Grant You a Gentle Death!

Finally.

Under Lin En's relentless threats and intimidation, he finally pieced together the whole story.

And after hearing it, even Lin En could not help drawing a deep breath.

Because...

"This is just too absurd!"

Lin En smiled at her.

"Was it jealousy? Or did you feel you couldn't control him anymore, so you decided to kill him? Looking at it that way, you really are vile!"

Yes.

Just as he had suspected, after three years together, how could the original owner of his body not have known what kind of person she was? But perhaps he had known all along, yet still harbored a sliver of hope for her. Or perhaps it was that ridiculous trace of affection he still had that made him keep enduring, keep persuading her, keep begging her to change.

But she never did.

All he ever got in return was her escalating cruelty, time and time again.

She tortured him, yet claimed to love him.

That was why he had grown gloomier and quieter. He had even considered escaping, but every time, she held him firmly in her grasp, keeping him as a plaything that belonged to her alone.

And if that had been all there was to it...

Having already lost everything, he probably would have kept enduring it forever.

But who could have imagined...

"He awakened the [Holy Flame] Sequence?"

Lin En smiled.

"That's why you decided to kill him?"

She clenched her teeth, her eyes filled with hatred and despair.

"No! I didn't!!"

"If he'd stayed by my side, I never would have... I never would have done that to him! He chose to abandon me! He chose this path himself!"

Two trails of tears spilled from those hate-filled eyes.

The scene of their last meeting surfaced in her mind once again.

He had told her plainly what he had decided. Even now, she clearly remembered the look in his eyes. That immense resolve and indifference had made her heart ache as though a knife were slicing through it.

He had said his mind was made up.

He had lost all faith in her.

He no longer wanted to be the little dog at her side. He said he had awakened his third Sequence, and her [Heart Corrosion] could no longer control him.

Resentment flickered again and again in Shakira's eyes.

"Why?! Why did I put in so much effort only to end up with a fate like this?! And he... he could just... so easily get everything other people wanted!"

"Was he trying to show off?!"

"Showing off that he awakened [Holy Flame], while I got [Rot]?!"

Because in this world...

A negative Sequence alone could all but destroy someone's life. And the Sequence she had awakened would even gradually eat away at the beauty she took the greatest pride in.

Yet [Holy Flame] was a top-tier ability even among all the Sequences that had ever appeared!

Because what it represented...

Was the power once possessed by the Valkyrie who had become the blazing sun!

Her eyes brimmed with pain and madness. Tears fell, and she was almost hysterical.

"How dare he say those things to me! How dare he defy me! Talking about a new life... saying he didn't want to live like this anymore... saying he was leaving me..."

"I wasn't going to let him get his way!"

"He's my property, mine alone! I'm his entire life! He betrayed my love for him!!"

Lin En smiled as he twisted her neck.

"What are you even talking about?"

"Weren't you just playing with him from start to finish? Calling it love-don't you think that's laughable? You just didn't want the little dog you'd raised escaping your control. Why dress it up with such high-minded excuses?"

Almost hysterical, Shakira shouted angrily:

"You're nothing but a monster who stole his body! You don't understand anything!"

Lin En looked at her with a beaming smile.

"Very good. Then tell me first: did you have anything to do with his parents' deaths?"

For an instant...

Something strange flashed across Shakira's face. She gritted her teeth and abruptly turned her head away.

Lin En's smile grew even more charming.

"I see. You really are sick. What a shame, though. He never got that answer, even when he died."

Lin En slowly hauled her up in front of him, studying that crazed face at close range.

"You're just jealous of him."

"You just wanted to take everything he had for yourself. Even if he'd never said those things to you, you still would have stolen his Origin Substance. Because to you... he was never anything more than an object."

Lin En smiled down at her trembling face.

Thud-

He released her as though discarding a piece of trash.

"Do you want to know the last line he wrote in his textbook?"

Lin En spoke softly to her.

"He said the thing he hated most, most of all in his entire life, was falling in love with you back then."

In that instant, those words stabbed into her chest like a knife, draining all color from her face.

Lin En vigorously stretched his body, turning around with a (*￣︶￣) expression as though doing his morning exercises.

"And I'm terribly sorry, but since you killed him, this body of his belongs to me now. I'll put it to good use and hone it into a fine enough... object to satisfy me. Of course, that won't have anything to do with you."

"Actually, if you want to live, it's not as though you have no chance. Hehehe."

He turned his head and glanced at her.

"But I'd still like to say something on his behalf..."

"You really are filthy."

Hehehehehe-

At that moment...

Her whole body shuddered.

It was as though she suddenly remembered that indifferent look in his eyes again, the day he had come to see her.

That gaze she could no longer change, even by constantly using [Heart Corrosion] to deepen his love for her.

No matter how she begged...

He remained as cold as ice.

She kept her head lowered, biting her lip so hard that drops of blood dripped down.

"What will it take for you to let me go?"

"Very simple."

Lin En gazed into the darkness outside the door and said with a cheerful smile:

"Help me recover my Origin Substance. Help me get familiar with this body of his, little by little. Just as you took everything from him, I'll... take his identity."

Crack-

Her fists slowly clenched.

Scarlet blood dripped down.

Shakira slowly lifted her head from the floor. Beneath her hairline, her eyes grew ever more vicious and crazed, the force of those emotions battering her reason.

"You... monster!!"

In an instant...

She charged at him as though she had lost her mind.

Shunk-

She stabbed straight into his heart from behind.

Lin En looked at her five sharp fingers protruding from his chest and said softly:

"Is this really necessary? Surely not. Shouldn't someone like you be running for your life right now? I already spared you, and you still dare attack me? Aren't whores the most..."

Clatter-

Lin En's head, limbs, and torso twisted a full hundred and eighty degrees, turning him from facing away from her to facing her directly.

He adjusted his eyeball and said:

"Heartless?"

But she had already lost all reason. She kept attacking him frantically with her other hand, letting out a crazed howl every time she left another wound on his body.

Lin Ke!

Because he was her Lin Ke!!

Shunk-

She would never allow it!

Shunk-

Never allow her Lin Ke!

Shunk-

To be handed over to a twisted monster like you!!

Lin Ke was hers!

And he could only ever be hers!

Everything he had, all of him, every last bit should belong to...

In an instant, Lin En pulled her tightly into his arms, enveloping her entire body in that warm embrace. Her pupils dilated. As that familiar body heat washed over her, her frenzied movements abruptly stopped, and a vacant expression settled over her face. It was just like long, long ago, when they had first fallen in love. He had held her in his arms like this then, too, as though, in his eyes, she had always been the very best person in the world.

Lin En said gently:

"Then let you die by his hands. What do you think?"

Crack-crack-crack-

As the embrace tightened, accompanied by the crisp sounds of breaking bones, her expression grew ever emptier.

Little by little, little by little, she was crushed.

Just like everything she had done to him over those three years...

Just like what he had told her back then.

For people like them, merely climbing up from the bottom was already hard enough. If they could not reinvent themselves, they would spend their entire lives trapped in the lowest corner of the lower classes, slowly waiting for themselves to rot.

So they had to change their fate.

No matter what price they paid... they had to cross that immense barrier between classes... and become true nobles together.

Only...

Lin En said softly:

"It's just a shame you'll never again have an embrace like his."

Crack-

A loud, crisp snap.