I Broke The Game Rules To Kill The Sister Who Broke Our Bond Chapter 02
I pressed my face to the viewing glass and got a clear look inside.
A woman lay on the hospital bed, wasted away to almost nothing.
Her cheeks had caved in, her skin the gray of something already dead. Hair that must have been thick and dark once now lay across the pillow like straw.
A blue-and-white striped hospital gown, grimy and hanging loose on her skeletal frame, was soaked through with something I couldn’t identify.
Without the bond humming faintly in my blood, I never would’ve believed this living corpse was Melanie, the same Melanie who used to carve through raid parties like they were made of paper.
Tubes—thick, surgical, too many to count—burrowed into her skin like fat leeches feeding.
At the head of the bed, an extraction device ticked away, steady and mechanical, draining credits out of her body without pause.
I stared at the scene and felt nothing. No pity. Just contempt—cold, total contempt for how spectacularly stupid she’d been.
No wonder I couldn’t even take a rookie’s hit back in the dungeon.
I flipped the bone butterfly knife between my fingers, blood still drying on the blade. No hesitation.
Kill her.
The second she flatlined, the twin death-reset would kick in. We’d shed these useless mortal bodies and respawn in the core hub. Full power. Both of us.
My hand was on the door handle. One second from walking in there and slitting her throat.
Then I heard voices inside.
“Gideon, how many credits does this thing have left in her? I saw those S-class glowing wings at the Exchange, and I’m still thirty thousand credits short.”
The woman leaning against the hospital bed wore a red patent-leather skirt so tight it looked painted on. She twirled a strand of burgundy curls around one red-lacquered fingernail, looking at Melanie the way someone looked at a stain.
The man next to her was tailored from head to toe: fitted suit, gold-rimmed glasses, not a crease out of place.
Gideon. The one who’d lured Melanie out.
Gideon adjusted his glasses. That soft, handsome face twisted into something greedy.
“Relax, Veronica. This worthless thing is a cash cow. As long as we keep the machine running and keep her just alive enough, the credits won’t stop.”
Veronica Hayes laughed, a bright, pretty sound with nothing behind it, and shot Melanie’s body a look of pure revulsion.
“God, she’s disgusting. You think I’d spend one second in this dump if it weren’t for the credits? Seeing her like that makes my skin crawl.”
“Just deal with it.”
Gideon caught Veronica’s chin between his fingers, tilting her face up. His smile was all teeth.
“Do you think she would’ve unlocked the dungeon core seal on her own? All it took was acting like I loved her. A few sweet words, a little fake affection. It was a cheap trick.”
“A monster pretending to play house. It’s pathetic. Honestly, it makes me sick.”
“Mm. You’re awful.” She said it like a compliment.
Something dark and pleased flickered in Veronica’s eyes. She hooked her arm around his neck, tugging his silk tie loose with one pull.
Gideon pressed her back against the edge of the hospital bed.
Then came the heavy breathing and the rustle of clothes hitting the floor. They were going at it right there, three feet from Melanie’s bed, three feet from her body full of tubes, three feet from the machine keeping her a heartbeat away from death.
I stood on the other side of the door, listening, and my stomach turned inside out.
I always knew Melanie was blind when it came to people. I didn’t know she was this blind.
She threw away god-tier power for this thing, this animal in a tailored suit, and let it reduce her to something that couldn’t even die properly.
My grip tightened on the butterfly knife. The crest near my eye throbbed, a low, angry pulse.
Every second I kept listening felt like something filthy was crawling into my skull.
It didn’t last long. The sounds died down, replaced by the rustle of clothes being straightened.
I stepped back, planted my feet, and coiled to kick the door clean off its hinges. Both of them were about to learn what a dungeon boss looked like up close.
But before my foot left the ground, the handle jerked down from the other side.
Click. The door swung open from inside.
