“I—I won!”

Cai Ni dropped to his knees. The impact just now had torn open the webbing between his thumbs and forefingers, but he couldn’t feel a thing!

He’d actually managed to slice off a corner of Bai Ye’s clothes. He’d won—he’d won this ridiculous game!

As long as she kept her promise, Cai Ni and his brothers would be safe!

“B-Big Bro won! We’re safe!”

“That’s our Big Bro!”

Everyone saw the scrap of cloth flutter down to the ground and broke into cheers. Their big brother hadn’t let them down. He’d won! They no longer had to worry about being burned to ash by the silver-haired girl before them!

“My lady, I won! You said you’d let us go if we won the game!”

Cai Ni knelt before Bai Ye, stripped of every last shred of dignity. He didn’t even think of avenging his two brothers who had died. His mind was filled with just one thing: staying alive, and keeping the brothers he had left alive!

“I do believe I said that.”

Bai Ye looked at the small piece cut from the hem of her clothes and gave a strange little smile.

“But you ruined my clothes, and now I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to let you go.”

“Huh? M-My lady, what do you mean?”

Bai Ye didn’t answer Cai Ni. Instead, she raised her hand and slowly spoke four words.

“Hellfire Cage!”

This Hellfire Cage was nothing like the one she’d used to intimidate them earlier. This time, it erupted right in the middle of the crowd. Endless flames surged skyward and swept over everyone!

The people who’d thought they’d escaped death just moments ago were swallowed by the raging flames the very next instant.

They ran, struggled, and screamed, rolling and thrashing wildly on the ground, but nothing they did could make the flames weaken—not even a little.

“No!”

Cai Ni tried to stop it, but he was powerless.

He watched his men cry out in agony in the flames, yet there was nothing he could do. At last, he understood. The silver-haired girl before him had never intended to spare them. Everything he’d done had been futile!

“You never planned to let us go!”

Cai Ni picked up half of a broken sword. Blood ran down his hand, but he didn’t care. His heart had already turned to ash—what did a little pain matter?

“I’ll take you down with me!”

He swung the broken sword and charged at Bai Ye. She merely waved a hand, and black magic from somewhere unseen turned into a series of chains that bound him tight.

The smile and mockery had vanished from Bai Ye’s face. She looked at Cai Ni coldly and spoke in a voice colder still.

“Angry? Desperate? Now you should be able to understand how the people you sold into slavery felt.”

Mockery or deception—Bai Ye had never really meant to amuse herself at the expense of this scum.

But simply killing them would have been far too painless. Bai Ye wanted them to know just how desperate the people they’d sold into slavery had felt. She wanted this scum to understand what it was like to be locked in a cage, with all hope gone!

“S-So that’s it. Y-You came to avenge those people!”

Cai Ni stared at Bai Ye in terror. He never would’ve imagined that those lowly people sold off as merchandise could have someone so powerful come to avenge them!

“Can you feel it? The despair of being locked in a cage?”

Bai Ye controlled her magic, letting it consume Cai Ni bit by bit.

“That suffocating pressure, like sinking into a pitch-black swamp. That terror, like falling into an endless abyss. Can you understand even a little of it now?”

The black magic tightened around him. Cai Ni could barely breathe, and soon he couldn’t even speak.

Bai Ye wondered if this was too cruel. But when she looked at him, she remembered her own helpless past, and Yilisi locked in a cage when they first met.

If they hadn’t met someone important to them, perhaps their fates wouldn’t have been much better than Cai Ni’s.

At least he could die quickly. As slaves, Bai Ye and Yilisi would probably have been used and abused until they were broken, then thrown into some dump.

At the thought, the last trace of compassion in Bai Ye vanished. She tightened the magic wrapped around Cai Ni until every bone in his body was crushed to pieces.

Cai Ni’s body twisted like a strip of bamboo, making a horrible cracking sound.

“N-No… please…”

Cai Ni stared at Bai Ye in terror and struggled with all his might, but it was futile.

At last, a splinter of bone pierced his heart. Cai Ni spat out a great mouthful of blood and closed his eyes, unwilling to accept his fate.

Bai Ye withdrew her magic. Cai Ni’s body, twisted like a pretzel, fell to the ground.

With the magic sustaining it gone, the towering flames of the fire cage gradually died down. Bai Ye was the only one still standing…

As she looked at the corpses covering the ground, she felt no satisfaction at having punished evil and upheld justice—only coldness, and a little belated surprise.

“I… actually did something like this…”

Smelling the stench of burned bodies and looking at Cai Ni, twisted like a pretzel, even Bai Ye felt a little stunned. She’d killed so many people in a single night.

She wasn’t on a battlefield, and she wasn’t some law enforcer. No matter how vicious these scum were, they should’ve been punished under the laws of the Empire. But…

Maybe she’d been too angry. Bai Ye hated slave traders so much that, until now, it hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder whether what she’d done was right.