10x God-Tier Stealing System: Pumping S-Rank SuperHeroines Daily!-Chapter 42- Choosing Both
Cruxius replied smoothly, paying no attention to the sisters’ dramatic conversation.
He already understood their petty family dynamics well enough. His dark gaze instead drifted lazily to the edge—the railing of the hospital rooftop.
The iron grills had corroded into the concrete, fragile and short, leaving a gap just wide enough to let a delicate body fall through.
He could already tell exactly what might’ve happened here in the timeline he just abandoned.
So, did he want her annoying stepsister dead?
No. Not yet. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮
Not until he thoroughly used her—like a convenient, painful ladder to climb deep into Thalia’s vulnerable heart, breaking her down so she would rely solely on him.
"Out of the wall?" Darithi asked again, just to be absolutely sure. Maybe her master only meant to push the girl onto the hard floor—not off a twenty-six-story roof.
"Of course..." Cruxius murmured, his lips curving into a dark, chillingly handsome smile. "...but be gentle."
"Wh...y... sob... why...?" Thalia’s voice hitched, choking on the words she couldn’t even string together. Her delicate shoulders trembled violently with each broken gasp.
Her hands flew up to clutch her head, her nails digging into her scalp as her eyes brimmed with hot, stinging tears. "You... idiots... all of you..."
Grief had consumed her so thoroughly that she didn’t even register the presence of others on the cold rooftop—including Jenny, whose chest was heaving beneath her tight blouse from the adrenaline.
"Don’t act weak with me!" Jenny snapped, seizing the opportunity. She lunged forward, using both hands to shove hard against Thalia’s soft chest, hoping to escape. And she almost did, given Thalia’s current physical and mental state.
Thalia’s tears blurred her vision, her mind drowning in sorrow, leaving her too disoriented to react properly as her center of gravity vanished.
Her eyes widened—tears distorting everything—but even then, she saw it. No... she felt it.
She was falling.
Her weightless body staggered—one step back... two... three—
The edge.
One slender hand shot out blindly, flailing for something—anything. Her soft skin scraped hard against the unforgiving concrete, tearing the surface.
And then—
"Sigh... was this how you fell?"
A large, calloused hand wrapped firmly around her wrist, the sheer, masculine strength of the grip halting her mid-fall. The sudden jerk pulled her arm taut, her breasts straining against her shirt from the sudden suspension. She gasped in shock, her tear-filled eyes frozen upward toward the sky, then slowly lowering to meet the gaze of a man. She blinked.
Black hair, elegantly streaked with grey, fluttering in the high-altitude wind. His eyes narrowed—not in concern, but in dark, predatory amusement, as if finding her fragile, tear-stained state... funny.
"Haa...haa—I..." Thalia tried to speak, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she processed the heavy heat of his hand keeping her alive. But her breathless words were cut off by a piercing scream.
"KYAA!! I’M GONNA DIE, I’M GONNA DIE! PLEASE! DON’T LET GO!"
The shriek was enough to jolt Thalia out of her stupor. That voice—Jenny’s. Thalia whipped her head around and saw it: Cruxius’s other hand effortlessly gripping two of Jenny’s fragile fingers just past the railing. Jenny’s skirt was hiked dangerously high as she kicked her legs in the empty air, barely visible from where Thalia now lay, supported only by the thick, muscular arm of the man holding her.
"W-Wait! Don’t let her fall!" Thalia cried, still unsteady, her body dangling and held up only by Cruxius’s powerful arm now wrapping possessively around her waist, pulling her soft curves against the hard edge of the concrete. She couldn’t even find enough leverage to help herself, let alone Jenny.
"You would’ve died because of her," Cruxius muttered, his deep voice vibrating close to her ear. He eyed Jenny carefully, calculating whether the push was deliberate or not. He weighed his options—should he playfully torture the girl, or use her? But after observing her genuinely panicked, flushed expression and absolute lack of malice, he concluded it was an act of pure stupidity, an accident.
Still, that didn’t mean he’d let her off easily. Not until he got exactly what he wanted—from Thalia’s shivering body and mind.
"B-But... you saved me, right?" Thalia blinked up at him, her voice trembling with a raw, unspoken gratitude, her plush lips parted. She knew—if his strong hands hadn’t intervened, she would be a broken mess on the pavement.
But before she could say more, she used the moment of stillness to slip gracefully beneath his massive arm, the soft friction of her body brushing intimately against his side as she scrambled over to help Jenny.
’Haah... Did I just fall for her trick?’ Cruxius’s eyes narrowed, a smirk playing on his lips. He’d meant to keep Thalia pressed close, to observe her bodily response to her sister’s terror. Instead, she’d manipulated the moment with a few clever words and a slide of her hips, escaping his grip. Still, he didn’t mind—holding a shrieking Jenny with one hand was getting tedious.
"S-sister! Please! Save me! I don’t want to die!" Jenny sobbed, staring down at the dizzying, massive drop below her. Her designer heels had already slipped off, plunging into the abyss. The primal fear of what lay beneath—the visceral pain, the death—paralyzed her as she looked up with tear-streaked eyes, her chest heaving visibly in her low-cut top.
"Come on! Why are you so heavy!" Thalia grunted, her own sweat dotting her brow as she strained her slender arms, pulling at Jenny’s flailing form.
Thalia definitely didn’t care whether Jenny died or not, but she knew that if she died, then guilt and regrets would haunt Thalia because....she was not like her.
Jenny did worse by tying her with a demon, a lecherous monster whose bed she had barely survived last night, and from whom escaping might be impossible. But by letting Jenny fall, Thalia would become just like her.
She could have taken revenge on her stepmother and stepsister for whatever they did to her all her life.
But she didn’t, simply because she refused to sink to their level.
Their torments were childish, just like those pathetic dramas of Cinderella and such.
So, the best thing for her was to stay away from them.
She had been exactly set to leave after getting the scholarship.
But again, these two idiots played their petty games without knowing the dark consequences of what might happen if Thalia were to get back at them with a real, devastating blow.
She thought of punishing them for ruining her life, but... this mother and daughter duo were just too idiotic. It would waste her time trying to make them regret, as they wouldn’t even understand the sheer gravity of their mistake.
’Urgh, come on!’ Despite how thin she looked, Jenny still had weight, and pulling her up required Thalia to arch her back and use her entire body.
Finally, with one last, desperate pull, she managed to drag her over the ledge onto the rough rooftop.
Both women collapsed, panting heavily, their clothes disheveled.
"Haah... haah... S-stop eating so much, you fool," Thalia muttered, lying flat on her back, her chest rising and falling beautifully as she glanced at the sky. She gave Jenny a tired side glance. The girl was lying on her arm, sobbing pitifully.
"Sob... m-my hand... i-it hurts... b-blood is coming too..."
