"Because I don’t even understand myself right now."
I tilted my head, watching her. Why was she acting so desperate? This wasn’t the composed ’Elena’ she used to be. This was someone coming apart at the seams.
"It is all because of you! Why did you change?" She slowly began to raise her voice, her words spilling out like water from a broken dam. "Why can’t you just get out of my mind?!"
She stepped further into my personal space again, the heat radiating off her skin clashing violently with the icy void in my chest.
"If... if you had stayed the same... if you hadn’t looked at me like that... if only you remained the useless, predictable brother I knew how to protect!" She sucked in a breath, "You... you are my brother... yet I am feeling something odd about you. Something that shouldn’t be there."
Suddenly, she went quiet. The fire in her voice extinguished instantly, leaving only a hollow, vibrating silence. Her body began to shake—not the tremors of fear, but the exhaustion of a spirit that had been fighting itself.
Then, she sniffled.
I felt a jolt in my pulse. Was she crying?
I leaned in, looking closely at her eyes. In the fading amber light of the sunset, I noticed they were swimming, the crimson irises clouded by a thin veil of tears. Before a single drop could fall, she violently wiped them away with the sleeve of her tunic, her movements jerky and ashamed.
[NOTICE: CRITICAL EMOTIONAL OVERLAP]
[POSITIVE: DEEP ATTACHMENT / DESPERATION / ANGUISHED CARE]
[NEGATIVE: LOSS OF CONTROL / SELF-HATRED / FRUSTRATION]
[RESONANCE STABILITY: 8.4% → 8.9% → 9.2% (WARNING: APPROACHING FIRST LOCK)]
The air around us felt thick, like we were standing at the bottom of a deep ocean. The stability wasn’t just holding; it was hardening, turning into a solid foundation that felt more real than the stone beneath my feet.
"Don’t look at me," she whispered, her head bowing so her hair shadowed her face. "Don’t you dare look at me when I’m like this."
I didn’t turn away. I couldn’t. Not when she looks like she is about pass out any moment.
"I’m not the one who changed, Elena," I began. "I just stopped caring about anyone’s opinion."
I reached out, my fingers hovering near her trembling shoulder, but I didn’t touch her. Not yet. I needed to know if she would pull away or lean in.
"Are you crying because you’re worried about me?" I asked. "Or are you crying because you’re starting to realize that the brother you wanted to protect never actually existed?"
Without raising her head, she moved into my touch, her shoulder leaning into my hand as if seeking an anchor in a storm.
"I don’t know," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I just... I just don’t want you to feel so distant. It’s like you’re standing right in front of me, but your soul is miles away."
She suddenly raised her head, her tear-streaked face illuminated by the last sliver of the sun. Then, without warning, she let go of her sword. The weapon clattered onto the quartz path, forgotten, as she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around me.
"Elena?!" I subconsciously let out, my body stiffening.
I tried to pull back, to break the contact and maintain the distance I had so carefully crafted, but her hold was firm, her strength far surpassing my current physical limits.
"Please," she choked out, her fingers clutching the fabric of my shirt. "Just let me be like this for a moment."
She buried her head in my chest, her breath hot against my skin.
[RESONANCE STABILITY: 9.2% → 9.5% → 9.8%]
[SYSTEM ALERT: FIRST LOCK BREACH IMMINENT]
The numbers were screaming in my vision. The energy was no longer just a hum; it was a roar. I looked down at the top of her head, my hands hovering mid-air.
"Oh, so this is it?" I spoke to her. "Just a brother? Sibling love? Or something to help you find a place to drift away from reality?"
I began to lower my arms, intending to wrap them around her. If this was the "Care" she needed to stabilize her own heart, I would play the part. I would be the supportive brother for a moment. But just as my hands were about to close around her—
"No," she said, her voice muffled against my chest. "It doesn’t feel like what it should be."
I stopped. My hands stayed frozen in the air.
"I have seen sibling love," she continued, her grip tightening until it was almost painful.
"Urg," I let out a shriek but Elena was drifted into he rown dreams that she could even hear me.
"I saw a maid talking back to her brother, I’ve seen the way Laila looks at Aries... I know how that feels. I know the shape of that bond."
"But..." She stopped.
But what? You aren’t going to say you don’t feel like them? Are you?
"And I don’t feel like them," she whispered.
Cliche. Utterly, dangerously cliche.
[RESONANCE STABILITY: 9.9%]
The world seemed to tilt. The scent of the flowers, the purple sky, the weight of the girl in my arms—it all blurred into a single point of white-hot pressure.
Her heart was beating against my ribs, a frantic, irregular rhythm that didn’t belong to a sister. It belonged to someone who was losing themselves in the very person they were supposed to never think about.
"Rio," she breathed, her voice trembling with a terrifying realization. "What have you done to me?"
[NOTICE: 10.0% ACHIEVED]
[FIRST LOCK: DISENGAGED]
[DEMON BLOODLINE TRAIT: ’VOID GAZE’ UNLOCKED]
[DRAGON BLOODLINE TRAIT: ’SUPREME PHYSIQUE’ UNLOCKED]
A cold, violet shockwave erupted from my core, invisible to the eye but loud as a thunderclap in the realm of mana. My vision didn’t just sharpen; it fractured. In my mind’s eye, the world didn’t just look different—it looked broken.
The violet light in my pupils began to spiral, the irises fracturing into jagged pieces like shattered glass before rearranging into a cold, geometric pattern that shouldn’t exist in nature.
Then, the agony hit.
It wasn’t a slow burn. It was an explosion. It felt like my very marrow had turned into molten lead. Every muscle fiber was being shredded, pulled apart by invisible hooks, and then stitched back together with threads of lightning.
The ’Supreme Physique’ was forcibly overwriting the frail, decaying tissue, while the ’Void Gaze’ was carving a new neural pathway directly through my brain.
"Ahhhh!"
The scream ripped itself from my throat, raw and guttural. My hands flew to my head, my fingers digging into my scalp. The pressure behind my eyes was unbearable.
"Rio! What happened? Rio!"
The sudden release from Elena’s hold made me fell to the ground, hitting the white quartz path and rolling onto my side, my body curling into a fetal position as the transformation took hold.
[NOTICE: PROGRESS COMPLETE]
[DRAGONIC BLOODLINE TRAIT: ’SUPREME PHYSIQUE’ (RANK F) ACTIVATED]
[DEMONIC BLOODLINE TRAIT: ’VOID GAZE’ (RANK F) ACTIVATED]