Villain's Breeding System: Evolving 999+ Harem into an SSS-Rank Legion

Chapter 703: Chapter 703 - A Trauma of Princess Hidden Behind Mask of Glowing World

The closet door opened.

The girl stepped out.

She was trembling. Her whole body was shaking. Her green eyes were wide. Her face was white. Her emerald hair was sticking to her cheeks— wet with tears she did not know she had been crying.

She walked to the bed.

Her bare feet on the silk. Her small toes in the wet, ruined sheets. She felt the fluid— the seed, the wine, the milk— between her toes. She did not care. She walked to the head of the bed. To her mother’s face.

"Mother?" she whispered. "Mother, are you all right?"

Viviana did not move.

Her eyes were open. Rolled back. The whites showing. Her mouth was open. Her tongue was out. Her face was purple. Her neck was bruised— the finger marks dark against the pale skin.

"Mother?" the girl said again. Louder. Her voice was cracking. The high, bright voice of a child was breaking. "Mother, wake up. Mother, please. The men are gone. You can wake up now. Mother?"

She touched her mother’s face.

The skin was cold. Not the warmth she knew. Not the softness she had pressed her face against every night. Cold. The cold of a thing that is not alive.

"Mother!" she cried. Her voice was high. Sharp. The scream of a child who does not understand death but who feels it. "MOTHER!"

She shook her. She pulled at her shoulder. She pulled at her arm. The body moved— limp, heavy, the weight of flesh and bone and nothing else. The head lolled. The tongue shifted. The eyes did not focus.

"MOTHER! MOTHER, PLEASE! WAKE UP! MOTHER!"

She kept calling.

She called and called. Her voice echoed off the walls. Off the ceiling. Off the silk and the stone. She called until her voice was hoarse. Until her throat was raw. Until the word "mother" was not a word but a sound— a wail, a keen, the sound of a child who has lost the only person who loved her.

The servants came.

They opened the door. They saw the bed. They saw the body. They saw the girl— small, emerald-haired, covered in the fluids that had soaked through the sheets and onto her feet and her hands and her nightgown.

Mira— the head maid— screamed.

She ran to the girl. She picked her up. She held her. The girl fought— hitting, kicking, screaming "MOTHER!"— but Mira held. She carried her out of the room. The door closed behind them.

The body was washed.

By the servants. Gently. With warm water and soft cloths. The seed was cleaned. The wine was cleaned. The milk was cleaned. The bite marks were visible— red, dark, the impressions of teeth on her breasts, her thighs, her shoulders. The bruise on her neck was darkening— purple, black, the shape of fingers.

She was dressed.

In white. A simple gown. The gown of the dead. Her hair was brushed. The dark waves were arranged— on the pillow, around her face, the way she had worn it in life. Her hands were folded. On her chest. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was closed.

She looked like she was sleeping.

She was not sleeping.

The coffin was in the hall.

The girl stood before it. She was wearing black. A small dress. Her emerald hair was loose. Her green eyes were red. Wet. Her face was swollen— the puffiness of a child who has been crying for three days.

Her grandfather was there.

The old king. Her mother’s father. A small man. Thin. His hair was gray. His face was lined. His hands— the hands of a farmer, of a commoner, of a man who had worked the land and who had been given a daughter who had caught a king’s eye and who had been taken from him and who was now— here. In a coffin. In a palace. In a dress that she would never have chosen.

The old man was crying.

Silently. The tears ran down his lined face. He did not wipe them. He stood. He held the girl’s hand. His grip was firm. His fingers were calloused.

The girl looked at the coffin.

At her mother’s face. At the closed eyes. At the folded hands. At the white gown. At the bruises that the makeup could not hide— the purple on the neck, the yellow on the cheek.

She cried.

She had been crying for three days. She would cry for three more. She would cry for thirty years. She would cry every night, in every bed, in every room, for the rest of her life. But at this moment— standing before the coffin, holding her grandfather’s hand— she cried the way a child cries. Openly. Loudly. Without shame. Without restraint.

"Mother," she whispered. "Mother, wake up. Please wake up."

The king arrived.

He walked into the hall. He was alone. No ministers. No guards. No delegates. He walked to the coffin. He stood beside it. He looked down at the face of the woman he had given to three men.

He looked at his daughter.

The girl looked up. At her father. At the king. At the man who had been standing by the wall while his woman was being fucked and strangled. At the man who had stroked his own cock while his woman was being used. At the man who had signed a document while his woman was dying.

The king placed his hand on her head.

His large hand. On her emerald hair. The same gesture as before. The casual, proprietary gesture of a man who acknowledges a pet.

"Your mother provided me with massive gains," he said. His voice was calm. Conversational. The voice of a man who is discussing business. "For that, I will let you stay in this palace. In the queen’s wing. Until I marry you off."

The girl stared.

Her green eyes were wide. Her mouth was open. Her tears stopped— frozen, suspended, the shock cutting through the grief like a blade.

"To the king of the barbarian tribe," the king said. "He liked your mother. He wants you. When you reach your coming of age. I will send you to him. As a concubine."

The girl’s heart thumped.

Not a normal heartbeat. A single, massive, world-ending thump. The thump of a heart that has been struck. The thump of a heart that has been told that it is not a heart— that it is a product. A commodity. A thing to be traded. A thing to be given to the man who killed her mother.

The king walked away.

His footsteps echoed on the marble. His robe trailed behind him. His crown caught the light. He did not look back. He did not pause. He walked the way kings walk— as if the world moves around them, not the other way.

The girl screamed.

The sound was not human. It was not the scream of a child. It was not the scream of a princess. It was the scream of a thing that has been broken— a glass, a vase, a soul— that has been shattered into pieces too small to ever be put back together.

She screamed and she ran.

To the coffin. To her mother. She threw herself against it. Her arms went around the wood. Her face pressed against the cold surface. She held. She gripped. She would not let go.

"MOTHER!" she screamed. "MOTHER! MOTHER! HE IS GOING TO SEND ME! MOTHER! PLEASE WAKE UP! MOTHER! PLEASE!"

She screamed and she cried.

She hugged the coffin. She pressed her face against the wood. Her tears soaked the finish. Her fingers clawed at the surface. Her body shook— the shaking of a child who has lost everything, who has nothing, who is nothing, who will be nothing, who is a product, a commodity, a thing to be traded, a concubine for the man who killed her mother.

Her grandfather held her.

The old man knelt beside her. His arms went around her. His calloused hands on her small body. He held her. He did not speak. He could not speak. His tears fell on her hair. His body shook with hers.

The king was gone.

The hall was empty except for the old man and the girl and the coffin and the body and the silence and the screaming.

The memory ended.

She understood.

The princess’s face turned yellow.

The color hit her cheeks. Her neck. Her chest. The tears that had been forming fell. They ran down her cheeks. They dripped from her chin. They landed on her torn dress— on the silk that was stained with mud and soup and the chewed chicken that she had spat out.

She had always understood.

The transaction. The exchange. The food for the body. The body for the gain. The woman for the compensation. The daughter for the concubine. The mother for the deal.

She had always known.

Not the tears of a princess. Not the tears of a fighter. Not the tears of a woman. The tears of a six-year-old girl who is standing in a coffin in a hall in a palace and who is screaming "MOTHER!" and who knows that no one is coming.

That no one will ever come. That the world is a place where women are products and bodies are currency and the price of a piece of chicken is— everything.

"No way," she whispered. The words were broken. Shattered. The words of a girl who has been cornered. "I just—"

She burst into tears.

"Sob... Uwaaahhh.... Whayyyy!!! Hic...."

Her face crumpled. Her mouth opened. The wail came— high, thin, piercing. The same wail. The same sound. The sound she had made in the hall, at the coffin, in her grandfather’s arms, while the king walked away and the crown caught the light and the world did not care.

She cried.

And Raven watched.

And he did not look away except for his words.

"You will not suffer the fate of your mother."