"Thank you, Lord Aegis, for saving my master," Ruina said sincerely, lowering her head.
Aegis waved it off.
"Forget it. Why hasn’t she woken up yet?"
Ruina replied calmly, "My master was afflicted by a hex. She should recover by morning."
Aegis had many questions he wanted to ask Bella, but it seed he would not get the chance anyti soon.
He turned to leave.
"Well then, take care of her."
"Wait!"
Ruina flapped her wings and stopped him in his tracks.
Aegis and Pyro both looked at the silver dragon with visible annoyance.
Before Aegis could speak, Ruina hurriedly spoke first:
"Please don’t leave yet, Lord Aegis. In actually, My master and I have been searching for you all this ti."
"You were searching for ?" Aegis asked, his expression turning cold. "Why? Did you co to kill ?"
"No, no, no!"
Ruina shook her draconic head frantically, clearly terrified of being misunderstood.
"My master said that she loves you," Ruina added quickly. "Even though I don’t know what it ans, but I don’t think that carries any kind of hostility."
"She loves ?" Aegis muttered in confusion as his gaze drifted to Bella’s face.
Her sharp nose, delicate eyebrows, and pale blue eyes seed to stare straight into his soul, even in unconsciousness.
For a brief mont, his heart skipped a beat.
Bella’s figure was far more striking and curvaceous than before, back when she returned from abroad.
Once upon a ti, he had dread for endless nights for her return.
He had imagined warm nights, soft words, and a future together.
Now, those mories only hurt.
Aegis clenched his jaw and slapped his face again, snapping himself out of it.
"No," he said coldly. "She doesn’t love ."
He turned away.
"She loves Aegis. She completely forgot that soone nad Arlan once existed in her life."
The words Aegis had spoken were loud enough for both Ruina and Bella to hear clearly.
Yes, she could hear every painful accusation he had uttered.
And this one hurt more than anything. She desperately wished to clear the everlasting misunderstanding between them. To tell him she wasn’t the one who had humiliated him in high school. That she had been controlled by an entity, a ghost residing within her own body.
But her body was refusing to obey her command. Even forming those few crucial words felt impossibly difficult.
But the tears, they could not be halted.
They stread freely, hot and fast, down her cold cheek.
Aegis did not notice. He had already turned on his heel, preparing to leave the ruined landscape.
His heart felt irreparably broken once more. The girl he had once loved, he believed, now loved soone else entirely.
Just then, his footsteps faltered and paused as he heard so sounds from behind.
"Plop. Plop. Plop."
He slowly turned back, only to witness a terrifying, visceral scene unfold.
The veins across Bella’s skin visibly bulged, straining against the pressure, before violently bursting in a sickening shower of crimson blood.
Seeing this grotesque, self-inflicted violence, even Aegis was deeply shaken.
Just what kind of desperate, internal tornt could be driving this girl to such an extre act, forcing her own body to rupture itself simply to be freed from the mysterious restrictions placed upon her?
Within seconds, her entire form was oozing fresh blood, making her look like a terrifying, bloody ghost dragged straight from a nightmare.
Blood dripped steadily from her hair, chin, and fingers in heavy droplets.
The blood loss was so rapid and severe that Aegis could only stare blankly.
Ruina was already panicking like crazy, her draconic eyes wide with distress as she watched her mistress bleed.
After a painful mont, Bella slumped to her knees, imdiately beginning to cough up thick, heavy blood.
"Cough, Cough~ Don’t leave , Arlan!" she managed to say weakly, barely forcing the na past her lips.
Aegis was stunned to absolute silence. The na ’Arlan,’ his true na, was a secret he had guarded ticulously. He had never revealed it to anyone, not even to his most close companion, Naida.
"Who is Arlan? I am Aegis. Did you mistake for soone else?"
Bella finally t his eyes. Hers were strained and red from the overwhelming pain and exertion.
Her lips quivered uncontrollably as she struggled to speak. "Cough... don’t deny it anymore, Arlan. I know everything about you. How you transford into Aegis, and how you claid the mantle of the Sea God."
His eyes narrowed coldly,"Then, you must also know why I beca like this, Bella? The humiliation you threw at beca my single, driving force. Until this mont, I lived fueled by hating you.
Then why did you still co after ? Is it because I have beco the perfect man of everyone’s dreams? Is it because I am no longer that fat Otaku? Is it because I’m not delusional anymore?"
Bella’s heart felt as if it were physically being squeezed in a crushing vice. The physical wounds were one thing, but each of his accusatory words stabbed her like a freezing knife.
"I... I was wrong. Everything that happened... That day was a misunderstand—"
Thud.
As soon as she finished the sentence, she could no longer maintain consciousness.
She fainted abruptly, succumbing to the critical blood loss and the searing, burning pain that raged across her body.
Seeing her collapse into unconsciousness, Aegis’s eyebrows furrowed, confusion settling his features.
"A misunderstanding?" he muttered under his breath, but he did not dare allow himself to hope or form expectations.
He was simply not ready to endure another heartbreak. His heart was already fractured beyond recognition.
Still, he needed to hear the full truth from her.
He stepped forward and gently lifted the unconscious Bella onto his shoulder, making his shoulder-perched fla familiar, Pyro, let out a small, disgruntled pout as its favorite spot was occupied.
Her squishy mounds pressed against his back, but he paid them no mind.
Ruina, the Silver Dragon, watched the entire proceeding very cautiously. She remained fully alert for any ill motive toward her master as she began to follow Aegis.
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