"Carmen…" Ada whispered, her voice trembling as she spoke the name of the woman who had lived by her side for so long .. protecting her, guiding her, helping her through everything.

Carmen ..

the elder sister to both Ada and Frey Starlight.

The moment Ada and Carmen awoke, the countdown had already begun. The trial would not stop now unless one of them died; those were the rules Maika himself had set.

Whether Ada or Carmen…

both fully understood the situation.

The Balance had transmitted the necessary information straight into their minds the instant they opened their eyes.

They knew that Maika—Carmen's own son—was the one responsible for everything happening to them.

He had been waiting for the perfect moment.

When the demonic assault on the Empire began, he struck Carmen with a surprise attack that inflicted severe damage, causing her to lose the fight that followed.

Both Carmen and Maika were SS-rank.

Under normal conditions, Carmen would never have lost to him in a fair fight.

But Maika knew that well—

which was why he chose the one moment she would be at her weakest.

As for Ada…

She wasn't a fighter to begin with. Bringing her down afterward was effortless.

Slowly, tears gathered at the corners of Ada's eyes as she grasped the cruelty of their situation.

Either she dies… or Carmen does.

It was brutal ..

too brutal.

Carmen was part of their family. Losing her like this was something Ada could never accept.

From the very beginning, Ada refused to fight the woman who had supported her for so many years.

But Carmen's expression showed something Ada hadn't expected ..

Carmen seemed completely ready to spill blood.

"Carmen… what are you trying to do right now?" Ada asked cautiously as Carmen approached her, step by slow step.

"We have no choice, Ada.

One of us has to die."

"No!" Ada shouted, stumbling back several steps.

"I refuse to submit to this cursed device… and I refuse to fight you, Carmen!" she said firmly, glancing at the timer .. one full minute had already passed.

Carmen forced a thin, cold smile.

"You're misunderstanding something, Ada.

You can't fight me ..

and you can't fight that device ..

because you're simply too weak."

Her tone was heavy, and utterly unlike her usual reckless yet caring nature.

"I could kill you from where I'm standing, and I'm not even in the Empire's top ten.

That is how weak you are… as the head of a family."

Ada bit her lip. She knew what Carmen had done in her past ..

how she abandoned her own son,

how she lived a filthy life away from everyone,

how she even killed her son's father before he ever learned she was pregnant with him.

Carmen had done terrible things.

Unforgivable things.

But that never changed Ada's feelings toward her.

Everyone makes mistakes.

What matters is how they choose to live afterward.

Carmen had been Ada's guardian and mentor, and that alone was enough for Ada to cling to her with everything she had.

"Whatever happens… I will not fight you," Ada repeated, as if trying to solidify her resolve.

Carmen's smile widened.

"So if I'm not the one dying…

will you die instead, Ada?" she pressed.

"Will you kill yourself to save me?"

She stepped closer with every word.

"Will you throw away your life? Everything you've lived for?"

"Will you leave Frey behind—and die far away from him?"

Ada's gaze sharpened.

"No.

I don't intend to die.

And I won't let you die either.

No one is dying tonight."

"Sweet Ada… you know that's not how the world works.

Not in the world we live in."

The rules were absolute.

No one could break them.

But Ada wasn't joking. She wanted to defy everything for what she believed was right.

From inside her arms, Ada took out a strange device she had kept for a very long time.

A tool given to her by that man.

He had told her clearly:

"Use it only when it feels like your world has completely collapsed, when everything is truly over."

This moment did not perfectly match that description…

but Ada desperately needed the power to shatter the cursed Balance that held her and Carmen hostage.

The device was a cylindrical trigger.

No one knew what it did.

No one knew what it was capable of.

But Ada believed in it—believed it wasn't something ordinary.

So without hesitation,

with absolute resolve,

she pulled the trigger.

The tool that could only be used once ..

her final trump card, her last resort ..

was unleashed just like that.

That alone showed how much she loved Carmen ..

enough to gamble everything she had for her sake.

Ada wagered their lives on the engineer's device.

The moment she pulled the trigger, the tool shone brightly, releasing a strange wave of aura that made everyone flinch for a moment.

There was no doubt ..

this trigger contained something frightening, something monstrous.

Even Frey himself felt the shock of that bizarre aura.

Hope surged in Ada's chest as the device glowed brighter and brighter.

But then…

In the end…

Something impossible happened.

The glow vanished.

The aura disappeared.

The device simply… went dead.

Like nothing had ever happened.

The trial's timer continued ticking.

Everyone was back to where they started.

Ada froze, her breath hitching.

"Huh?"

She didn't understand.

Was it broken?

Did it malfunction?

What went wrong?

"Ada…" Carmen murmured after witnessing what Ada had attempted.

"What are you trying to do?

Are you really relying on something you don't even understand to escape the situation you're trapped in?"

Disappointment flickered across Carmen's face.

She didn't know what the device was either, but she knew Ada had gotten it from some unknown source ..

a tool meant to do something,

sometime,

in some situation.

Everything about it was random and unpredictable.

Ada had gambled blindly.

And as a result, the device refused to respond ..

leaving them exactly where they were.

"Time remaining: 3 minutes."

The countdown kept falling… second by second.

They had only three minutes left to make their choice ..

or both of them would die.

At that moment, it felt as though Carmen had already made her decision, unlike Ada, whose composure slowly crumbled after her final trump card had failed her.

"Why… isn't it working?"

She had been told to use that device only when all hope was lost ..

when her world truly collapsed ..

and yet, in the end, the device refused to respond.

As if it were telling her:

This is not the place,

and this is not the moment.

I was made for something else entirely.

But what did that matter now…

when Ada might die here?

From afar, both Maika and Frey watched the scene unfold ..

each with entirely different emotions.

Maika seemed delighted, especially when he saw Carmen preparing herself to kill Ada.

Everything he had prepared for was falling into place so perfectly it felt like a dream.

"I'll admit… that strange wave of aura worried me for a moment, but Ada Starlight is still as weak as ever. She cannot change anything."

Slowly, Maika turned toward Frey.

"And now, Frey… watch with your own eyes.

See the true colors of the whore you trusted so deeply."

He provoked Frey further ..

but was instantly silenced as Frey released his aura, forcing Maika to his knees under the crushing pressure.

Frey placed a finger over his lips, signaling Maika to remain quiet with an expression so terrifying it shook Maika's very soul.

"Choose your next words wisely.

You only have three minutes left to live."

Frey made it clear he would kill him the moment the trial ended.

He would have killed him right now if not for the rule stating that Carmen and Ada would die the moment the wielder of the Balance died.

That single condition was the only thing keeping Maika alive.

Frey was furious because of it.

Rage boiling inside him, Frey spoke sharply in his mind:

"Nameless… you once stood at the top of the world, damn it. Are you telling me you can't stop this cursed device!?"

Nameless answered coldly, expressionless as always:

"Not in my current state.

I can't tamper with the laws of life and death.

Had the Balance been activated on you—or on me—I could have reversed it.

But on Carmen and Ada?

Impossible."

The Balance belonged to Wesker.

It carried an overwhelmingly absolute ability.

Once activated, with all conditions met, it reached its peak power ..

and unfortunately for Frey, everything was already in place.

If only he had arrived earlier, before Maika completed the setup…

If only he could have somehow made himself the target of the Balance instead of Carmen or Ada…

If only.

But nothing in Frey's life had ever gone according to his will,

not even with Nameless beside him.

All he could do now was stand there and watch ..

forced to accept another bitter reality.

"Once again… I'll have to stand here and watch the people I care about die right in front of me."

He spat the words out in fury.

Meanwhile, even with his face crushed into the floor by Frey's aura,

Maika was grinning madly as he watched his mother approach Ada.

"Now, you damned whore… kill her.

End it."

This was the moment he had been waiting for.

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