Everything stopped.
No—everything rewound.
Malik’s body moved backward as though invisible strings puppeteered his actions.
He watched in horrified awe as his blade withdrew from his neck.
The grotesque form of Jasmine reverted, her skin smoothing, her left blackened eye fading.
Malik picked her up and began to run backwards into the cave.
The world around him blurred, colors and shapes streaking past him in reverse.
Time picked up speed until he found himself standing just outside the cave.
Untouched by what had just happened.
And then it stopped.
Time resumed.
Malik staggered, his knees nearly giving out beneath him.
He turned and saw Jasmine, whole and healthy, standing a few steps away.
She looked confused but unharmed.
His breath hitched. Experience more content on My Virtual Library Empire
“It… it didn’t happen again.”
He was in disbelief.
“He… heh… ah…”
A short, broken laugh escaped his lips.
He stopped thinking.
He just moved, wrapping Jasmine in a tight embrace.
He held onto her like she was the only thing anchoring him to this world.
“M-M-M-Malik?”
Her voice was soft and startled.
“What…?”
“…”
He took a play from her book and didn’t answer.
Instead, he just held her tighter, pressing his forehead to her shoulder.
Though extremely surprised, she didn’t push him away.
Looking at them, Safira stayed surprisingly silent.
Yet clear enough to anyone watching, her eyes burned with… jealousy?
It was a nearly blank look that screamed death.
One that was barely noticed by Malik. For obvious reason.
Right now, his entire world was the flower in front of him.
And that very flower even brought her petals up to return the embrace, albeit hesitantly.
She cared not for its cause anymore, only wanting to dispel whatever had ailed him.
Unknowing of her jealousy, she had gestured for Safira to join them.
This one simple act dispelled the girl’s jealousy completely.
Malik, though, didn’t care for any of that.
He didn’t care about the questions swirling in his mind.
All that mattered was that she was alive.
That hadn’t happened again.
***
{Outside The Projection}
The hall was silent.
Not the kind that brought peace, but the heavy, suffocating kind.
Their chests felt crushed, their throats clawed.
Their minds somber, gone through whiplash.
Every single person there felt it—like someone had taken their heart, wrung it out, and then stuffed it back in their chest.
Many hands twitched, clutched into fists.
Others stared, eyes wide and unblinking, like they couldn’t look away even if they wanted to.
Their mouths burned dry as if they’d been screaming—but they hadn’t.
Of course, they hadn’t.
No one made a sound since the reveal.
Their heads were spinning, still trying to catch up.
One second, it had been great, then good, then bad.
Then it was worse.
Then… it was over.
Now it was great again.
Zero to hundred and back to zero.
Or so the ignorant would think.
It, unfortunately, wasn’t over.
Far from it.
Even now, watching him celebrate like the whole world had just been saved, they couldn’t feel the relief he did.
Not because they didn’t want to.
God, they wanted to.
But they knew the truth.
One shoe had dropped, and now they somberly waited for the other.
No one wanted to say it out loud, though.
Saying it would make it real and they couldn’t handle that.
Not after seeing… that.
They feared that it’d be unveiled before them once more.
So instead, they did what people always did in moments like this.
Something that even their betters did.
They ran away… began to pretend.
Pushing it down, burying it deep, and acting like it hadn’t happened.
Their minds scrambled to latch onto anything else, anything less horrible.
Anything less real.
Less grave.
And that was when a single voice finally broke the spell:
“What kind of messed-up crap is this?!”
Then another:
“Fuck off with this shit!”
Then another:
“Didn’t the Sultan have enough?!”
Then another:
“What the fuck did a kid like him do to deserve this?!”
Then another:
“Goddammit!”
They were confused, angry, and fearful.
Each Magi gestured wildly, murmuring and cursing about something or another.
A few, like Safira, Layla, Azeem, and unnamed others, stood nearest to the projection.
Pain welcomed them there, great, unfathomable amounts of it.
Unlike Huda, this act of theirs wasn’t out of atonement.
No, in their minds, they had nothing to ‘atone’ for.
In lieu, it was to walk a meter in his boots.
Witness… feel, what he went through to the last detail.
If they did, maybe they’d understand how he could do the things he did, at least a little.
Their camps, meanwhile, stood outside the pain transfer’s perimeter, almost frozen in shock.
Safira’s relatively tiny camp had it worst, not expecting their mistress to have gone through such things.
Noor looked at them with a smirk, one so sharp it could cut glass.
She was leaning back on her floating throne, her hand wrapped around a long smoke pipe. She didn’t even bother masking her contempt, letting it radiate off her like heatwaves on desert sand.
This Emperor didn’t give a single damn about Malik’s struggles, his emotions, or the pain playing out on the projection.
If anything, she found it mildly entertaining, like watching a particularly messy play unfold.
Roya, though… She was on a whole different level.
Noor’s disdain was passive, a casual dismissal.
Roya’s? That was active and dripping with malice.
She didn’t just enjoy watching Malik suffer—no.
She took pleasure in it.
She adored it.
She basked in it.
She thrived on it.
Relishing, savoring, and loving it.
Every crack in his facade, every wince, every flicker that danced across his body—it was like the finest wine to her, intoxicating and addictive.
She didn’t even pretend to be indifferent.
Sure, she looked outwardly disinterested, her posture lazy as though she were barely paying attention.
But her blue eyes betrayed her.
Oh, they drank it all in.
Every detail, every nuance.
And they were hungry, devouring each moment with an almost disturbing intensity.
Especially his face.
His expressions were her favorite.
Fear, regret, anger—she’d cataloged them all in her mind, a twisted gallery she could revisit whenever she pleased.
But this?
What she was seeing now?
This was a masterpiece.
A level of anguish so pure, so unrefined, it put everything else to shame.
Because, of course, Malik didn’t know the truth.
He had no idea.
Jasmine’s fate was already sealed, written in stone long before he could even grasp the pen.
And soon, watching him flail, watching him fight so desperately to change what couldn’t be changed?
That was the pièce de résistance.
Her lips curled into the faintest of smiles, so slight it was almost imperceptible.
Almost.
‘Until he figures it out… he’ll just keep going in circles.’
She couldn’t wait.
‘Watching the serpent chase its own tail~.’
And oh, how she was going to enjoy every single moment of it.