Inside Class A's classroom, Yukie sat at her desk near the window. The afternoon sunlight streamed in, causing her silvery white hair to shimmer like snow touched by light. Resting on her open left palm was a small ice crystal, no larger than a pea, glistening faintly.

The crystal contained semen.

Yes, semen.

Yukie had been surprised when she discovered that fact.

It was the result of her own examination. The strange liquid that had suddenly splashed across her face a few days ago, at the exact moment Adam entered the classroom and was announced as awakened.

Even so, there was not the slightest hint of disgust on her cold, flawless face. Her pale white eyes regarded the crystal with nothing more than boredom.

In fact, there was a faint impulse stirring within her, a primitive urge to put the crystal into her mouth, to feel the ice melt and the liquid inside spread across her tongue. She dismissed that impulse effortlessly.

It had been a long time since she had truly felt anything. When her flesh was torn, when her bones were broken, when people looked at her with fear or sickening admiration, it all felt flat and meaningless.

There was only one thing capable of cracking the ice in her chest and stirring something strange and unsettling within her.

Adam Socheron.

Seeing fear in Adam's eyes. Hearing his pained groans. Even witnessing the sparks of hatred and defiance that had recently begun to appear there. Those moments alone gave her sensation, gave her purpose. That was why she never grew tired of tormenting him.

Her thoughts returned to the semen frozen within the ice crystal. It had appeared almost simultaneously with Adam. Was there a connection? Was the mysterious person who had violated her Adam himself?

But how? Teleporting his semen? Impossible. There had been no energy collision, no disturbance. The liquid had seemed to already be there on her face, only for her to suddenly become aware of it.

As if time itself had stopped, someone had moved within it, done that, and then time resumed. Or perhaps it was an overwhelmingly powerful form of mass hypnosis that affected the entire class, including herself, preventing anyone from realizing the incident until afterward.

She frowned slightly. The first possibility sounded absurd.

Then came the next question. Was this Adam's doing?

If it was, it would explain many things, including his sudden awakening.

But that was where the logic broke down. If Adam possessed such power, why had he not used it for revenge right away? Why fight her on the field and allow his arm to be severed? Why go through the trouble of using his mother and starting his revenge with Alex?

And then there was another troubling question. Why did Delilah Socheron suddenly care? That woman had always been indifferent to her stepson.

Yukie closed her hand, sealing the ice crystal and the semen within her palm. The cold seeped into her skin, yet she felt nothing.

The questions spun endlessly without answers.

To know for certain whether the semen belonged to Adam, she would need to obtain one of his hairs or something similar for a DNA test.

'Everything will be answered once I manage to take him with me,' she thought.

Her pale white eyes turned toward the window, gazing out at the empty training field.

She would capture him, then slowly peel away every layer of defense, every lie and every secret, until nothing remained. Until she uncovered the truth about that fluid, about his power, and about what had truly happened behind all the changes surrounding him.

But there was one small problem.

He had vanished.

Since Alex's humiliating incident on the field that morning, Adam had not been seen. He did not appear in any classes. He was not in the cafeteria. Not in the training area. It was as if he had been swallowed by the earth.

Annoyed, Yukie waited for the class to end, intending to search for him herself afterward.

.

.

.

Alex rubbed his throbbing head, his mind a mess. He had failed. Completely. Adam had not even accepted his humiliating apology. Worse still, he had been beaten and knocked unconscious in front of everyone.

His life was already ruined. And if his father found out that the apology had been rejected, Alex shuddered as he recalled the threat. His father had been serious. Dead serious. That night, Alex had seen pure fear in Orville's eyes, a kind of fear he had never witnessed before.

"Why me?" Alex muttered as he ran a hand through his already messy hair, sitting in the back seat of the car driven by his family chauffeur.

"I was just going along with it. Everyone else is fine." He groaned in frustration, then silently cursed Adam with everything he had.

'Bastard. Trash. This is all your fault.'

The car finally stopped in front of the Rutherford family's grand estate. Alex stepped out, his legs feeling like lead. He entered the house, and the moment the front door locked behind him with a final click, he felt an unnatural chill.

Heavy, rapid footsteps echoed from the main corridor.

Alex froze and slowly turned around.

Orville Rutherford stood there. The face before him was no longer the cold, dignified father he knew, but a mask of pure rage, nearly unrecognizable. Veins bulged along his temples and neck, his eyes red and burning.

Before Alex could speak or even draw a breath, his father lunged forward with shocking speed for a man of his age. Powerful hands clamped around Alex's neck, crushing his throat, lifting him off the floor as if he were nothing more than a rag doll.

"Gkkhh!" Alex struggled, his legs kicking helplessly in the air. The grip was like iron, cutting off air and blood alike. His vision began to blur.

"YOU USELESS BRAT!" Orville roared, his voice shaking the vast lobby with unrestrained fury. "WHAT MORE TROUBLE HAVE YOU CAUSED THIS TIME? DAMN IT! THE STAR WITCH CAME THIS AFTERNOON AND DESTROYED OUR GUILD HEADQUARTERS TO THE GROUND. EVERYTHING WE BUILT, OUR HISTORY, EVERYTHING!"

Even as he hovered on the edge of unconsciousness, Alex was stunned. Destroyed? The guild building…

"I TOLD YOU TO APOLOGIZE! TO DO WHATEVER HE WANTED!" Orville shook his choking son violently. "BUT YOU? YOU ATTACKED HIM INSTEAD? DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME?"

Through his darkening vision, Alex saw others rushing in. His mother, the elegant woman who usually defended him, stood pale and rigid behind a marble pillar, one hand covering her mouth. His two younger brothers, who once looked at him with admiration, stared in terror. None of them moved to intervene.

"F-father… it's not…" Alex forced the words out through his crushed throat, tears streaming down his face. "He… he told me to… nak—"

"I DON'T CARE!" Orville shouted, cutting him off. His grip tightened further, making Alex choke and cough, his eyes feeling as though they would burst. "I SAID ANYTHING! AS LONG AS HE FORGIVES YOU! BUT YOU? YOU THINK YOUR PRIDE IS WORTH MORE THAN THIS FAMILY'S LIVES?"

Orville's rage twisted into something darker, something far more dangerous. His voice dropped to a low whisper, heavy with lethal intent.

"He said this was a warning. If he does not see you apologizing properly tomorrow, he will destroy us. All of us." He leaned in close, until Alex could see the madness and fear intertwined in his father's eyes. "So I am giving you a choice. Tomorrow, you will do whatever Adam Socheron wants. Or…"

He paused, then continued with a hissing whisper.

"I will kill you myself. I will cut off your head and offer it to the Star Witch as proof of our apology. Choose."

The threat was so real, so horrifying, that Alex's survival instinct froze. He glanced desperately at his mother, searching for help, mercy, anything. She only turned her face away, her shoulders trembling with silent sobs. His brothers did the same.

His family had abandoned him.

Orville tightened his grip once more. Alex's world began to fade. He felt the end approaching.

"It might be easier to just kill you," Orville growled with disgust.

Suddenly, humiliating warmth spread through Alex's groin, flowing down his pant legs and dripping onto the polished marble floor. Alex had wet himself. The terror of death crushed everything else. Pride, shame, dignity, all shattered into pure panic. With the last of his strength, Alex nodded wildly, again and again.

Seeing that, Orville finally released him.

Alex crashed onto the floor, now slick with his own urine. He coughed violently, each breath slicing through his lungs like knives. His sobs broke free, uncontrollable, a mixture of pain, humiliation, and absolute terror.

His body trembled violently as he lay in the puddle beneath him, while the towering shadow of his father loomed overhead, eyes filled with hatred and disappointment.

"I… I'll apologize," he sobbed, his voice hoarse and choked with tears, his body shaking uncontrollably in his own mess. "Anything… anything at all… whatever he wants, I'll do it. I promise…"

Orville looked down at him with utter disgust and despair, then turned away.

"Clean yourself up. And tomorrow, you will do whatever he asks. Whatever. Or you know the consequences."

He left Alex behind, still sobbing and shaking on the floor, surrounded by a family that stood silently, watching his complete collapse.

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