"Form defensive formation, slowly," he whispered to his team through party chat. "Don't attack first. She approached us."
But Nyxaria didn't approach. She just kept staring. More precisely, staring at him, Kaelen. That gaze wasn't full of hatred or anger. That gaze... was empty. Like a researcher observing an interesting specimen. That was the most disturbing.
"Nyxaria," Kaelen finally said, forcing his voice to remain flat, professional. He was the Crimson Crusaders representative here. "You're the one who messed up our warehouse."
Not a question. A statement.
Nyxaria didn't answer. She only tilted her head slightly, a small movement that made the hearts of Kaelen's three subordinates pound hard. Her silver hair shifted, revealing pointed ears and a perfect jawline.
"We're not looking for a fight," Kaelen continued, trying to take diplomatic initiative. A classic trick: show ignorance, give an honorable retreat path. "If you withdraw now, our Guild might consider..."
He stopped.
Because Nyxaria... smiled. Not a wide or mocking smile. Just a small curve at the corner of her perfect lips, enough to show the tips of sharp white fangs. It was a smile that made blood freeze. A smile that said: I know all your games. And I'm bored.
"Kaelen 'Blade' Vortis," Nyxaria's voice finally sounded. Her voice didn't echo, wasn't loud. But that voice as if didn't propagate through air, but directly appeared inside their heads, clear and cold like ice crystal. "Top DPS Crimson Crusaders. Backstab specialist. Efficient killer."
Each word was spoken with machine accuracy. Kaelen felt cold sweat soaking his back. How could she know my real name? His character name? Bosses shouldn't...
"You killed a female elf healer, short silver hair, level 67, named Mara Vex," Nyxaria continued, her voice remaining flat, like reading a weather report. "Eleven times. Consistent record."
Now, Kaelen truly froze. That... that was just an ordinary player. A nobody. A repeated disturbance because of Draven's orders. Why... why does the DEMON QUEEN know about it? His logic collapsed. This didn't make sense. Unless... unless there's a deeper connection. Very deep intelligence. Or something more terrifying.
"What... what's your business with that player?" he asked, his voice losing a bit of its flatness.
Nyxaria ignored his question. She took one step forward. Just one step. But that twenty-meter distance suddenly felt like one centimeter. Kaelen's team simultaneously drew breath, their fingers tightening on weapons.
"I observe how you move," Nyxaria said. "Still the same. Still relying on [Phantom Lunge] from blind spot. Still applying [Crippling Venom] before finisher. Predictable."
She... she's critiquing my fighting style? That thought was so absurd it almost made Kaelen laugh hysterically. But he couldn't. Because behind those words was an intimate knowledge, an observation that could only be obtained from... from being a victim. Or from watching directly.
And then, something strange happened to Nyxaria's empty expression. A slight wrinkle on her forehead, a flash in her red eyes that suddenly looked... human. Confused. Frustrated. Like someone trying to remember a song lyric that came to mind.
And from the same lips that had just spoken cold verdict, a barely audible whisper was heard, a mutter to herself that sounded very mismatched with her form:
"Turns out, up close, your face is ordinary."
That wasn't raid boss language. That was the tone of someone disappointed. Like a small child who realized their dream toy turned out to be made of cheap plastic.
Kaelen heard it. And that, more than any threat, made his fear mutate into something else: total confusion, and a new deeper fear. What does this creature want?
Nyxaria raised one hand. Not to attack. Just an open palm, facing upward. On it, a marble-sized blackish-purple energy ball formed, rotating slowly. [Void Severance] in the most controlled, smallest form. A demonstration.
"Level 85," Nyxaria said, looking at that energy ball, then looking at Kaelen. "AGI around 950. Your HP... about 12,000? 13,000? One touch of this will erase you. And your entire team. And half this slope." She closed her palm. That energy ball vanished without sound. "That's if I want to kill you."
She paused. The resulting silence was louder than any explosion.
"I don't want to kill you today, Kaelen Vortis."
She stepped again, now only ten meters away. Kaelen could see details: armor texture like dead dragon skin, purple gleam in those red eyes, absolute elegance of every curve of her deadly body. The aura that was suppressed earlier now seeped slightly, and it was like the entire mountain's weight suddenly placed on his shoulders. His legs trembled. He saw his subordinates, tough level 80 people, already kneeling on the ground, their faces pale and sweating, struggling just to stay conscious.
Only Kaelen still stood. And that was only because of pride and ego already dying.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Nyxaria stopped. They were now very close. She was shorter than him, but Kaelen felt himself worthless.
"You once killed me eleven times," Nyxaria whispered, her voice so soft that only Kaelen heard it. But that whisper felt like a nail hammered directly into his hearing bone. "With your sword. With your tricks. With your guild's cheers."
Kaelen's eyes widened. Killed... NYXARIA? Eleven times? That's impossible! Impossible! But...
"Now," Nyxaria continued, and for the first time, there was a tone in her voice. Not anger. But a quiet assertion, an irrefutable fact like the law of gravity. "It's my turn to count."
She didn't explain. Didn't threaten further. She just looked at Kaelen for three seconds that felt like three centuries, with a gaze as if carving that sentence directly into his soul.
Then, she turned away.
And disappeared.
There was no explosion sound, no dramatic effects. She just stopped existing. That terrible aura pressure vanished instantly, like cut rubber. The sound of wind and night insects returned, sounding deafening after total silence. Starlight became visible again.
Kaelen collapsed to his knees, drawing deep gasping breaths. Around him, his subordinates coughed, rising with faces still filled with pure terror.
"Boss... what... what did she want?" one of them hissed, his voice hoarse.
Kaelen couldn't answer. His mind spun around that last sentence. "It's my turn to count." Count what? Kills? But I feel I never killed her!
The sound of [Shadow Step] that brought her back to the throne room was a silent scream.
One second, she was still standing on the dark hillside, staring at Kaelen's receding back—the assassin's body trembling though trying to appear tough. The next second, the air around her folded, crumpled, and reformed itself in the cosmic silence of Obsidian Sanctuary. That transition was perfect, without nausea or disorientation. Just a clean cut from one reality to another reality. From confrontation field to the place that should be home.
Mara stood in the middle of the obsidian hall, alone. The first breath she drew here felt—empty.
Not like the air outside. Here, the air was static, sterile, like an artifact storage room closed too long. There was no smell of wet earth after rain, no piercing night wind whisper, no rustling leaves that could be an anchor for her still wildly spinning thoughts. Only silence so dense that the hum in her own ears—residue from adrenaline suddenly cut off—sounded like ocean roar.
She didn't move. Nyxaria's body stood upright, hands loosely clasped at her sides, a pose as if just finishing an ordinary administrative task. But inside, behind ribs now harder than forged iron, something churned.
We did it. We really went down and stared into his eyes and... and what?
"My Queen?"
That voice, full of caution, cut the silence. Seris. The elf scout stood a few meters beside her, already arrived earlier through the emergency waypoint Lazarus set up. Her eyes, usually sparkling with sharp analytical intelligence, now radiated worry that was almost innocent. She looked at Mara—or rather, looked at Nyxaria—the way a doctor examines a post-op patient who walked out of the operating room alone.
"Are... are You alright?" Seris asked again, her voice smaller.
A simple question. Logical. After confrontation with one of the greatest ghosts from her past, after standing so close to the man who had ended her virtual life eleven times, it was natural if someone asked that.
Mara opened her mouth. The voice that should come out was Nyxaria's voice—cold, controlled, full of authority that swept away all doubts. A statement like, "There's nothing to worry about," or "It's already handled."
What came out was: "I don't know."
Those three words hung in the air between them, naked and awkward. Not an admission of weakness, but a fact report from a chaotic internal battlefield. Seris frowned, not from fear, but from confusion. She was used to a decisive Nyxaria, whose decisions cut reality like a hot sword cutting butter. Not with... this implied uncertainty.
Good, Mara. Excellent. The Feared Demon Queen, confused with her own feelings. Maybe we should have Lazarus print a poster 'I'm Processing Emotions, Please Wait'.
She turned her face away, hoping the movement looked like a routine perimeter check. Her eyes swept the hall: towering obsidian pillars, floor reflecting dim light from crystals on the ceiling, empty throne at the end of the room that looked more like a monument than a seat. Everything perfect. Magnificent. Lifeless.
Her victory felt like this. Like a magnificent and empty hall.
Suddenly, there was a small tug at the edge of her robe. Gentle, yet undeniable. Mara looked down.
Lumi was there. Her messy white hair looked like a small cloud under the Sanctuary's purple light, her heterochromatic eyes—gold and gray—gazing directly at her. There was no question there. No "Is Mama Ghost okay?" Just a calm observation, as if the child could see directly into the chaos in her head and accept it as is. Then, without a single word, Lumi pulled her robe again, this time stronger, before turning and starting to walk away, following the side corridor leading to the inner part of the Sanctuary.
Not a request. A guidance.
Mara, or Nyxaria's body moving on an instinct deeper than logic, followed.
Seris made a small sound as if wanting to protest, but then decided to be silent. She followed from behind, keeping distance, her eyes remaining alert but giving her space.
They passed corridors that were starting to feel familiar—corridors with walls carved with ancient demon rulers whose eyes seemed to follow them, storage rooms filled with dusty artifact coffins emitting sleeping magical auras, stone arches opening to empty chasms where wind from other dimensions occasionally whistled. Lumi didn't hesitate. Her small and certain footsteps creaked on the stone floor, pulling her deeper, far from the main hall, toward a part of the Sanctuary that even Mara hadn't had time to explore.
Then, that smell ambushed her.
Not the smell of dust and old stone. Not the sharp magical aroma. But something... alive. Damp. Earth. And behind it, there was a faint fragrance—sweet, slightly bitter, like dark berries crushed underfoot.
Lumi stopped in front of a stone arch covered by a curtain of petrified roots. The child looked back, making sure Mara was still following her, then pushed that curtain. The roots shifted with a dry rustling sound, opening the way.
Mara stepped in, and her breath caught—not from shock, but because an unexpected beauty robbed all words.
This was a garden.
But not a garden with green grass and roses. This was a garden of darkness.
The space wasn't large, maybe classroom-sized. But here, the Sanctuary's stone ceiling opened, forming a natural dome that displayed this dimension's sky—layers of purple, indigo, and black rotating slowly like an oil ocean. Dim light from that sky fell downward, illuminating a patch of fertile land, pitch black. And from that land they grew.
Flowers. Or something resembling flowers.
Their stems were slender, almost transparent like volcanic glass, emitting soft purple light from within. Their petals were pitch black, but with dark red veins pulsing slowly, like blood vessels flowing not with blood, but with the liquid of night itself.
Some were shaped like trumpets, others like pointed stars, some hung like bells made of shadows. Among them, grew vines with dagger-shaped leaves, bluish silver in color, and large mushrooms whose caps emitted pale blue bioluminescence light. The air here was warm, humid, and full of that complex fragrance—sweet, earthy, and something metallic like cold blood.
[System Feedback][Territory Development
Detected.Zone: Inner Sanctum – Twilight Garden.
Status: Activated (Sovereign Emotional Resonance).
Primary Function: Aetheric Flora Cultivation | Passive Mana Stabilization.]