Suddenly, my lungs became full—not with air, but with a thick, suffocating pressure that felt like cold mercury. My heart, which had been racing with adrenaline, began to slow down to a sluggish, heavy thrum.
'What is happening?'
I looked at Laila. She was still looming over me, her sapphire eyes narrowed in a murderous glare. The malice was still radiating off her in waves. By all logic of the 'Void,' I should be gorging myself on her anger. My body should be feeding on her fury.
Then why am I feeling weak?
It wasn't her draconic power pinning me down. This wasn't the external weight of her mana. It was something internal, something rising from the very center of my being that felt like a sudden, icy anchor.
[WARNING: INTENSE MALICE DETECTED]
[RESONANCE STABILITY: 4.5% ... 4.2% ... 4.0%]
[ALERT: MALICE CONVERSION OVERRIDE]
"Urg!"
What? Malice Override?
My legs, which had felt so sturdy just moments ago, began to tremble. The 'Superior' look I had worked so hard to maintain started to crumble.
Laila noticed. Her grip on my chin didn't loosen, but the look in her eyes shifted. The sharp edge of her hatred was still there, but beneath it, like a dark current under a frozen lake, was that 'heavier: thing.
It was pity.
Real, soul-deep pity for a creature that was so broken it had to resort to insults just to feel alive.
"You're pathetic," Laila whispered, her voice losing its icy edge and becoming something much worse: soft. "You're trying so hard to be a monster, Rio. But you're just a dying boy playing with shadows."
"Get out of my sight," she threw me on the floor, her voice quiet now. The mana pressure vanished. "Before I have to watch you die on my garden floor. It would be a waste of good soil."
She turned her back on me, returning to her chair and picking up her fractured tea cup as if I no longer existed.
Huff!
Huff!
Huff!
I breathed heavily, my vision tunneling. The maid was staring at me with wide, tear-filled eyes, not fear anymore, but sadness.
'No...' I thought, my fingers digging into the gravel as I tried to get up from the floor. 'It shouldn't be like this. It was going so well just a moment ago. What happened?'
Her malice was giving me more strength than Aries's hatred—it was a richer, more concentrated fuel. But then it suddenly turned, making me weaker instead of stronger. It was as if the fuel had turned into lead in my veins.
What is that supposed to mean? Why did the system mention a "Malice Override"?
"Are you going to stay here until I wipe you out?" Laila's voice drifted over her shoulder, cold and indifferent. She didn't even bother to look back.
I forced myself up, my joints popping with a sickening sound. My 4.5% stability had vanished like a mirage, replaced by a hollow, aching cold.
I stumbled away from the gazebo, every step feeling like I was dragging a mountain behind me. The maid's pitying gaze followed me until I vanished behind the silver-leafed trees, and that look felt like a physical weight pressing down on my body.
I barely made it back to the palace corridors. My vision was swimming, the edges of my sight were fraying into a gray haze.
I found a pillar in the hallway, leaning my weight against the cold stone, before my legs finally gave out. I skidded down the marble, my breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches.
"Urrrgg..."
I clutched my chest. It felt like my ribs were trying to collapse inward.
"Rio?"
A sharp, familiar voice cut through the fog. I looked up to see a blur of brown hair. Elena was walking through the hall, but the moment her eyes landed on me—slumped against the base of a pillar, trembling and pale—she didn't just walk. She ran.
"What happened?"
She was on her knees in an instant, her hands hovering over me, afraid to touch me as if I might shatter.
"Who did this to you?"
She began to examine me with frantic, precise movements, her fingers checking my neck, my shoulders, my chest. She saw no open wounds, no bruises from a fist, nothing but a small, dark smear of leftover blood on my lips.
"Tell me who did this!"
Suddenly, Elena's eyes began to shine a terrifying, iridescent crimson. The air around her didn't just get cold; it began to swirl in a violent, localized vortex, the pressure of her mana rattling the nearby windows.
"Is it Aries?" she hissed, her voice vibrating with a lethal resonance. "Did that idiot finally lose his mind and strike you to get revenge?"
[WARNING: POSITIVE EMOTIONAL FEEDBACK DETECTED (PROTECTIVENESS)]
[RESONANCE STABILITY: 2.8% ... 3.0%]
Wait. The stability is increasing again?
[RESONANCE STABILITY: 3.0% ... 3.1% ... 3.3%]
I stared at the blinking numbers with a sense of utter bewilderment. My heart, which had been slowing to a terminal stop, gave a sudden, sharp thrum. The cold mercury in my lungs didn't vanish, but it thinned, allowing a jagged breath of air to finally reach my chest.
'Positive Emotion?'
So it wasn't just hatred. My theory—the one I'd just nearly died for in the garden—was incomplete. The 'Void' wasn't just a parasite that ate malice.
There is more to it I have yet to figure out.
"If you are unable to speak, I will go ask Aries myself. How dare he hit you!" Elena snarled, her knees beginning to straighten as she prepared to hunt him down.
I reached out, my fingers wrapping around her wrist. I didn't have much strength, but the shock of the contact was enough to make her pause. I pulled her back down toward my level.
"Huh!" She gasped, startled by the sudden grip.
"It... wasn't him," I managed to rasp.
She looked at me with deep doubt, her crimson eyes searching my face for a lie, but eventually, the swirling mana died down, and her expression returned to her usual stern baseline—though the worry was still etched into the corners of her mouth.
"Whatever," she said, sighing as if dealing with a stubborn child. "Let's just get you to your room."
She leaned in, her intent clear. I put a hand up to stop her. "No, I can walk on my own."
She didn't even acknowledge my protest. "No, you can't. Even if you could I won't let you."
Before I could argue further, she slid one arm beneath my knees and the other behind my back. With a strength that reminded me she was a Dragon and I was... well, me... she hoisted me up.
I felt the air leave my lungs for a second. Now, I feel like our roles have been reversed. I was getting a princess carry instead of giving one? The "Pervert Prince" of the original story would have probably enjoyed this, but for me, it was just surreal.
[WARNING: POSITIVE EMOTIONAL FEEDBACK DETECTED (CARE)]
[RESONANCE STABILITY: 3.5% ... 3.8% ... 4.0%]
Even care is increasing stability?
At this point… I don't even know which emotions are keeping me alive, and which ones are killing me.