Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 85: Without Everything

Seven years.

Cecilia Araceli was bound to Arzhen Vasiliev for seven long brittle years. And yes, his humiliation was corrosive, like a slow poison poured over her soul in public and private.

His declarations that Ruby Vaiva was his one true love, even as he drenched Cecilia’s belongings in his semen. His refusal to stand beside her in public, while letting court gossip paint her as the desperate wife clinging to his fragrance like a lifeline.

But Elara’s humiliation... that was something else entirely. It was the systematic dismantling of her worth as a person. Like acid wrapped in silk, a smile that cut deeper than any blade.

It often came in crowded ballrooms, under the glow of crystal chandeliers.

"Oh my, you’re wearing white and blue again...?" Elara’s voice would ring out, saccharine and carrying, as she glided toward Cecilia in a swirl of perfume. All conversation nearby would hush. "My darling, you need to stop copying Ruby just to get Arzhen’s attention. It’s so... tacky."

Cecilia would stand frozen, fingers brushing the sleeve of her gown. She liked white and blue. They were the colors of winter sky and clean snow, of clarity. What did that have to do with Ruby? A girl who vanished when they were eight? A literal child?

The comment was a grenade disguised as concern, more like... a manufactured narrative of pathetic imitation where none existed, and left her to choke on the smoke.

It also happened often at state dinners.

"You will forgive Arzhen, right?" Elara would sigh, patting Cecilia’s hand as if consoling a child. "He is so busy with the territory’s management. My darling, you don’t have to force yourself to attend a party without him anymore... okay?"

A chorus of titters would ripple through the eavesdroppers.

"Huhuhuhu..."

"Heh..."

"Attention seeker..."

"Pathetic... why would she want to bring shame to herself like this...?"

Cecilia would bite the inside of her cheek until she tasted iron. She wasn’t there for him. She was there to corner the Ministry of Infrastructure’s secretary, to negotiate well-digging contracts for the drought-stricken southern villages. But Elara’s words stripped her of purpose, painting her as a lonely, clingy ornament.

The "guidance" too, would often continue in private, in sunlit parlors thick with powder and perfume.

"My darling, please forgive mother, okay?" Elara said once. "It was me who pushed Arzhen to marry you."

Cecilia had looked up, momentarily disarmed. "I understand," she said quietly. "I know the political importance."

"Yes," Elara grinned. "That’s why, stop trying to bother the people with your disaster prophecies. Look, you’re ruining the mood again. Don’t you understand how it’ll scar our Vasiliev’s political image...?"

"But Mother..." Cecilia’s hands clenched in her lap, nails digging into her palms. "This is my jo—"

"You and your job..." Elara shook her head, sighing in disappointment. "Listen, you are a woman. A woman needs to take care of all her husband’s needs as he needs it. Arzhen wouldn’t even touch you. He wouldn’t even let you bear his child. At least you should do whatever else you can do for him, hmm?"

Another dismissal. Her life’s work, the frantic and desperate attempt to mitigate suffering, was once again reduced to a nuisance, an embarrassment to the family brand. Over, and over, and over.

"I know why you’re so obsessed with your job, darling," Elara purred on another occasion. "It’s because without it, you won’t even be useful in any common household. At least a maid on the street can cook and clean. You’re a woman who can’t even get a hold of her man’s heart."

What did saving people from floods and plagues have to do with—

"You can’t make him happy. You can’t even satisfy him physically. But can’t you be just a bit more considerate?"

Elara would sigh then.

"You can’t even hold a conversation without mentioning that you’re the Saintess, disaster this, disaster that—" she’d mimic, her voice whining.

"Can you host a party with that kind of attitude? Be a great lady of a household, socialize and gain allies? Can you grow the house’s political strength with that, hmm? Look at what your mother’s been doing for your father-in-law. She’s been working hard for him, see?"

And therein lay the bitter and twisted lesson. Cecilia admitted, in the darkest hours, that Elara was the whetstone against which her own cunning was sharpened. The constant belittlement, the social sabotage, the reduction of her purpose to marital failure... it forced her to learn the capital’s poisonous dances.

She learned to weave schemes within schemes, to trade favors in shadows, to manipulate the very social currents Elara valued, all to funnel resources and warnings to those in danger. Elara made her the strategist she was now.

But no matter what she did. No matter how many villages she quietly provisioned, how many trade routes she diverted to avoid famine, how many letters she sent that prevented calamity... it was never enough. It was never right.

Then, there was the Pellenberg incident.

Elara stormed into her chambers, face white with rage, the gracious mask twisted ugly.

"Is it necessary to anger Lady Pellenberg just to tell people about the plague that could or could not happen?!"

"But Mother, this is a precautio—"

SLAP!

The crack of the blow echoed in the lavish room. Cecilia’s head snapped to the side, her cheek blazing.

"Why can’t you understand how thoroughly humiliated I was at the party last night?!" Elara screamed, spittle flying, her beauty twisted into something feral. "How dare you say the flu came from Pellenberg’s livestock company?! Are you trying to ruin my social standing?! ANSWER ME YOU BITCH!"

Cecilia had uncovered evidence that a new strain of hoof-rot plague was likely originating from contaminated feed supplied by Lady Pellenberg’s lucrative livestock conglomerate. She presented it privately, diplomatically, to the relevant council.

But in that moment, standing with a stinging face, Cecilia understood the true hierarchy. The potential deaths of countless peasants and animals weighed less than Elara’s place on a guest list.

Her life’s work, her very voice, was not just an embarrassment. It was a personal insult to Elara, a woman who measured the world in gossip and invitations.

Seven years of that. Seven years of being sculpted into a weapon by the very hands that tried to break her. And now, hidden under Arkai’s cloak, smelling of him and their sin, facing that very woman...

"You want a piece of Ark’s cock too?"

Cecilia let the silence stretch for one heartbeat, two—long enough to watch the polite confusion in Elara’s eyes curdle. She deliberately stepped half a pace from Arkai’s shadow, no longer hiding the state of her dress.

Then, Cecilia sneered.

"You’re just a lucky minor noblewoman who married high," she said. "A social climber who caught the eye of a beast and clawed her way into a title she was never born to wear."

She tilted her head.

"A bitch should remember her place."

Cecilia took another deliberate step forward.

"My Arkai doesn’t like cheap things disguised in expensive silk and perfume," she whispered. "He has a wolf’s nose. He can smell the desperation under the jasmine. The ambition under the ambergris."

She paused. "Without all of that... what are you?"

Cecilia’s lips curved into a smile that held no warmth, only contempt.

"A wench at most."