Chapter 37:
Brought into my Unfinished Game World
Bolg's question hung in the air between them.
The Demon Lord's gaze shifted to him.
— You may already know the answer to that question.
Bolg remained silent, his jaw tight. He waited.
The Demon Lord gestured toward the white glow of the Horizon Canvas behind them.
— When we enhance demons, we send multiple volunteers into the Canvas together. Their essence mixes, combines, transforms. Their stats fuse. Their abilities merge. And when the process completes, the strongest will, the strongest soul, remains in control of the new form that emerges.
She paused, her expression growing heavier.
— But the others do not simply disappear. They remain dormant within the new being, sleeping beneath the surface. They influence the dominant consciousness ever so slightly. A tendency toward certain strategies. A preference for specific words. Small echoes of who they once were, woven into the personality of the demon who survived the merger.
She looked back toward the white horizon, her voice softening.
— When my husband emerged from the Canvas as a reborn infant, his personality remained intact. His will to bridge the gap between our people and the rest of the world survived the transformation. That core part of him never changed.
Her hands clenched at her sides.
— But he was no longer naive. The memory of that ambush stayed with him. The feeling of arrows piercing his flesh. The sight of his own blood staining the grass. The knowledge that he had offered peace and received only violence in return.
She paused.
— And the distress of his soldiers haunted him most of all. He remembered their desperate faces as they carried him back through the shadow corridor. Their frantic efforts to keep him alive. The way they threw themselves into battle against overwhelming odds just to save him. That weight never left his consciousness, even after his rebirth.
The Demon Lord's voice grew quieter.
— He tried again. And again. Different kingdoms. Different approaches. Different words. Always the same result. Their hatred blinded them to any possibility of peace. They saw only demons, only monsters, never people reaching out in genuine desperation.
Her crimson eyes reflected the white glow of the Canvas.
— Through battles, through deaths, through cycle after cycle of reincarnation, our army's numbers dwindled. But worse than that, he began to forget who he was. Each time he emerged from the Canvas, a little less of him remained. His memories faded. His experiences blurred together. Only his core beliefs survived. His values. His desperate need to end the war. But the man I married, the person he had been, was slowly disappearing before my eyes.
Her gaze shifted to Bolg, and something tender entered her eyes.
— I still love my husband. Even now, after everything, that has never changed. But he is no longer here.
Bolg stood frozen, unable to look away from her face.
— You are your own being, Bolg Nir. You carry fragments of him within you, yes. Echoes of who he once was. But you are not him. You have your own thoughts. Your own choices. Your own life to live.
She looked down.
— So I decided to mourn him as if he had truly died. To let go of the man I loved and accept that he is gone. It was the only way I could continue. The only way I could honor what remained of his dream without destroying myself in the process.
She turned to face the group directly.
— I could not stand by any longer. I took the throne myself and shifted our strategy. If they would not listen to words, then perhaps we needed to purge all of this hatred through force first. Win the war. Establish dominance. Then, from that position of strength, we could restart on better terms.
Her expression hardened.
— I told myself I was respecting his wishes. Working toward his dream through different means. But that was only half true.
She looked down at her hands.
— The hatred of humans was always deeply rooted in my nature. I never understood it, never questioned why it existed within me. And now I had my own reasons to despise them. They had taken my husband from me piece by piece, reincarnation by reincarnation, until nothing but fragments remained.
She gestured toward the white glow behind her.
— As I worked near the Horizon Canvas, exposing myself to its influence day after day, I began to change. I gained abilities that no demon should possess. I became a life bender, capable of crafting the most powerful warriors our kind had ever seen. I could optimize their stats, refine their skills, shape them into weapons against our enemies.
Her voice grew distant.
— But I became more than a demon. I began to see the world for what it truly was. The code beneath reality. The structures that held everything together. The patterns that governed our existence.
She looked down at her hands.
— And I finally understood. As long as our two factions existed, peace was never possible. The hatred we bore for each other was not learned. It was not chosen. It was written into our very essence, programmed into the foundation of what we are. Demons hate humans. Humans hate demons. That is simply how this world was designed.
Her eyes swept across Alpha, Suzaku, Kuria, and Bolg.
— I was about to lose myself completely. My sense of purpose. My reason to continue. I had pursued war to honor my husband's dream, but now I knew his dream was impossible. The destiny we faced could not be moved or changed.
She paused, her gaze shifting to the empty air beside Alpha.
— Then one day, I noticed something. An entirely new presence emerging into our world. A being that existed outside the normal rules. Someone who could potentially rewrite what had been written. Someone who might finally free me from my husband's last wish by making the impossible become possible.
Her eyes remained fixed on the space where Dave floated, invisible to most but clearly perceived by her.
— A being who could establish true peace.
The Demon Lord's expression shifted. Her tender gaze hardened, then twisted into something darker. Her lips pulled back in a grimace as she stared at the empty space where Dave floated.
— I will never forgive you, she mumbled, her voice low and trembling.
Dave's translucent form went rigid. He looked at Alpha, then back at the Demon Lord.
— You can see me?
The Demon Lord's face contorted further, rage building behind her crimson eyes.
— What can I do to help? Dave asked, floating closer. I didn't mean for any of this to—
— SELFISH! she screamed, her voice cracking with hysteria. You selfish, thoughtless fool!
The group stepped back instinctively. Suzaku's hands moved to her sides, flames flickering to life around her fingers.
The Demon Lord's breathing came in sharp gasps as she continued glaring at Dave's invisible form.
— I was willing to collaborate with you. When I first sensed your presence entering this world, I thought perhaps you were the answer. The anomaly that could change what was written. But then I saw your memories through those manifestations. I saw the truth.
Her hands clenched into fists.
— You are the creator of this world. You. All of this suffering, all of this hatred, all of these endless cycles of death and rebirth—it started because of you. You wrote the hatred into our very essence and then abandoned us to live with the consequences.
Dave floated backward, his expression stricken.
— I didn't know! I never finished the game, I never meant for—
— Your intentions do not matter! she snarled. The result is the same. My husband is gone. Thousands of demons have been sacrificed. Countless lives destroyed on both sides. And for what? So you could play at being a god without understanding what you were creating?
Her crimson eyes blazed with fury.
— I will not let you continue to exist. I will erase your sense of self, strip away everything that makes you who you are. Then I will absorb your essence, take your abilities, and use them to end what you started. To change the fate you decided for us, for me...
She took a step forward.
— With your power properly wielded, I can rewrite the hatred you programmed into us. I can undo the cycles you set in motion. And perhaps, if I am fortunate, I can bring my husband back. The real him. Not the fragments that remain in Bolg, but the man I loved. I can make everything right.
Her figure began to lift off the ground. Flows of mana erupted around her body, swirling in chaotic patterns. Streams of data flickered into existence, wrapping around her limbs like luminous chains. Threads of code materialized from thin air, weaving through the mana and data in intricate formations.
The desert sand beneath her feet scattered from the force of her power. The white glow of the Horizon Canvas behind her seemed to pulse in rhythm with the energy gathering around her form.
She looked down at Dave's invisible presence, her crimson eyes blazing with terrible purpose.
— My apologies for the late introduction. My name is Aristi Moraisa, wife of former Demon Lord Aion Moraisa and current Ruler of these lands.
The code threads tightened around her, the data streams accelerated, and the mana flows intensified until she appeared wreathed in pure destructive potential.
— I shall now pass judgment on you, Dave.
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