Then, Ava's fingers touched the keys.
A single, haunting melody rippled through the hall, making the entire audience collectively hold their breath.
The violin student instantly caught her cue, drawing his bow across the strings to follow her tone.
Without breaking her rhythm, Ava offered him a subtle, encouraging nod, signaling for him to keep playing as she shifted keys.
The two distinct time signatures clashed, harmonizing beautifully into a masterpiece.
The grand melody was intoxicating—it made you want to spin in a classic ballroom dance, yet simultaneously filled you with the urge to dance by yourself and just have fun.
The two Averis girls quickly forced their crumbling composure back into place and began to play their own arrangement.
But the way Ava handled the glass piano was entirely mesmerizing.
She played as if the music were tearing straight from her heart, but the Averis musicians knew the dark truth: she was ruthlessly dominating them.
Every single time they tried to introduce a new tone, Ava effortlessly snatched it, rewrote it on the keys, and performed it ten times better.
If they kept playing, the world would think they were copying her. Frantic, the Averis girls repeatedly changed their key signatures, but Ava kept stealing them, weaving their melodies into her own while looking like a completely innocent victim.
The more the Averis girls scrambled, the more their music sounded completely fractured and out of place.
Down in the northern section, the leader of the Averis delegation felt his face completely fall, watching his two star students embarrass themselves on a global stage.
Down in the northern section, the leader of the Averis delegation felt his face completely fall, watching his two star students embarrass themselves on a global stage.
Desperate to escape the humiliation, the girl with the cello made a radical choice. She deliberately tripped over her own feet, kicking her chair out as she plummeted to the floor.
The heavy wooden instrument crashed directly onto her arm.
"Ouch! My hand! It hurts so badly!" she wailed, sobbing hysterically on the polished floor.
Her friend immediately understood the play.
She dropped her flute and ran to her side, looking up at the judges with a panicked expression.
"She can't play anymore! This round cannot be counted!"
"How could she just fall?" the Averis music teacher scolded sharply, throwing his chair back as he stood up in the southern section.
"She has played the cello all her life! Crownside customized these instruments according to their sizes—did you people give her a heavy one on purpose to sabotage us?!"
Instantly, the western section erupted into a frenzy. Paparazzi, journalists, and news anchors furiously clicked their shutters, recording the sudden diplomatic scandal.
"Is that true? Why would Crownside do that, especially when their own contestants are already favored to win?" a reporter shouted, her technical team rushing toward the transparent boundaries separating the press from the northern section.
The girl continued to wail on the floor, the cameras flashing blindly over her tears.
But before the rumors could spread, the massive curved screen behind the stage suddenly flashed to life.
The live feed cut directly to a crisp, high-definition video of the stage from an alternate angle, showing the Averis girl deliberately hooking her own foot and throwing her body onto the cello.
Ava blinked.
Then her lips curved into a sweet smile.
"Oops. My bad."
She tilted her head innocently.
"My friend was recording me winning and accidentally caught everything on camera.
Our school isn't very good with security, you see... they even allowed my friend into the tech area so he could broadcast this. I'm pretty sure he just wanted to help!"She tilted her head, her eyes wide with a childish, mocking curiosity.
"But why would you try to trip yourself? Is this one of the dramatic acts you guys prepared for us? It's so funny!"With a single, devastating stroke of false kindness, Ava had completely stripped away their cover.
By mockingly calling it an "act" to save their face, she made it transparently obvious to the entire world that they knew they were losing and had crippled themselves to escape the score.
"Shut your mouth! You are the one who stole our song!" the girl on the floor screamed.
Seeing that her sabotage had failed, leaving her utterly embarrassed and with a genuinely injured wrist for nothing, her rage boiled over.
She wanted to leap across the stage and tear Ava's beautiful face open.
Ava's eyes instantly welled with brilliant, glittering tears. She bit her trembling lower lip, looking exactly like a noble, fragile flower forcing herself to stand strong against an unprovoked attack.
"Did I do something wrong?" Ava whispered, her voice cracking delicately as she looked at the audience, radiating a weak helplessness that made every man in the room want to leap to her defense.
"How can I steal your tone? Though our scripts are both two hundred years old, they are completely different arrangements. And the music trending in our country is entirely different from yours... so how can you blame me?"
"Enough! You failed," the host barked, stepping onto the stage with a dark expression.
He turned toward the three judges skilled in all talent none of whom hailed from Averis or Elysia to ensure total neutrality.
They were seasoned professionals, and they didn't hesitate.
They raised their digital pads, stamping a massive, humiliating ZERO next to the Averis score.
"This is an international competition being broadcast worldwide," a queen from the southern section stated, her voice slicing through the audio system with icy disdain.
"The Averis representatives should stop treating our holiday as a joke."The leader of the Averis delegation glared with murderous intent at the music teacher, who scrambled onto the stage and aggressively dragged the two crying girls down the steps.
The two Averis performers felt like spitting actual blood, their chests heaving with unadulterated rage as they watched the red-haired thief stand under the golden spotlight, Ava had stolen their melody.
Then stolen their dignity. And somehow, she had done it while looking like the innocent victim.
With the stage cleared of the screaming Averis girls, Ava turned back to the glass piano.
Her fingers pressed into the keys once more, unleashing a final, breathtaking melody.
The Crownside boy caught her rhythm instantly, his violin drawing out long, soaring notes that wrapped around her chords.
The music didn't just blend the two hundred-year-old classic with modern synth—it completely consumed it, weaving a fast, triumphant rhythm that felt less like a school exhibition and more like a victory march.
When the last note faded, the hall erupted into a steady, appreciative applause.
"Next competition: Chess!" the host announced through the microphone as the human staff began clearing the musical equipment.
Almost immediately, the sleek, silent robot staff glided through the rows, quietly distributing fresh refreshments to the tables.
Ava walked back to the center of the stage, her ivory-white satin train pooling behind her as she moved.
This time, another prominent female Noble student from Crownside High walked beside her, taking her place as Ava's partner.
Directly across from them sat Jennie and the third Averis representative.
Both Averis girls had clearly been pulled aside and fiercely warned by their delegation leaders to behave themselves.
The battlefield before them was entirely unique—a customized, oversized mahogany board designed specifically for Elysian Four-Player Chess.
Unlike standard modern chess, the board was extended into a massive cross-shape with four separate armies.
The pieces didn't just move forward and backward; they could cut diagonally across the expansive center columns, allowing two allied players to coordinate traps, swap control of specific quadrants, or completely sacrifice an ally's piece to build an invisible blockade against the opposing nation.
It was a game of absolute geometric betrayal.
sides, the massive circular board was divided into four connected territories, each belonging to one player.
Every player had their own army, pieces, and starting zone.
The central area contained neutral spaces that could be occupied by any player.
The pieces could move according to different patterns depending on their rank, but capturing an opponent did not automatically eliminate that player's entire army.
Instead, captured territory affected their available moves, resources, and defensive routes.
A player could attack either opponent beside them, cooperate temporarily with the teammate sitting across from them, or deliberately sacrifice territory to trap another player.
The goal was not simply to capture a king.
Each team had to protect its Crown Piece while controlling enough of the central territory to trigger victory.
That meant the four players had to think beyond their own pieces.
Every move affected two other players.
A careless attack could leave a teammate exposed.
A successful trap could force an opponent into a position where their own teammate became the next target.
It was part chess, part territory strategy, and part psychological warfare.
Ava settled into her sleek chair, adjusting the pearl choker against her skin. "I hope this match has no drama," she said, her voice dropping into a soft, melodic purr that only the four of them could hear. "It would be pretty embarrassing, seriously."
Jennie's jaw tightened beneath her makeup, offering a cold, transparently fake smile.
"So, this Chess match is going to be a coordinated team game, so get ready!" the host voiced to the audience.
Down in the southern section, the Vice President sat up straight in his upholstered seat, his sharp eyes fixed on the digital display mirroring the board.
Beside him, a sleek service robot silently poured steaming hot tea into his porcelain cup without breaking his concentration.
"Players, prepare yourselves."
The timer appeared.
MATCH STARTING.
Jennie reached out, her manicured fingers sliding a dark obsidian knight down the western flank. "I know what you did," she whispered sharply, her eyes never leaving the board. "Does acting sweet and gentle actually fool anyone?"
Ava lazily lifted a pristine white rook, her movement agonizingly slow. "But it was two of your own teammates who ended up getting embarrassed by their own acting,"
she murmured, her red hair catching the overhead lights as she looked up with a sleepy, dangerous smile.
"I'm bored. I'm in the mood for embarrassing people today." Ava said with a smile
"So you did steal our teammates' tone," the third Averis girl spat, leaning forward over her side of the quadrant.
Ava's Crownside partner let out a soft, mocking laugh, moving a pawn to cover Ava's flank. "Stole what tone? You talk like a literal child. Does a music note belong to anyone? And anyway... don't you find it humiliating that the music note supposedly belonged to her, yet Ava could play it ten times better?"
The insult hit a nerve.
The four of them fell into a heavy, suffocating silence as the pieces began to rapidly clash across the center columns.The game was ruthless.
Jennie and her partner focused all their aggression on Ava's teammate, executing a brutal, double-pronged assault across the diagonal borders.
Within ten minutes, Ava's partner was completely cornered and her king was taken, removing her from the board.Jennie leaned back, a smug, venomous smirk breaking across her face.
"It seems Crownside High is absolutely nothing compared to us," she whispered triumphantly, sliding her queen into the open space
Ava didn't look bothered. In fact, she used her partner's elimination as a tactical shield. While Jennie was gloating, Ava quietly redirected her remaining white pieces, swarming Jennie's partner.
Before the girl could even register the trap, Ava's bishop sliced through her defenses, eliminating the second Averis player from the board.It was down to Ava and Jennie.
One-on-one across a heavily depleted board.The Razor's EdgeJennie's eyes raked over the positions.
Ava had lost several major pieces just to clear her partner out.
"Tsk. Wasting so many games just to kick her out?" Jennie whispered, her voice laced with heavy, mocking satisfaction.
"It looks like you are going to lose anyway. Sigh... how embarrassing would it be if you were actually serious? If you were gentle, I would have spared you the humiliation. See? You wasted your teammate's help, killed off most of your own pieces just to remove mine, and now you're going to get kicked off the board yourself.". Jennie said
Ava let out a soft, musical hum, her fingers hovering over her remaining rook.
"Look at your fellow Averis citizens," Ava murmured softly, her eyes glinting with dark amusement as she glanced toward the northern section.
The Averis crowd was leaning forward, their faces filled with a desperate, hungry satisfaction, entirely convinced Jennie was about to secure a massive win.
"Hmm... nothing feels quite as good as stealing the food straight from an open mouth. The same goes for defeating someone who thinks victory is already theirs... doing it in an embarrassing way, making them think they still had a chance to win. *'Just a little more and I can win'—*that is the exact thought that will be ringing in their heads, making the failure so much more devastating when they finally fall."Ava slid her piece into place with a sharp, resonant clack.
The smirk completely died on Jennie's face.
She looked down at the board, her heart suddenly hammering against her ribs.
No matter how she calculated her next three moves, Ava's pieces were already there, waiting for her. Ava hadn't lost those pieces out of desperation—she had thrown them away on purpose to bait Jennie into advancing too far.
Jennie's palms began to sweat, her expensive nails digging hard into her skin as her breathing turned ragged.
She stared at the mahogany cross, her mind frantically racing, but every single escape route was a dead end.
"Now, this is going to be incredibly embarrassing," Ava taunted, her voice dripping with mock pity as she rested her chin on her hand, staring into Jennie's eyes. "If you don't win this, how are you ever going to save face?"
"You did this on purpose..." Jennie whispered, her face turning pale, her eyes flashing a dangerous, blood-shot red. "You made it look like I was winning just so you could utterly crush me. Ava... how dare you, you bastard. Is this a game to you? Is this fun? How can you be so twisted? You act like a saint, but you behave like a literal devil."
Ava's smile widened, bright, sharp, and entirely unhinged."I'm not everyone's cup of tea," Ava whispered, her voice bubbling with pure, unadulterated merit and amusement as she leaned across the table.
"I prefer being poison. I'm going to be the sole reason the therapist rates in Averis skyrocket this year, because I am driving every single one of you completely mad. So go ahead and hate me... because you can never be me. Stupid."
With a casual flick of her wrist, Ava slid her final queen across the center column, slamming it into place right before Jennie's trapped king."Checkmate."
"Hmm… something smells so bad."
Ava suddenly paused and sniffed the air dramatically.
"Oh, my fault."
She turned toward Jennie with an innocent smile.
"It's coming from you. The smell of failure must have stuck to your body."
She wrinkled her nose.
"Gross."
Ava stood, smoothing her gown as if she hadn't just insulted someone.
The moment she faced the audience, however, her expression transformed into a perfectly gentle smile.
She scanned the crowd, her eyes moving from one section to another until they finally stopped on the person she had been looking for.
There.
Ava's smile widened slightly.
She walked off the stage with her teammate as the hall erupted into applause.
Instead of returning directly to the student section, Ava headed toward the east area.
At the east section Virtue clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms.
She sneaked another glance toward the southern section.
Aiden's grandfather was still there.
And he was nodding in approval.
Virtue felt her stomach twist.
The sight made her feel like she was going to vomit.
She abruptly stood and walked away.
"Where is Virtue going?" one of Sophia's other friends asked, looking confused.
"Probably the restroom," Sophia answered calmly.
Her eyes remained on the stage.
Finally.
She's going to act.
Sophia's lips curved into the faintest smile.
Meanwhile, Ava took the stairs toward the second floor.
The balcony overlooked almost the entire event hall. From there, the stage, audience, and four sections were clearly visible.
Matthew was already there.
He leaned against the railing with a box of popcorn in one hand, casually watching the competition below.