Alicia felt wrong—wrong to the bone; she wedged her hand against Ling’s throat, and feral intent poured across Ling’s face like boiling ink.

“Since you want to kill me, I’ll let you taste this pain!”

Alicia’s hand sealed Ling’s neck; force surged up her spine, and Alicia lifted that small frame like plucking a sparrow into midair.

Suspended high, Ling felt power drain away; every cell howled like winter wolves.

It wasn’t lack of oxygen; since crossing worlds, Ling hadn’t needed breath, strange at first, yet life held steady like a still lake.

The pain now was the first pain of trying to cast Alicia away—an arrow to a fragile, unguarded heart, a blow that cut to the marrow.

Her hands trembled, then clamped the wrist at her throat; she pried the fingers, stole a sliver of space, and air threaded a voice.

“Sister Alicia… what’s… wrong with you?”

Malice deepened in Alicia’s eyes; red pupils glowed like embers, terror carved in stone.

“You ask me? You know what you did. You hurt my heart. You betrayed me again and again, abandoned me again and again. Now you try to kill me? You think I’m a saint? Once I kill you, I’ll die too. In heaven—no, in the Underworld—we’ll still be together.”

Her love-mad words seeped in; in a past life Ling might’ve bloomed with joy, but now a choking weight pressed her chest like wet clay.

“Hahahahahahaha!!!!”

The jagged laugh ricocheted in her ears; it scraped her brain like iron, and color bled back into Ling’s dim pupils.

—This isn’t Alicia!

The thought detonated, then circled, a hawk refusing to land.

The fixed belief cracked; a mind trapped in that frame clawed for escape like a caged beast.

Ling’s soft hands found strength; the push swelled, and the gap between those pinning fingers widened like a door creaking open.

Alicia stared, startled, and tightened her grip, but her strength couldn’t match Ling’s rising tide.

“Hey! What are you doing?! Stop and be good—let me kill you!”

Those words washed away her inner struggle; resolve flooded Ling’s gaze like dawn.

Crack… crack… crack.

That fixed thought shattered like glass; strength surged back into her arms, and the hands at her throat were torn away in an instant.

Freedom hit like cold rain; Ling sprang several meters back, eyes fixed on the figure before her—not Alicia, but Sin Ling.

Sin Ling stared in disbelief at Ling across the room, like a fish jolted from the net.

“Hey! Get back here! Want to hurt me again? Let me kill you, then I can forgive you!”

Ptooey.

Ling spat, disdain sharp as grit.

“I don’t know how you pulled Alicia’s body out of the Script, or what this mess is. I almost bought your lines, but I know Alicia like the moon knows the tide. She’d never say she wants to kill me. Sister Alicia is the gentlest to me.”

The doubt irked Sin Ling; her neat plan crumbled—no guilt spiral, no defenseless prey, no clean kill—just a table flipped over.

Sin Ling fell silent. Ling decided her deduction and charm had shut her up; warmth flitted in her chest, then she fired a final warning.

“Hey! Three seconds. Crawl out of Sister Alicia’s body—now. Or else… hm hm hm~”

It was a threat wrapped in sugar; anyone weak to cute little girls would obey on the spot; Ling weaponized adorableness like a blade.

But Sin Ling wasn’t buying it; no amount of cuteness would make her release Alicia.

Alicia’s body mattered to Ling like a jade heirloom; that was exactly why Sin Ling refused to let go.

Sin Ling ignored the warning, dead-fish eyes dull as coins; humiliation pricked Ling’s skin, her cheeks flushed rose, her feet stamped the floor.

“Bastard! You won’t cry till the coffin’s in sight? Fine. To see a thousand miles, climb one more floor—today, I’ll let you witness my power.”

She tapped the ground with a toe; speed burst like a loosed arrow, her fist flickered green, and it drove straight for the weak point all creatures share—the face.

The rushing fist sliced the air; wind pressure rolled forward like a breaking wave. Sin Ling didn’t move; her dead-fish eyes stayed unchanged.