CHAPTER 267: CHAPTER 267: HE WASN’T HER PROTECTOR

Sometimes, she woke up in places she didn’t remember falling asleep. Locked rooms. Storage facilities. Once, even in the lower tunnels near the decontamination vaults...completely alone, with dirt under her fingernails and dried blood on her collar.

She had stopped reporting it. Because who would believe her?

Because she didn’t believe in herself.

The paranoia crept in like rot.

She started locking her room. Started keeping a weapon under her pillow. She stopped sleeping at all some nights, too afraid she wouldn’t wake up the same.

Xu Kai noticed. Of course he did.

But Aeris smiled through it. Lied through her teeth. Pretended it was just training stress or nightmares or migraines.

But Liora knew.

She could feel it—the fear had burrowed too deep. Aeris had begun to question everything. Herself. Her own memories. Her own sanity.

"You’re losing your mind," she whispered to herself in the mirror, over and over, tears streaming down her face.

But she wasn’t. Liora could see it clearly now—Aeris was being watched. Studied and Used.

The scenes overlapped too frequently to be dreams.

This was no hallucination or nightmare.

Something—or someone—was doing this to her.

Liora wanted to scream. Wanted to warn her. But she was just a passenger in Aeris’s mind—tied to her but helpless. Her presence was invisible.

But it was all useless because Liora has no control over it. And one night, Aeris woke up.

But not in her bed. Not even in the dorms. But in a room that hummed with a cold, artificial stillness.

White light poured from overhead panels, sterile and blinding. She lay flat on her back atop a smooth, metallic surface—an operating table, massive and cold beneath her skin. Her limbs felt heavy. Her throat, bone-dry. Her mind... fogged.

Her vision swam in and out of focus, shapes bending at the corners. Every breath was shallow, her heart rate slow and distant, as though muffled under a heavy blanket.

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. But her will—somewhere, buried under layers of chemical haze—fought back.

Her fingers twitched. And as her eyes struggled to focus, a blurry figure came into view. He stepped closer, and her lips parted in weak recognition.

"...Kazren?"

Her voice was barely a whisper. Slurred. Broken.

He smiled gently.

A familiar, kind smile.

Her brother’s best friend.

"Brother... why... why am I here?" She mumbled, blinking slowly. "What... happened...?"

Kazren’s voice was soft. Calm. Reassuring.

"Nothing serious, Aeris. You fainted," he said with a soothing tone, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "You were training too hard. You’ve overexerted yourself. I was nearby, so I brought you here. It’s just the med ward. You’re safe. I’m here now."

He leaned in a little closer.

"You can rest, okay? Your brother’s Kazren is here. Nothing will happen to you."

Her fogged mind held onto his words like a lifeline. She had always trusted him. He was smart. Gentle. He looked out for her like Atlas did.

So she nodded faintly.

And let the darkness pull her under again.

But Liora didn’t sleep. Her mind was still tethered. And unlike Aeris, who was clearly drugged, she was clear.

And what she saw shattered her.

This wasn’t a hospital.

The room reeked of chemicals and machines. Panels lined the walls—blinking, monitoring, scanning. Sharp tools and devices with unfamiliar purposes surrounded the metal table where Aeris lay, her body pale and restrained.

This wasn’t care. It was containment. And in the center of it all was Kazren. But he didn’t look like himself anymore.

Gone were the glasses. The kind expression. The boyish air that made him seem like a harmless intellectual.

Now, his eyes were cold and focused.

He wore dark clothes and sterile gloves...his hands moved with the precision of someone who had done this before. Many times. He adjusted one of the mechanisms on the table, and the metal arm overhead began to descend, humming softly.

Liora’s chest clenched.

What the hell are you doing?!

Kazren leaned down, inspecting a glowing scan beside Aeris’s ribs. Something flickered in his gaze, a look of calculation.

Then... the procedure began.

Aeris didn’t scream. She couldn’t.

Her body twitched once. Muscles tightening. And then again. But her eyes—her eyes fluttered, never fully shutting. She was conscious. Just too drugged to understand.

And Liora—helpless, furious, trapped—watched in horror as Kazren pressed strange devices to Aeris’s chest, her spine, and the back of her neck. As he drew blood, inserted glowing needles, and even scanned her core, it was like she was not a person but an object.

It didn’t happen just once. It happened again and again.

Over the following days, Aeris would wake briefly in that hell, Kazren’s voice always there, always soft, always lying.

"You’re okay."

"You were dreaming."

"You’re just tired."

Each time, her memory reset. Each time, she believed him.

But Liora never forgot.

And the more she saw... the colder her fury grew.

How?

How could he do this?

Kazren, who used to protect her. Who used to feel like family. Who brought her sweets when she was sick? Who helped Atlas train her?

Had that all been a lie?

Was this his true face?

Now he moved like a man without conscience. Without hesitation. His eyes no longer held kindness, only fascination. Purpose and Obsession.

And now that she was thinking clearly, Liora realized something terrifying.

Every time Kazren appeared in front of her...the system had issued a warning.

A red-level alert. Hostile presence detected. That it was a threat to the system and her.

She never understood this before. But now she understood.

Kazren wasn’t her brother’s friend. He wasn’t her protector. Everything he had ever shown her, the warmth, the concern, the soft-spoken reassurances had been nothing more than a mask.

A carefully constructed illusion. Behind that familiar face was something cold, calculated, and cruel. He hadn’t been there to care for her. He had been watching. Controlling. Orchestrating her suffering from the shadows while pretending to be her safe place.

And that made him the worst kind of enemy, the one who had earned her trust only to betray it in the most unforgivable way.

And Liora’s final thought before the scene changed again was one that chilled her to the bone:

If this is just the beginning... What have they truly done to Aeris?