After that, Sylvie no longer knew how she had left.
She wandered out of the blood-soaked alley in a daze, staggering aimlessly through the streets.
Her feet stepped through viscous blood. She passed heaps of mangled corpses piled like mountains along the roadsides. By now, no more piercing, horrifying cries for help or wails reached her ears.
Those already dim emerald eyes had been stripped of their last trace of light.
Only when she came to her senses did she lift her head and realize—unknowingly—she had arrived before the heavy, icy doors of the grand hall.
Sulga regarded her numb expression with his usual cold indifference.
“Let me… inside… I need to see the Queen…” A series of faint, broken sounds squeezed from her throat.
“Now is not the time for attendance…”
“Let me in!!!”
A hoarse, cracking roar burst from Sylvie’s throat, cutting off Sulga’s icy refusal.
This was no plea, no trace of her usual submission—just an instinctive surge born from being scorched by despair and pain.
Tear tracks mixed with bloodstains on her pale face. Her emerald eyes stared blankly, trembling.
On Sulga’s eternally impassive face, his brows furrowed almost imperceptibly.
He looked at this Sylvie—who seemed an entirely different person… clothes disheveled, body covered in blood, gaze scattered, in agony—like a soul freshly crawled from hell, on the verge of shattering.
Yes…
Just as he had predicted.
Just as Her Majesty the Queen desired.
He, Sulga Claudir, saw on this doll-like, numb girl’s face a surge of emotions—pain, despair, and madness intertwined.
“Anger.”
He recalled not long ago, atop the throne, the Queen lounging lazily, idly toying with a crystal wine glass. In a meaningful, teasing tone, she had commanded him.
“Sulga, watch her closely.”
“If one day even an ice block like you can detect even the faintest whiff… of something truly ‘boiling’ within her…”
Sulga closed his eyes briefly, then stepped aside, clearing the path to the hall.
“Let her in… Hehe.” Klal’s final words echoed in his mind.
“Go in…” His voice remained calm.
“Her Majesty will be delighted to see your expression right now.”
…
Boom…
Behind her, the heavy doors slowly closed after she entered, emitting a muffled boom that sealed away the last sliver of outside light.
In the dim hall, the air was thick with the familiar rich scent of blood, mingled with Klal’s faint, cold aura.
Yet it could not mask the lingering taste of despair clinging to Sylvie.
Tap… tap… tap…
Her footsteps echoed faintly in the vast, silent hall—strikingly abrupt, utterly alone.
At the far end, the throne loomed high on its dais. Behind swaying veils, only a vague, languid silhouette was visible.
Sylvie did not stop. She did not kneel respectfully before the throne as usual. She simply followed instinct, staggering forward—gaze unfocused, heading straight toward it.
Only when her knees buckled and her frail body swayed violently did she barely halt.
Sylvie lifted her head. Complex, agonizing emotions burned in her emerald eyes as she tried to pierce the veil, to see clearly the figure atop the throne—who controlled everything, who destroyed everything.
“Not kneeling upon seeing your master is quite the overreach for a proper blood livestock.” Klal’s teasing words drifted from behind the canopy.
Her crimson eyes glowed with an eerie, seductive light in the darkness, projecting directly onto the veil.
Sylvie could clearly see—clearly feel—that gaze laced with appreciation, scrutiny, delight, and toying intent locked firmly on her face.
She offered no reply. Instead, with a voice hoarse to the extreme, she blurted the question that had tormented her nearly to madness the entire way.
“…Why…”
“Why… issue that order…”
“Those children… what… what did they do wrong… why… do this…”
Her body swayed again. She raised her head, meeting the crimson eyes behind the veil, repeating the cold words she had heard over and over that day.
“‘Purification’… ‘optimization’…”
“They just… just wanted to live! They were so weak! Even living was so hard for them… why, why not even grant them that tiny right?!”
Her pained voice trembled more violently. Her furious questions poured out without pause.
“You clearly… possess such immense power… power enough to decide everything easily… power enough to ignore everything…” Her voice lowered gradually, carrying near-pleading confusion.
“Why… choose the cruelest way… to strip them of their last right to live…”
She tilted her face upward. Tears mixed with bloodstains became two grotesque trails of bloody tears streaming down her cheeks.
Her final words were uttered in the most abject, lost, powerless tone she could muster.
“Please… answer me…”
Sylvie’s voice fell.
A strange, eerie silence slowly filled the hall.
Until, from behind the canopy, a reply finally came—languid and husky, laced with unmasked amusement.
“Finished, my dear…”
The graceful figure shifted. No longer reclining against the throne, she straightened upright.
“You want the answer, don’t you? Hehe…” Klal laughed pleasantly, calling once more.
“Come up… I’ll tell you why.”
Sylvie’s body jolted. She struggled to her feet, shuffling step by step toward the scarlet domain shrouded in veils.
Her emerald eyes stared blankly, unfocused—at the dark silhouette, at those monster-like eyes glowing crimson.
Until she stopped before the canopy.
The figure behind leaned forward slowly.
A pair of hands—pale to the point of sickness—emerged from the swaying veil’s edge.
Her movements were deliberate, carrying an elegance and possessiveness that brooked no refusal. Icy fingertips reached toward Sylvie’s blood-and-tear-stained, trembling face.
Then, fingers splayed—she cradled Sylvie’s stunned, disheveled face as if holding fragile treasure.
Next, Klal’s face emerged from behind the scarlet curtain.
That exquisite beauty was even more breathtaking in the dim light. Her crimson eyes now brimmed with a heart-pounding, near-pathological, burning desire.
Her gaze greedily swept over Sylvie’s face—the falling tears, the bloodstains, the subtle distortions from pain.
As if… appraising a masterpiece titled “Agony.”
Her lips curved in an arc—beautiful to the extreme, yet icy and mad to the extreme.
“Want to know why?”
She spoke softly. Cold breath brushed Sylvie’s face.
“Because of you, my dear Sylvie.”
“Because I wanted to see it.”
“I wanted to see you make this expression.”
Her thumb gently stroked the tear tracks at Sylvie’s eye corner—tender yet cruel.
“Not that flawless, ever-accepting doll facade. Not that hollow, stagnant calm.”
“I wanted to see loss of control, struggle, pain… your soul torn apart, your reason burning at the edge of collapse.”
Her face drew closer. In her crimson eyes clearly reflected Sylvie’s face—swallowed by despair.
“I wanted to see ‘anger’—true anger—break out from this carefully polished shell, this body bound by the collar… ‘anger’.”
“Those defectives? The lives of those children?”
Klal chuckled lightly.
“They were merely convenient fertilizer. Using their deaths, their fear, their blood… to nourish you. To see if it could sprout something I find interesting.”
“Now,” her voice lowered like a devil’s whisper. In her crimson eyes shone unhidden delight and anticipation.
“Tell me, Sylvie…”
“This color of blood, this warmth of tears, this heart-rending pain—isn’t it far more vivid than numb submission?”
She cradled Sylvie’s face, forcing her gaze to remain trapped—unable to escape those crimson eyes that seemed capable of devouring everything.
“Now… can you feel even a little ‘anger’? Hehe…”
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