainees were taken to an old warehouse — dark, silent, and smelling of iron and fear.

The captured traitors, grown men twice their size, were chained and glaring, waiting for a chance to escape.

Marquis gave the order: “Begin.”

The chaos erupted instantly.

Older trainees lunged first, trying to prove themselves. Cera stayed back, watching, calculating. Her ribbon — the one she tied around her wrist — felt heavier than ever.

A man broke free and charged at her. She barely dodged. His knife slashed her belly, a shallow but burning cut. She gasped, stumbled back, blood soaking into her black shirt.

For a moment, she wanted to close her eyes — to fall.

Then she remembered William’s last words — Protect yourself from this world’s cruelty.

Her fear turned to fire.

Cera lunged forward, grabbing a metal rod from the floor. She swung it with all her strength — once, twice — until the man fell lifeless. Her hands trembled, but her eyes didn’t blink.

When the fight ended, only a few stood alive. Cera was one of them.

Marquis stepped closer, boots echoing on the floor. “She survived,” someone murmured.

Marquis smirked. “Good. She moves further.”

Cera said nothing — her hands still sticky with blood, her mind somewhere far away, hearing William’s voice again.

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That night, when silence returned to the camp, Cera sat alone in her small room. Her stomach hurt, her bandages fresh.

Then there was a knock on the door.

It was Jeon — the youngest of the seven brothers, just fifteen, holding a small box in his hands.

He said nothing, just placed it in front of her.

When she opened it, there was a small piece of cake — messy, half-melted, clearly stolen from the main kitchen.

“Congratulations,” Jeon mumbled. “They said you’d die today. But… you didn’t.”

Cera looked at the cake — her first since William’s birthday.

For a moment, her throat tightened.

She picked it up slowly and whispered, “Thank you.”

Jeon smiled faintly before leaving. “Don’t thank me. Just… don’t die too soon. It gets boring here.”

When he was gone, Cera sat in silence, staring at the cake under the dim light.

She took a bite — sweet, soft — and for the first time in weeks, she felt something.

Not happiness. Not peace.

Just… human.

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