**Disclaimer: This chapter has violent/gruesome content and torture.**

BaoBao had warned Alice of the attacks from above, instantaneously did his calculations of probabilities and rates then concluded that Violet would not escaped unscathed even with Ethan's protection and her own fire ability. This was when Alice decided to accept death and throw Violet back using her water ability.

Ethan witnessed Alice's body being impaled by numerous icicles and spears with wide disbelieving eyes. Some parts of her were cut off by swords as well. Tears had already begun to flow before his brain has registered her death.

His heart wrenched as the gory sight consumed his mind. It somehow felt like a painfully familiar scene. He yelled out loud in agony, his eyes became blood shot red, and power surged from his body. It broke him free of the force that was controlling his body.

He roughly pushed Violet off of him and scrambled to Alice's mangled body. He ran through and broke any spears and weapons that were in his way. He fell to his knees by her side and shook his head in denial slowly. He reached out to her half-intact face but attacks flew towards them again.

His hand froze in place as rage filled him and rampaged within him. They dared to hurt her! My Alice!!! He clenched his outstretched hand into a fist.

Just as Stephan prepared to counter the attacks again, strong winds blasted through the entire area, so strong that he had to hold onto Violet and use his ice ability to anchor themselves to the ground.

Ethan activated his wind ability to throw everyone up high in the sky, including Rosalyn. Ethan's opponent from earlier and Rosalyn were thoroughly shocked that they could not counter his wind at all, resulting in them losing total control over their bodies. Upon this realisation, they got slammed down into ground at a high speed that broke all their bones in their body. Everyone passed out in pain.

Ethan turned his head to glare at the remaining 3 three abilities users on the ground with his bloodshot eyes. In his rage, he could easily picture the air molecules that were surrounding the opponents separating to create a vacuum bubble. All 3 people instantly exploded into a bloody mess within that vacuum.

Ethan withdrew his hand back to his side and got up to slowly make his way to Rosalyn. She was the only one he spared by controlling the force of her fall to result in numerous fractures throughout her body.

Ethan trapped her head in a water bubble to wake her up.

Rosalyn woke up to intense pain and suffocation. Just before she drowned, she was released from the bubble. However, she was not given a break. While she was still coughing out water, she felt her forehead and legs being grazed by several sharp things. It was not as painful as her fractured body but it was still pain.

She then felt something impale her right thigh in an agonizingly slow speed. She shrieked.

She wanted to know what was the cause of her pain but it was painful to even move. She could only see a pair of feet in front of her. So she weakly pleaded, "Please, help... me...".

Ethan did not bother to reply her and proceeded on to impale her shoulder in the same manner. He did not take a break and immediately moved on to using a dull ice sword to saw through her knees one at a time.

By now, Rosalyn's muddled mind cleared up and she realised what was happening to her.

After she lost her legs, snot and tears already covered her face. "Who are you?! Why are you doing this to me?!"

"You made the wrong decision." He started to manipulate a dull ice spear to slowly pierce through her right arm. It pressed against her skin with a gradual growing pressure before it broke through her skin, broke her bone, and came out from the other side. It was slow enough for Rosalyn to feel every little sensation of the spear piercing and sliding through her arm. Not only was it physically torturing, it was also mentally torturing. She shrieked the whole time and begged him to stop. She had had enough of being pierced at this agonisingly slow speed.

Ethan moved on to her left arm with her pleas falling on deaf ears.

He then went on to her left thigh. By now, she was ignoring the pain from falling from a great height and shaking her head vigorously while crying out loud.

"You could have killed anyone else but her." He positioned the next spears above her forearms.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please just give a a quick dea- Ahhhhh!!!"

"A quick death? I have to make you feel the pain she went through... Many times more..."

"No!! Please... Please... Please have mercy!" But Ethan went ahead and pierced through her other shoulder.

"You didn't seem to have any for Alice." Ethan said coldly as he created the next spear for use.

"I'll make it up to Alice when I'm on the other side! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Let me of- Ahhhh!" She felt her stomach pierced through the middle of her back. The breaking of her spine made her lose the feelings she had in her bottom half of the body.

Ethan squatted down and tilted his head to look at her dead in the eyes. It shocked Rosalyn to the core. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and filled with derision and hate. "Don't say her name. You're defiling it." As he said the last sentence, she saw from the corner of her eyes that a spear was coming dangerously close to her cheek. She went into full blown panic and screamed, "Noooo!! Please! Stop it!!"

He ignored her cries and forcefully pierced through her cheeks, breaking her jaw in the process of it. Rosalyn felt her mind break along with her jaw. She now laid there in a motionless and semiconscious state. Tears kept running from her red sore eyes as if her tear duct was broken. Blood covered the ground as it continued to flow from her wounds.

Ethan stood back up and waited until she was on the brink of death from bleeding out before creating a vacuum bubble around her body.

When Ethan had just began his torture, Violet shivered. She felt afraid seeing Ethan so ruthless but she knew that Rosalyn asked for it. Besides she did not believe that she would be able to stop Ethan at this moment. He seemed almost unrecognisable to her. So she did not say anything to stop him. Her heart ached with guilt and sorrow at the loss of Alice. When Stephan saw her tearing up and was in extreme discomfort, he hugged her tightly. Violet responded by burying her head into his chest and covering her ears.

Stephan looked at Ethan with cold but sad eyes. He also found Ethan's ways overbearingly torturous and had not expected Ethan to feel so strongly for Alice. However, he could not judge or blame him because he could empathise with Ethan. He knew that he would do the same if Violet ended up like Alice.

When the torture was completed, Stephan looked at Ethan making his way back to Alice with heavy steps.

Ethan went onto his knees beside Alice's body. Gaping wounds littered her body since the ice dissipated. He brought his trembling hand to her ruined face once again. The back of his fingers lightly brushed against her half intact left cheek. It was as if the fact that Alice has died finally sunk in as renewed tears began flowed uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry." He choked out. His heart and guts felt wrenched together. "I'm sorry..." He withdrew his hand from Alice's face and crouched down low to place his forehead against the ground. Suddenly, he punched the ground with his hands which caused cracks to spread through the ground in a large area.

He lifted his face to the sky and yelled in agony.

He recalled how he had fought so hard with himself to get to Alice's side. "Why?!!!" His voice was filled with anguish. If I had broken free a moment sooner, I may have been able to save her...

"Alice... Alice!!!" I want to see your smile again! I want to practice with you day in and day out! I want you by my side! I already miss you...

He made a silent oath as he screamed again in agony. I promise to find you again in my next life! I'll never stop fighting to protect you! I'll fight myself if I have to! I'll fight against the heavens if I have to!

Standing by the side, tears fell from Violet's eyes as her body trembled from her silent sobs. Stephan continued to hold her in his arms with his face twisted in pain. They both felt sorry for Ethan and Alice.

 

"Luna? ...Luna? Are you okay?"

Luna kept her eyes closed and her face was slightly pale. The pain of dying had been intense this time round and she felt that it was truly quite a horrifying way to die. She'd rather bleed out like she did in her original world and in the previous world.

"...Luna?" BaoBao was slightly worried.

I'm fine. Just... give me a while. 

BaoBao kept quiet and let Luna rest. He knew how weary she must be feeling since she still talked to him telepathically.

Luna drifted off to sleep.

 

Around 2 hours later, she woke up to find herself in darkness. She was momentarily confused until she remembered that she had died.

BaoBao appeared by her side the moment he knew that she was awake. "Luna? Feeling better?"

Luna nodded. "How did this world go?"

"You avoided forging a friendship with Violet and the others where the original soul was completely dependent on them. You avoided being the one to associate Leah with Violet. The last part is really interesting."

Luna cocked her head, waiting for BaoBao to explain.

"Besides how the entire battle and confrontation in the forest went differently, thanks to you, in the original story, when the original soul died, Violet got gravely injured from trying to rush to you. Her injury would give the boys a power boost due to their anger and that would spur them on to win the battle. However this time...!"

Luna noticed the way BaoBao sounded really excited as if he was suppressing a scream. Did he regress back to a fanboy? What happened?

BaoBao heard her thoughts and that instantly cooled him down again. He coughed, apologised, then continued explaining. "You threw her back, saved her from injury and the story changed a little from there although the ending was the same. It was only Ethan who went ballistic and he attacked in ways that was far more overpowering than how he did in the original story."

BaoBao looked at how Luna widened her eyes. Just as he thought that she was touched, he heard her thoughts. "Did it affect the rest of the story then? Will there be any issues?"

BaoBao did not know whether to laugh or cry at her nonchalance about having the second male lead go totally out of character for her. "It's fine... Violet and Stephan were shocked not by his show of power but by how much he grieved for you. It captured Violet's attention for awhile, but Stephan easily gained her attention back, especially when Ethan was no longer fighting for her attention in his silent way. Nothing changed in the story expect some minor insignificant details."

Luna sighed in relief. "I'm curious about something. Was everything orchestrated by the second female lead? And her involvement in the story was much higher than what I am exposed to, right?"

BaoBao nodded. "She did a lot of things to trouble both Stephan's and Violet's family. Instigated a lot of bullies and fanned the fire of hatred against Violet. She did everything so meticulously that she really was not found out till this last ambush."

"On hindsight, this explains why the 'amazing' female lead was unable to gain much support. Normally there'd be at least some if there was no one acting against her." Luna thought about it.

"True..." BaoBao recalled at this point that his wrong prediction and smugness at the moment before anything was concluded caused everything to go wrong when it could have been prevented. 

Luna noticed his silence. She saw how he was floating unusually low and hanging his head. Without the need to ask, she could guess the cause of it. "Just don't repeat it again." 

BaoBao's eyes widened and he teared up a little. He nodded firmly to show his promise to her. He rubbed his eyes with his stubby arm then continued to talk energetically again. He knew that Luna did not fancy dallying. "About grades... It doesn't seem like you did anything wrong this time but..." BaoBao started to look a little puzzled.

"The grade's still not very good, right?"

"Not exactly. Your performance did get a grading of A. But... after all that you have accomplished, I was expecting an S grade. Apparently, the reason for your grade is that you still barely passed each mission by a hair's breath..." BaoBao secretly complained to himself. The administrators are such stingy cheats. Humph!

"Oh well, what matters is if there was a reassessment. How pleased was this world's consciousness?"

"It's an S grade again!" BaoBao excitedly cheered for Luna. "The original soul was more than pleased and its satisfaction provided some energy for the world. The world decided to overlook the second male lead's OOC since it did not affect the plot too badly."

Luna nodded then asked BaoBao about the next world.

BaoBao sulked. "Can't you at least show a little reaction?"

Luna blinked innocently. "...Woohoo, good job to us. We did it~" However, she said it in such a flat tone that it made BaoBao's skin crawl.

"Okay, okay, forget it. Just... go at your own pace."