亚洲毛片一区二区无卡午夜

Elara shook her head, tears streaming down her face.

"It means your betrayal has marked you. You are mine now. And I will not rest until every betrayer has paid the price."

The amulet in Elara\'s hand cracked, its dark light extinguished. She let out a scream as the chains pulled her to the ground, her body trembling.

Edran turned away, his staff tapping against the stones as he began to walk. The cemetery seemed to darken further, the trees bending under an unseen weight.

His voice echoed through the night.

"Betrayers never escape their fate."

***

༺ Noah\'s POV ༻

I was slumped against a jagged rock, my chest heaving as I sucked in labored breaths. Each inhale burned like fire, and each exhale felt like it dragged my soul out with it. My entire body screamed in protest, a searing heat radiating from my core. The lightning spell had done its job—too well, perhaps. It had pushed my body to its limits and beyond, leaving my mana channels flaring open, raw and exposed.

But I couldn\'t move.

My legs… they were dead weight. I tried to shift them, even just a little, but it was useless. A paralyzing numbness crawled up from my toes, and the only sensation left was the faint thrum of pain in my thighs, as if to mock me.

I let my head fall back against the rock, staring up at the night sky. My vision wavered, blurry from the exhaustion—or maybe it was the tears I hadn\'t realized were building.

I cursed under my breath, my voice hoarse and trembling. "What the hell was I thinking?"

The words felt bitter, heavy.

"I\'m not some hotshot protagonist. I\'m not even a part of this world. I\'m just… me. Just some shut-in who never had the guts to face anything back home. And now I\'m here. Stuck in this nightmare where everyone either hates me or expects me to be someone I\'m not."

I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms. It didn\'t matter. The pain in my hands couldn\'t compare to the ache in my chest.

"How would I even tell them?" I muttered, my voice cracking. "How do you tell someone you\'re not the person they think you are? That you\'re just some… imposter in the skin of someone they despise?" Explore more stories at empire

A bitter laugh escaped me, hollow and broken. "And they already hate me. So what then? Tell them I\'m not that Noah, and hope they don\'t decide to kill me for real this time?"

My throat tightened, and I felt the tears finally spill over. Hot, stinging trails down my cheeks. I didn\'t bother wiping them away. What was the point?

"All I wanted… all I want… is to live. To survive this madness. Is that too much to ask?" My voice rose for a moment before faltering, dropping back to a whisper. "To just… not die in some meaningless way? To not be hated everywhere I go? To maybe, maybe just… exist without feeling like the world\'s out to get me?"

I pressed my head back harder against the rock, as though the pressure might stop the thoughts from spiraling further. It didn\'t work.

"And now look at me," I choked out. "On the ground, useless, while everyone else is off saving the day. No one\'s coming for me. Why would they? The princess is what matters. I\'m just… nothing. A footnote."

My vision blurred further as I stared out into the forest, the dim outlines of trees shifting in and out of focus. The cemetery was miles away, on the other side of this godforsaken place. That\'s where everyone was. That\'s where I should have been, if I hadn\'t pushed myself too far and collapsed like this.

No one would find me.

No one would even look.

And as I sat there, drowning in my own despair, I saw it. A figure, hazy at first, moving toward me through the trees.

My heart jumped, and I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision. Was I hallucinating? Or had someone actually—

The figure stepped closer, and as the moonlight filtered through the canopy, I recognized him.

Professor Caelan.

"Oh my," he said, his voice smooth and laced with something I couldn\'t quite place. "It seems someone wandered off."

Relief washed over me, though it was muted by my exhaustion. "Professor…" I rasped, my voice barely above a whisper.

He crouched down in front of me, a faint smile playing on his lips. "You\'ve had quite the night, haven\'t you, young one?" His tone was casual, almost amused, as if this were all just some minor inconvenience.

I tried to sit up straighter, but my body refused to cooperate. "I… I can\'t move," I admitted, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

Caelan tilted his head, studying me.

There was something in his eyes—a glint that sent a chill down my spine, despite the heat still radiating from my body.

"I just… I need to rest," I mumbled, more to myself than to him. "I\'ll be fine after—"

"Rest, yes," he interrupted, standing up again. "Rest is important. But you see…" He reached into his coat, pulling out a small, unfamiliar object. "Sometimes, rest is eternal."

My heart stopped as I saw the object in his hand—a sleek, compact device unlike anything I\'d ever seen in this world. But I knew what it was. The shape, the design, the glint of metal in the moonlight.

"A gun?" The words tumbled out before I could stop them, my voice trembling.

My breath caught in my throat as he aimed the weapon at me, the barrel cold and unyielding.

"No witnesses," he said softly, his voice as calm as if he were commenting on the weather.

Time seemed to freeze. My mind raced, a cacophony of thoughts and emotions crashing into each other. Panic, confusion, disbelief.

And then, the sound.

A deafening crack echoed through the forest, the gunshot tearing through the night. Birds scattered from the trees, their wings beating furiously as they vanished into the darkness.

The world went silent.