Ellio hated love triangles with a burning, holy passion.
Authors always paired the MC with the most outrageous, toxic, low-key abusive disaster of a man — the one who couldn't communicate to save his life — instead of the loyal sweetheart who actually understood her secrets and knew how to make her laugh instead of cry.
"What the fuck?! Why did she choose the man who cut her off for more than a decade over the sweet boy who would've handed her the world?!"
He shot upright in bed, face scrunched in pure betrayal, fingers raking through his already-messy hair.
Ellio screamed at the screen again and launched into another rant. "Ughhh! How?! Why author! You said you will make this story free from clichés! But this catastrophe is every clichés possible in a love triangle novel!"
Did he drop the story? Of course he did.
But only after he blasted his outrage online, declared he was purging the novel from his brain and his library, and rallied an entire mob of readers who felt the same way.
He huffed as the replies rolled in, feeling a little better now that the fandom agreed and started dropping the novel in solidarity.
"Deserved! The author is insane for this stunt! Who the hell doesn't move on after twelve years?! Hello? Get a life, girl." He shook his head, appalled.
Honestly, the author had to be a masochist. Sure, messy relationships sold books, but sacrificing the MC's self-respect on the altar of drama? Come on.
Ellio flopped back and stared at the ceiling. "Does the good guy ever get picked? Do people really love pain more than love itseld? What a paradox," he muttered.
A notification pinged.
He glanced at his phone and raised a brow. One of his followers had sent a DM:
[Read this, you will love it!]
[File: The Saintess & The Sword]
He narrowed his eyes and typed back:
[Another love triangle?]
[Yes! But you won't regret it! It's the best novel I've ever read.]
Ellio sighed. He was allergic to this kind of bullshit. But then he noticed the time, barely 8 PM, and tomorrow was his day off.
He didn't have any novels to read or activities to do anymore. So why not?
He had time to suffer again.
[Fine. But if the FL does stupid shit, I'm blocking you.]
[Eh?! Why me (╥﹏╥) I'm just giving you good recommendations!]
[Because every man I like ends up the second choice, and I know I'm gonna fall for the second male lead in this one.]
[That's because you have second male lead syndrome! Bahahaha! You'll never be happy reading romance. Authors are masochists!]
[Just read the novel and suffer with me and it's smut! You will love it!]
Ellio snorted. "Damn, she's right." He stretched, cracked his knuckles, and tapped the file.
"Oh well… time to read. And if her taste fails me, I'm dragging her down with me."
He opened the novel and dove in.
The story opened like any typical fantasy female-lead novel: a Mary Sue Saintess with enough kindness to make an angel feel underqualified, yet secretly scheming enough to bulldoze anyone who dared belittle her.
The male lead? Naturally the crown prince of the human kingdom; charming enough to melt iron, obsessively devoted to the heroine, impossibly smart, and stuffed with every cliché known to mankind.
They were the perfect couple on paper, but their path was a minefield of miscommunication, political tension, war, status differences, and a whole buffet of unnecessary angst.
Then there was the second male lead, a cursed dragon-kin. Terrifying to look at, soft as moonlight inside.
Hated by everyone, racially despised, blamed for the near-apocalypse his race once caused.
And of course… Ellio fell in love with him like a complete idiot.
He was the reason Ellio couldn't stop reading.
The tragedy named Rhaziel Dravenholt — the immortal man cursed to fight the rift of darkness for eternity, sacrificing everything, only to die unloved by the female lead.
Ellio's tears slipped down his cheeks as he devoured the entire novel in a single night. He wasn't even angry at the ending anymore. He just feels hollow.
He wasn't an author; he was simply a reader. But even so, he loved his favorite characters fiercely and mourned their deaths as if they were real.
So he couldn't understand; why create a character solely to suffer? Why build Rhaziel with so much heart and purpose only to reduce him to a tool for the main couple?
A stepping stone. A tragic prop. Nothing more.
Every breath Rhaziel took was for his kingdom and for the heroine, yet she still chose someone else.
Meanwhile, the male lead got everything handed to him without lifting a damn finger.
Ellio didn't have the energy left to rant. He simply turned off his phone, exhausted.
Dawn was an hour away, but he didn't care. He closed his eyes and cried quietly for the man he wished he could save.
To him, Rhaziel wasn't just a character, he felt real. Someone Ellio laughed for, cried for, and hurt for.
"I wish I could go inside the novel and save him from the psychopathic author and that useless couple…" he whispered.
The novel had only five hundred chapters. Rhaziel appeared in barely half of them, yet it was enough for Ellio to fall completely, helplessly in love.
His vision blurred, his consciousness fading at last. He softly heard a soft voice telling him something he didn't quite understand and he was finally able to drift into a deep sleep.
[Two hearts, one fate, two sacrifices to defeat eternity.]