Ascension Of The Villain-Chapter 310: Can’t Live, Can’t Die

The clock struck midnight as Vyan finally returned to his bedroom, the soft click of the door echoing into the silence. His feet were worn from running around all day—one physician to another, libraries to archives, from hope to disappointment.

For the eighth consecutive day, he'd failed. The answers he so desperately sought to save Iyana continued to elude him, slipping through his fingers like sand in a storm.

His limbs felt like stone as he stepped inside. And there, she was.

Lying still, her breathing barely traceable, eyes closed in a quiet, seemingly eternal sleep.

At the end of the day, he loved and hated coming back to his room. Loved because he could see Iyana. Hated because she didn't greet him.

But tonight, he even hated the sight of her. Not because of her particularly. It was what she was wearing. It made him see red.

A simple black gown draped her pale frame. It was as elegant as it was haunting. A jarring, cruel choice. Black. Mourning. Funeral.

The color of death… as if someone had already decided she was gone. As if that bed were not a bed but a casket. His Iyana—in mourning colors?

His breath caught, chest heaving with a sudden wave of rage and disbelief.

"What the hell—" he whispered, but it didn't stay a whisper. "Benedict!"

The door burst open almost instantly. The head butler appeared, breathless, worry etched deep into his aged face. "Yes, Master? What's wrong?"

Vyan pointed toward the bed, his voice sharp, trembling with fury. "Who put that on her? Who had the audacity to dress Iyana like... like that? Like she's already dead?!"

Benedict's eyes followed his master's trembling finger. When he caught sight of the black gown, understanding dawned on him instantly—and with it, dread. His throat tightened. He had to do damage control immediately.

"I... I believe it was just one of Lady Iyana's own dresses. No one meant anything by it, Master."

"No!" Vyan snapped. "No one puts black on her. I don't care if it's her own. Nobody dresses her like a goddamn corpse! Is that so hard for you all to understand?! She is not… she is not dead."

His voice cracked at the last word, though he hid it quickly beneath fury. Fury had become easier than grief.

Benedict bowed slightly, tone gentle and soothing, as one would speak to a wounded animal. "Understood, Master. I'll see to it that it never happens again. Please, allow me a minute. I'll summon a maid to change Lady Iyana's clothes."

Vyan didn't respond, only nodded tersely and stepped out of the room. The moment the door shut behind him once the maid went in, he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms tightly, as if trying to hold himself together. His foot tapped erratically against the marble floor, and his nails dug deep crescents into his arms.

He waited like that, silent and restless.

Benedict stood a few paces away, watching quietly. The young man he once saw brimming with mischief and calm composure had withered into a shell these past days. The glow in his wine-red eyes had dulled, replaced by a storm too heavy for anyone his age to carry.

Fate truly was cruel to him. Even with his revenge taken, he was still an orphan, his brother was not sane, and his fiancée… she too had left him.

It was natural that he hadn't touched food in days, surviving only on bitter-tasting potions and sheer will. It was only his anger that still had a pulse—loud, untamed, and punishing. Other than that, he showed no other emotions.

Vyan didn't cry. He didn't plead. He didn't ask for help. He burned. And everyone—from the kitchen maids to the knights at the gates—feared the moment he stepped into a room.

But fear was not what they all felt, not truly. What they felt was heartbreak. None of them wanted to do anything that would cause their master to fall into a greater pain than he already was in.

Moments later, the maid stepped out, eyes low, head bowed. Vyan didn't even spare her a glance. He walked past into his room and quietly closed the door behind him.

The soft click of the latch echoed again, and the hallway outside fell silent.

The maid lingered, her fingers nervously wringing the hem of her apron as she exchanged a long, wordless glance with Benedict. In that look was the shared weight of helplessness, of watching someone they cared for rot slowly under grief's invisible hand.

"If only…" she breathed, barely audible.

Benedict's throat bobbed. His jaw clenched, then relaxed. "If only he'd let himself fall apart where someone could catch him."

But Vyan never did. He shattered quietly—away from eyes, away from hands. Because he believed that Iyana was the only one who could catch him.

He didn't think others cared enough. Even though it simply wasn't true. His best friend, aunt, cousins, grandfather, even the empress of this nation had dropped by to check up on him genuinely because they cared.

But little did they know that while Vyan appreciated their warmth, it was Iyana who meant the world to him. Because she was one who had been with him through thick and thin.

She was with him, even when he wasn't Vyan Blake Ashstone. He was simply Vyan. And she had loved him just like that.

So, nothing else would ever fill the gap that she had left in his heart.

Inside the bedroom, in the low amber glow of the bedside lamp, Vyan stood motionless.

He stood still for a long moment, then his breath hitched as he looked at her properly, scanning her, hoping for a miraculous sign of movement.

But he was disappointed as usual. It felt like looking at a dream that he wouldn't wake up from.

His legs moved on their own. Step by step, he walked toward her, the weight of her absence dragging in his bones. The closer he came, the more brittle his breath became, until the tension inside him finally gave way.

His knees hit the floor with a muted thud. There was no grandeur to his collapse—only exhaustion, grief, and silent desperation. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

Trembling fingers reached out, hovering briefly, almost hesitating, and then, finally, they touched her hand—the one that carried the mark of their engagement.

Cold.

So, so cold.

His breath shattered.

A single choked sob escaped before the floodgates broke open. He clutched her hand with both of his, pressing it to his face as he folded against the side of the bed, burying his tears into her unmoving palm.

"Please... wake up," he whispered, voice quivering. "Please, Iyana. When are you going to wake up?"

His body shook with every sob. "I can't do this without you. I can't. What am I supposed to do?" His voice cracked into broken whispers, "I can't... I can't..."

His words dissolved into silence, swallowed by the walls and the night and the ache that had built like a storm in his chest.

"Please, love… please wake up."

Outside, they thought Vyan didn't cry—that he was bottling his grief like a fool too deep in denial. That maybe, just maybe, if he'd allow himself to feel, he'd finally accept she was gone.

But the truth?

The truth was that he did cry. It was all he did. Every single night. He cried until there was nothing left to spill. He cried until his chest ached and his throat went hoarse from whispering her name like a prayer no god ever answered.

He wasn't pretending to be strong. He was just empty.

Every night, the same routine. Kneeling beside her, holding her hand, recounting memory after memory. Her laughter when she teased him. The warmth in her voice when she called his name. The way she looked when the wind caught strands of her hair on a sunlit day.

He whispered them all, like fairy tales he couldn't afford to forget. Like spells he hoped might bring her back.

Some nights, he curled up right there on the floor, her hand clutched tightly to his chest, as if he could make her heart beat with the nearness of his own. Other nights, when the exhaustion broke him completely, he climbed onto the bed beside her—never touching, never turning toward her, always leaving a breath's distance between them.

He couldn't bring himself to cross that line. It felt like betrayal to lie beside her without permission, like a thief stealing borrowed time from a body that couldn't answer back.

And yet, night after night, he returned to her. Not because he believed she would wake, but because he didn't know how to breathe without her.

He sucked in a harsh breath and opened his mouth again, a bleeding plea against skin that no longer responded.

"You told me to live on… that no matter what, I must live on… But I don't know how… I have forgotten how to live in a world without you. What should I do, Iyana?"

He turned around and slid to the ground, his knees pulled to his chest like a broken child seeking shelter in his own arms. His hands clawed at his scalp, fingers twisting into his hair, tugging, pulling, trying to ground himself, trying to feel something real.

"I can't die. I can't live. I can't do either of them. What should I do? Tell me. Please."

His voice splintered into sobs.

"Sometimes, I selfishly think it should have just been me who was cursed," he whispered, "but the next moment, I think about you—about how much pain you'd have been in if you were in the place I am now. Even as I'm going insane, even as the world collapses around me, I still wouldn't want you to suffer like I am."

His gaze rose to her face, eyes glassy and rimmed with red. The golden lamplight did nothing to chase away the cold that had settled in the room.

"I'm starting to think... maybe if I had even a single altruistic bone in my body… maybe I would've let you go. Let you rest. But I'm too selfish for that." His voice broke again. "I want to keep believing. Keep clinging to the hope that you'll open your eyes, that you'll look at me and laugh and call me an idiot once again… So I'm sorry… I can't allow you to die. I'm sorry if I'm causing you pain like this. But don't worry, I'll stay right by your side. Forever. I'll never leave. Like I promised."

And so he stayed.

On the cold floor, beside a body that breathed but didn't live. His cries melted into the night, his words—half spoken, half sobbed—cradled her in a love so deep it defied death itself.

He kept speaking to a ghost in a sleeping body, begging for a miracle that would never come.