I, The Villainess, Will Seduce All The Heroines Instead
Chapter 145: The Trial (4)

Chapter 145: The Trial (4)

When we were children, we all wanted something: to hold, to chase, to become.

Dreams came as easily as breath, and we believed the sky was within reach.

No one ever warned us how cruel the wind could be when you tried to fly.

No one told us that reaching the sky might be impossible.

Even the moon, our closest companion, remained untouched until the 1900s.

And even now, the universe remains unknowable. Not through grand epiphanies, but only through glass, through lenses,

Through microscopes that try to see what we’ve long forgotten to feel.

But Petra was the kind who burned.

"Mom, when I grow up, I’m going to be a millionaire!"

"When I grow up, I’ll stay single forever like Grandma! She’s so cool!"

"I’ll do this! I’ll do that!"

"I want to create something that touches people’s hearts!"

She had that fire. The kind that made adults stop and smile.

But the longer she lived,

The more that light unraveled, thread by thread, until she could no longer remember what had once filled her heart.

Love had been taken from her, torn away in silence.

She was never quite the same.

She once laughed at adults. Mocked them.

Swore she’d never become like that. So fragile, so worn, their bodies stiff with fatigue, their hearts quieter than they should’ve been.

"Why don’t they fight harder?" she used to think.

"Why don’t they fix themselves?"

She didn’t understand.

Not until later, when the ache began to set into her own bones.

"I’m honored to be part of the student council," she once said with a bow.

People marveled at her, the brightness in her eyes, the promise in her voice.

But the longer she stood there, the more it all felt hollow.

The dreams the place stood for had nothing to do with her anymore.

Eventually, she broke her own laws.

She had sworn never to fall in love.

She was the first to break that vow.

Her first boyfriend ended with a door slammed shut.

"Why are you so goddamn cold?!"

Then another.

"Please... can we hang out? Just us?"

And another still.

"Do you even love me?"

With each failed attempt, the laws she forged to protect herself crumbled like old paper in the rain.

Because even the strongest boundaries drawn by children who are terrified of being hurt only to grow into adults who long to be touched by the very thing they feared.

Truthfully, it wasn’t that she never craved love or connection.

She simply never grasped what she truly needed to become herself.

So she chased after whatever fleeting spark made her feel alive, clinging to the illusions of purpose and glory she once revered, only to watch them crumble into dust.

Why was it that whenever she gained something, she grew weary of it?

Why was it that whatever she held began to slip through her fingers, not from loss, but from exhaustion?

Why was it that when fortune graced her plate, she turned her face away and left it untouched?

She knew she had to keep walking.

That was how she survived.

Step by step, push after push.

Pushing through was all she had ever known.

But when she could no longer push, when her limbs refused to obey, her thoughts turned inward and soured: A slow, simmering disdain that carved her from the inside out.

"Congratulations! You’ve been promoted to Operations Manager!"

She had done it.

Fast-forward into adulthood, she reached the summit she once dreamed of: A steady salary, enough to spoil her friends, to send gifts home, to prove finally that she had made it.

She was the passionate one. The fiery one.

A little reckless, sure. But opinionated and driven, the girl everyone admired, the woman she always swore she would become.

So why, then, did it all taste so bitter now?

The longer she stayed, the more the air thinned.

Each breath at her desk felt tighter than the last. Tasks multiplied like ghosts, paperwork upon paperwork until she pretended she was working only to scramble last-minute, only to fall short, only to drown.

And the worst part? She wanted to quit.

God, she wanted to walk away.

But that, she told herself, was a luxury she could not afford.

How do you rekindle the fire that once lit up your bones?

And if you do, how do you ensure it doesn’t burn you the same way again?

She used to stay up until dawn, chasing her goals with aching eyes and blistered hands.

Now, she wished she worked like a machine. No heart, no hesitation, just motion.

They all saw her as the woman who never faltered. The one who always endured.

But how could she tell them her title wasn’t a crown; it was a chain.

That somewhere along the way, she had sold pieces of her soul to a dream that no longer fit her shape.

It didn’t help that while she was unraveling, so were the people around her.

Everything she touched, everything she dared to feel, fractured beneath her hands.

It was as if ruin followed her, and in time, it became too much to carry.

She blamed it all on folly, the folly of the heart, the recklessness of emotion, the foolishness of those who lingered too close.

Passion, once her guiding flame, now felt childish.

Health, a concept foreign and distant.

Love, it had long since transfigured into ache.

Each day blurred into a haze of overwhelm until all sensation dulled to exhaustion.

In the end, it was her fault. She knew that. But she didn’t want to say it aloud.

Her last breakup was the breaking point, the final, quiet fracture that tipped the entire world over.

And ever since, she found herself thrust into a world far more fractured than she had imagined.

A world that mirrored the flaw she carried within herself, a flaw she recognized but refused to name.

...

"Let it end..."

...

"I don’t want to move anymore..."

...

"I’m terrified of losing everything... I want to stand, I really do..."

...

She knew she had to act.

To rise.

To work.

To try.

There were no chains.

Not even gravity held her down.

Though, her body felt impossibly heavy, her soul had soaked up sorrow like stone in water,

And now she was sinking slowly into herself.

...

"I’m human too..."

***

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE BLOODY ZODIACS?!"

Saphira was losing it.

Panic had long since pried open her composure, and now all that remained was a snake in the throes of existential crisis.

Verena was slipping into a trance, silent, motionless, and there was absolutely nothing Saphira could do.

Fusion? Out of the question.

That required mutual power, and right now Verena was about as responsive as a soggy scroll.

"THIS DAMN ZODIAC BEAST IS A COSMIC PIECE OF SHIT!"

Nearby, Verena murmured incoherently, clearly begging for release or maybe a sandwich, Saphira couldn’t tell.

If Verena was spiraling, odds were the other students weren’t doing much better. And this was just the second trial?! Who designed this? A celestial sadist?

Plink!

A glass shard landed right in front of her.

"...Huh?"

Her slitted eyes narrowed.

Another. Then another.

Tiny, shimmering fragments of reality falling like cursed snowflakes.

Her instincts kicked in. Jump!

"EEK!"

She leapt just as a crescent-shaped light ripped through the space around them, warping the air itself.

The dimension began to shimmer, almost... fluid now. Like the whole world had been dunked in starlight soup.

Suddenly, there was a hole.

A literal gaping void opened beneath their feet.

"EEEEEP! WHAT’S HAPPENING?! ARE WE BEING SUCKED INTO A BLACK HOLE?!" Saphira shrieked, her voice cracking.

Verena was still dazed and might as well have been napping through an apocalypse.

They fell.

Through the rip in the world. Through light and air and something that smelled suspiciously like burning lavender.

When they crashed through to the other side, they were back in the familiar skies of the second trial, endless, glowing, and terribly unforgiving.

"Verena!" a voice rang out, clear and sharp.

A girl sprinted forward and launched herself into the air, catching Verena in a dramatic mid-air.

But Verena didn’t stir.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t breathe a word.

She simply lay limp in the girl’s arms, like a fallen star that had forgotten how to shine.

When Saphira turned to look, her heart dropped. Of course. It was none other than that deranged Evelyn.

She swallowed hard.

Someone was going to die today and it wasn’t going to be them.

No, the true target stood before them: the Somnioris.

"RACK!" the creature bellowed, its voice a guttural eruption that shattered the stillness.

A gale burst forth from its cry, a tempest so forceful it nearly knocked them off their feet.

As forewarned in every old tale, the creature was colossal, a serpent forged of stardust and shadow.

Its eyes remained shut, sealed by layers of ancient dreaming, and its maw was a bottomless abyss, as if it devoured both sound and sense.

Translucent fins stretched from its spine and sides, undulating like memories slipping through water.

With each movement, the air around it warped and bent, the world rippling like a fevered dream.

This was no ordinary beast.

The Somnioris was born of the Weave itself, a creature that did not merely exist in the Zodiac threads, but swam through them.

A nightmare stitched into the very fabric of magic.

And now, it was before them, dangerous despite it being an illusion.

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