Villain Hiring: Help! Author Wants Me Dead-Chapter 231: —End Of Volume 2—

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The storm had long passed when I returned back to the ruins.

The black hall stood like an abandoned shit no one cared about, ceiling scorched, the scent of smoke and old blood clinging to the air.

Every step I took sounded like a ghost through what had once been our temple.

Most of us were gone, dead and decayed.

My hands still trembled, not from the battle, but from what I had seen in the boy's eyes before I left.

That defiance.

That flicker of a flame I had seen in the eyes of that Shadow King.

I should have crushed the boy.

I should have ended him.

But I couldn't.

Because of her.

I turned towards the cracked altar in the center of the hall, where I had laid her down,

the girl with silver hair and blood that

belonged to gods.

Pixie.

Her chest rose and fell softly, skin pale against the darkness. Her presence alone stirred the ashes around us, as if even the world recognized who she was.

The long-awaited heir.

The sleeping flame of the Kalki.

I knelt beside her, my massive form casting a shadow that swallowed her whole.

"Wake up," I said softly, my voice breaking the silence. "It's time you opened your eyes, I know you're awake."

For a moment, she kept acting to be asleep.

Then her fingers twitched and her lips started parting. And then, with a sharp gasp, her eyes snapped open.

Silver and bright, terrified but full of hatred.

"Wh… where—" she stammered, pushing herself up.

Her gaze jumped across the charred hall, her breathing quick and uneven. "Noah...where's Noah?!"

I stayed still, watching her panic rise like a storm. "He is alive," I said slowly.

"For now."

Her head whipped towards me. "For now? What did you do to him!!"

I met her glare.

"I spared him."

"You hurt him!" she shouted, tears burning in her eyes. "You took me away from him! He-he tried to protect me! He finally accepted me for who I am!!" Her voice cracked on the last sentence.

"He was never yours to protect you," I said quietly. "He is human. You…are not." The black horned lady froze, her trembling hands holding the tattered hem of her dress. "What are you talking about?"

I stood, towering over her. My shadow swallowed the faint glow of the altar as I began to speak.

"Long before the humans walked the Gaia, before kings and demons learned to name themselves, there was a god who sought to defy death.

He found a man, a mortal, weak and dying man and blessed him with his own blood. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

In return, the man was cursed with a hunger that could never be filled."

I traced my claw along the cracked stone floor, the echo of my own words vibrating through the hall.

"That man became the first Kalki.

And from his veins, the rest of us were born.

Through blood, through will, through pain.

We learned to harvest the energy of death itself, to draw life from what others lose.

We were gods once.

And then humans started hunting us."

Pixie shook her head, stepping back. "No… you're lying. Yo-You're monsters! You killed people! You almost killed Noah!"

Her voice was trembling, but there was still fire in it, the kind I remembered from her.

I stepped closer, lowering myself to her level as I almost touched her lips. "And what have they done to us? What have they done to you?"

Her breath almost stopped as she continued to tremble before me. I could see her memories begin to flicker behind her eyes,

confusion, fear, the image of the boy's broken body, the blood, and the betrayal.

I pressed my hand to her forehead, and shadows began to swirl around my fingers.

She gasped, trying to move away, but I held her gently,

not by strength, but by something deeper.

"Do not resist," I whispered. "This is your birthright."

The world seemed to bend. Darkness seeped into her mind, moving through her thoughts like smoke. The hall pulsed with red light, and she screamed, not from pain, but from the rush of memories.

Images flooded her, ruins, thrones, battles.

Faces of people she didn't know but somehow remembered.

Blood running like rivers.

A crown of black flame.

And then, a familiar face appeared as I subconsciously manipulated her, smiling gently.

Noah.

But in the reflection of her memory, he wasn't saving her.

He was standing over a body.

Her adoptive father's body.

Yes, that was the ace up my sleeve that I knew would change everything for her highness.

I leaned closer, my voice dripping with a quiet venom. "Do you see it now?"

Pixie trembled violently. "No… no, that's not—"

"It is," I said, whispering like a serpent. "He killed the man who raised you. The one who loved you as his own. And then he twisted your grief into loyalty."

Her eyes filled with tears, confusion breaking into fear. "You're lying, ge wouldn't-Noah wouldn't…"

"Would he not?" I asked softly. "Do you truly know what he is? What sleeps inside him?"

She clutched her head, falling to her knees. "Stop! Please stop!"

But I didn't stop. I couldn't.

The truth, the necessary truth had to be shown.

"You are not his toy, princess. You are our queen.

The blood of the first Kalki flows in you. You were never meant to kneel before humans. You were meant to rule them."

Her breathing grew shallow as panic and pain twisted her features.

I knelt before her again, lowering my head, my voice soft as ash. "Most of us are gone, but I have waited, years upon years, for your return. For you to open your eyes and see the world for what it truly is."

Her eyes lifted to mine, red now, glowing faintly beneath the silver.

"Stop fighting it," I whispered. "Let it in. The death that once bound your ancestors…let it become your strength."

The air grew colder as I closed in to her figure, slowly embracing her as my hands drifted around her body.

Accept it, my queen.

Accept my blood.

The girl did not even realise as I defiled her very being.

I had put her into an illusion as I took joy in the body of the Future Queen of Kalki's, letting her drink my blood in return.

When she looked up again,

I saw it.

Acceptance.

The moment where resistance died and truth took its place.

Her voice came out barely as a whisper. "I…I remember."

I smiled.

"What do you remember, my queen?"

"The war," she said with a robotic voice. "The flames…the blood. How they hunted us. How they took everything from us…"

Her hands clenched tightly. "And how they smiled while doing it."

Tears rolled down her cheeks, she was in the dark that all this while I was only manipulating her into seeing what I want her to.

With another thrust, I groaned, realising that she was nothing more than my puppet now.

And in her eyes I could see hatred.

Hatred for the one guy who loved her the most.

I reached out, gently lifting her chin as I removed the illusion.

She was naked along with me in the centre of the altar, our bodies and fate already intertwined together as I saw no response from her eyes.

Almost as if she had died.

"You see now," I murmured, knowing that she was just a husk of her emotional self now. "You see who they really are."

She didn't flinch this time. Her crimson eyes glowed brighter as she finally left her emotions behind.

"I do," Pixie whispered.

"Then say it," I urged softly, embracing her tighter, closer to my chest.

The ravenous girl took a shaky breath, her voice trembling like broken glass.

"I'm ready…"

"For what, my queen?"

She looked at me, her expression empty yet resolved.

"To do what you want."

I smiled, slowly and subtly.

And as the last embers of the hall flickered out, I bowed my head before her, whispering the words that would begin the end of humanity.

"Then let the Kalki rise once more."

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