I, The Villainess, Will Seduce All The Heroines Instead-Chapter 179: The Trial (36)

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Verena stepped through the glowing doorway, her boots landing on cool, obsidian stone. The oppressive heat of the previous arena was replaced by a crisp, eerie stillness. The chamber ahead stretched wide—circular, like an ancient amphitheater, except this one wasn’t designed for an audience. It was designed to break you.

Above her, the vaulted ceiling shimmered with shifting constellations, the stars pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. The entire space thrummed with quiet, celestial energy—the kind that made the hairs on her arms rise.

Saphira stirred along her wrist. Trial Three, the snake familiar hissed, her voice low and coiled with tension. This is where most of them fall apart.

Verena exhaled, forcing the lingering adrenaline from her limbs. "Yeah... figures."

The Trial of Water.

She remembered the breakdown from Sirius’ lecture: the final elemental path wasn’t about strength or precision—it was about resilience of the heart. Symbolism. Doubt. Emotional integrity. You didn’t just fight an opponent here; you fought yourself.

Which sucked.

Because if there was one person Verena didn’t want to be stuck in a room with right now, it was herself.

The chamber darkened as the constellations above rippled, shifting into a vast projection of the zodiacal wheel. One by one, the symbols glowed—Pisces, Scorpio, Cancer—all water signs aligning in silent anticipation.

A low voice echoed through the chamber, old and layered like overlapping whispers. Face your tide, little star. Drown... or rise.

The floor beneath her rippled like liquid glass, and suddenly, she was no longer standing on solid ground.

Verena staggered as the world tilted. The arena dissolved into an endless ocean, the water ink-dark and mirror-still. She stood upon it as though it were solid, but each step sent faint ripples spreading outward, fracturing the perfect reflection beneath her.

"Brilliant," she muttered. "An existential salt bath."

A distant figure appeared on the horizon, her reflection appearing before her even before she recognized the shape. Her stomach turned.

It was... herself.

No, worse. It was the Version of herself—the one before the regressions, before the trials, before she learned how utterly cruel this world could be. The naive, arrogant, hopeful version that still believed everything was going to work out if she just played along.

The reflection stepped closer, smiling with unearned confidence. "You’ve come far," it said, voice almost syrup-sweet with innocence. "But look at you. Fractured. Tired. Cynical."

"Surviving," Verena shot back.

The reflection tilted its head. "Is that what you call it? Running around, playing puppet master, lying to yourself that it’ll all magically resolve if you manipulate the right strings?"

Verena’s jaw clenched. Her mimicry threads buzzed faintly along her arms, but they wavered—unfocused, unsteady. The ocean reflected every flicker of her doubt.

"Face it," the reflection continued, voice low now, cruel in its softness. "You’re not their leader. You’re a filler character at best. A doomed villainess in every other ending."

The words hit harder than they should’ve.

Verena had built walls against worse taunts—she could endure sneers, sabotage, assassins. But your own insecurities, twisted into words by your own magic? That was different.

Steady, Saphira whispered.

But the reflection wasn’t finished.

"They’ll grow," it said, gesturing outward as ghostly images shimmered into view. Her teammates. Beatrice, laughing under the sun. Isolde, untouchable and sharp. Evelyn, slowly gaining confidence, her eyes brighter by the day.

"They’ll ascend. You? You’ll fade."

The ripple of fear cracked through her chest, cold and sharp. For one awful moment, Verena almost believed it.

But then... she remembered.

She remembered Beatrice, defiant and chaotic, dragging her into dumb schemes.

Isolde, blunt and terrifyingly competent, never faltering even as she criticized.

Evelyn, stuttering and breaking apart—and putting herself back together again.

They weren’t growing because she stepped aside. They were growing because she fought for them to have the space to.

She wasn’t fading.

She was holding the damn scaffolding together.

The mimicry threads steadied, tightening around her like silk armor. Her eyes narrowed as she faced her reflection.

"Cute speech," Verena said coldly. "But I’m not going anywhere."

The reflection’s eyes widened as the water beneath them cracked, constellations bleeding through the fractures like silver veins. The world shimmered, the illusion fracturing entirely as Verena’s confidence solidified.

The voice returned, distant and amused now. So be it. Rise, little star.

The arena shifted again.

And Verena? She kept walking.

The world tilted again as the illusion shattered, the ocean dissolving beneath Verena’s feet like mist pulled away by a sudden breeze. In its place, solid marble greeted her boots—icy white stone veined with streaks of deep cosmic blue. The third trial’s arena had changed once more, the final stage revealing itself like the slow unfurling of some cruel, cosmic riddle.

Ahead of her, massive archways curved into a spiraling corridor, their edges etched with ancient constellations glowing faintly. The air thrummed with tension, like the building pressure before a storm. The space smelled of petrichor, magic, and something sharper—like the scent of fear barely restrained.

Saphira uncoiled along Verena’s wrist, her scaled body cold against her skin. Your heartbeat’s quickening again, the snake teased. Excited? Or scared out of your pretty little mind?

"A healthy combination," Verena muttered, flexing her fingers as the lingering threads of her mimicry hummed to life around her. She wasn’t about to stumble into this final section unprepared.

It wasn’t long before the source of the trial’s final torment made itself known.

A colossal, statuesque figure emerged from the archway’s end, stepping into the marble arena like a titan woken from slumber. Its body was forged from ivory stone, carved with intricate constellations across its chest, arms, and face. Eyes of liquid starlight gleamed from its blank features, and coiled around its shoulders and limbs were serpentine streams of ethereal magic—pale and wispy like smoke, yet brimming with raw, ancient power.

Verena’s breath caught. She recognized this.

The Zodiabeast of Pisces.

The Leviathan Serpent.

Of course it would be this one.

The beast’s serpentine tail uncurled with a crackle of astral energy, its body towering like an ancient guardian sculpted by gods themselves. But what unnerved Verena most wasn’t the scale, or the magic, or even the sheer, suffocating presence the creature radiated.

It was the knowing gaze. The eerie, gentle patience that stared down at her as if it already knew her fears, her weaknesses, her self-doubt—and it was simply... waiting.

Waiting for her to drown herself.

"No pressure," Verena muttered under her breath, adjusting her stance.

The Leviathan’s mouth didn’t move, but a deep, rippling voice echoed across the arena, vibrating through her chest like a song beneath the ocean’s surface. To flow... or to fall apart. To embrace... or to resist. That is the final choice.

And with that, the trial began.

Water surged across the marble floor in towering, undulating waves—not liquid, but dense, astral tides that shimmered with starlight and warped space itself. The arena folded with impossible geometry, the pillars elongating, the floor tilting in unnatural ways as the beast’s magic twisted the battlefield into an endless, disorienting maze of flowing energy.

Saphira hissed in alarm. It’s like the space itself is liquefying!

Verena gritted her teeth, launching her mimicry construct—threads of magic forming a spectral shield that pulsed with faint constellations. She ducked, leaped, and weaved through the shifting battlefield, her body moving on reflex honed by Sirius’ brutal training and her own obsessive preparation.

But the Leviathan wasn’t interested in brute strength.

It was a trial of spirit.

Each time Verena faltered, the waves amplified—the arena twisting to reflect her hesitation. Her steps grew heavy, her limbs sluggish, her mimicry threads unraveling whenever doubt cracked through her focus.

It’s trying to make me drown in my own damn overthinking, she realized, a spark of both frustration and grudging admiration curling in her chest.

She didn’t need to overpower it.

She needed to flow.

Breathing deep, Verena adjusted her rhythm—not resisting the spatial warping, but weaving with it. Her threads curved, echoing the Leviathan’s undulating magic. Her movements softened, precise but fluid, her steps aligning with the warped gravity beneath her.

For once, she wasn’t fighting the current.

She was becoming it.

The Leviathan paused, its starlit eyes narrowing in faint approval. The waves receded, replaced by glowing platforms spiraling toward the beast itself—the final ascent. freewebnoveℓ.com

Verena exhaled sharply, her mimicry threads glowing steady around her.

Time to rise.

With each leap, her confidence rebuilt. The fractured insecurities, the exhausting self-doubt—they didn’t vanish, but they quieted. She wasn’t some background extra scrambling to survive. She was Verena Aurelian, and the stars? They were hers to dance with, not chains to bind her.

The final leap brought her face to face with the Leviathan.

The creature lowered its head, the celestial serpents coiled around its limbs withdrawing like mist. You have remembered, it spoke. To rise does not mean to stand against the current. It means to trust you will float.

A faint smirk tugged at Verena’s lips as the arena dissolved, replaced by a familiar glowing exit gate.

"Float, huh?" she muttered. "That... I can manage."

And without another glance back, she stepped through.

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