Nyxaria looked at it. No more fear. Only infinite exhaustion. And a sorrow beyond rage. They were more afraid of my unity than of the annihilator from the sky. An irony so... hollow.
"Then write me as a traitor," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Direct all their hatred toward me. Let this world I care for need a monster to blame. Perhaps... that is the last gift I can give."
The Inquisitor was silent for a moment. As if weighing that logic. Then, it stabbed.
The pain blazed white. Sharp. Absolute. Not just physical. But the sensation of being torn from everything she held—hope, sacrifice, trust.
But before darkness swept over her, her gaze fixed on the Inquisitor's wings. On the closed eye symbol. And she understood. This was not the end. This was... a reset. They would rewrite everything. They would—
Mara woke with a sob, sitting upright in the obsidian bed. Her body—Nyxaria's body—trembled violently, as if every muscle had just endured an electric shock. Her chest throbbed with phantom pain where the chestplate had fractured. Her hand clutched the [Dreamstone Shard], now gone dim, its color a deep, dead gray, like an ordinary stone.
Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. She was not crying from fear. She was crying from sorrow. The original Nyxaria's sorrow, so deep and ancient, now pooled within her like a saltwater lake. She felt the epic exhaustion of a figure who had given everything, only to be betrayed by those she tried to save.
"Mama Ghost?"
Lumi was already standing beside the bed, her small face pale, her eyes filled with worry. She saw those tears, and without words, she climbed and curled up in Nyxaria's lap, pressing her head against the still-pounding chest.
Mara embraced her, seeking the warmth of that living presence as an antidote to the cold memory of death.
The bedroom door opened. Lazarus and Seris stood there, their expressions tense. They must have felt the wave of emotional pressure that had erupted from the room.
"My lord?" Lazarus asked, his voice thick with concern.
Nyxaria—Mara—raised her face. Tears still wet her cheeks, but her voice, when it came, though hoarse, held a terrible new clarity. A clarity bought with suffering from five centuries past.
"I know now," she hissed, her voice like broken glass. "I know why the Church is so afraid of me. Why they had to erase me from history. Make me a monster."
She drew a deep, shuddering breath. "Not because I threatened them."
She looked at Lazarus and Seris, her ruby red eyes gleaming with a deadly understanding. "But because they were the ones who started that war."
[System Feedback]
Memory Fragment Accessed: Ancient War.
Data Integrity: Anomalous.
Primary Source: Echo Resonance.
Logging... Error. Trace Deleted.
The notification flashed and vanished like lightning, as if the system were hastily covering a file that should never have been opened.
The sorrow crystallized into something harder. Sharper. As volcanic glass forms under extreme heat and pressure, so did Mara's heart transform—from a churning saltwater lake into a cold blade ready to cut through lies.
The tears on her cheeks had dried, leaving faint salt trails. Lumi still curled in her lap, her innocent warmth an anchor amid the storm of memory. But Nyxaria was already standing. That level 999 body moved with new tension, a purpose hardening within her demon core. The epic exhaustion of the original Nyxaria still settled in her bones, but Mara channeled it into fuel.
They were the ones who started that war.
That sentence circled in her head, not as a scream of rage, but as a fact. A new variable in this already complicated survival equation. The Church wasn't just an ideological enemy. They were the script writers. And I am the monster they created to be feared. Eight thousand hours of logic blazed to life, analyzing the implications. This changes everything. This is no longer about surviving attacks. This is about dismantling the foundation of lies that is the reason for all those attacks.
"Lazarus," Nyxaria's voice emerged, calmer than she herself expected. "Summon Seris. And fetch Aldric the Forge-Master. I will meet you in the lower map room, one hour from now. No one else."
"My lord?" Lazarus asked, still looking worried.
"And please watch Lumi. She needs breakfast." She handed over the small child, who sleepily hugged Lazarus's neck. A last gentle touch before her face hardened once more.
"Mirelle the merchant," Nyxaria added before Lazarus could leave. "Ensure she remains in the Sanctuary. Tell her... there is something I wish to purchase."
Lazarus bowed deeply, understanding the weight behind that order. "At once, My lord."
The lower map room was a seldom-used space, hidden beneath the main library. It was cool, lit by pale blue crystals embedded in the stone ceiling, their light glinting on the giant Aeternum map carved into a single stone table. This was not a place for open meetings. This was a place for planning war.
Nyxaria was already there, standing at the head of the table, her fingers tracing the carved contours of the continent. She wore the [Veil of the Forgotten Queen], but this time not to hide from the outside world, but to contain her aura of power from flooding this confined space and affecting decisions that must be made with a cool head.
Seris arrived first. The elf's eyes swept the room, analyzing the dark corners, before finally settling on Nyxaria. "Closed meeting," she said, more a confirmation than a question. "This is about... that nightmare?"
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"More than that," Nyxaria answered. "This is about truth."
Aldric entered next, his face still bearing charcoal smudges from the forge, his brow furrowed with questions. "Your Majesty summoned me? Is there a problem with the last production batch?"
"A problem older than your forge, Aldric," Lazarus replied, appearing behind him with Mirelle. The old merchant woman looked as composed as ever, her sharp eyes immediately scanning the room and settling on the map.
"Everyone is here," Nyxaria said. Her voice cut the cool air. "Close the door, Lazarus."
As the heavy stone door shut with a low rumble, all sound from outside vanished. There was only the hiss of the lamp-crystals and their breathing.
"I will speak plainly," Nyxaria began, her gaze moving from one face to another. "I have seen a memory of the Sundering War. Not from books. But from inside the original Nyxaria's mind."
Aldric drew a sharp breath. Seris went still. Only Mirelle showed no strong reaction, merely nodding slowly as if she had already guessed.
"In that memory, the Church of Light—or something older wearing their guise—was not victim or hero. They were the betrayers. They deliberately shattered the alliance that nearly defeated the foreign threat from the sky. They slaughtered their own human allies, then blamed Nyxaria for everything." Her narrative was flat, fact after fact, like reporting a bug in game code. But each word carried the weight of a tombstone. "The history we know is a lie. Built on the corpses of allies and the reputation of a queen who tried to bridge the chasm."
The silence that followed felt solid, carvable.
Aldric was the first to break it. His voice was hoarse. "The False Light Treaty."
All eyes turned to him.
"In the blacksmith guild where I apprenticed before—before the Church burned it for 'harboring heretical texts'—there were fragmentary records. Copies of copies. They mentioned a secret post-Sundering War treaty to 'erase the contribution of dark elements from civilization's history'. They called it 'memory cleansing for stability'. But... there were always whispers among the old craftsmen. That what was erased was not just contributions. But sacrifices. That we—demons, the humans who worked with them—once stood on the same side." His large hand clenched. "I always thought it was just... guild myth. The tales of disgruntled craftsmen."
"Turns out it was not," Seris hissed. Her face was pale. "This... this changes everything. If this is true, then every crusade, every extermination quest issued by the Church..."
"...is built on a rotten foundation," Nyxaria finished. "I am not the Prophesied Calamity. I am an inconvenient witness. And they have killed me once to silence me. Now they will try again."
"Then what is Your Majesty's plan?" Lazarus asked, his voice trembling not from fear, but from anticipation. "Reveal this truth to the world? A global announcement? That would create chaos!"
"Chaos is what they want," Mirelle cut in for the first time. Her voice was rough but clear. "If Your Majesty declares open war over truth, the Church will deny it, citing their own holy books as proof. It will become a war of propaganda. And they have been training for five centuries. The Sanctuary would be besieged not by armies, but by crowds of fanatics convinced they're defending divine truth." She stared at Nyxaria. "You cannot defeat belief with facts. Not directly."
She's right, Mara thought inwardly. This is like trying to debate skill nerfs on the official forums with the devs. They hold the source code. They win. But there's another way. Data mining. Finding bugs. Discovering files that shouldn't exist.
"I will not make an announcement," Nyxaria said, her decision firm. "We will not make a global noise. That is their game. Power against power, faith against terror. We will play a different game."
She leaned over the map, her shadow falling across the carved continent. "We will form a council. Small. Secret. A Shadow Council. Its task is not to fight, but to dig. To gather the historical evidence they tried to erase. Artifacts, texts, witnesses—anything that survived their purge."
"Silent investigation," Seris murmured, her eyes beginning to gleam with understanding. "Gathering weapons for a narrative war."
"Exactly. We need several things." Nyxaria pointed to Seris. "You have contacts. Guilds, information brokers, rumor collectors. I need access to archaeologist or historian guilds that... are not overly fond of the Church. Who enjoy digging in forbidden places."
Seris nodded, her mind already working. "There is one. The Archivists' Guild. Small, marginalized, considered crazy bookworms by most players. But they maintain an illegal excavation network in several Restricted Zone ruins. They are pressured by the Church to surrender 'dangerous' findings. They might be sympathetic."
"Contact them. But carefully. Do not mention me directly. Just say there is a patron interested in alternative history, willing to pay well for rare goods and information."
"I will arrange it," Seris promised.
Nyxaria turned to Mirelle. "Eclipse Merchants have channels to the black market. I need archives, documents, journals—anything that leaked from Church or kingdom libraries. No matter the price."
Mirelle smiled thinly, a purely mercantile expression. "Information is the most expensive commodity, Your Majesty. But it can be arranged. Eclipse has... special channels for goods that officially do not exist. I will prepare a list of potential sources and retrieval costs."
"Do it." Finally, to Aldric. "You and Lazarus will be the internal research team. Every artifact, every text fragment we obtain, you will authenticate it, Aldric. Look for signs of forgery, stylistic inconsistencies, anything. Lazarus, you will study the magical and historical aspects. We need irrefutable proof."
"An honor, Your Majesty," Aldric said solemnly, while Lazarus bowed dramatically. "This servant will devote the remainder of his eternal life to uncovering this lie!"
"Do not devote it all. We need efficiency." Nyxaria drew a breath. "This is a long-term game of chess. Not about who holds the most power today. But about who controls the truth when the final battle arrives. They rewrote history once. We will rewrite it back—with facts."
[System Feedback]
Covert Operation Parameters Detected.
Quest Formalization: Denied.
No Global Notifications Active.
Tracking Protocols: Inactive.
The notification felt warm, almost... supportive. The system did not acknowledge this as an official quest. That was good. It meant they would leave no achievement trails or logs that could be tracked by Church spies within the system. They were operating off the radar.
"There is one more source of information for us," Nyxaria said, her voice softening for a moment. "Lumi."
As if summoned, the stone door creaked softly and Lumi slipped in, carrying a large parchment that nearly dragged on the floor. She looked wide awake and eager, her heterochromatic eyes shining in the blue crystal light.
"Mama Ghost said to draw," Lumi announced, laying the parchment on the table before them all.
This was no ordinary map. This was Lumi's depiction of the data network she perceived with [Glitch Sight]. Its lines shimmered with a pale silver light, forming patterns that were abstract yet resembled circuits or roots. And at several points, Lumi had drawn small 'X' marks in charcoal.
She pointed to each one. "Warm X. Old. Hurt." Her finger moved to three distinct locations on the carved map. One in the remote northern mountains, one at the edge of a cursed western forest, and one more... within a bustling neutral city territory.
"These places," Lazarus murmured, bending for a closer look. "They emit the same historical resonance as the echo Your Majesty experienced?"
Lumi nodded firmly. "Like Mama. But... sleeping. Buried."
"Lost temples. Artifact caches. Or... mass graves," Seris guessed, her voice low. "These locations, if examined..."
"Could be sources of physical evidence," Aldric finished, his eyes alight. "The Regalia blueprint I obtained came from Underrealm ruins. That is one piece. Perhaps at Lumi's 'X' marks here, there are other pieces. Or something more... damning."
Mirelle approached, her sharp eyes scanning Lumi's map. "The third location. In the neutral zone. That is near... Ironveil."
"Ironveil?" Nyxaria asked.
"An industrial city," Seris explained, her face creasing. "Not under any kingdom's direct control. Ruled by a conglomerate of player guilds—mostly merchants, craftsmen, but also... thugs. The law there is street law and the weight of a gold purse. The Church holds influence, but not absolute power. It is the perfect place to hide something no one wishes to see."