Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

Chapter 324: Breaking Point

Three more days passed.

My ribs were sore for some reason. It was unusual enough that I might have believed I’d been run over by a truck, judging by how much it hurt just to draw a breath.

Juliana was also limping slightly beside me. Her right knee seemed to be giving her trouble as well.

The strange part was that neither of us remembered hurting ourselves. So what was the cause? We had no idea.

The rest of the group wasn’t faring much better... aside from Ray. I didn’t know how, but that guy looked like he could still walk a mile while the rest of us struggled to get a few steps in.

To be clear, his condition wasn’t actually better than ours.

In fact, he was in the exact same boat — starving, aching all over, and desperately forcing his body forward through sheer willpower. But I suppose I had just severely underestimated his grit and determination.

The fact that Alexia had put herself in danger for him had struck him like a physical blow. That burning self-blame fueled every step he took as he refused to leave her side.

In stark contrast to his best friend, Vince was wheezing nonstop now, like a dying rat forced to run endlessly in a hamster wheel. I’m not even exaggerating. He genuinely looked like a walking corpse.

But every time I asked if he needed a rest, he would plaster on the smuggest expression he could manage in his condition and reply:

”Why? Are you tired, Theosbane? Is continuously walking on an empty stomach too much for your noble ass?”

It ticked me off to no end. So much so that I decided I couldn’t wait for him to drop dead so we could steal his boots.

...Okay, I didn’t actually want him to die, obviously.

But his boots were still in such suspiciously good condition that even I was starting to lust after them.

”Keep talking,” I muttered darkly. ”I’ll carve your gravestone myself. Here lies Vince. Died bravely. Boots looted immediately.”

He coughed, then wheezed out something resembling a laugh.

Lily didn’t react to the exchange at all.

She was walking a few steps behind us, her violet eyes dark and unfocused, hot tears sliding silently down her cheeks as if her face had simply given up on stopping them now. She didn’t even wipe them away anymore. They just fell, drop after drop, vanishing into the dust.

I couldn’t stress it enough. That girl was really, really starting to spook me.

Right then, Alexia stumbled.

Kang caught her instantly, like he had been expecting it. She hissed as she grabbed onto his sleeve, clenching her teeth so tightly I feared they might crack.

”I’m fine,” she insisted, a little breathless. It was becoming her catchphrase these days.

But she clearly wasn’t fine.

The black veins had spread even further across her body like a rotting disease. Her chest was riddled with thin, dark lines that pulsed angrily under her skin and branched outward in chaotic patterns.

Her worsening condition was starting to terrify me.

I lifted my gaze ahead.

The valley still stretched endlessly onward.

No matter how far we walked or how many days passed, the terrain barely changed. Jagged stone walls and shallow ravines were all that was before us, all of it drenched in that same crimson light that bled over the landscape like an open wound that refused to clot.

We should have reached the end by now.

We should have arrived at the shore of the Lake of Grief.

Yet for some unexplainable reason, our traveling speed had slowed to a crawl.

Each day, we woke up more exhausted and battered than the last.

Each day, we started moving already drained, as though the simple act of existing overnight had cost us more than a full march ever should.

It wasn’t natural.

You don’t get more tired from just resting.

And you certainly don’t wake up injured without remembering how you were hurt.

While Ray helped Alexia steady herself, I flexed my fingers. The joints were stiff and aching, like I’d been punching stone walls in my sleep.

At the same time, my ribs flared again with that same bruised pain.

Yeah. Something was definitely wrong.

•••

We walked for a while after that.

I was still lost in thought when Alexia stumbled again.

This time, Kang didn’t have the chance to react.

Her legs simply gave out.

She collapsed to her knees, her small hands scraping against the stone floor as she tried and failed to catch herself.

For a second, only silence prevailed.

Seeing Alexia Von Zynx, the same brash girl who usually moved like a force of nature and spoke with the poise of royalty, reduced to something so small and helpless was more frightening than the spreading black veins on her body themselves.

Kang was beside her in an instant, his hands hovering uncertainly over her shoulders as he called her name.

Ray, Vince, and even Juliana stepped forward at once to help lift her up.

But Alexia didn’t register any of them. Her gray eyes were wide and glassy, filled with a frantic, almost animal desperation.

Her breathing broke down into short, wet hitches before she let out a sound so low and broken that it made my chest ache in sympathy.

Then, before any of us could even think about doing anything, she shoved her hands under the hem of her shirt, hooked the fingers, and began to claw at herself.

She scratched desperately at the black mass pulsing beneath her skin, as if she could tear the corruption out of her own flesh.

”Get it off!” she screamed, sobbing uncontrollably now. ”Get it out of me!”

I moved before I realized I was moving, lunging forward and dropping to the dirt as I caught her wrists.

Her strength was fitful, and I felt her skin burn hot against my cold fingers. She had a high fever.

”Alexia, stop,” I shouted, struggling to hold her still. ”You’re going to hurt yourself!”

”You don’t understand!” she cried, thrashing her head side to side. ”I’ll have nothing left. Nothing! You don’t understand!”

...But I did.

I understood all too well.

The Zynx house did not tolerate weakness. That was their motto. Their one guiding principle.

They were a bloodline obsessed with perfection, a dynasty where you were either exceptional or forgotten.

Alexia had been born into that family without sight. In their eyes, she had been defective from the start, so she was cast aside before the race for succession even began between her siblings.

So she compensated.

To make up for her lack of sight, she trained and forged her body into something extraordinary. She trained until she was hailed as a martial arts prodigy.

She became someone who didn’t need sight to stand taller than those who had everything.

Sure, most Awakened valued their bodies. But for Alexia, her body was her temple, her weapon, and her one constant altogether.

It was her everything.

But now that same temple was rotting

Her own flesh was betraying her.

And there is no fear quite like realizing your body is no longer on your side.

”Alexia, stop. Just listen to me,” I said forcefully, tightening my grip around her hands as she tried to pull away. ”Listen!”

She didn’t stop crying. Her sightless still didn’t stop spilling heavy tears. But she did stop screaming.

Her chest heaved as she sobbed, and I noticed several black veins were slowly creeping up her neck.

The corruption was spreading way too fast for my liking.

”I promise you,” I said with the kind of fierceness that surprised even me, ”you will be fine.”

She shook her head weakly. ”Don’t! Don’t lie to me...”

”You will be,” I insisted. ”Listen, you saved my life back at the Nightmare Temple. I’m vowing to return that favor right now. I will not let you die here.”

I leaned closer, making sure every word sank through the haze of her panic. ”I am a Theosbane, Alexia. You may have heard that we’re arrogant and stubborn. And we are. But we also always repay our debts. Just like I am promising to repay yours.”

The fight drained out of her all at once. Her hands went limp in mine, her head hanging low as the frantic scratching turned into a pathetic shiver.

She sniffled and hiccupped weakly, and then Lily, who had been a ghost in her own right for the last few miles, stepped forward.

Instead of saying anything, she simply knelt beside us and wrapped her arms around Alexia, pulling the smaller girl’s head into the crook of her neck.

Lily’s violet eyes remained dark, but the way she embraced Alexia was gentle, filled with a mournful tenderness as she buried her own face in the blind girl’s hair.

Alexia let out one final, breathless sob and went quiet, leaning into the embrace like a child too exhausted to cry any longer.