Chapter 376: You Can Save My Sister

Liora hadn’t missed. Liora hadn’t shot the wrong twin by accident.

The bullet meant to pierce April’s head—the bullet trajectory, the line of fire, the destiny itself—had been forcibly twisted by the System’s sick, horrifying mechanics, pulling the fatal impact straight into Emily’s chest.

This...

She immediately recalled back then when the system had asked her not to harm Liora.

"Not harm Liora..." the words slipped past her lips and a sickening realization filled her. The system knew this future... It knew Liora would pose a threat and yet, it asked her to spare her, to let her be... The system knew this future would happen and yet...

Another realization hit.

Emily hadn’t been given to her as a sister to love. She hadn’t been brought into her life to be saved. The System had placed Emily by her side as a biological meat-shield. A sacrificial lamb meant to die in her place so April could survive.

"No..." April choked out, a sound of unimaginable horror tearing from her lungs. "No... NO!"

The heat in her chest surged violently, but it wasn’t warmth anymore. It was a dark, suffocating energy—Emily’s latent vitality and soul essence, forcibly ripping away from her sister’s cooling corpse and pouring straight into April’s body. The System was feeding her sister’s life directly into her soul.

Her mind swirled in a chaotic, dizzying nightmare. It was hard to believe. Hard to process. Hard to understand. The System she trusted, the power she relied on, the fate she thought she was building—it was all a grotesque, twisted illusion.

She hadn’t saved her sister. She had practically groomed her for the system to harvest once the time was ripe.

"April!"

Hands grabbed her shoulders—Nat’s frantic voice, Oliver’s medical kit hitting the sand, Xavier’s expression flaring in desperate panic, Alexander’s choked gasp at the sight—but April couldn’t hear them.

She just held Emily’s lifeless body tight against her chest, staring blankly at the blood on her hands, trapped in a nightmare from which she could never wake up.

"Save her," April’s words came out hoarse, hollow. "Oliver, your class is divine healer... Surely, you’re different. You... you can save my sister."

Oliver dropped to his knees beside her in the damp, blood-stained sand. His hands, usually so steady and surgical, trembled as he opened his field kit.

He reached out to check Emily’s neck for a pulse, but the moment his fingers touched her cold skin, his movement halted.

His dark eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses filled with a heavy, devastating weight as he observed the state of Emily’s body, as well as the place where she was shot.

There was no brainstem activity, no cardiac impulse, no breath. Emily was gone.

"April..." Oliver whispered, his voice cracking under the sheer horror of what this would do to her. "April, listen to me... her central nervous system—"

"Save her!" April shrieked, her hollow brown eyes snapping to him with a terrifying, vacant intensity.

There was no light in her gaze, no reason, only a vast, infinite void of complete denial. She shoved Emily’s unmoving body forward into Oliver’s arms, her hands—drenched in crimson—gripping his shirt sleeves with desperate, bruising force.

"You’re the best doctor in the country! You have the class of a divine healer that I appointed! Use it! USE IT TO SAVE MY SISTER!"

"April, stop—" Nat’s rough voice broke as he dropped down beside them, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek.

He reached out, his large hands grasping April’s trembling shoulders, trying to pull her away from the blood, but she fought him off with wild, unnatural strength.

"Get off me, Nat! Oliver, heal her!" April screamed, her voice breaking into hoarse, ragged gasps. "She’s just asleep! She’s just hibernating like Lily!"

As soon as those words left her lips, another sickening realization hit her.

Lily was a misfortune eater. For her to have been asleep for so long, she guessed it was because she was overfed. But it didn’t just stop at sleeping, she went into hibernation in the meantime.

Which meant whatever bad luck, whatever misfortune she had been swallowing the whole time was far too great and no matter how much of it she ate, it did not disappear.

And the person who spent most time with Lily had been Emily. So the misfortune the little divine cat had been feeding on, was Emily’s. But she still wasn’t enough to make it disappear.

It came anyway.

April’s body shuddered.

"No," the word left her mouth like a whisper. And then she remembered Philippe’s fortune reading as well.

He would love Emily forever, but a great misfortune was coming.

This... This was the misfortune.

The signs... They were all there... but because she chose to trust the system completely, she never drew the dots together. She thought... She thought the system was helping her. But it hid this very important information.

It hid it away from her and she never suspected a thing.

"Drink the spring water, Emily!" April whispered, unable to come to terms with this. Even with all the signs in front of her, even with the outcome lying coldly in her arms. "WHY AREN’T YOU DRINKING IT?!" She yelled.

Beside them, Alexander fell to his knees, burying his face in his hands as choked, violent sobs wracked his broad chest.

Xavier stood frozen just a step away, his eyes grim as he stared down at the women who had been laughing with them at the arcade only hours ago... One was a cold corpse, and the other looked broken.

"Miss April..." Samuel’s voice came from above—quiet, gravelly, and stripped entirely of its usual clinical perfection.

For the first time, he didn’t know what to say. His eyes were brimming with helpless, agonizing grief for his master.

April ignored them all. She collapsed back over Emily’s chest, her fingers tangling frantically in her sister’s blood-soaked hair, pulling her close, rocking her back and forth on the beach as the waves lapped quietly against the shore.

She cried. It was ugly, messy, and it was broken.

"Not harm Liora..."

"Misfortune..."

"Aegis Bearer..."

The System’s previous directive echoed again in her mind like a poisonous whisper. The System had set the board. It had spared the killer. It had created the shield. And April had walked right into the trap, holding her sister’s hand the entire way.

"I groomed you..." April choked out into Emily’s neck as she cried, her voice dropping into a barely audible, broken whisper that sent a chill straight through the men surrounding her. "I brought you here... just for it to harvest you..."

Tears finally spilled over April’s lashes in a hot, uncontrollable torrent. The cold, strategic composure she had built like a fortress completely shattered, leaving behind nothing but the raw, bleeding core of a grieving sister.

"I’m sorry... I’m so sorry, Emily," April sobbed, her voice cracking into agonized, breathless hiccups as she rocked her twin’s weightless body back and forth against her chest. "I didn’t know... I swear I didn’t know... I’m sorry... Please, don’t leave me."