“Why?”
She asked.
Because she needed to know.
The void swallowed her.
It was worse than the pain—worse than the agony twisting through her body, worse than the fire searing through her veins.
It was nothingness.
A deep, yawning abyss that pulled at her consciousness, fraying the edges of her will. Her body was shaking violently, her limbs twitching uncontrollably, but she barely felt it anymore.
It was fading.
Everything was fading.
‘Ah…’
Her lips parted slightly, but no breath came. No words. No sound.
It all felt so empty.
A void deeper than before.
Why am I still here?
Why am I still fighting?
It would be easier to stop.
Easier to let go.
Just as she felt herself slipping completely, Luca’s voice cut through the void.
“Why?”
Her chest tightened at the sound of it.
“Do you really want to know?”
She couldn’t answer.
Did she?
Did it even matter anymore?
“Don’t you find it strange?”
Aeliana barely registered his words, but something about his tone—so calm—pricked at the frayed edges of her mind.
“Think about it,” he continued, unshaken. “The expedition team fought countless monsters on the surface. The sea was restless, filled with creatures drawn to our presence, but that was expected. It’s the ocean, after all.”
His voice carried through the cavern, each word like an anchor trying to tether her to something—to understanding.
“And for a while, everything was… fine. Difficult, but manageable. We were holding our ground, eradicating whatever came at us. No more, no less. Just like usual.”
Aeliana’s limbs trembled violently, her chest seizing with another wave of unbearable pain. The world was slipping, her mind fragmenting, but Luca’s words still reached her.
“But then, suddenly,” he murmured, his voice dropping just slightly, “the Kraken appeared.”
Her breath hitched, her spasms momentarily slowing.
“The Kraken could have appeared earlier,” he said, his tone sharp, thoughtful. “It could have attacked the moment we arrived. It could have surfaced when the smaller creatures started acting up. It wasn’t as if we did anything extraordinary.”
His dark eyes flickered, catching the dim glow of the fire. “We were fighting. Surviving. Just as expected. And then, out of nowhere—it emerged.”
Aeliana barely had the strength to respond, but her mind—though fractured and drowning in agony—latched onto his words.
Why?
Why then?
Why not before?
Luca exhaled softly, his gaze unreadable.
“The answer is clear,” he said simply.
Aeliana forced herself to look at him. It took everything in her just to lift her gaze, just to focus through the blur of pain and the suffocating weight pressing down on her.
And when she met his eyes—
Her breath stopped.
His gaze was deep, dark as the endless abyss stretching beyond this world. But within that pitch-black void, something shone.
A flicker of radiant, celestial light.
Starlight.
The same strange, unknowable energy that she had sensed from him before. The same power that made her feel connected to something beyond her understanding.
Luca tilted his head ever so slightly, watching her reaction.
“You noticed it too, didn’t you?”
Aeliana’s lips trembled.
He knew. Explore stories at My Virtual Library Empire
He knew she had felt it before. That strange pulse in her chest when his power manifested, the way her body reacted to it.
Somehow, some way—they were connected.
“The trigger,” Luca murmured, his voice quiet yet undeniable, “was you.”
Aeliana’s eyes widened.
The Kraken, the way it had emerged suddenly—not because of the expedition team, not because of the battle, but because of her.
Something inside her called to it.
And now, something inside her was breaking because of it.
Aeliana’s body convulsed violently, her veins blackening further, spreading like jagged cracks along her skin. The pain was indescribable, as though something inside her was being ripped apart—not just her body, but her very being.
Luca remained where he was, unmoving, his dark eyes locked onto hers. He still didn’t help. He still didn’t move.
And then, he spoke.
Low. Cold. Detached.
“From the start,” he murmured, watching her with an unreadable expression, “I knew you were different.”
Aeliana’s breath shuddered, her body spasming on the cavern floor, but her mind latched onto his words—clawing, grasping, desperate for an answer.
His gaze flickered, that eerie glint of starlight flashing within his black eyes. “You must have sensed it too… my mana.” His voice was calm, almost indifferent. “Isn’t that right?”
Aeliana’s lips trembled.
Yes.
She had.
That strange energy that surrounded him, that filled the air whenever he fought—that pulse of something deep and celestial, something ancient. It had always stirred something inside her, something instinctive, familiar—as if her body knew a truth her mind hadn’t yet grasped.
And now, as her vision wavered, as the agony threatened to crush her completely, she felt it again.
But it wasn’t just his mana.
It was hers.
Something deep inside her had begun to respond to his presence, to this land, to this pain.
Luca’s smirk was gone. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t laughing.
Just watching.
Cold.
Unforgiving.
“Just like you could sense mine,” he said, stepping closer at last, his boots echoing against the stone, “I knew yours as well.”
Aeliana coughed violently, more of that unnatural, darkened blood spilling from her lips.
“The thing that’s eating you,” Luca continued, tilting his head slightly, “it’s tied to this place.”
Aeliana’s chest tightened, her body shaking uncontrollably.
‘No… no, that can’t be…’
Her sickness—it had nothing to do with this cursed land. It had plagued her for years, long before she ever set foot here.
Hadn’t it?
Luca’s voice dropped lower, more deliberate. “And the Kraken…”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
No.
“It will come to get you.”
The words were like ice in her veins.
She stared at him, wide-eyed, unable to speak.
Luca exhaled softly, watching her crumpled form with the same detached gaze as before. And then, his lips curled into a slow, cruel smirk.
“In the end,” he murmured, “you’re nothing but bait.”
Something inside Aeliana snapped.
Rage, betrayal, horror—all tangled into one violent, searing emotion, threatening to swallow her whole.
Her fingers clenched against the ground, her nails digging into the stone as she forced herself to look at him.
Luca.
Lucavion.
The man who had carried her through battle. Who had laughed beside her. Who had—
No.
No, it was all a lie, wasn’t it?
He knew.
From the very beginning.
And he let this happen.
A scream built in her throat, but she couldn’t force it out. The pain was too much. The darkness too strong.
She could barely think, barely breathe—
And still, Luca just watched.