Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 208: Breaking Point

"Arkai."

Cecilia’s hiss cut through the moment.

It was not loud. Not angry. Just a single word.

Arkai’s eyes faltered.

He looked up, away from Rinne, away from the accusation hanging in the air, and found Cecilia’s gaze. Her eyes, steady and clear, held his.

She had made him swear honesty right before this conversation started. Not just truth, but sincerity. The willingness to be vulnerable, to open the dark corners of his past and let the light in.

And now he had almost threatened a boy with his dignity. As if asking Rinne to blindly believe in his honor was the same as earning that belief.

"Rinne."

Cecilia’s voice softened as she addressed the boy. Her hand came to rest gently on his shoulder.

"It seems your father hasn’t understood what he needs to explain to you. Mother will talk to him for a bit. Can you step out for a moment?"

Rinne turned, craning his neck to look up at her. His eyes were wide, desperate, already beginning to glisten.

No.

Don’t send me away. Don’t hide things from me. Don’t—

What if she too decided to keep secrets after knowing the truth? What if she heard whatever Arkai had to say and left without a word, without a goodbye, without him?

"Remember my promise, baby." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Cecilia’s thumb brushed his shoulder. Gentle. Steady. A reminder of the night before, when she had held him in the dark and sworn that they would face this together.

Rinne couldn’t move for a long moment. Couldn’t speak. His eyes stayed fixed on her face, searching for any trace of deception, any hint that this was the beginning of an ending.

His lips pressed together, holding back a sob.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

He stood. Walked to the door. Paused with his hand on the handle, his back to them.

Then he was gone.

The door clicked shut.

Silence descended once more.

Arkai remained kneeling, frozen in place. His expression was similar to the boy’s. That same desperate uncertainty, that same fear of what was coming. But colder. Harder. A man who had spent his life learning to hide, now stripped bare.

His ears flattened completely against his skull.

He was seething.

The impossible position he had been placed in, where honesty meant destruction and silence meant betrayal.

The silence stretched.

Then, softly, Cecilia spoke.

"You know that if you don’t find a way to somehow tell us the truth, I will somehow find a way to find out the truth myself, right?"

***

Ruby had been waiting in the temple.

The sanctuary was quiet around her, the way temples always were. Hushed, reverent, filled with the soft whisper of incense smoke and the distant murmur of prayers.

She had spent the time in her chambers, in the meditation gardens, in the sacred halls where she was supposed to be communing with the divine. But her mind had not been on gods.

It had been on Arzhen.

She had asked her close colleagues, the few she trusted, the ones who moved through the capital’s shadows with discretion, if any had heard anything. A message. A sign. Anything.

Nothing.

But it came sooner than expected.

She had returned to her office to find a single sheet of paper on her desk. It hadn’t been there before. It was simply... there.

The handwriting was unmistakable.

In the maze. Meet me there.

Ruby’s heart had clenched. The maze. The secluded garden where they had met before, where the hedges formed walls thick enough to hide confessions and stolen moments.

Now she sat on the stone bench, the same bench where she had waited for him. The sun was high overhead, casting sharp shadows through the sculpted hedges. The fountain whispered its endless, soothing song. And she waited.

Her hands were folded in her lap. Her expression was composed, serene, the face of a Saintess at peace. But beneath the surface, beneath the stillness, something raced.

Arzhen.

She listened for the sound. The tap of footsteps on gravel. The whisper of fabric against leaves.

Any moment now.

But when he arrived... it was not what she expected.

He didn’t signal her. Didn’t pause to announce his presence. Didn’t take his place on the opposite side of the hedge wall, separated by green barriers and the pretense of propriety.

He strode right to her.

And before she could react, before she could rise or speak or even breathe, his hands grasped her shoulders.

"He’s not dead."

He hissed.

Ruby’s eyes flew wide.

The man before her—this was Arzhen?

His clothes were rumpled, stained with travel and God knew what else. His hair, usually immaculate, hung in tangled disarray around a face that was pale beneath its tan, shadowed with exhaustion and something darker.

Dark circles carved hollows under his eyes. His jaw was rough with days of stubble. He looked like he had been running for weeks without sleep, without food, without rest.

But it was his eyes that stopped her heart.

They were wrong. Too wide, too bright, darting with a frantic energy that had no place in the proud, composed Tiger Prince she knew. There was something haunted in them. Something that had seen things no one should see and couldn’t look away.

"Arzhen...?" The name escaped her on a breath, shock and disbelief tangled together. "What—how did you—why do you—"

He looked so different. So disheveled. So broken.

"W-what do you mean...?" she managed. "What are you talking about?"

Arzhen’s grip on her shoulders tightened. His eyes, those haunted, frantic eyes, bored into hers with an intensity that bordered on madness.

"Oathran Alicei." His voice cracked, raw and desperate. "He’s not dead."

"And he’s going to kill me—"

Arzhen’s eyes rolled back.

His grip on her shoulders went slack, his knees buckled, and his full weight crashed against her. Ruby shrieked, her arms shooting out instinctively to catch him, but he was too heavy, far too heavy, and they both stumbled, nearly falling.

"Arzhen?! Arzhen!"

She lowered him to the ground as best she could, her saintly robes tangling beneath his limp form. His face was pale, waxy, terrifyingly still. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

"Help! Someone! Help!"

Her voice, usually so controlled, so measured, rose to a panicked scream. It cut through the peaceful murmur of the garden, shattering the temple’s reverent silence like glass.

Frantic footsteps pounded against gravel. Temple attendants appeared at the garden’s entrance, their faces shifting from alarm to confusion as they took in the scene, the Saintess on her knees, a crumpled figure in her arms.

A homeless man, they probably thought. Some poor soul who had wandered too deep into the temple grounds and collapsed.

"Please! Help him!" Ruby’s voice cracked, desperate. "I think he’s not breathing!"

She looked up at them, her eyes wild, her composure shattered.

"This is His Highness Prince Arzhen! Call the imperial physician—now!"

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